Boston’s Massacre

Hinderaker (The Two Hendricks), professor of history at the University of Utah, details the context and aftermath of Boston Massacre of Mar. 5, 1770, when British soldiers fired into a Boston crowd, killing five people. The massacre has long represented a turning point in colonial America’s relationship with Britain, but competing narratives about the night remain fundamentally unresolved. Hinderaker claims no definitive version of the event, instead offering a thoughtful meditation on the episode’s significance for shared American identity and memory. Untangling the complex circumstances under which Britain stationed thousands of troops in Boston in the peacetime of 1768, Hinderaker maps the colonial anxieties regarding imperial control that came to a head with the shootings. His portrayal of the massacre, as well as the months of trials that followed, emphasizes the political and social chaos that shaped colonist-British relations while demonstrating how contrasting interpretations of the event reflected deeper conflicts about race, class, and colonial rights. By calling attention to the challenges of assessing eyewitness narratives, Hinderaker also manages to bring his account into conversation with recent events. He ends with a provocative, albeit disappointingly brief, reflection on the massacre’s symbolic resonance with more recent examples of police brutality, making this book important reading for anyone interested in questions regarding the limits of authority and protest. Maps & illus. (Mar.)