III.

The Massacre

On the evening of March 5, 1770, a group of men and boys started throwing snowballs at a British sentry in front of the customs house. Other British soldiers came to support him. Within a short time, the mob had grown, and people threw any objects at hand at the soldiers. The soldiers fired into the crowd and killed five men, including Crispus Attucks, who may have been a runaway slave.