In this lesson, students practice sourcing to understand what took place in Boston on March 5, 1770. First, students analyze two illustrations of the event and reason about how each illustration’s source and context influenced the way the work depicted the Boston Massacre. Then, students examine a colonist’s testimony and a British army official’s narrative of the incident and consider why the accounts strongly differ.
Engraving of the Boston Massacre made by Paul Revere in 1770. From the Library of Congress.