The Boston Massacre, Drawing by F. T. Merrill

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The drawing shows the confrontation on March 5, 1770, outside the Old State House, which was then the seat of the colonial government and stood on King Street, now State Street. British soldiers fired into a crowd that had gathered to taunt them, killing five men, including Crispus Attucks, a sailor of African and Native descent. The incident became a rallying point for colonial resentment of British troops, and the soldiers' trial later drew attention when John Adams agreed to defend them. Merrill's later rendering reflects how Bostonians, a century after the event, chose to remember that winter night and the building where it unfolded.

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