Five colonists were killed in the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770.
The confrontation took place on King Street in Boston, then part of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. A crowd confronted British soldiers stationed near the Boston Custom House, and the soldiers fired into the group. Nine soldiers were involved in the shooting, which killed five colonists, including Crispus Attucks.
The event became a powerful Patriot symbol. Samuel Adams and other colonial leaders used the word “massacre” to portray British military occupation as a threat to civilian liberty. Paul Revere's widely circulated engraving also helped shape public opinion, although it presented a strongly propagandistic version of the scene.
The soldiers were prosecuted in court. Two were convicted of manslaughter and received a punishment of branding, while the others were acquitted. The Boston Massacre was not the beginning of the Revolutionary War, which began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775, but it significantly heightened colonial anger.