Readers. [inaudible conversations] okay. Thank you all for joining us. Im Gavin Kleespies for the massachusetts historic al society. Tonight on the very eve of the 250th anniversary of the boston massacre well hear from professor serena zabin on her book, the boston massacre, Family History. We very frequently pull together a small exhibition from our collection that highlights some material we have within our holdings that illuminate the evenings discussion. Today we have an entire exhibition, so we didnt need a small exhibition weapon have a whole exhibition but our exhibition features or speaker this evening so if you didnt see he it, shes on one over video monitors and very generous with her time help us plan the exhibition and sitting for an interview. We couldnt have done our current exbig without her help so we oher a debt of gratitude. She director of the programs of american studies at carlton college. Received thunder undergreat degree from bodden college and ph. D from rutgers university. He new book, letting people get settled in here i guess we get started a little early. So, her new become delves deeply into boston 1770. Looking at how the soldiers stationed here since the fall of 1768 were not just seen ann as an Occupying Force but neighbors and customers and competitors or as people. And often repeated narrative of increasing tensions caused by the prepares of the soldiers reaches a billing point on march 5th. Some soldiers traveled with their wifes and boston residents became the god parent of their children. Other soldiers married women from the community and suggests not all interactions were negative. Professor zabin did Extensive Research for her book. Is that better . All right. Sorry. Professor zabin did Extensive Research for thunder book, including the hims to mhs. We make close to 14 million manuscript pages also feedback here choice to 14 million manuscript pages available to all researchers free of charge and we have exhibitions and host programs for public and academic resources. Thank you and please join me in welcoming professor serena zabin. [applause] hello. Can people hear me . I know you dent know who i am. The feedback is bad. Some further okay. Does that help . Yes . Huge . People can hear me . Somewhat. Someone is coming to fix these hold on. How is this . Better. Excellent. Thank you all for coming. Oh, for coming. What a room. Im used to sitting in the room where i spent many, many, many hours, many years, with but four other people and but eight tables so this is a little shocking to me, but such a pleasure. People came out to hear something about both my new book, and about the boston massacre itself, so tonight im going to talk a little and read at bit so that in the end, i hope you can see why i called the boston massacre a Family History. I just want to say first, in case any of your are worried, this is not my Family History. I want you to know. So, many of you are here, i know, because you are fans of history and i think that many of us, all of us, have come to love history because its full of stories, stories out people, sort of like us and people who are not at all like us. So one of the most important things i think for storytelling is setting a scene. So as gavin told us, we are on the eve of the 250th 250th anniversary of the boston massacre, which happened not that far from here but if any of 0 you looked upstairs where we are right now was presently underwater 250 years ago here in the back bay but we should think but boston which was a square mile, pretty up a peninsula, that little bit of entrance to charlton was a tiny little neck. They called its town, not a city, a town of about 16,000 people. So, not a big place. And i want to start with a story but actually we have to unlearn in order to move forward. So, the very, very basic story, the little bit that we actually feel sure that we know absolutely about what happened on the night of march 5, 1770 is this. In what passes for the center of boston, right in front of what is now the old state house, kitty corner from it, was a building that was being used as the offices for the Customs Officials. So, theres a sentry in the night of march 5 who is standing there, keeping guard, and it is in the years before Global Warming so there is was snow on the group, snow that had melted and refrozen in the way that march used to be for those who remember. So its like hard and nasty and not a pleasant evening, cold, and a group of bostonians start hassling the sentry as frequently happened when theres a captive guy standing in a little becomes and people walking by. And the sentry gets anxious and calls for backup, which comes in the form of a handful of soldiers led by a single captain. They come, they surround the sentry, more bostonians come. We dont know how many. And at the the captain asks them all to good home, and they dont. When they dont disperse at some point, we dont know, yells fire. Nobody can see anything. Boston doesnt have street lights at this point. So there may be some candlelight come out of windows or doorways flinting off the dirty snow but its quite dark. No one knows who yelled fire but the soldiers fire. And when the smoke cleared, what they find are four people bleeding out in the snow, dead, a fifth dying of his wounds, several others injured. And that is the moment that we come to know that the event that we come to know as the boston massacre. So most people have some vague idea of this event largely because of this picture. Paul reveres famous engaving only the boston massacre. We have helpless bostonians being mowed down by a phalanx of disciplined soldiers understood on by their captain. Thank you can see a lot of gore. And one woman with hands to her breast in the present and her presence to viewer is a hint that she is surrounded by a group of respectable bostonnans, not a mob of hooligans, and of course we shouldnt i ignore the dog, the symbol of loyalty who is looking very lost here indeed. The picture is clearly meant to be propaganda, as the renaming of the Customs House to butchers haul proclaims. You can see from the arrow. Its obvious this picture is meant to blame the army the administration for what happened, and somehow if you have myselfed this in the picture, let me attempt to read to you in all its glory the poem, try to do it some justice. At least part of it. Unhappy boston, see the sons deplore the hallowed walks be smeared with getless gore and the satisfy stretch their bloody hand, like fierce barbarians grinning over their prey, approving the carnage and enjoy the day. So, with poetry like that, with these kinds of indications, the obvious bias of this image is obvious, and obvious i think for all of us to disdismiss but theres adifferent part of reveres story we have to unlearn and its so obvious we dont even see it anymore. Its what i might call the story of the two sides. So if you look, the very center of this image is a thick white line of gun smoak. Visually this line debt separates the row of diflynned soldiers from the crowd of terrified civilians. He the smoke mark this split between inlab pants on the one inlab tenants one side and the soldiers on the oomph the pike tower of two opposing sides, americans and british, has seem to obvious that no one before thought to question this part of reveres story. But the truth of the matter is that civilians and soldiers were not on opposite sides of the street at all. Neither actually or figuratively. And once we stop letting revere tell us what we can see, once we start seeing all of boston, not just the little bit that revere shows us, theres a whole different story of boston just lying there in plain sight. So, to get to the whole different story i want to back up. Both to beginning of my book and really to a different beginning. I just want to read to you a few preeves from the beginning of chapter one. June 7, 1765. A young irish mom made her way through the crowded streets of cork to the harbor, following the red coat of her husband the to dock, Jane Chambers approached a man in uniform and gave him her name. To her relief, he let her pass. The name of her husband, matthew, had been checked off the list but the uniformed man did not bother to note the name over the couples child. At last, after wokes of waiting jane and Matthew Chambers, along with their child, boarded the hms thundererrer where they joined matthews mates in the british armies are 29th 29th regiment afoot. Three days later they set sail for america. It may seem strange to begin an account of the boston massacre with a woman in ireland, yet she and women like her are the threads that tie together the range of people and the complexity of the forces that led to that dramatic moment. The commote story of the death of boston yaps at the hands of british troops is more than the political upheaval that followed the shooting. It is also the story of personal connections between men and women, civilians and soldiers, over time, the women and Children Associated with this the 18th Century British Army have been forgotten. The american imagination most of the men have been reduced reduca anonymous troops rather than considered as individuals. Jane chambers was not and is not famous. Her early life is lost to historians. We know neither when she was been nor in what year she married. Could she read or write . Was Matthew Chambers her first love . Had she ever dreamed of a life beyond ireland . The forces are silent on these questions. But other parts of her life, including the choices she made, the family she created, and the voyages she took, have left traces. The everyday life of an ordinary woman would become part of an extraordinary moment. So, when jane and Matthew Chambers are boarding the troop ship, theyre part of a peacetime deployment. So for those who are a little rusty on your mid18th century history, im going to give you 30second summary. I have at least one former student in the crowd who is rolling his eyes. But very quickly two years earlier, 1763, britain had won the seven years war and in north america that war had been fought primarily against the french and their native allies. As a result the french withdrew all their claims to eastern north america, including that whole area well know as canada. Their native allies unsurprisingly did not cede their round and the British Crown had to figure out how to manage their new empire, including these people who are not their allies, and how to pay nor war. Among the many policies that the British Parliament pursued were sever screams to centralize the administration of this huge empire, and to raise money on imported goods. And these decisions were to put it mildly unpopular at least in north america. Theyre kind of unpopular everywhere. So in boston, there were riots against both these duties, these custom duties on imports and also against those who were supposed to collect them. So in 1768, after a particularly enormous protest the Massachusetts Governor decided he needed backup, essentially. He thinks, he needs some troops and theyre going to help keep order in boston because theres no police force yet. People are using troops as police force and thats one of the three thing is would like to tell you but the 18th Century British Army. So first i want to start and the image tell us at bit of this also. That is a whole idea there should ben ean army in peacetime, what was known then as a Standing Army, seemed wrong to most brittons. The general idea was the government shouldnt have an army it could turn on its citizens and in fact britain did have a peacetime force, although everyone was very clear it was subject to civilian authority. Which brings in my second point which is about civilian authority. Governors and magistrates often used the war office to send troops at the war office send them troops to use for police, and this is as true in england as it is in in the colonies. All over england, smugglers are trying to evade import taxes, there are different tax us but theyre still import tacks so a lot of snuggling happening there, and magistrates are trying to catch them at it. The same year the massachusetts for asked forroom troops in 1768 the man who is in charge of distributing regimens the quarter mattest general, complain that so many imagine straights asked for troops to support Customs Officials and to suppress riots that he was running out of regiments to hand out around england. So i think its important for us to realize that no one is really singling out boston for particularly rebellious behavior. Theres some hints, some things might be happening there but bostons not extraordinary in having troops come. And then theres the third thing. Maybe the most important that you need to know about the 18th century army. We often thing of the 18th 18th century army as not that different from contemporary army. Thats single people, often men going to war zones but in fact theyre significantly different. 18th century armies were family institutions that traveled with women and children. As we he can cease any water color this from he end of Matthew Chambers own enlistment. Hundreds of military families flooded into boston in 1768 and their presence in the town has an enormous impact on future events. So, when the for of maryland said he needed troops to support the work hes drying to do for the government, the war office says, okay, thats fine. But he create others problems. So, when the first two dish hope im bringing up okay. When the first two regiments sale into Boston Harbor, another image from revere here, in the fall of 1768, what we see are troops marching into the heart of boston. In fact, this is only kind of what happened. Because when they come to Boston Harbor, the governor and his council are still kind of squabbling where all of these troops are going to live. So, just remind you a little of what Boston Harbor looked like at the time. This is 18th century map of Boston Harbor. The selectman thought that the troops should go to Castle Island which you can see has the oops sorry there you good which has a beautifully refurbished set of barracks. Massachusetts just raised a lot of money during the seven years war to update the barracks and they thought they should be used, but more than that the quartering act of the 18th 18th century was pretty clear that if there are available barracks troops have to go there first. If theyre not available barracks they should be put in public houses, which are indeed pub but we thing of as pubs and bars which magistrates didnt love, and only then, only if those two places are not available could they be quarted in private houses. So, they say, well, there are barracks. She should go there this is not what the governor had in mind at all. As you can see from the line, and as you may know, especially before the this is built in and you can drive Castle Island, you had to row the millennial miles to get into three miles to get into boston and that was not attract timothies is boston in 1769, this little knopp you can see, and here it is stripped over contemporary map of boston, if you want to have a sense of where we are, were in the water. But what the for really waned was to have troops at the middle of boston, where that box is. And so he isnt willing to put them out in the harbor, and the selectman says if you insist on putting them in homes in boston and on the harbor, we will actually bring you up in front of the law and cashier you, all these officers. So the compromise the army comes up with is theyre going rent space, not the so they rent amount houses and then they rent peoples extra houses that people have houses for rent but also rent peoples spare rooms and they rent their extra basements and rent their sheds and theyre putting people everywhere. So, if you take a look at this map, the blue squares are warehouses, which even those that are being used as semi barracks you can see are scattered all over the town, and the white dots are places where i feel completely positive there were soldiers living and you can see also that they are scattered throughout the entire town. So what has happened then is bostonians become the landlords and land ladies for thousands of soldiers and theyre families. You can imagine 2,000 troops alone, plus probably a minimum of 500 women and children and probably more than that, moving to a city that is 16,000 people, theyre going to find each other a little annoying. Not a surprise. Many like revere, who are part of a sons of libertythe political groups definitely saw the presence of troops as a military occupation so the clerk of the town meeting starts complaining, boston has become a garrison town and he and other men are annoyed theyre being stopped in the street bid soldiers and then constables who are mange the night watch are complaining but the drunken officers. So, they are those men are all fairly unhappy but i think that their complaints are not the only way that we should think about the presence of troops in boston. Instead id like to think but a very different place when we think about that term garrison town. I think we should take a minute to recall american in jane austins pride and prejudice. So, think of the excitement that having a regiment quarters a few miles away created for the family. Fathers might be anxious but a young women were delighted. So, if you think but imagining herself as a regimental encam; she saul d encamp he saw the degrees of the camp, crowd if we young and gay dazzling with scar let and she saw herself, bee anything a tend beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once. The soldiers that bee guile he begild the young women were caught the eyes of bostons young women in the years before the revolution so pride and prejudice helps us notice that the arrival of troops in 1768 was pretty exciting for local women. The arrival of nearly 2,000 men, all these men, many young and single, all of them with a steady if small income, could not help put attract the attention of young men especially when actually women outnumber men in boston at this moment of the but so many young men frequenting taverns, dropping by