“The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th, 1770”
History mostly remembers Paul Revere as the early American Patriot who alerted the Americans that the British troops were coming just before the battle of Lexington and Concord. It turns out he was an accomplished artist as well. Besides being an exceptional silversmith, he produced many politically charged engravings.
This hand-colored copper engraving from 1770 titled “The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th, 1770” was done by the early American Patriot, Paul Revere. It was modeled after an original illustration by Henry Pelham, a well-known engraver in Boston, that Revere had access to. Revere was able to produce this engraving, create copies, and sell them all over Boston within three weeks after the event it depicted took place.
As it was created to be inflammatory propaganda, it was not a truly accurate rendition of what had happened. The British did not line up in formation and shoot into a defenseless crowd and there were many more colonists in the mob that were throwing insults, stones, sticks, and snowballs at the British soldiers. However, most people who learned of the Boston massacre had seen this piece and believed that this was how the events unfolded. This print popularized the altercation and was one of the first outspoken pieces that helped sway the colonists’ opinions towards more anti-British sentiments.
Although engravers copied others work frequently during this time not giving any credit, this print actually makes Revere a very early plagiarizer as he had borrowed Pelham’s original drawing and copied it almost exactly. The minor differences include the addition of some color (and blood) and some slight modifications of the buildings in the background. Revere was able to print his piece and distribute it just days before Pelham’s work was distributed, making Revere’s version the one that became popularized and widespread. Pelham was so angry that he wrote to Revere the following:
Thursday Morng. Boston, March 29, 1770.
Sir,
When I heard that you were cutting a plate of the late Murder, I thought it impossible, as I knew you was not capable of doing it unless you copied it from mine and as I thought I had entrusted it in the hands of a person who had more regard to the dictates of Honour and Justice than to take the undue advantage you have done of the confidence and Trust I reposed in you.
But I find I was mistaken, and after being at the great Trouble and Expense of making a design paying for paper, printing &c, find myself in the most ungenerous Manner deprived, not only of any proposed Advantage, but even of the expense I have been at, as truly as if you had plundered me on the highway.
If you are insensible of the Dishonour you have brought on yourself by this Act, the World will not be so. However, I leave you to reflect upon and consider of one of the most dishonorable Actions you could well be guilty of.
H. Pelham.
P.S. I send by the Bearer the prints I borrowed of you. My Mother desired you would send the hinges and part of the press, that you had from her.
“The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th, 1770” is located in the collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston.
For more on Paul Revere, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
