Lost Chapters
The Boston Massacre: Garnet Event
The Boston Massacre was a deadly clash on March 5, 1770, when British soldiers fired into a crowd on King Street in Boston and killed five colonists. The soldiers were tried for murder, defended by John Adams, and most were found not guilty, but Paul Revere's famous engraving turned the event into a symbol of British tyranny.
- Cost
- 7 crystals
- Type
- Event · Battle
- Color
- Garnet (Rebels, Pirates & War)
- Rarity
- Common
- Set
- Liberty & Lightning (Set 1)
Destroy an enemy character.
Colonial incident transformed through propaganda from a street scuffle into a calculated atrocity via strategic engraving.
The real history
On the evening of March 5, 1770, a British sentry named Private Hugh White, standing outside the Custom House on King Street in Boston, argued with a wigmaker's apprentice and struck him with his musket. A crowd gathered. When Captain Thomas Preston arrived with more soldiers, the crowd grew to around 300 to 400 people, who shouted insults and threw rocks and snowballs.
The soldiers fired into the crowd. Five colonists died: Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, who was 17, and Patrick Carr. Six more people were wounded.
Captain Preston and eight soldiers were arrested and charged with murder. John Adams, a patriot lawyer, agreed to defend them, arguing that the soldiers acted in self-defense, because he believed even unpopular defendants deserve a fair trial. Preston was tried first, in late October 1770, and found not guilty. At the soldiers' trial, which began in November, six were acquitted. Two, Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy, were convicted of manslaughter and branded on the thumb.
The story had already spread far beyond Boston. Paul Revere's engraving, "The Bloody Massacre," showed soldiers firing in unison at an unarmed crowd. It was powerful, but it presented the scene more one-sidedly than the evidence at the trial, which described a crowd throwing things. Boston marked the anniversary each year, which kept anger at the British alive. The trials are also often cited in the history of the right to a fair trial and to a lawyer.
Sources
- Boston Massacre Trial, National Park Service
- The Boston Massacre, American Battlefield Trust
How the card plays
The Boston Massacre costs 7 crystals and is a Garnet Event. It destroys an enemy character.
There is no cost or power limit, so this is your clean answer to the biggest threat on the other side, the kind of character that Siege of Yorktown cannot touch. It is expensive, so use it on something that really matters, such as a character your opponent has built a plan around. New Deal adds a crystal and a card to help you afford it. Diametrically Opposed, Foes is another answer for big targets, dealing damage equal to your strongest character's power, and the two together can clear a pair of heavy hitters over two turns.
- Playable in decks led by Edward Teach "Blackbeard", and by any Traveler Leader whose colors include Garnet.
- In the Blackbeard starter deck (1 copy). Deck code:
LC2-Aj4BPwFAAUEBQgFDAUQCRQFGAkcBSAFJAkoBSwFMAU0BTgFPAlACUQFSAVMCVAFVAVYBVwFYAVkBWgFbAVwBXQJeAW9C - A deck holds up to 3 copies of this card.
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