Important Women
Testimonies on the Boston Massacre are overwhelmingly from men. This makes sense because all the participants in the massacre were men and at that time in the world men had more of a voice. However, the women were not completely absent and there are two first-hand accounts from the event. The two women are Jane Whitehouse and Elizabeth Avery. Katie Getty wrote about this in her article "Women Speaking Softly: Female Voices of the Boston Massacre." She discusses the accounts of the two women and makes comments on how little women are represented. She says, "Dozens upon dozens of men testified as witnesses for both the Crown and the defense at the trials of Captain Preston and the soldiers. Nearly drowned out amongst the clamor of male voices and barely registering above a whisper, the observations of only two female eyewitnesses to the massacre have reached us today."1
Getty seems to agree with my stance that the lack of women's representation in this event gives us a limited view of what happened. She says, "Beyond Whitehouse, Avery, and the scant mention of a few anonymous women, we know little about what other women in Boston might have witnessed in King Street on the night of the massacre. Perhaps others observed the shootings firsthand whether from in the crowd, like Whitehouse, or from indoors and looking out windows, like Avery. If so, there are no records of it. This lack of women’s perspectives requires us to contemplate limitations in the historical record of the massacre."1
Jane Whitehouse gave her eyewitness account in defense of Captain Preston. After hearing a noise in her home she went outside to investigate. "I live nigh the Centinel. Heard a noise. Went out. Ask'd the Centinel what's the matter."2 Whitehouse claims that the captain never gave the order to fire. "Heard a Gentleman ask the Capt. if he was going to order his men to fire. He said no Sir by no means, by no means."..."The Captain stood on the left about three yards. The man touched one of the Soldiers upon the back and said fire, by God, I'll stand by you. He was dressed in dark-colored Clothes. I don't remember he had a Surtout or any lace about him. He did not look like an Officer. The man fired directly on the word and clapped on the Shoulder. I am positive the man was not the Captain."2
It was clear that Jane Whitehouse was on the soldier's side in the truth behind this event. There is more evidence of that by looking at her marriage. Looking at the marriage papers, you can see that she married Joseph Whitehouse, who was a British soldier, three weeks after the events of the massacre. 3 Unfortunately, this marriage makes her testimony of the events more likely to be biased. She was not the only woman who made that decision. Barbara Oberg said, "When it came to deciding whether or not to marry a soldier, the Boston Massacre, despite its transformation into brilliant political propaganda, did not seem to play much of a role."4 At this time the soldiers were desirable to the women and even after the massacre, their flirtatiousness did not stop.
The account of Elizabeth Avery was less detailed but still important. While Jane Whitehouse was out on the street, Elizabeth watched from her window with Nancey Green and Mary Rogers. She lived in the Customs House, which was right on King Street, which you can see on the map.5 She gave her account in a trial later in the year, saying, "When the noise was in the street, before the house, I went with Nancey Green and Mary Rogers up into that chamber of the house, which is next to Royal Exchange lane and right over the Sentry box as it then stood, and from the west window in that room saw the party of soldiers come down from the Main-guard to the Sentry; I tarried in this room till the firing was all over, and the soldiers had returned from whence they came."6 Comparing the two testimonies of Elizabeth and Jane you can see how people recalled the event differently, which led to a more complicated trial.
1Katie Getty, “Women Speaking Softly: Female Voices of the Boston Massacre,” Emerging Revolutionary War Era, March 8, 2017, https://emergingrevolutionarywar.org/2017/03/05/women-speaking-softly-female-voices-of-the-boston-massacre/#more-153426.
2John Adams, “Adams Papers Digital Edition,” Adams Papers Digital Edition - Massachusetts Historical Society, accessed September 25, 2024, https://www.masshist.org/publications/adams-papers/index.php/view/LJA03p81.
3 "MHS Collections Online,” MHS Collections Online: List of marriages officiated by Rev. Mather Byles, Jr., November 1768 - February 1773, accessed September 25, 2024, https://www.masshist.org/database/viewer.php?item_id=6505&mode=large&img_step=1&.
4 Barbara Oberg, Women in the American Revolution: Gender, Politics, and the Domestic World (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2019).
5 Paul Revere, “Paul Revere’s Plan of the Scene of the Boston Massacre : Used at the Trial of Capt. Preston and Soldiers” (Boston: Massachusetts, 1770).
6 1. “The Trial of William Wemms, James Hartegan, William M’Cauley, Hugh White, Matthew Killroy, William Warren, John Carrol, and Hugh Montgomery, Soldiers in His Majesty’s 29th Regiment of Foot, for the Murder of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Patrick Carr, on Monday-Evening, the 5th of March, 1770, at the Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize, and General Goal Delivery, Held at Boston. The 27th Day of November, 1770, by Adjournment. before the Hon. Benjamin Lynde, John Cushing, Peter Oliver, and Edmund Trowbridge, Esquires, Justices of Said Court. Published by Permission of the Court. / Taken in Short-Hand by John Hodgson.,” Item Information | The Trial of William Wemms, James Hartegan, William M’Cauley, Hugh White, Matthew Killroy, William Warren, John Carrol, and Hugh Montgomery, soldiers in His Majesty’s 29th Regiment of Foot, for the murder of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Patrick Carr, on Monday-evening, the 5th of March, 1770, at the Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize, and general goal delivery, held at Boston. The 27th day of November, 1770, by adjournment. Before the Hon. Benjamin Lynde, John Cushing, Peter Oliver, and Edmund Trowbridge, Esquires, justices of said court. Published by permission of the court. / Taken in short-hand by John Hodgson. | Evans Early American Imprint Collection | University of Michigan Library Digital Collections, accessed November 23, 2024, https://name.umdl.umich.edu/N09159.0001.001.