NJAART Meeting

The next meeting of the North Jersey American Revolution Round Table takes place on May 8, 2025 as a ZOOM ONLY presentation starting at 7pm.  To obtain the zoom link, please sent your contact information by email to arrt.nj@gmail.com no later than May 7.  J.L. Bell will be speaking about the trials of participants in the Boston Massacre.

Talk Details:  The Boston Massacre Trials 

On the night of March 5, 1770, as Bostonians finished carrying away their dead and redcoats reloaded their weapons, royal governor Thomas
Hutchinson told the angry crowd, “The law shall have its course. I shall live and die by the law!”

This talk by historian J.L. Bell explores how the law responded to the event soon dubbed a “Horrid Massacre.” Both royal officials and political activists
maneuvered to ensure a fair trial—in their favor. Courtroom battles pitted one future signer of the Declaration of Independence against
another, one brother against another. How well did trial testimony reveal what happened on King Street that night? How close did the juries
come to producing justice? And why do we remember only two of the four trials that followed the Boston Massacre?

About the Speaker

J. L. Bell maintains the Boston 1775 blog, offering daily helpings of history, analysis, and unabashed gossip about Revolutionary New England.
In addition to his book “The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War,” he has written many articles and
contributed to the script of a reenactment of the soldiers’ trial for the Boston Massacre.