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Secondary sourceDocument1824

The Trial of the British Soldiers of the 29th Regiment for the Murder of Crispus Attucks

1824

An 1824 reprint of the 1770 trial of British soldiers charged with the murder of Crispus Attucks and four others at the Boston Massacre.

This reprinted trial record documents the legal case over the killing of Attucks by British soldiers.

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The Trial of the British Soldiers of the 29th Regiment for the Murder of Crispus AttucksPDF · 154 pages
The Trial of the British Soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot for the Murder of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Patrick Carr, 1824 reprint. Internet Archive digitization of the scanned book.

About this source

What it is

This is an 1824 reprinted edition of the trial of soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot, originally held in Boston in November 1770, for the killing of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Patrick Carr. The defendants named include William Wemms and William McCauley.

Why it matters

Republished more than fifty years after the original trial, this edition kept the detailed record of the legal proceedings against the soldiers accused of killing Attucks and the other men in circulation for new generations of readers. It preserves the formal, legal framing of Attucks's death as part of a criminal case rather than only as a political event.

Look closer

  • Why might this trial record have been reprinted decades after the event it describes?
  • What does the formal legal language used here tell you about how the case was treated?
  • What is missing from a trial transcript that a personal account might include?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Crispus Attucks on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Hand-colored engraving of the Boston Massacre on King Street: British soldiers in red coats fire volleys through smoke at a crowd of colonists, with people wounded and dead on the ground, a church steeple and Butcher's Hall in the background, and a verse and caption printed below.Painting

Primary source

The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street

Paul Revere · 1770

Scanned page of the Boston Gazette, March 12, 1770, reporting the funeral of Boston Massacre victims. Four coffin illustrations labeled SG, SM, JC, and CA, each with a skull and crossbones, appear beneath the printed text.Newspaper article

Primary source

Boston Gazette Report on the Boston Massacre Funeral

12 March 1770

A mostly black scanned cover of a book with a white Library of Congress label at bottom left showing a barcode and number 00005705010, and red stamp; top left reads E 215 .4 .B75 in white call number text.Book

Primary source

A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston

James Bowdoin, Samuel Pemberton, Joseph Warren · 1770

Scan of a newspaper column of text with four coffin illustrations in a row, each with initials (SG, SM, JC, CA), a skull and crossbones, and a skull over crossed bones. The coffins are dark with white outlines. Text above and below describes the funerals of victims of the Boston Massacre.Painting

Primary source

Four Coffins of Men Killed in the Boston Massacre

Paul Revere · 12 March 1770

Photograph of a dark gray slate headstone with a rounded top edged with small stones, in a shaded graveyard with grass and other gravestones behind it. The inscription lists the remains of Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, Crispus Attucks and Patrick Carr, victims of the Boston Massacre, March 5th 1770, interred by order of the Town of Boston. It also notes Christopher Snider, aged 12, killed February 22nd 1770, and carries partly worn lines about independence and a 1876 date.Photograph

Secondary source

Boston Massacre Victims Grave

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