Boston Massacre (1770)

Tensions grew between Patriots and British soldiers in the years following the French and Indian War. In 1767, the British Parliament passed four acts known as the Townshend Acts, which included duties on lead, glass, paper, paint, and tea imported by the New World. Colonists in Boston, a major hub of commercial activity, urged boycotts of British products, and the Sons of Liberty, a group founded to protest the Stamp Act, identified shops that sold British products with the label “importer.”