Unfiltered at cspan. Org coronavirus. Thank you for joining us this evening. Im gavin, the director of programs exhibitions and Community Partnerships for the massachusetts historical society. Tonight on the very eve of the 250th anniversary of the boston massacre we will hear from professor on her great new book, the boston massacre, Family History. As our regular guests know we very frequently pulled together a small exhibition from our collection that highlights some material that we have within our holdings. That helps with evening discussions. Today we have an entire exhibition. We did not need a small exhibition this time. Not only that but our exhibition actually features our speaker this evening. So if you didnt see it shes on a video monitor upstairs and was also very generous with her time helping us plan the exhibition and sitting for an interview. We certainly cannot have done our current exhibition without her help. We owe her a debt of gratitude. Is a professor of Early American History and director of the program of american studies at carleton college. She received her undergraduate from bowden and her phd from rutgers university. Her new book, let people get settled in here, i guess we get started a little early. , her new bird delves deeply into boston 1770. Looking at the soldiers who wears station to hear from the fall of 1768 not just seen as nighttime force but as neighbors, and competitors and another was come as people. And an often repeated narrative for increasing tensions caused by the presence of the soldiers that reached a boiling. On marc march 5. Some soldiers traveled with their wives and boston residents became godparents of their children. Other soldiers married women from the community which suggests that not all interactions were negative. Professor did Extensive Research for her book that better . Professor did Extensive Research for her book, we may close to 14 million close to 14 million manuscript pages available and its all free of charge. And we host programs for both public and academic audiences. If you enjoy access to all of these resources are not a member, i hope you will join us in supporting our work. Thank you and please join me in welcoming the professor. Mike hello, can people hear me come i know you dont know who i am. The feedback is bad. That help . It does . Huge, people can hear me . Thank you for coming, all for coming, i am used to sitting in this room where i have spent many, many hours in years with about four other people and about eight tables. So this is a little shocking to me but such a pleasure that people came out to hear something about my new book about the boston massacre itself. Tonight, im going to talk a little and read a little bit so that in the end i hope you can see why i called the boston massacre a Family History and i just want to say in case any of your work, this is not actually my Family History. Not doing genealogy. So, many of you are here because you are fans of history and i think that many of us, all of us have come to love history because its full of stories, stories about People Like Us and people who in some ways not at all like us. So one of the most important things i think for storytelling is setting the scene. Gavin told us, and we are on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the boston massacre which happens not that far from here, but if any of you looked upstairs where we are right now with presently underwater, 250 years ago here but we should think of our boston that was really just a square mile, pretty much a peninsula that little entrance to charleston was a tiny little neck they called it a town not a city, town of about 16000 people. So, not a big place and come i want to start with the story that actually we have to unlearn in order to move forward. So, the very basic story, the little bit that we actually feel sure that we know absolutely about what happened of march 5, 1770 is this, in what passes for the center of boston right in front of what is now the old statehouse, kitty corner from it was a building that was being used as the opposites for the Customs Officials. So, theres a century in the night of march 5 who is standing there keeping guard. It is in the years before global warming, there was snow on the ground, snow that had melted some odds and refrozen in the way that march used to be for those of you who used to remember cometh like hard and nasty, and, not a pleasant evening, cold. And, group of start as frequently happens when there is a captive guy standing and people are walking by, and he gets anxious and calls for backup which comes in the form of a handful of soldiers led by a single captain, they calm, they surround the century, more bostonians come, we dont really know how many and the captain asks them to go home and they dont come in when they dont disperse come at some. , someone, we dont know who, yells fire. Nobody can see anything. Boston doesnt have streetlights at this. So, there may be some candlelight coming out of windows or doorways of the dirty snow, but its quite dark, no one knows who yells fire, but the soldiers fire and when the smoke clears what they find are for people bleeding out on the snow, dead, a fifth dying of his wounds, several others injured. And that is the moment we come to know as the boston massacre. So, most people have some vague idea of this event largely because of this picture. So, paul reveres extraordinarily famous. What we see here are on the one side helpless bostonians been mowed down by disciplined soldiers who are by their captain and theres lots of got gore. Theres one woman right in the center in her presence to the viewer is this little hint that she is surrounded by a group of respectable bostonians, not a mob of hooligans and of course, we shouldnt ignore the dog, the symbol of loyalty who is looking very lost here indeed. The pictures clearly meant to be propaganda. As the remaining of the custom house butcher hall playing sent from the arrow come its obvious this picture is meant to blame the army in the administration for what happened and somehow come if you missed this in the picture let me attempt to reach you and all of its glory the poem, ill try to do it some justice. At least part of it, unhappy boston deplore the hired works and be smeared with gutless gore while baseless in its savage bands with murderous rank versus stretch their blooded hands, like fierce barbarians creatinine over their prey, approved the carnage and enjoy the day. So, come on with poetry like that in this kind of minted patients, the obvious bias of this image is obvious and obvious i think for all of us to dismiss, but theres a different part of reviewer story that is embedded in this engraving that we have to unlearn, is so obvious that i think we dont even see it anymore. Its what i might call the story of the two sides, so come if you look, the very center of this image is a thick white line of gun smoke. Visually, this line separates the road disciplined red hooded soldiers from the crowd of terrified civilians that they are slaughtering. The smoke marks the split between inhabitants on one side and soldiers on the other. In this picture of two opposing sides, americans and british has always seemed so obvious that no one before really thought to question this part of reviewer story. But, the truth of the matter is that civilians and soldiers were not on opposite sides of the street at all. Neither actually or figuratively. And, once we stop letting reviewer tell us what we can see, once we start seeing all our boston, not just a little bit that reviewer shows us, theres a different story a boston just lying there in plain sight. So, to get to this different story i want to back up to the beginning of my book and relate to a different beginning. I just went to read to a few paragraphs from the beginning of chapter one. June 7, 1765, a young irish woman made her way through the crowded streets of cork to the harbor following the red coat of her husband to the dog, jean chambers approached a man in uniform and gave her her name. To her relief he let her pass, the name of her husband, matthew, had also been checked off the list but the uniformed man did not bother to note the name of the couples child. At last, after weeks of waiting, jane and Matthew Chambers along with their child boarded the where they join matthews face in the 29th afoot. Three days later they set sail for america. It may seems rage to begin an account of the boston massacre with a woman in ireland coming yet she come in women like her are the threads that tie together the range of people and the complexity of the forces that led to that dramatic moment. The complete story of the death of bostonians at the hands of british troops is more than the political upheaval that followed the shooting. It is also the story of personal connections between men and women, and civilians and soldiers, over time, the women and Children Associated with the 18th Century British Army had been forgotten. In the american imagination, most of the men had been reduced to an anonymous troops rather considered as individuals. Jean chambers was not tennis not famous, her early life is lost to historians. We know neither when she was born nor in what year she married, because she read or write . With matt was Matthew Chambers her first love . Had she ever dreamed of a life beyond ireland . The sources are silent on these questions but other parts of her life, including the choices she made, the family she created and the voyages she took have left traces. In the everyday life of an ordinary woman would become part of an extraordinary moment. So, when jane and Matthew Chambers are boarding that ship, they are part of a peacetime deployment. So for those of you who are a little rusty on your 18th mid century history, ill give you 32 seconds summary. I know i have a least one former student in this crowd thats at least rolling his eyes. Two years earlier, 1763, britain had won the seven years war and in north america that war had been fought primarily against the french and the native allies. As a result, the french withdrew all of the claims to Eastern North America including the whole area we are now noise canada. Their native allies unsurprisingly did not see their land and thats worth noting. So now the British Crown had to figure out how to manage their new empire including these people who are not their allies and how to pay for the war. Among the many policies that the British Parliament pursued after 1763 were several schemes to centralize the administration of this huge empire and to raise money on imported goods. In these decisions to put it mildly were unpopular. At least in north america. Actually there are popular everywhere. So, in boston there were riots against both these custom duties on imports and also against those who were supposed to collect them. So in 1768 after an enormous protest the Massachusetts Governor decided he needed backup essentially, he thinks he needs some troops and they are going to help keep order in boston because theres no police force yet, so, people are using troops as police force and thats one of the three things i would like to tell you about the 18th Century British Army that i think you need to know. First, i want to start and the image tells us a little bit of this, the whole idea that there should even be an army in peacetime, what was known now as a Standing Army seemed wrong to most britons. The general idea was not that the government should have an army that it can turn. In fact, britain did have a peacetime force, although everyone was very clear it was subject to civilian authority. Which brings me to my second. Which is about civilian authority, governors and magistrates often use the war office to send troops to use for police. And, this is as true in england as it is in the colonies. All over england, smugglers are trying to evade import taxes. Their different taxes but there still import taxes. Theres lots of smuggling happening there. And magistrates are trying to catch the medic. And in fact, the same year the Massachusetts Governor asked richardson 1768 the manage charge of distributing regiments around the empire complains with so many magistrates had asked for troops to support Customs Officials and to suppress riots that he was running out of regiments to hand out around england. So, i think its important for us to realize that no one is singling out boston for particularly rebellious behavior, there some handset might be happening but boston is not extraordinary and having troops come. And then, theres the third thing, maybe the most important that you need to know about the 18th century army. We often think of the 18th century army as much as we think about it is not that different from a contemporary army thats pretty much single people, often men who are going to war zones. But, in fact, they are significant different. Eighteenth century armies were family institutions that traveled with women and children. As we can see in this watercol watercolor, this is from the end of Matthew Chambers phone enlistment, hundreds of military families flooded into boston in 1768 in their presence in the town has an enormous impact on future events. So when the governor of massachusetts said he needed troops to help support the work that he tried to do for the government, the war office says thats fine, but, he creates other problems. So when the first to come i hope and bring in the right one. When the first two regiments sail into Boston Harbor and which is another image we get from revere in the fall of 1768, what we see our troops marching into the heart of boston. In fact, this is only kind of what happened. Right, because when they come to Boston Harbor, the governor and his counsel are still squabbling with them about where all of these troops are going to live, so let me just remind you a little of what Boston Harbor look like at the time. So, this is an 18th century map of Boston Harbor but selectmen thought that the troops should go to Castle Island which you can see has which has a beautifully refurbished set of barracks, massachusetts had just raised a lot of money during the seven years war to update the barracks out there and they thought they should be used, but more than that, the quarter act of the 18th century was pretty pretty clear that if there are available barracks, troops have to go there first. If theyre not available barracks, then, they should be put in public houses which are indeed public but which we think of as pubs or bars or something which magistrates did not love, and only then, only if those two places are not available could they be in private houses. So, they say there are barracks, they should go there. This is not what the governor had in mind at all. As you can see from the wine and as you may know, especially before it gets filled in any canal drive to Castle Island, 3 miles on that narrow Little Channel to get into boston and that was not attractive. So, this is boston in 1769. This map you can see and hear it is stretched over a contemporary map of boston if you want to have a little sense of where we are. We are out there now and the water, but, what the governor really wanted was to have troops right in the middle like boston, dan, so, he is not willing to put them out in the harbor and the selectmen say, you know, if you insist on putting them in homes in boston and on the harbor we will actually bring you up, so to compromise the army comes up with is they are going to rent space, not requisition, but rents space from bostonians. So, they end up renting has many empty warehouses that they can but thats not nearly enough. So the income they are putting people everywhere. So, if you take a look at this map, the blue scares are warehouses which even though theyre being used as semi barracks you can see there being scattered all over the town, and the red dots or places just right feel completely positive there were soldiers living. You can see also that they are scattered throughout the entire town. So what has happened then is bostonians become the landlords and land ladies for thousands of soldiers and their families. You can imagine, 2000 troops alone plus probably a minimum of 500 women and children and probably more than that, move into a city that 16000 people, theyre going to find each other a little annoying. Not a surprise. Men like revere who are part of the liberty or other Political Group saw the presence of troops as a military occupation. So the clerk at the town meeting starts complaining, boston has become a garrison town and he and other men walking at night get annoyed that they are being stopped in the street by soldiers on patrols and meanwhile the constables who are making up the nightwatch are complaining about drunken officers. So, they come of those men are all fairly unhappy. But i think their complaints are not the only way that we should think about the presence of troops in boston. Instead, i would like us to think about a very different place when we think about the term, garrison town. We should all take a minute to recall merited in jane austins pride and prejudice. So, think of the excitement that having a regiment quartered a few miles away created for that family. Fathers might be anxious but young women were delighted. So, if you think of bennett and matching herself at an in car cant make, she saw all of the glories of the camp. Its ten stretched forth in beauty and uniformity of lines crowded with a young and dazzling with garlic and to complete the view she saw herself seated beneath the tenth tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once. [laughter] the soldiers that beguiled the young woman during were not so different from those red coated men who came to boston and caught the eye of bostons young women in the years before the revolution. So, pride and prejudice i think helps us notice that the arrival of troops in 1768 was pretty exciting for local women. The arrival of nearly 2000 men, many young and single, all with a steady, small income cannot help but as attract the attention of young men especially when actually women out men number men but so many young men frequenting taverns, strolling the streets, dropping by a neighbors kitchen, and an unmarried women may be able to find a husband, maybe even one living in her family spare room. Who knew that doing laundry could be so much fun. [laughter] like lydias father, some men found it impossible to control their email dependence in the face of so many redcoats. So let me read to one of my favorite stories because i think it will give you a little flavor of what it was like to live in boston over these years and partly because its justmake this from the beginning of chapter five entitled, love your neighbor. Though his comrades in the 29th regiment were camping on the boston commons meeting their new neighbors, private William Clark was spending his time with literature, his own, two months after his arrival in boston clark notes that his play, the mice are those soldiers humor, a comedy of three acts was available for purchase by subscription. The broadside announcing the subscription included a brief and nearly correct latin tag, i cant please everyone. Presumably, clark acquired enough subscriptions to publish his play since the following february the printed advertised it in all the boston papers sorry, that he just publish the miser and would sell it with the blue paper cover for 8 cents. Sadly no copies remain for us to read today. Thats a shame. Russell may not have printed many, the short run was likely read until it fell apart and then like many cheaply printed pamphlets, they used toilet paper. Was used as toilet paper. Such a state may have been appealing to some bostonians. In the winter of 1769 not many residents were likely eager to read about the soldiers humor. Private William Clark seem to have a flair for drama of the page as well. In may 1769, he had a shouting match with the boston watch when stopped on the street he threatened to burn down the town workhouse and all the boston work it. As the watchman arrested him and brought him to the local lockup clarks where he would have his revenge on the entire town. It took clark only a month to stage an even more melodramatic scene with boston locals. When june day in 176975yearold joseph was shot upon entering his married daughter to find clark in bed with his 20yearold granddaughter, the elderly son of liberty ordered clark out of the house but the soldier declined to leave. He had every right to sleep with mary clark asserted, after all, she was his wife he told the astonished old man and he was going nowhere without her. Clark may have been stretching the truth a bit, mary said they had been married one evening by a person who is dressed as a priest. In fact, they were not married until four months after being caught but married they word, much to the distress of marys parents, so devastated were they the boston evening post claims that the news of the affair much injured their health. Two weeks after the marriage marys father had a showdown with his new soninlaw, clark shoved a loaded pistol into josephs chest, joseph pressed charges and after many and his 1770 found himself in jail before he could pay a fine. William clarks marriage was more than family scandal. It became political for boston sons of liberty. In fact, the story of joseph finding clark and his granddaughters bed was reported in newspapers sympathetic to the liberty party. Not into a sense of propriety about sexual matters, the press usually replace many personal names and it stories with dashes. But bostonians obviously knew something of the clark story before it was printed when the shopkeeper read the account in the boston evening coast he carefully annotated the article recording that the young woman in question was mary and her grandfather was mr. Lazenby. The originals of that are here which was exciting to find. Bostons newspapers really printed accounts of sexual scandal for the salacious details alone. Such stories were much more likely to show up in fiction or a like i just wrote read to you but they used a story to. Out the political implications of this illicit marriage, urging its readers to reflect on the inevitable impact of troops on bostons families that the most dear and tender connections must be broken and violated, the ultimate blame for the seduction the article concluded must follow those imperial officials who have been the authors of this length of public and private distress. The old man stumbling in on his favorite grandfather was only the purpose of the primary protest. The cornering of a Standing Army in times of peace the of the argued that an occupied boston, public and private affairs of the heart were one and the same. Now, it seems unlikely that clark had thought of his seduction in terms of politics because he spent his time in prison imagining his next literary work. In august 1770 he took out another advertisement, this one for his new memoir, a true and faithful merit narrative of William Clark, soldier in his majesties, this is only the beginning of a very extensive title. Clarks love intrigues exposed in 18th century soap opera complete with cameo appearances by sons of liberty and British Army Officers and settings ranging from prisons to bedrooms. He clearly met his 60 page narrative to be a tellall and perhaps a means of revenge targeting his inlaws because unlike the journal and other newspapers, clark names names. The long title of this member concludes with these words, in which it is given a faithful account of his courtships marriage and betting with mary, daughter of joseph boat builder at north end boston end with an of how much he suffered in case anybody wondered who exactly they were talking about. The memoir has not survived. So sad. So, we can only imagine how clark may have told his version of being found dead of his lovers grandfather. We can assume from the title and from its clark suffering that his version would depart from the narrative and the sons of liberty journal. The villain of clark stories his fatherinlaw, called out by name, this flippant young man was not troubled by the politics of the British Empire and the impact on his wifes family or hometown. Instead, his was the ageold story of young lovers and disapproving parents. So, if clark is obviously he is only one example only one example of the many, many families that were created when troops came to boston. So, not only do we had people sleeping together and creating children outside of the bonds of marriage, but we have come in you can see some of the examples upstairs recorded in the churches marriages between civilians and soldiers. Many examples of military soldiers asking their local neighbors or others if they knew his godparents when they baptized their children in the churches and, they are also creating families not only in boston and joining communities not only in boston itself but also adept boston as well. On the most interesting are most surprising piece of my research here had to do with desertion which was not a place i thought i would find evidence particularly of the families that are created as troops come. But, i found really shocking the rates at which men and here almost entirely single men were disappearing from the army in boston, they deserted at something at three times the rate that men usually deserted from the british army in the 18th century. So for example during the seven years war the british army in north america lost about 3 of its forces every year to desertion. In the first year and half that the 29th regiment was in boston they lost a full 10 of their men. So, these men were not just blame the unpleasantness of army life, nor were they just drawn to the beauty of massachusetts, as charming as that is, they made new homes and when the army tried to come and take back deserters their new communities often turned out to protect them. The Commanding Officers were obviously frustrated by this rate of desertion until at one point the colonel in charge decides hes going to hire a spy to ride around the countryside and look for deserters. Hes quite successful in finding the deserters but not very good at getting them to come back in part because they have put down roots so for just one story just over the New Hampshire border the informer found a deserter and the likely man which in that language meant good looking he lived there all winter and was now married to his landlords daughter and they were starting a family. He was easily recognizable the informer continue because he frequently wears his regimental jacket. He continued to wear his jackets but he never returned to the army. He had a son, stayed in New Hampshire, and, he made a home there. So, all of these from William Clark to the desertion rates really show us that soldiers and civilians were much more closely entwined in these years than we realize before. So that brings us back to march. When bostonians and soldiers mingled on the street they knew each other, often quite well. Of course they didnt always like each other and so when this loan century is getting hassled its not surprising, but he does get anxious. He calls for backup, and the people who come actually know many of the people in the street. So, one of the men who comes as a soldier private who is recently married to a boston born women. Another is a man named Edward Montgomery whose irish wife, isabella came to boston on the same ship as Jane Chambers first to halifax but had traveled with jane. Isabella did not get along particularly well with all of her neighbors. Earlier that night montgomery shouted loudly enough for people in the surrounding houses to hear that the town was too haughty and proud in many of their asses would be laid low by morning. The bostonian she is talking to lives next door, susanna is tired of both isabella and her husband shot back, i hope your husband will be killed. But, not all bostonians wish death on the monk memories. Also in the street that night was a carpenter named thomas wilkinson. For a few months the monk memories had rented a house near wilkinson and they have become friendly. In the 18th century equivalent to running to a neighbors house for a cup of sugar wilkinson occasionally send his kids to Montgomery House for pollsters to start his fire. When wilkinson saw montgomery walking out he walked straight over to his former neighbor to ask him what was happening he was not afraid of him, of course, what was happening that night of march 5 is the big question, remember, there is only a few points on which all of the eyewitnesses agree. When montgomery come apart again and the soldiers came to support the century, the captain does order the bostonians to disperse, that much we know. But, we dont know who yells fire, all we know is that when the smoke cleared there were people dead and dying and we know that when people looked around they knew the soldiers and they knew this civilians on the street. At the time, the event was shocking. Everyone was horrifying to see bostonians that bleeding out in the snow in front of the governmental power, how could they not be shocked but, in this is a big but, absolutely no one thought this was the beginning of a revolution. Boston women continue to marry british soldiers, john adams we all know agreed to take on the defense of the soldiers on the captain and of course, to journeys of massachusetts meant pretty much acquitted most of the soldiers. So, the importance of march 1770 was another shooting itself, but how that shooting became transformed into the boston massacre. The people who supported the governor and those who opposed him scrambled to tell their version of the story, so, both sides want to claim innocence to put blame on another side. One is an unhappy disturbance and one is a catastrophe. Through images and most of all through the trial of the soldiers in the captain. And i dont have time looking at the clock to talk about the details of the trial here though i am happy to in question. But, in summary at the trial i would say that what they all do in the same way is the race women, children and neighbors from the story. We already seen it with revere and then we sit with the child that deliberately erase any connections, any liens between civilians and soldiers. So, both sides found it necessary to ignore the Family History of the boston massacre. Now, after the shooting the troops are redeployed. So, a couple months after the shooting the 29th regiment is moved to new jersey, its a couple of years not till 1772 the 14th regiment redeployed themselves to a war zone in the west indies. But, its worth it thinking about what these troops are that are getting redeployed. So here we have another picture of the families in the barracks, when troops are moved, families are ripped apart. They are faced with choices. Boston women, can decide that they are going to stay. They want to stay with their family, they do something called self divorce they often remarry here, they often end up with their children but they decide to stay. Sometimes men decide to stay with them, thats when they deserve. The woman who married soldiers decide to go with them. They become part of them also. I imagine little shards of boston embedded in the british army as it moves around the British Empire. These pieces are closed but broken. Ripping apart of families i think is the most Significant Impact of the boston massacre. Let me just conclude here with a short passage from the epilogue, explain this, we inherited the story of an American Revolution from a far range of people and no more complicated set of connections than i had ever acknowledged a clash of citizens, struggle over the definition of a new country. It would be no less accurate to call the revolution a sibling war. It played out in the upheaval of families formed and split by the same military occupation. Every family wrestled with that conflict in its own way and every family was forced to make choices as difficult as it was inevitable. War, peacekeeping and Political Administration brought together, men and women, children and godparents out the British Empire and sometimes tore them apart when they moved around the atlantic rim. In an 18th century angloamerican world, in which family and government were closely connected notions for shooting a boston marked not only the beginning of the American Revolution, but the breakdown of the family. Prior to 1772, the language of family had long saturated british political discourse. But in the context of military families it took on new and personal meanings. We think of the American Revolution as a political event. But it was much more like a bad divorce. The Family History that reminds us of the human bonds as well as the political bonds that were broken at the beginning of the medical revolution. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible question] so, she wondered how i found Jane Chambers on her family. So, i started on this quest of military families when i read the short narrative which was replicated in many places and in fact parts of which are in Many High School textbooks i looked at it with my class for several years after i actually read it with care and in the very first deposition, somebody talks about being in a bostonian house and hearing a soldiers wife make threats. And, everybody had focused on the threats and about the 15th time i read at ice. Soldiers wives come i didnt even know soldiers had wives. In so, with that i started pulling on things. And so, i came here and found the marriage records, my very first day which was an incredible moment. And, then i started trying to figure out, how can i know where they came from. How do we know the ones who came to boston with the army as opposed to the ones that married him. So i went to the great thing about working on the british army or anything administration is that we kept records in ways that were unlike other projects done. So, every person that travels on a ship in the 18 century is on a list and theyre sitting there in london. So come i went through and created an enormous database of every single man on every muster roll from who were here, if you look at the book there is a shout out to a number of students who worked with me on this for a long time. Serena so you can see how many they were actually bringing. A lot of cross referencing. The wife decide that she and her children would remain in boston. With a mandated to have an allotment said to her. Serena that is such an excellent question printed mary says and she decides to when he leaves the soldier, whose going to be responsible. And that makes for the question that local officials are very worried about it because actually it is very hard to get money out of soldiers and try with some paternity suits as well but theyre not that successful. And they do not well the problem is, when a woman marries in the 18th century, her right to relief moves from the place that she was born so usually urine title to choral leave from your native place. But moves to her husbands pla place. Whomever is responsible for her husband. Thats part of the settlement. So the army is supposed to become the entity responsible for taking care of this woman. When the army goes, and goes. People are incredibly anxious about how they will pay for all of this coral reef when people leave. Theres a wonderful book on, written to extensive information by two people that it will come to me in a moment maybe. Talks extensively about this process but essentially, town of boston, he this guy walks around he says the people, he finds a lot of the soldiers lives after the shooting and he said just want to tell you the boston is not responsible for your relief printed the soldiers leave and you know go. It is not our problem. This is legal. Actually this is a legal statement that is sort of a attempt to cover something. They say an official link but the that actually happens is the province of massachusetts has its own task that they collect a tax. They use this precisely this kind of thing. So there are women who end up, in a place because the cat support themselves. Massachusetts will pay for them printed they get some support. It is awful because women try to leave as quickly as a possible canon the jump the fence. I hope that helped. Guest for all of the soldiers from britain are more some from boston. Serena so three in the far from boston are actually raised in ireland. There are mostly from Northern Ireland so they are not catholic at this moment, the law says that catholics cannot enlist in the british army, they have to be protestant and they are mostly scots or scotch irish. Theres a longer story which by the come from ireland and one from england. A few people are recruited and locally but they discourage local recruitment big precisely because they are worried about desertion. That is a standard rule everywhere. Guest thank you serena, that was wonderful and so rich. I wanted to followup with you a little bit on your family thing. I wondered about of other families beyond the boston camp, so ireland, england, who kind of situations and i wondered also about the age obviously be worse young men but how many may have had wives. Elsewhere. Maybe they were stationed in boston but yet there were other connections. In the final thing about family, i also wondered about class what daughters were available and i assume there were some other family clashes around that. And paternity testing and so. And finally, i was just thinking about how much that family paradigm in the civil war, whether it is brothers and families. Would you address that. Serena i can try. Personal, absolutely, there is both a intercourse it does make it comparable for people to marry in the marry again elsewhere. So thats what people sought out divorce. It is true that it various moments the ability of people especially privates to be able to com painter families to bring them with them, that changes. And others that a lot of it depends on the commanding officer. Even those who come to boston, one commanding officer, he doesnt take everyone. Pretty strict limit on taking families. Do it down and ask forgiveness later. Then he starts o arguing over te bill. And then other people state the rules of the roles and the role say there are regimens. The first 500 men. Lets hope that we will take and we are sorry of some of you guys, their wives do not get to come. Im sorry. They do that in ireland the year before in 1764 when they are deploying troops. The people in charge, are so freaked out by how their distracting them in the try to make and maintain these families that they left behind that the next year when that the 29th is preparing to leave, they go in the as the Commanding Officers to please plead to allow them to bring more families with them. So that these other communities will be stuck with them. Since really a question of money. But in that petition, the Commanding Officers youre asking, say it would make that man more loyal and likely or less likely to the desert. Sooner some recognition of what that emotion might be like. Officers basically paid for their own wives to come. In the does not pay for that at all. This comes out of their own pockets. But there are limitations on that. In fact, there are no limitations on privates who can pay for the wives to come. There is very little cross class married to think. Having in boston. Officers tend to be courting more working class families tend to beat marrying privates. So there are plenty of other clashes. Guest i did another question about the massacre regarding the civilians, i just wondered if you also did work about the civilians in the relationship to the soldiers for the competiti competition. Serena that particular line that is so famous where adams says, maybe someone else will have this quote but that this was not really a mob, it was a crowd made up of irishmen and people of color and sailors and apprentices using much more insulting terms for most of them. He does that to try to kind of direct the needle to try to get is clients offer selfdefense. So he has got to say something. He has already gotten the account and off so he can say the accountant gave the order. Susan to make an argument for self defense and at the same time, is really there to try to defend boston. So trying to say that these are non bostonians who are part of this group. He said these are outsiders, real bostonians look like your picture. Real bostonians have no single woman would be in a crowd with them right. And this is some external thing. I dont think there are real people. They of course, we know that summer there and were killed. We know that there are prejudice is there. This method there are no people of those categories for those ones in particular, i think he is using rhetorically. Guest do you have any sense of whether officers children and possibly soldiers children who were sent to Public Schools wanted that connection exists. Serena i wanted to find that so badly. I spent so much time writing about that and hoping that they would actually name some kid that was actually there but they do not. And it escape me. The question of how children were being educated. I found them when they get sick. There off often in doctors records. There are ways in which they are clearly part of the town but could not find them in the schools. That is a great question. One more question. Guest in recent are i know we can document to women who were in the thick of things. Based on testimony but based on your research do you think there were other women there. Serena i think that probably not. Dont think that there are a lot of women wandering the streets at night honestly. Not coming out to see whats going on. The groups of people that i feel pretty confident are showing up are primarily coming out of other areas. Not a lot of people who coming out of other social situations. I dont think so. I think they are watching. In precisely those pieces that the like they are saying why are you bringing your sword with you. If they are watching people walk out the door. They are standing in the doorways and they are looking out the windows. But i dont actually think but i have no evidence that there is more than what we saw. [applause]. Tuna book tv starting at eight eastern highlights from her in depth program. We begin with money. Author of number of books and among them history of the black National Anthem and breathe. Novelist jody including her novel a spark of