[inaudible conversations] thank you all for joining us this evening. Im gavin kleespies, director of programs and communications for the massachusetts historical society. Tonight on the very eve of the 250 anniversary of the boston massacre we will hear from professor serena zabin on a great new book the boston massacre a Family History. As a regular guests know, we very quickly pull together small exhibition from our collection that highlights the materials we have within our holdings that illuminate the evenings discussion. To date we entire expedition, so we didnt need a small exhibition this time. Our exhibition features our speaker this evening so if you didnt see it shes on one of the video monitors upstairs and was also very generous with her time helping us planned exhibition and sitting for an interview. We couldnt have done our current exhibition without her help so our debt of gratitude. Serena zabin is a professor Early American History director the programs american studies. She received her undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College and a phd from rutgers university. Her new book let people get settled in. I guess we got started a little early. So her new book delves deeply into boston 1770 looking have soldiers that had been stated since apollo 1768 were not kissing as an Occupying Force but as neighbors and customers and competitors, or in other words, as people. And often repeated narrative of increasing tension caused by the presence of the soldiers reached a boiling point on march 5. Some soldiers traveled with their wives and boston residents became the godparents to the children of other soldiers married women from the community which suggest not all interactions were negative. Professor zabin did Extensive Research for her book [inaudible] is this a little better . Okay. Sorry. Professor zabin did Extensive Research for book including visiting nhs. We make a little feedback. Close to 40 million manuscript pages available for all researchers free of charge. We have exhibition such as urquhart showed housebroken for public and academic. If you enjoy access to all these resources but are not yet a member of mhs i hope you will consider joining and supporting our work. Thank you and please join me in welcoming professor serena zabin. [applause] hello. Can people hear me . I know you dont know who i am. The feedback is bad. Does that help . Yes . Huge . People can every . Somewhat. Someone is coming to fix this. Sorry. Hold on. There you go. House that . Excellent. Thank you all for coming. All for coming. What a room. Im used to sitting in this room where i spent many, many, many hours, many years with about four of the people and about eight tables. So this this is a little shocko me, such a pleasure. That people came out your something about my new book and about the boston massacre itself, so tonight im going to talk a little and read a little bit so that in the end you can see why call the boston massacre a Family History and i just want to say first in case any of you are worried this is not actually my Family History. [laughing] many of you are here i know because you are fans of history and i think many of us, all of us, have come to love history because its full of stories, stories about people sort of like us and people who were in some ways not at all like us. One of the most important things i think for storytelling is setting the scene. As gavin told us, we are on the eve of the two what a 50th anniversary the boston massacre 250th. Were we are right now with presently underwater, 250 years ago here in the backpay, but we should think the side of boston was just about a mile, a squaremile pretty much a peninsula that little bit instance to charleston was just a tiny little neck they called it, a town, account, not the city, a town of about 16,000 people. So not a big place, and i want to start with a story that actually we have to unlearn in order to move forward. The very, very basic story, little bit that we actually feel sure that we know absolutely about what happened on the night of march 5, 1770, is is this. In what passes for the center of boston right in front of whats now the old statehouse, kitty corner from it, was a building that was being used as offices for the kitchens officials. Theres a century and the martin march 5 standing there keeping guard. It is in the years before Global Warming so there was snow on the ground, snow added melted somewhat and we frozen in the mood at march just be for those of you who remember, so its like hard and nasty and not a pleasant evening, cold. And a group of bostonians start, as frequently happened when theres a captive guide stan ann the box and people walking by, and this century gets anxious picky calls for some backup which comes in the form of a handful of soldiers led by a single captain. They come. They surrounded the century. More bostonians. We really dont know how many, and as the captain asks them all to go home and they dont. When they dont disperse at some point someone, we dont know who, yells fire. Nobody can see anything. Boston does have streetlights at this point, so there may be some candle a come at a windows doorways sort of glinting off this dirty snow, but its quite dark. No one knows who yelled fire. At the soldiers fire and when the smoke clears what defined are four people leading out on the snow dad. A fifth dying of his wounds, several others injured. And that is a moment that we come to no combat see that we we come to know as the boston massacre. So most people have some vague idea this event largely because of this picture. Paul revere is extraordinarily famous in grading of the boston massacre. What we see here are on one side hapless bostonians being mowed down by discipline soldiers who are urged on by the captain. You can see lots of gore. Theres one woman hands to her breast right in the center. Her presence to the viewer is this little hit that she surrounded by a group of respectable bostonians, not a mob of hooligans. We shouldnt ignore the dog, the symbol of loyalty who is looking very lost here indeed. The picture is clearly meant to be propaganda as the renaming of the Customs House to butchers all proclaims, you can see from the era. Its obvious that this picture is meant to blame the army in the administration for what happened, and some out if you have missed this in the picture, let me attempt to reach a you and all its glory the poem, try to do it some justice. At least part of it. Unhappy boston, see thy sons deplore by howard walks smeared with guiltless gore won faceless savage band with a murderous rancor stretch their bloody hand. Like theres barbarians grinning over their prey, approve the carnage and enjoy the day. Poetry like that with these kind of indications, the obvious bias of this image is obvious and obvious for all of us to dismiss. But theres different part of the story that is embedded in this engraving that we have to unlearn, it is obvious that think we dont even see it anymore. Its what i might call the story of the two sides. So if you look, the very center of this image is a thick white line of gunsmoke. Visually, this line separates the roof of discipline red coated soldiers from the crowd of terrified civilians that they are slaughtering. The smoke marks the split between inhabitants on the one side and soldiers on the other. And 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 reveres story. But the truth of the matter is that civilians and soldiers were not on opposite sides of the strait at all, neither actually or figuratively. And once we stop letting revere tell us what we can see, once we start seeing all of boston that just a little bit that revere shows us, theres a whole different story of boston just lying there in plain sight. So to get to the whole different story i want to back up both the beginning of my book and really to a different beginning. I just want to read to you a few paragraphs from the beginning of chapter one. June 7, 1765, a young irish woman made her way to the crowded streets of cork to the harbor. Following the red coat of her husband to the dock, jean chambers approached a man in uniform and gave him her name. To her relief he let her pass. The name of her husband matthew had also been checked off the list of the uniformed man did not bother to note the name of the couples child. After weeks of waiting jane and Matthew Chambers along with her child boarded the hms thunder or the joint matthews mates in the british armies 29th regiment. Three days later they set sail for america. It may seem strange to begin an account of the boston massacre with a women in ireland, yet she and women like her are the threats the 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 a a political upheaval that follow the shooting. It is also the story of personal connections between men and women, civilians and soldiers. Over time the women and children associate with the 18th Century British Army have been forgotten. In the american imagination most of the men have been reduced to anonymous troops rather than considered as individuals. Jean chambers was not and is not famous. Our early life is lost to historians. We know neither when she was born know and what you she married. Could she read or write . With 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 had left traces. Traces. The everyday life of an ordinary woman would become part of an extraordinary moment. So when jane and Matthew Chambers are boarding that ship that a part of the peacetime deployment. So for those of you who are little rusty on your mid 18th century history, going to give you a 30second 22nd summer, i have one former student in his crowd is probably rolling his eyes, but very quickly. Two years earlier, so 1763, britain had won the seven years war and in north america that had been fought primarily against the french and their native allies. As a result the french withdrew all of their claims to Eastern North America including the whole area we now know as candidate. Their native allies and surprisingly did not cede their land. Thats worth noting. Now the British Crown had to figure out how to manage their new empire including these people who are not allies, and how to pay for the war. Among the many policies that the British Parliament pursuit after 1763 were several schemes to centralize the administration of this huge empire, and to raise money on imported goods. And these were to put it mildly unpopular, at least in north america. Actually they are kind of unpopular everywhere. So in boston there was biased against both these duties, custom duties on imports, and also against those who supposed to collect them. So in 1768 after a thickly enormous protest the Massachusetts Governor decided he needed backup essentially. He thinks okay he needs some troops and they are going to help keep order in boston. Theres no police force yet, right . People are using troops as police force and thats one of the three things id like to tell you about the 18thCentury British Army that if need to know. First though i want to start at the image tells us a bit also, that the whole idea they should even be an army in peacetime, what was known then as a Standing Army, seemed wrong to most britons. The general idea was the government shouldnt have an army that it could turn on its fixes. In fact, britain did have a peacetime force although everyone was very clear that are subject to civilian authority. Which brings me to my second point which is not civilian authority. Governors and magistrates often used the war office to send troops, asked the war office to send in troops to use for police. This was as true in england as it is in the colonies. All over england, smugglers are trying to evade import taxes. There are different taxes but they are still import taxes so theres lots of smuggling happening there. Magistrates are trying to catch them at it. In fact, the same year the Massachusetts Governor asked for troops in 1768, a man whos in charge of distributing regiments around the empire known as a quartermaster general complains that 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. Its important for us to realize know when is singling out boston for particularly rebellious behavior. Theres some things that might be happening there a policy is not extraordinary in having troops come. And then theres a third thing, maybe most important you need to know about the 18th century army. We often think of the 18th century army, especially think about it, as not that different from a contemporary army. Thats pretty much a single people, often men who are going to war zones. But, in fact, they are significantly different. 18th century armies were family institutions that traveled with women and children. As we can see in this watercolor this is from the end of Matthew Chambers own enlistment. Hundreds of military families fled into boston in 1768 and the present in the town has enormous impact on future events. So when the governor of massachusetts that you need a troops to help support the work that hes trying to do for the government, the war office is okay, thats fine. But he creates other problems. When the first when the first two regiments tell into Boston Harbor, 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. Because when they come to Boston Harbor, the governor and his counsel are still squabbling with boston about where all these troops are going to live. So just mind you a little of what Boston Harbor looks like at the time, okay . This is 18th century map of Boston Harbor. If the troops should go to the island which you see has sorry. There we go. Which has a beautifully refurbished that of barracks. Massachusetts had just raise a lot of money during the seven years war to update the barracks and they thought they should be used, but more than that the quartering act of making such was clear, if there are available barracks troops have to go there first. If they are not available, then they should be put in public houses, which are indeed public but will which you think of pubs or bars which magistrates didnt love, and only then, only those two places are not available could be quartered in private houses. So they say there are barracks. They should go there. This is not what the governor had in mind at all, okay . As you can see from this line and as you may know especially before this all gets filled in, you cannot drive to the island, you had to row three miles through that narrow Little Channel to get into boston and that was not attractive. So this is boston in 1769. This little knob you can see. And here it is stretched over a contemporary rap of boston if you have a sense of where we are. As you said where out there now in the water. But what the governor really wanted was to have troops right in the middle of boston. And so he isnt willing to put them out in the harbor and they say if you insist on putting them in homes in boston and on the harbor we will actually bring you up in front of the law. So the compromise the army comes up with is there going to rent space, not requisition but rent space from bostonians. So they end up renting as many empty warehouses as they can find, but thats not nearly enough. So then they went peoples extra houses, but they also written peoples spare rooms and they went that the extra basements d they read their sheds. They are putting people everywhere. If we take a look at this map, the blue squares are warehouses which even those that are being used as semibarracks you can see are being scattered all over the town. And the red dots are places just what i feel completely positive there were soldiers living. You can see also that they are scattered throughout the entire town. So what 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 a minimuf 500 women and children, and probably more than that, move into a city that 16,000 people. They are going to find each other a little annoying. Its not a surprise. Men like revere who were are pf the sons of liberty are under or other political groups saw the presence of troops as a blow to occupation. The clerk at the time meeting starts complaining boston is become a garrison town. And he and of the men are walking to boston tonight get really annoyed that theyre being stopped industry by soldiers and patrols and meanwhile the constables for making the night watch complaining about all these officers. So they are, 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 you think about that term garrison town. We should all take a minute to recall mary ten in jane austen pride and prejudice. Think of the excitement that having a a regiment quartered a few miles away created for that family out long born. Father slightly anxious young women were delighted. If you think about imagining herself at original encampment, she saw all the glories of the camp, its tent stressed for crowded with the young and the gay and dazzling with scarlet and to complete the future she saw herself beneath the tent tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once. [laughing] the soldiers that big out the young women during the napoleonic wars were not subjeco 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 they kind of Prejudice Pride and prejudice elses notice that the arrival of troops in 1768 was pretty exciting for local women. The arrival of nearly 2000 and come all these men many young and single with a steady, small income could not help but attract the attention again men, especially when actually women outnumber men in boston at this moment with so many young men frequenting taverns, strolling the streets, dropping by and david kitchen. I young i married woman might be able to find a husband, maybe when living in her families spare room. Who knew doing laundry could be so much fun . [laughing] like liddy as a father, mr. Bennett, some it impossible to control the female attendants in the face of sony redcoats. Let me read to you one of my favorite stories because i think it will give you a little favor of what its like to live in boston over these years and probably because its just so feckless. This is from the beginning of chapter five entitled love your neighbor. While his comrades in the 29th regiment were camping on the Boston Common or meeting their new neighbors, private William Clark was spending his time with literature come his own. Too months after his arrival in boston clark announced his play the miser, or the soldier schumer, comity three act, 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 enouga subscription to publish his play since the following february the printer russell advertised in all the boston papers. Sorry, that he just published the miser and was held with the blue paper cover for eight pence. Sadly, no copies remain for us to read today shame. Theres sad affect less so may not have printed many. The short run was likely read until it fell apart and then like many cheaply printed pamphlets, use as toilet paper. Such a fate mightve been particularly 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 off the page as well. In may 1769 he had a shouting match with a boston watch. When stopped industry threatened to burn down the town workhouse. As he was arrested, clarks which would have his revenge on the entire town. It took clark only a month to staging and more dramatic scene with boston locals. One june day in 1769, 75yearold joseph was shocked upon entering his daughters house to find clark in bed with his 20yearold granddaughter. The elderly sign sons of libery ordered clark out of house but the soldier declined to leave. He had every right to sleep with barry, clark asserted. After all, she was his wife, he told the astonished all bent 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 was dressed as a priest. [laughing] in fact, they were not married until four months after being caught. But married they were much to the distress of her parents so devastated where they come the boston eating post claim, 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 showed a loaded pistol into josephs just. Joseph pressed charges and after many adjustments in april 1770 0 clark found himself in jail until he could they a 40 shilling fine. William clarks marriage was more than family scandal it became political fodder for bostons sons of liberty. In fact, the story of joseph finding clark and his granddaughters bed was reported in newspapers sympathetic to the liberty party. The press usually replace many personal names in its stories but bostonians obviously knew something of the clark story before it was printed. When the shopkeeper read the account from the boston evening post he carefully annotated the article recording of the young woman in question was mary and her grandfather was joseph. I do see the originals of that are here which is so exciting to find. Bostons newspapers rarely printed accounts of sexual scandal for the salacious details alone. Such are the stories were much like to show in rhyme doggerel like i just rggi. The journal of the times used the story to point out the political implications of this marriage, urging its readers to reflect on the inevitable impact of troops on bostons families, that the most dear and tendered connections must be broken and violated. The ultimate blame for this seduction, the article concluded, must follow those imperial officials who have been the authors of the scenes a public and private distress. The old man stumbling in on his favorite granddaughter was only the preface to the primary protest. The quartering of a Standing Army in times of peace. The author argued in a world of occupied a boston, public and private affairs at the heart 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 took out under the advertisement. This one for his new memoir. A true and faithful narrative of the love intrigues of the author William Clark, soldier and dispatch sees 29th regiment of foot. This is on the beginning of a very expansive title. Clarks love intrigues exposed an 18th century soap opera complete with cameo appearances by various sons of liberty and British Army Officers in settings ranging from prison to bedrooms. He clearly meant this six page in order be a tell all and perhaps also a means of revenge targeting his inlaws. Because unlike the general and other newspapers, clark named names. The long tone of his memoir concludes with these words. And which is given a faithful account of his courtship, marriage, and bedding with mary, daughter of joseph, builder and north in boston with the description on how much he suffered a a set account. In case anyone wanted who talk about. The memoir has not survived. So sad. So we can only imagine how clark mightve told his version. We can assume from the title and from his emphasis on clarks suffering that is version which apart from the narrative in the sons of liberty journal. The villages of clark story is a fatherinlaw held out by me. This young man was not troubled by the politics of the British Empire and impact on his wifes family or hometown. Instead his was the ageold story of young levers and disapproving parents. Clark is obviously such a blast, but he is only one example in his favorite stories, only one example of the many, many families that were created when troops came to boston. Not only do we have people sleeping together and creating children outside of the bonds of marriage but we have and you can see some examples upstairs in record in the churches, marriage is between civilians and soldiers, many examples of military families asking their local neighbors or others that they knew to act as godparents when they baptize their children in the churches so the making families also. And there also creating families not only in boston and joining communities that oil boston self but outside of boston as well. And the most interesting or most surprising piece my research i think here had to do with desertion which is not a place i thought i would find evidence particularly of these families that are created as troops come, but i found really shocking the rate at which men, here almost entirely single men, were disappearing from the army in boston. They deserted at Something Like three times the rate that men usually deserted from the british army in the 18th century. For example, during the seven years where the british army in north america lost about 3 of its forces every year to desertion. In the first year and half at the 29th regiment was in boston, they lost a full 10 of their men. So these men were not just fleeing the unpleasantness of army life nor were they just drawn to the beauty of massachusetts, charming as it is. They made new homes when the army tried to take back to deserters, vendor communities often turned out to protect them. The Commanding Officer were obviously frustrated, deeply frustrated by the rate of desertion. At one point the colonel in charge decides hes going to hire a spy to ride with cassette and look for deserters. Best buy is quite successful finding the deserted street hes not very good at getting him to come back. In part because they put down roots. Suggest the one story, just over New Hampshire border they found a disorder who having lived there all winter was now married to a woman of his landlord stoddard and they were starting a family. He was easily recognizable the informer continued because he frequently wears his regimental jacket. [laughing] he continues to wear his jacket but he never returned to the army. He had a son, he stated 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 have realized before. So that brings us back to march. When bostonians and soldiers met on the street they knew each other, actually quite whether 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, actually no many of people in the street. So what are the men who comes is a soldier named James Hartigan was recently married to boston born woman. Another is amended Edward Montgomery whose irish wife isabella had come to boston on same ship as Jane Chambers, offers to halifax but traveled with jane. Isabella did not i was a get a long thick what with all her neighbors. Earlier that night montgomery shouted loudly enough for people in the stone houses to hear that the tab was too crowded and the bostonian shes talking to is clear type of both isabella and her husband,. [shouting] i hope your husband will be killed. But not all bostonians wished death on the montgomery is. Also in the street that i was a carpenter named Thomas Wilkinson fit for a few months the Montgomery Scott rented a house near wilkinson and they become friendly. In a in a concentric with the rg to a neighbors house for a cup of sugar, wilkinson occasionally send his kids to Montgomery House for cold to start a fire. When wilkinson saw montgomery marching out to support the trend when he walk straight over to his former neighbor to ask him what was happening. Was not afraid of him. Of course what was happening that night of march 5 is the big question. Remember theres only a few points on which all the eyewitnesses agree. When montgomery, hartigan and other soldiers came to support the sentry, the captain does order the bostonians to disperse. That much we know, right, we dont know who yells fire. All we know is that when that smoke cleared that our people dead and dying and we know that when people looked around, they knew the soldiers and they knew the civilians on the street. At the time the event was shocking. Everyone was horrified to see bostonians bleeding out in the snow in front of the governmental power. How could they not be shocked . But, and this is a big but, actually no one thought that this was the beginning of the revolution. Boston within continue to marry british soldiers. John adams we all know agreed to take on the defense of the soldiers and the captain ed of course to make juries of massachusetts men pretty much acquitted most of the soldiers. So the importance of march seventh 1770 as the shooting itself but how that shooting became transformed into the boston massacre. All of those 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. Both want to put my money of the sacred they do this through pamphlets. As you can see just from the title they are telling very different stories. One is an unhappy disturbance and the other is a catastrophe. Through images. And most of all through the trial of the soldiers and the captain. And i dont have time, look at the clock, to talk about the details of the tile here, although unhappy doing questions, but in summary of the trial i would say that what they all do in the same way is erase women, children and neighbors from the story. Weve all be seen with repair and we see in the trials which deliberately erase any connection, any links 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. A couple of months after the shooting, the 29th regiment is moved to new jersey. Its a couple years that the 14th regiment redeployed themselves to a war zone in the west indies. But its worth thinking about what these troops are forgetting redeployed. Here we have another picture of these families in the barracks. When troops are moved, families are ripped apart. They are faced with choices. Boston women, local women who married soldiers can decide theyre going to stay. They dont want to travel with the army. They want to stay with their native family. They do something we call self divorce. They sometimes remarry, often remarry. Its that easy for the often end up in the alms house with their jump at the decide to stay. Sometimes men decide to stay with them. Thats when the desert. And sometimes of course the women who married soldiers decide to go with them. They become part of the army also. So i imagine always obits of boston, shards of boston in bed in the british army that moved around the British Empire. These pieces are close but broken. Ripping apart a family i think is the most Significant Impact of the boston massacre. Let me just conclude with a short passage from the epilogue. We inherit the story of the American Revolution from a far wider range of people and a far more complicated set of connections than we ever acknowledged. Those who call the American Revolution a civil war portray the conflict of the clash of citizens, i struggle over the definition of a new country. But it would be no less accurate to call the revolution a sibling war. It played out in the people of innumerable families formed and split by the same military occupation here every family wrestled with that conflict in its own way and every family was forced to make choices, as difficult as it were inevitable. War, peacekeeping and political administrations brought together civilians and soldiers, men and women, children and godparents throughout the British Empire. Those same forces buffeted families and sometimes tore them apart as they moved around the atlantic rim. In the 18th century angloamerican world, it was sam and government were closely connected notions, the shooting in boston marked not the beginning of the American Revolution, but the breakdown of the family. Prior to 1772, the 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 politically fit, but it was much more like a bad divorce. The Family History that reminds us of the human bonds as well as the political winds that were broken at the beginning of the American Revolution. Thank you. [applause] happy to take questions . Very happy to hear. How did you find [inaudible] so sure. Yes. She wondered how i found Jane Chambers and her family. So i started actually on this question of military families whenever it and i can go back to, a short dirt is which is out and replicated in mini me places, in fact, parts of which are in Many High School textbooks and carlton happen to own a copy then looked at with my class, actually for soldiers before it actually read it, with care. And in the very first deposition summit talks about being in ina bostonians house and hearing a soldiers wife make threats. Everyone had focus on the threats, and about the 15th time i read it i thought soldiers wife works i didnt know soldiers had wives. Without i started wholly on things. And so i can actually and i found the marriage records, my very first day at mhs was an incredible moment here and then i started trying to figure out how can i know where they came from, how do i know the ones who came to boston with the army as opposed to the ones who married in . So i went to the great thing about working on the british army or anything of the administration is they kept records in ways that were unlike other projects i have done. So every person who traveled official on a troop ship in 18th century is on a list and theyre sitting there in london. So i i read through and createn enormous database of every single minute of every muster roll from a, who were here. If you look at the book you see theres a shout out to the number of carleton students who work with you on this a long time. In the match them up with all the women i could find also on these troop ships, and then i looked at the receipts actually from the army that they still had for the number of rations that they were paying out. So i could see how many women they were actually bringing. So a lot of crossreferencing. Soldiers being deployed in the wife decides that she and her Children Wish to remain in boston, is a soldier mandated to have an allotment say to her . That is such an excellent question. Yes, ill repeat. So if a local woman marries and marries a soldier, and she decides to stay when he leaves, you know, whos going to be responsible . This was a question that local officials are very, very worried about. Because actually its very hard to get money out of soldiers. They try with some paternity suits also. They are not that successful. And the problem is when a woman marries in 18th century, our right to poor relief moves from the place where she was born, usually you are entitled to poor relief from your native place, but it moves to her husbands place, to whomever is responsible for her husband. Thats part of the settlement of culture. So the army is supposed to be, right, the entity responsible for taking care of this woman, and other hypothetical woman, and when the army goes it goes, right . People are incredibly anxious about how they going to pay for all this poor relief when people leave. Theres a wonderful, wonderful book on warning outcome also written with extensive records here that nabel come to be in the moment, the talks extensively about this process but essentially the town of boston hired the guy who boxed rat eddies sister people, he finds a lot of these soldiers wife right after shooting and he says i just want to tell you, lost is not responsible for your poor release. The soldier leaves and you dont go, its not our problem. This is a legal, actually this is a legal statement that is sort of an attempt to cover their liability. I know theres lawyers in this crowd who might have a better phrase than that. But they sit officially. But the thing that actually happens is the province of massachusetts has its own tax that they collect and that they use precisely for this kind of poor relief. Those women who end up in the almshouse because they cant support themselves are paid a was called eventual account. The massachusetts will pay for them. They get some support. Its awful, you know. Women try to leave the almshouse as quickly as if possible can. They jumped the fence but its something. Does that help . That may have been a longer answer than with these soldiers all from britain over some of them from boston . Also a great question. So three of the four regiments that come to boston actually a raised in ireland. They are mostly from northern ireland, so they are not catholic at this moment, the law says that catholics cant enlist in the british army. They have to be protestant. They are mostly scots comp scots irish. And theres a longer story which i can tell or not about why so many came from ireland. In one regiment comes from england. A few people i recruited in locally but they discourage local recruitment precisely because they are worried about desertions. Thats a standard rule everywhere. Thank you. That was wonderful. So rich, so many questions. You managed to follow through all of it on your family thing and i wondered about other families beyond the boston, so ireland, england. What kind of situations. I wondered also the age . Obviously these are young men but how many men may have had wives, sweethearts elsewhere . Adages wonder about that deployed, so to speak, or station in boston but yet there were of the connections. And the final thing about family, i also wondered about class. So who married whom and what daughters were available to who . I assume there were some other family clashes around that, not just paternity questions. And finally i kept thinking as you were talking, i kept thinking about how much that family paradigm or model since the civil war, too, brothers fighting brothers, families. So would you address that spirit was, yes, i can try. Im not positive i can completely rehash this question, but first of all, okay, yes, absolutely there is both, how do you say, theres a trove of kind of not sailors but soldiers, life and every pore, second second thing. And, of course, self divorce does make it possible for people to marry as men marry again elsewhere. Thats why people essentially self divorce. It is true that at various moments the ability of people, especially privates, to be able to compel the army to pay to bring their families with them. A lot of it depends on the Commanding Officer. So even in the four regiments that come to boston, one of them has a Commanding Officer who, we will together but it, even though were not supposed to and army puts a pretty strict limits on it, we will just do it now and ask again displayed and he spent another ten months arguing over the bills. So some people work like that and of the people know, the are the rules. The rules say 60 women per regiment, or per 500 men, and that all that we will take. Were sorry, you know, if we had some of you guys, your wives dont get to come, sorry. They do that in ireland the year before in 1764 when they are deploying troops, and the people in charge of poor relief in court and of the places are so freaked out by how much it is costing them to maintain the family seven left behind at the next year when the 29th is preparing to leave, they go and ask the Commanding Officers to please, plead with the war office to allow them to bring more families with them so these Home Communities will not be stuck with them. Its a question of money. It doesnt tend to be an enormous question of motion, but in that petition the Commanding Officers who are asking say it both will make the men more loyal, less likely to desert and happier about being in the arm if their wives can come. There some recognition of what that emotion might feel like. Officers basically paid for their own wives to come, right . So the army doesnt pay for that at all. That does come out of their own pockets with us to limitations. In fact, this to limitations on privates who can pay for the wives to come. There is very little cross class marriage i think happening in boston. Officers tend to be according elites, and more workingclass families tend to be marrying privates. So thats not the particular clash but there are plenty of other ones. That was wonderful. I just had a question about another part of the master is the narrative of the civilians like , like the john adams line about i wonder if you also learned through this work more about the civilians is a relationship to the soldiers are just their own opposition terms of some of those myths or narratives . That particular line, right, thats a famous were added says, of course cant recall the quote, maybe someone else will have, that this was, you know, not really a mob. It was a crowd made up of irish men and people of color and sailors and apprentices using much more insulting terms for most of them, you know here he does that to try to kind of thread this needle between trying to get his clients off, because hes trying to make an argument of silt fence so he has to say they are afraid of something. Because hes already gotten the captain off so cant say the captain gave the order. He got to make an argument for selfdefense. At the same time hes really there to try to defend boston. Hes trying to say these are nonbostonians who are part of this group. And so hes like these are outsiders. Real bostonians look like that revere picture. Real bostonians are welldressed. No single woman would be afraid to be in a crowd with them. This is some external rabblerousers. I dont think they are real people, if you know what you mean. Of course we know that chris was killed. We know that there are apprentices there. Its not that there are no people in those categories, right . But those once in particular i think hes using rhetorically. Do you have any sense of whether offices childrens, and possibly soldiers childrens were sent to the public schools, whether that connection also exist . I wanted to find a so badly. I spent so much time reading the reports of people went to inspect boston latin hope with everything some kid was there, but they dont. I actually dont that really did escape me. The question of how children were being educated. I i didnt learn. I found them when they get sick. They are off in doctors records. There are ways in which they call you are a part of the town but i could not find it in the schools. I wanted to. Thats a great question. One more question. I know we can document to make women who kind of like in the thick of things, based on testimony. Based on your research do you think there were any other women there . I think that probably not. I dont think that there are a lot of women wandering the streets at night, honestly. Not coming out to sea was going on. The groups of people that i feel pretty confident are showing are primarily coming out of bars. And so theres not a lot of people coming out of other social situations. So no, i dont think so. I think theyre watching, right, and precisely those pieces of evidence we have where why are you bring your sward with you . That are watching people want out the door. They are standing in the doorways, looking out the windows. What i dont actually think but i have no evidence that theres more than what we saw. The book is up for sale. [applause]