A tense situation because of the heavy British military presence in Boston has boiled over to incite brawls between soldiers and civilians.

The friction between the troops and the colonists has grown from the landing of British troops in October 1768 with several events most notably including the death of Christopher Seider on February 22, 1770.

British troops on March 5, 1770, fire on an attacking mob protesting the enforced quartering of British soldiers in Boston households, killing five (three civilians are killed at the scene of the shooting, and two die after the incident) and wounding six in the so-called Boston Massacre.

The first to die is Crispus Attucks, who may have been of African-American and Native American ancestry.

The Patriot Party, organized by Samuel Adams, calms those adherents calling for rebellion.

His cousin, John Adams, successfully defends the soldiers’ actions in court.

The leaders of the independence movement want to base their argument on legal, rather than emotional, grounds.

The legal aftermath will help spark the rebellion in some of the British colonies in America, which is to culminate in the American Revolution.