The Bloody Massacre

Imagine standing in a crowded street, shouting getting louder, order steadily getting lost, and a greater injustice being committed against you and your countryman. This was the reality the colonists of Boston faced on March 5, 1770. 

Just two years earlier, British Parliament had levied further taxes, the Townshend Acts, to help pay off war debts from the Seven Years War. As colonists protested the unjust levying of taxes without their consent or representation in a parliament across the Atlantic, bouts of civil unrest began throughout his majesty’s colonies. It came to a head in Boston, when a crowd gathered outside the State House in Boston to express their discontent with these taxes and the increased presence of British regulars. 

A lone sentry, Private Hugh White, stood guard as the crowd began to increase in size and hostility, hurling rocks, snowballs and insults towards. White, becoming increasingly anxious, called for reinforcements, and the local commander, Captain Thomas Preston led a small contingent of red coats to White’s aid. By now, the situation had become chaotic, and the red coats were unable to safely withdraw. The droning of angry colonists and objects being hurled was broken by lone shot, followed by a brief but eerie silence. A volley from the red coats soon followed, killing three Bostonians instantly, with two dying of their wounds after the incident. 

The massacre, in many senses, was a point of no return, and an unforgivable act. Notable Bostonian Paul Revere, who would become immortalized for his famous midnight ride, immediately began to rally support for the patriot cause against British rule through propaganda, notably his famous woodcut engraving featuring four coffins with skulls and crossbones, published in the Boston Gazette on March 12, 1770. Each coffin contained a skull and crossbones and the initials of the fatalities of the massacre: S.G. for Samuel Gray, S.M. for Samuel Maverick, J.C. for James Caldwell, and C.A. for Crispus Attucks. Patrick Carr died of his wounds after the publishing in the gazette and was thus not included. The Coffin for Samuel Maverick has a unique addition to include a sickle, an hourglass, and “AE 17”, referring to his young age of 17 at the time of his death. 

The coffin engravings succeeded in humanizing the victims of the massacre and highlighting the menace that the presence of British redcoats had become. The engraving of the coffins is often overshadowed by the immortalized “Bloody Massacre on King Street” engraving, which portrayed the event as an unjust execution of colonists by the British. The images serve as a powerful legacy of the influence of early images and engravings in the years before the outbreak of the war and as an even greater reminder of the rights Americans have fought and died for since the inception of our young nation

• 4x coffins
• Woven
• ~2x.75"
• 100 Numbered sets w/ custom art card
• Release: 10/12/2026