“I mourn over my bleeding country … I weep at her distress, and … deeply resent the many injuries she has received from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men.” Dr. Joseph Warren on the fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre, March 1775. Just three months later, Warren was killed while fighting to end the occupation of Boston during the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Sadly, his words have renewed relevance in the wake of the killing of Renee Good at the hands of federal agents.
They say that history repeats itself, though it would probably be more honest to say that while history doesn’t repeat it does rhyme, and the recent events in Minnesota are certainly rhyming with the events in Massachusetts in the years leading up to the Revolution 250 years ago.
Today, the ICE agents deployed to cities who haven’t shown adequate loyalty to King Donald’s regime are by every metric just as much of a foreign occupying force as King George III’s Redcoats were in 1770. After all, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was a part of the British Empire at that time and the citizens of Massachusetts were just as British as the Redcoats who came to Boston to crush local dissent against the crown’s policies. Likewise in Minnesota today, both the ICE agents and the people of Minneapolis may be Americans, but like the Redcoats of old those agents are conducting themselves as a foreign occupying force in a community that clearly doesn’t want or need them there.
On March 5, 1770, months of mounting frustration and tension between the working people of Boston and the British occupying forces exploded into violence when a mob of mostly rope workers confronted a sentry at his post at the Boston Custom House. After being hit with snowballs and oyster shells, a nervous British soldier discharged his weapon (it may have been accidental) and then the whole line of British soldiers fired into the crowd, killing five people.
The events that led to the Boston Massacre differ from the events leading up to the killing of Renee Good in that 1) Renee Good was not a mob of people; 2) the ICE agents were clearly under no threat while the Redcoats absolutely were under threat; and 3) snowballs were not thrown at ICE agents until after they killed someone, whereas in Boston in 1770 the snowballs were thrown prior to killing people.
The simple fact is that the Redcoats of 1770 were far more justified in their use of deadly force than the ICE agents in Minneapolis ever were. Yet like the Boston Massacre, it is not so much the event itself that poses the greatest threat but rather it is the aftermath and response to the Minneapolis Massacre that leads us down the dangerous path of physically ripping this country apart.
Following the Boston Massacre, Massachusetts authorities arrested and prosecuted the soldiers involved. By all accounts those soldiers had a fair trial in Massachusetts courts and were mostly acquitted after a brilliant defense by none other than John Adams (the soldier who initially fired was found guilty of manslaughter). Yet despite Massachusetts’ clear capability to fairly conduct a trial in a volatile environment in 1774, the crown issued the “Administration of Justice Act,” part of the “Intolerable Acts”, which allowed for the crown or their appointed governor to cherry pick the venue in which a trial against a crown official took place in order to ensure a more favorable outcome to the crown rather than a trial by one’s peers.
This quickly came to be called the “murder act” by New Englanders because they felt it allowed British officials to be able to get away with murder in the colonies. In 1770s Boston, these measures took years to enact and would result in the Colonial authorities deploying the militia (the predecessor to our National Guard) to resist the British occupation, which would eventually lead to open conflict at Lexington and Concord in April 1775.
In Minnesota in 2026 it took less than 48 hours for King Donald’s regime to bar Minnesota’s law enforcement from even participating in the investigation. A fair trial over the events of that day do not at this time appear to be even possible. The simple and sad fact is that our colonial ancestors received far more fairness and justice under King George III than we can ever hope to receive under this reign of MAGA terror.
Two hundred fifty years is not a long time for a civilization to rise and fall, and democracy is a fragile thing that requires impartial, just, and equitable laws in order to thrive. For the Rule of Law to prevail, it must have legitimacy, and in order for the law to have legitimacy, there must be an impartial justice.
Today, this administration seems far less concerned with justice and the Rule of Law than King George III ever was. Our revolution began when the people of Massachusetts, through the predecessors of our local municipal and state governments, demanded an end to arbitrary authority — and we should be embarrassed today to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Revolution unless we are willing to show the same resolve our forebears did when faced with tyranny.
Remember, we “have a Republic, if (we) can keep it.”
Benjamin Shallop lives in Salem and is a labor activist and author of “The Founding of Salem: City of Peace”.