Secondary Source:
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"Boston Massacre, March 5, 1770" Chromolithography by John Bufford, 1857
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John Henry Bufford was a lithographer, draftsman, and publisher of prints. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1810. He was the foremost lithographic printer in Boston from 1845 until his death in 1870, known for works depicting town views in both New York and New England. An 1867 Boston advertisement lists his firm as owning “the only steam power lithographic presses in the New England states.” Among the men who apprenticed with Bufford was painter Winslow Homer.
This chromolithograph of the Boston Massacre is based on a drawing by William L. Champney, an illustrator active in the mid-nineteenth century. It is marked “J.H.BUFFORD LITH 313 WASHINTON ST BOSTON” in the bottom right corner. Note the lion and the unicorn, symbols of Great Britain, clearly depicted on the Town House (Old State House) in the background. There is no snow on the ground, and the sky appears to be one of late afternoon, rather than a cold moonlit night.
Champney shows people firing into the crowds from the balconies, including the one on the right marked “Custom House.” The only witness who mentioned firing from this location was later found guilty of perjury. Captain Preston is on the ground, caught between the soldiers and the colonists.
Champney also put colonists on both sides of the soldiers who, according to witness statements, should be formed into a semi-circle close to the Custom House stairs.
Champney does however, depict the colonists as clearly armed with clubs and sticks, and angrily responding to, or instigating, the British attack. He also illustrates the large crowd of colonists that were present; the faint outline of tricorn hats continues behind the gun smoke, all the way to the Town House. Crispus Attucks takes center stage in this image, although it is difficult to tell whether he dying from a bayonet wound or gunshots. According to the coroner, Attucks (also known as Michael Johnson) was killed by two gunshots to the chest. Champney’s placement of Attucks as the focal point of the image, as well as his depiction of the colonists, offer clues about his reason for creating these print. Rather than seek to victimize the colonists in the viewer’s eyes, as Paul Revere had done so successfully, Champney aimed to portray Attucks, a run away slave, as a hero and a martyr in the struggle for American independence. He created this work at the height of the Abolitionist movement in Boston and the United States.
John Henry Bufford
