"A General Battle Ensued": Local Authority and Military Violence in Revolutionary Boston

In operation since 1631, Boston’s watch monitored the town at night, protecting property and persons, walking the streets, and watching for signs of fire, distress, and disorder. During the occupation of Boston, two forces—one, the night watch, a local body representing community order, and the other, British Regulars, a military force representing imperial governance—confronted one another in the streets over police powers. The officers and soldiers stationed in Boston viewed their authority as absolute, and as a result, night watchmen were met with violence while conducting their regular labors, and customary tasks such as the right to call the time, to hail or detain people in the streets often erupted into unrest. Drawing on letters, written reports, depositions, and military records related to complaints made by Boston’s night watch over the abuses committed by the officers of the Army, this paper explores a series of “high-handed riots” that took place in the winter of 1775 and the legal proceedings that followed. Specifically, it focuses on one assault on the town watch by a group of British officers described as a “general battle,” and a narrow avoidance of a second Boston Massacre to examine how the legal proceedings functioned to challenge uses of violence against local institutions and to protect the rights of ordinary laboring men under occupation.