I am of the opinion that the American colonists twisted many things to galvanize support, but that is to be expected of human struggle.  Information is still misreported in our modern techo media, so all the more likely that such dissonance occurred  in the eighteenth-century.

That is something that I have wondered about.  I have heard that the Colonists had revolted against the British for less that what Americans put up with today.  Also, from what I understand only 1/3 of the Colonists supported the war against the British.  Is this the perception we get from our historical readings?  How many people died in the Boston Massacre?  I think the number was seven.  While this is undoubtedly sad, I do not know that it qualifies as a “massacre”.  I wonder how much propaganda was in play back then, some of which made it into our history books.

I think when Ben Franklin and Sam Adams (?) went on their trip to France to try to recruit assistance with the War, they played the role of “marketers”.  Ben Franklin went there as a sort of celebrity of his day.  I don't think it's difficult to see why they'd have a celebrity try to drum up support for the Colonists' cause.

Oh, ok, John Adams.  Yes, “The Odd Couple” goes to Paris….it would make for a good dramatic comedy if made into a movie.  :-)I recently saw a History Channel show that said Franklin was in Paris for five years…I believe all the way up to the surrender of the British….so Franklin was able to negotiate the peace treaty without really travelling very far. 

Apparently Ben just left his family and was partying in France for five years.  He was quite the ladies man  by all accounts

Revere's depiction of the Boston Massacre was full of inaccuracies which leads me to believe it was created primarily for propaganda purposes.  First of all the picture makes it look like it was day time when the events acctually occured.  In fact it was 9:00pm in early March.  I doubt it was the street lights that illuminated the area.  Also, eye witnesses indicated there was snow on the ground and in fact the colonists were throwing showballs or chunks of ice at the British soldiers.  The depiction doesn't even show the colonists with clubs which were reported by the eye witnesses.  Finally, the picture shows Prescott behind the soldiers rather than in front as the eye witness accounts indicate.  All this information was available at the time so my guess is that Revere wasn't trying all that hard to be accurate.  He was more interested in making a point.

The entire Revolution was based on propaganda and fear mongering (note I'm not absolving the British in any way here).  We must be honest with ourselves about our Revolution.  It was a generated conflict designed to get us away from British control because we wanted to control our own destiny once we felt we were self sufficient enough to manage things on our own…which only happened after the Seven Years War.  With the French and their Indian allies defeated, the North American continent became “safe” and the need for British protection no longer necessary.  The best analogy is how teenagers gain independence after they've gotten a taste of adulthood.  The American colonies were no different than rebellious teenagers wanting to prove they were adults.

The Boston Massacre was a cleverly and very well executed propoganda movement. Revere's depiction is at the helm of that movement.