"Captive State", by Michael Wuschke

In 1768, British soldiers were sent to Boston in an attempt to restore order to the Colonies after the British government received reports of unrest following the passing of the Townshend Acts. When the Colonists found out about this, they became outraged since the soldiers were coming to pacify them, as well as the fact that most of them did not have any high moral standards, filling them with a sense of fear and dread in the process. Once the Soldiers arrived, they were immediately treated with hostility by the colonists, who were outraged that they were beginning to interfere in their daily way of life as well as their choice of residence, such as living in the Boston Common, Fanueil Hall, the Old State House, and the Manufacutary House, forcing the British soldiers to abandon these plans for the latter. However, the Colonists were not the only people that despised the British soldiers. The soldiers also had to deal with the fact that they were often hated by their own commanding officers and were paid less than the average worker, with a majority of them being kept in service for life until they died. A majority of these soldiers were unemployed workers who were forced into service while some were criminals and thieves. Almost all of these soldiers lived under the harshest of disciplines
and faced the most severe forms of punishments while in service, causing them to resent their positions of maintaining order in the Colonies. Things eventually took a turn for the worst in 1770, when British soldiers fired on an unruly mob of colonists when they threw objects such as ice, snowballs, and wood at them, killing five people in an event that would later be known by the Colonist as the Boston Massacre, and would eventually lead to a series of events that would spark the American Revolution and the Colonists fight to obtain independence from British rule.