Guest Post: Jack-Boots and Broken Windows

Over the next few days, I will be featuring the work of several talented undergraduates who have agreed to have their research projects featured as guest posts. The papers are longer than normal posts, but I thought that readers of this blog might be interested in reading more about Revolutionary-era Boston. All formatting errors are mine — I lost some details (such as italics) in the transfer from Word to Blogger.


Today's guest poster is Allan Bradley, who used John Boyle's journal to examine popular resistance to the Stamp Act.

On the night of November 5th, 1764, rough Boston maritime workers divided into two mobs, the North End and the South End, and each built a cart carrying an effigy of the Pope. After darkness fell, they engaged in a violent battle, each side attempting to steal the other’s cart and effigy.  After half an hour of combat with clubs, staves, and brick-bats, the South End captured the North End’s effigy and burned both on Boston Neck.  It was a yearly ritual; each November 5th, the Pope met the same fiery fate at the hands of the working men of Boston, who fought for the privilege of burning the effigy of that hated enemy to English liberty.  Pope’s Day of 1764 was particularly violent, and a young printer’s apprentice named John Boyle recorded in his journal: “A Child of Mr. Brown’s at the North-End run over by one of the Wheels of the North-End Pope and killed on the Spot.  Many others were wounded in the evening.” [1]