The Fifth Of March: A Story of the Boston Massacre

“The Patriots wanted liberty. I’d heard Mr. Adams reading some letters to his wife from the Boston Gazette about this liberty. It sounded more like outright treason to me.”

Jane explains that the Patriots want liberty from Britain. This is the first time Rachel contemplates her ideas about freedom, and she does so through a lens of fear, shown through her comparison of liberty to treason (a crime against the Crown). Rachel’s early impression establishes her naïve perspective—one that will shift as she learns more about the revolution and the people fighting for independence.

“So many books! All Mr. Adams had to do was look inside them and he could come up with an answer to anybody’s problems.

It followed, then, that if a person read books, one didn’t have to attend meetings where mobs screamed foul words. Neither did one have to threaten others. Or choose sides.”

Rachel decides to better herself by reading and engaging in discourse with other educated people. These early lines show her excitement at the power of the written word to allow a more peaceful exchange of ideas than that found in the streets of Boston. Rachel’s mindset here shows that she is early in her character arc and does not yet recognize the potential use for the mob—namely getting attention in situations where attention is needed. Rather, she stands by her assertion that education and conversation are the way toward improvement.

“After father died, Mama and I were under Uncle Eb’s thumb. He was as sharp as a crab apple to Mama. The first thing he did was make her change our name, from Marceau to Marsh.

He never could pronounce our name, he said. Mama let him have his way with that, of course, like she suffered every other thing he did to her. All so we could have a home. And I was too young to protest. So I became Rachel Marsh, not Rachel Marceau.”

This dive into Rachel’s backstory offers additional context for the American Colonial period, particularly the tensions between England and France. Her description of Uncle Eb’s actions reveals him as a bigoted and self-interested person who uses the force of his will to shape the world around him to his liking.