He was able to take advantage of his skills as a silversmith and coppersmith to engrave political cartoons and propaganda for the patriotic cause. He was very keen to portray the British in an evil light in his work. One such example of the use of propaganda is in the famous work “The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street, Boston, on March 5th, 1770, by a party of the 29th Regiment”, better known as the Boston Massacre. His engraving on the event shows Captain Preston urging on his men to fire on the crowd. The soldiers are shown standing in military formation firing a volley into a peaceful crowd. This is in fact, far from how the events actually unfolded. It is a well-known fact that the British troops had been baited into a conflict and that Captain Preston was standing in front of his men trying to avoid the conflict that would soon follow, but Paul’s engraving made the Massacre victims martyrs, symbols for the cause of revolution. He had created a reality that was of his own making and helped usher in a revolt on the British (Wright 405). His work as a propagandist is what primarily gave rise to his role in becoming an …show more content…
He wasn’t a great military leader, he wasn’t a revolutionary thinker, and he certainly wasn’t the only patriot to ride out and warn towns and villages of the approaching British soldiers; but he was without a doubt a man with passion, talent and courage. He accepted his many roles as an accomplished silversmith, cartoonist, propagandist, artist, dentist, messenger, foundry man, and gunpowder maker with no reserve, showing great courage and conviction even in times of danger. Paul Revere lived to the uncommonly old age of 83, when he died on May 10th, 1818 (Wright