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This Day in Boston History
August 11th, 1834
Protestants Burn Ursuline Convent
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On
this day approximately 100 Protestant laborers disguised as Indians looted
and burnt a catholic-sponsored girls school in Charlestown. The mob celebrated
as as the school's books and icons were thrown into bonfires. Students
and teachers fled for their lives with only what they could carry on the
run.
Though rebuked by town selectmen, the same mob regathered and destroyed
the grounds of the convent the next night before leaving for Boston to
attempt to burn its cathedral. The mob's leaders were eventually tried
and found not-guilty of mayhem.
So for the next thirty years the ruins of the convent stood in the shadow
of the Bunker Hill monument, a reminder that the promise of liberty extolled
in that battle had not yet extended very far beyond the direct descendants
of revolutionaries. |
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From the writers of iBoston.org |
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