Boston Bread Riot (1713)

Fri May 19, 1713

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On this day in 1713, two hundred people rioted on the Boston Common, attacking the ships and warehouses of Andrew Belcher, a wealthy capitalist who had been exporting grain to the Caribbean during a domestic food shortage. When the lieutenant governor tried to intervene, the crowd shot him.

Belcher had been exporting grain to the Caribbean for years because the profit was greater there. The 1713 riot was one of three bread riots in Boston between 1710 - 1713, when poor and hungry people would raid and attack the stores of grain to be exported.