Like Boston Massacre, this assessment requires students to consider the relative strengths and weaknesses of a document as historical evidence. Students with a sophisticated understanding of how to source a document will be able to explain that Trumbull’s illustration is useful in that Trumbull, as a soldier in the Continental Army who was stationed near the Battle of Bunker Hill, may have been knowledgeable about what transpired. They will also note that Trumbull was paid to paint a patriotic scene and was depicting the event decades after it occurred, both of which limit its usefulness as evidence of what happened at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
