Crispus Attucks – African Americans in the Revolution


Crispus Attucks (c. 1723 – March 5, 1770) may have been an American slave or freeman, merchant seaman and dockworker of Wampanoag and African descent. He was the first casualty of the Boston Massacre, in Boston, Massachusetts, and is widely considered to be the first American casualty in the American Revolutionary War.

Little is known for certain about Crispus Attucks beyond that he, along with Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, died “on the spot” during the incident. Two major sources of eyewitness testimony about the Boston Massacre, both published in 1770, did not refer to Attucks as a black man or “Negro”; it appeared that Bostonians accepted him as mixed race. Historians disagree on whether Crispus Attucks was a free man or an escaped slave; but agree that he was of Wampanoag and African descent.

While the extent of his participation in events leading to the massacre is unclear, Attucks in the 18th century became an icon of the anti-slavery movement. He was held up as the first martyr of the American Revolution along with the others killed. In the early 19th century, as the abolitionist movement gained momentum in Boston, supporters lauded Attucks as a black American who played a heroic role in the history of the United States Because Attucks had Wampanoag ancestors, his story also holds special significance for many Native Americans.

==Early life==

He appears to have been born a slave from Framingham, Massachusetts during 1723, possibly on Hartford Street. Framingham had a small population of black inhabitants from at least 1716. Attucks was of mixed African and Native American parentage and was descended from John Attucks, of Massachusett who was hanged during King Philip’s War.

In 1750 William Brown, a slave-owner in Framingham, advertised for the return of a runaway slave named Crispus. Attucks’ status at the time of the massacre as either a free black or a runaway slave has been a matter of debate for historians. However, his descendants maintain he was a slave and ran away sometime in his teenage years.{citation needed|date=February 2013} What is known is that Attucks became a sailor and he spent much of the remainder of his life at sea often working on whalers which involved long voyages. He may only have been temporarily in Boston in early 1770, having recently returned from a voyage to the Bahamas. He was due to leave shortly afterwards on a ship for North Carolina./ref/Parr & Swope p. 45.[/ref]

==Boston Massacre==



Five colonists were killed and six were wounded. Attucks took two bullets in the chest and was the first to die. County coroners Robert Pierpoint and Thomas Crafts Jr. conducted an autopsy on Attucks. Attucks’ body was carried to Faneuil Hall, where it lay in state until Thursday, March 8, when he and the other victims were buried together in the same grave site in Boston’s Granary Burying Ground. He lived for approximately 47 years.

==Reaction and trials==

Arguing the soldiers fired in self-defense, John Adams successfully defended most of the accused British soldiers against a charge of murder. Two of the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. Faced with the prospect of hanging, the soldiers pled benefit of clergy, and were instead branded on their thumbs. In his arguments, Adams called the crowd “a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs.”.” In particular, he charged Attucks with having “undertaken to be the hero of the night,” and with having precipitated a conflict by his “mad behavior.”


The five who were killed were buried as heroes in the Granary Burying Ground, which also contains the graves of John Hancock and other notable figures. While custom of the period discouraged the burial of black people and white people together, such a practice was not completely unknown. Prince Hall, for example, was interred in Copp’s Hill Burying Ground in the North End of Boston 39.

==Legacy and honors==

* 1858, Boston-area abolitionists, including William Cooper Nell, established “Crispus Attucks Day” to commemorate him.
* 1886, the places where Crispus Attucks and Samuel Gray fell were marked by circles on the pavement. Within each circle, a hub with spokes leads out to form a wheel.
* 1888, a monument honoring Attucks and the other victims of the Boston Massacre was erected on Boston Common. It is over 25 feet high and about 10 feet wide. The “bas-relief” (raised portion on the face of the main part of the monument) portrays the Boston Massacre, with Attucks lying in the foreground. Under the scene is the date, March 5, 1770. Above the bas-relief stands a female figure, Free America, holding the broken chain of oppression in her right hand. Beneath her right foot, she crushes the royal crown of England. At the left of the figure, is an eagle. Thirteen stars are cut into one of the faces of the monument. Beneath these stars in raised letters are the names of the five men who were killed that day: Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, and Patrick Carr.
* Although that year leaders of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the New England Historic Genealogical Society opposed the creation of the Crispus Attucks memorial, since the 20th century both organizations have acknowledged his role and promoted interest in black history and genealogy.
* 1998, the United States Treasury released “The Black Revolutionary War Patriots Silver Dollar” featuring Attucks’ image on the obverse side. Funds from sales of the coin were intended for a proposed Black Revolutionary War Patriots Memorial in Washington, DC.
* 2002, the Afrocentrist scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Crispus Attucks as among the 100 Greatest African Americans.
* Places named for Attucks include the Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Indiana; Attucks Middle School in Sunnyside, Houston, Texas; the Crispus Attucks Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri; the Attucks Theatre in Norfolk, Virginia; the Crispus Attucks Association in York, Pennsylvania; Crispus Attucks Road in Spring Valley, New York; Crispus Attucks Elementary School in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn; Crispus Attucks Park in Carbondale, Illinois; Crispus Attucks Elementary School in East St. Louis, Illinois; Crispus Attucks Park in Washington, DC; the Crispus Attucks Center in Dorchester, Massachusetts; and the Crispus Attucks Bridge in Framingham, Massachusetts.

==In popular culture==

* “First man to die for the flag we now hold high was a black man” is a line from Stevie Wonder’s song “Black Man”.
* “Crispus Attucks, the first blasted” is a line from Nas’s song “You Can’t Stop Us Now”.
* The poet John Boyle O’Reilly wrote the following poem when the monument was finally unveiled:


* Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to Crispus Attucks in the introduction of Why We Can’t Wait (1964) as an example of a man whose contribution to history provided a potent message of moral courage.
* In an unsourced, popular book about Attucks, James Neyland wrote his appraisal of the man’s significance:


* In the 4th season 30 Rock episode “Winter Madness”, character Tracy Jordan accuses a Bostonian John Hancock re-enactor of lying after claiming to have met Attucks at a Sons of Liberty meeting in 1775, five years after his death.
* In February 2012, Wayne Brady, J. B. Smoove, and Michael Kenneth Williams, as well as Keith David appeared in a satirical rap music video about Crispus Attucks.
* In Season 2 of Lizzie McGuire it is revealed that Lanny Onasis is a direct descendant of Crispus Attucks.