Crispus Attucks died March 5, 1770 during the Boston Massacre. He is considered the first martyr of the American Revolution and later became a role model during the civil rights movement of the 1850s. Little is known about Attucks, but everyone agrees that he was a slave. It is unclear what his heritage was though. Some believed he was of African American descent, while others thought he was descended from Indians. Then some compromise and say he had an African American father and an Indian mother. There were no real records of his life now nor during his life. He escaped slavery and was working in Boston at the time of the massacre. This was after he spent time on the sea in order to escape the oppressive bonds of slavery.

During the night of the Massacre, Attucks was seen by witnesses leading a gang of people from a tavern on King St. Many of the gang were armed with sticks or anything else they could carry and use as a weapon. Even though there were numerous witnesses to the event, it is unclear exactly what caused the British to fire on the civilians. It is known that an argument led to men and boys throwing snowballs at a lone British soldier. When help arrived, the crowd of civilians greatly outnumbered the British. No one knows who fired the first shot and why, but some witnesses claim that Attucks was the first to strike with his stick. Even Adams and Hancock blamed Attucks for the massacre during and after the trial.

Five men died during the massacre and were all buried together in a grave at Old Granary Burying Ground. Attucks was viewed as a martyr, but it was not until the 1850s that his name became a household name. Many of the abolitionists of Boston used his name and story to further the civil rights movement. He was an ideal role model due to the fact that he was a slave who died for not just his freedom, but the freedom of others as well. During the 1850s, abolitionists created an annual Crispus Attucks day in Boston and then the monument designed by Robert Kraus in Boston Common was petitioned in 1887 in order for the community to remember his sacrifice in the name of freedom.

By: Jessica McKenzie

Credits and Sources:

Buckley, Gail. American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military from the Revolution to Desert Storm. New York, NY: Random House, 2001.

City of Boston. A Memorial of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, Samuel Gray, and Patrick Carr. Miami, FL: Mnemosyne Publishing Inc., 1969.

O’Connor, Thomas H. Boston: A to Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.