Crispus Attucks

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An artist's conception of Crispus Attucks

Crispus Attucks (c. 1723 – March 5, 1770) was one of five people killed in the Boston Massacre in Boston, Massachusetts. He has been frequently named as the first martyr of the American Revolution and is the only person killed in the Boston Massacre whose name is commonly remembered. He remains an important and inspirational figure in American history.

Little is known for certain about Attucks other than that he was killed in the Boston Massacre. Fragmentary evidence suggests that he may have been a "mulatto" with African and Native American ancestry. In the early 1800s, as the Abolitionist movement gained momentum in Boston, Attucks was lauded as an example of a black American who played a heroic role in the history of the United States. Because Crispus Attucks may also have had Wampanoag Indian ancestors, his story also holds special significance for many Native Americans.

[edit] Possible ancestry

Very few facts are known about Crispus Attucks prior to his involvement with the Boston Massacre. Because slavery and racial discrimination were conditions of life in the 18th century, few detailed accounts of black Americans from that era survive. The name "Crispus" is mentioned in some records from the period that might refer to him. For example, an October 2, 1750, advertisement placed in the Boston Gazette read:

...ran away from his Master William Brown on the 30th of Sept. last, a mulatto Fellow, about 27 years of age, named Crispus, 6 Feet two inches high, short curl'd Hair, his Knees near together than common: had on a light colour'd Bearskin Coat.^[1]

Master William Brown offered a reward of £10 for his return. Given the lack of evidence to the contrary, this passage is often associated with Crispus Attucks of the Boston Massacre.^[1]

An American Native named John Attucks was executed for treason in 1676 during King Philip's War. In the 1700s, the surname “Attucks” was used by some Praying Indians around Natick and Framingham. This surname may be an Anglicisation of the Wôpanââk word ahtuk meaning deer.^[2]

Native people and black people frequently had children together in Colonial times as evidenced by accounts from early periods and by the prevalence today of African phenotypes among Indian tribal groups in New England and other long-established multiracial groups in the Eastern United States. This leads to speculation that Attucks had both African and Native American ancestry.^[3]

[edit] Role in the Boston Massacre

In 1768, Boston was occupied by British soldiers to help control growing colonial unrest, but this only increased tensions with those colonists who opposed the presence of troops. On March 5, 1770, a crowd of colonists gathered and confronted a group of soldiers about an incident earlier that day in which a soldier struck a boy who confronted him over non-payment of a barber bill.

This 19th century lithograph is a variation of the famous engraving of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere. Produced soon before the American Civil War, this image emphasizes Crispus Attucks, who had become a symbol for Abolitionists. (John Bufford after William L. Champey, ca. 1856)^[4]

As anger escalated, a church bell was rung (as it would in case of fire or other emergency), drawing people out of their homes. The British soldiers of the Twenty-ninth Regiment were called to duty in response. Townspeople began hurling snowballs and debris at the soldiers. A group of men led by Attucks approached the vicinity of the government building (now known as the Old State House) with clubs in hand.

Violence soon erupted and a soldier was struck with a thrown piece of wood. Some accounts named Attucks as the person responsible. Other witnesses stated that Attucks was "leaning upon a stick" when the soldiers opened fire.

Three Americans were killed and two were mortally wounded. Court documents state that Attucks was the first one killed and that he took two bullets in the chest. Attucks’s body was carried to Faneuil Hall where it lay in state until March 8 when he and the other victims were buried together.

Based on the premise of self-defense, John Adams successfully defended the British soldiers against a charge of murder. Two of the soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter. As soldiers of the King of England, they were given the choice of hanging or being branded on their thumb. They both chose to be branded. In his arguments, Adams called the crowd "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs".^[5]

Samuel Adams, a cousin of John Adams who held civil disobedience in higher regard, gave the event the name of the Boston Massacre two years later and helped assure that it would not be forgotten. Boston artist Henry Pelham (half-brother of the celebrated portrait painter John Singleton Copley) created an image of the event. Paul Revere made a copy of the image from which prints were made and distributed. Some copies of the print show a dark-skinned man with chest wounds represening Cripsus Attucks. Other copies of the print show no difference in the skin tone of the victims.

The five who were killed were buried as heroes in the Granary Burying Ground, which 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 unknown. Prince Hall, for example, was interred in Copp's Hill Burying Ground in the North End of Boston thirty-five years later.

[edit] Folklore

The above-mentioned clues and other circumstantial evidence of the period have given rise to speculation which has, over many decades, become much-repeated folk-history.

In popular versions of his narrative, Attucks was born to an Africa-born black slave father named Prince Yonger and a Native American mother named Nancy Attucks who was from either the Natick-Framingham area of Middlesex County just west of Boston or from the island of Nantucket south of Cape Cod. He grew up in the household of Colonel Buckminster, his father’s master, until sold to Deacon William Brown of Framingham. Unhappy with his situation, he escaped and became a ropemaker, a manual laborer and/or a whaler. His quarrel with the British soldiers on March 5, 1770 was righteous indignation regarding the effect of the Townshend Acts on the local economy as well as the incidents that had taken place earlier that day.

[edit] Legacy

Crispus Attucks' grave in the Granary Burying Ground

Attucks has often been praised in writing meant to inspire Americans to work towards the ideals of freedom and racial equality. In 1858, Boston-area Abolitionists established "Crispus Attucks Day." In 1888, a monument honoring him was erected on Boston Common.

In the poetry of John Boyle O'Reilly Attucks was described as "leader and voice that day; The first to defy, and the first to die...riot or revolution, or mob or crowd as you may, such deaths have been seeds of nations." 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, though much-overlooked by standard histories, could be revered as a source of moral courage.

One author wrote this appraisal of Attucks’s significance:

He is one of the most important figures in African-American history, not for what he did for his own race but for what he did for all oppressed people everywhere. He is a reminder that the African-American heritage is not only African but American and it is a heritage that begins with the beginning of America.^[6]

In 1888, leaders of both the Massachusetts Historical Society and the New England Historic Genealogical Society opposed the creation of the Crispus Attucks memorial on Boston Common. Today, both organizations use Crispus Attucks’s name to foster interest in black history and genealogy.

In 1998, the United States Treasury released "The Black Revolutionary War Patriots Silver Dollar" featuring Attucks' image on the obverse side. The reverse side of the commemorative coin shows a family of African-American patriots. Funds from sales of the coin were intended for a proposed Black Revolutionary War Patriots Memorial in Washington, DC.^[7]

Places named for Attucks include the Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Indiana, the Crispus Attucks Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Attucks Theatre in Norfolk, Virginia.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Africans in America biography
• Africans in America at PBS.org
• Crispus Attucks at AfricaWithin.com
• Crispus Attucks Association, Inc.
• The Murder of Crispus Attucks Library of Congress exhibit, including trial documents.
• Trial Documents at Framingham.com