Crispus Attucks

Crispus Attucks (c.1723–March 5, 1770) was a seaman of Native American and African descent from Framingham, Massachusetts who was killed at the Boston Massacre. Very little is known for certain about his life. He is known to have been born on the Indian Lands in Framingham, Massachusetts. The Attucks were a leading family living for nearly a century on the Praying Indian Lands. There exists no record that Crispus Attucks was either an escaped slave or an African-American but he may well have been either an apprentice or indentured servant to one William Brown of Framingham. All existing records refer to a runaway servant named Crispus and to him being a mulatto which suggests an ancestry of white, American Indian, and African. This was common among the Praying Indians of Natick and Framingham, Massachusetts at that time. An October 2, 1750 advertisement placed in the Boston Gazette may refer to Crispus Attucks although the advertisement mentions only the name Crispus which was a fairly common name. It 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." Master William Brown offered a reward of £10 for his return.

Attucks had become a sailor and laborer, and was believed to have owned the second-largest collection of antique watch fobs in Massachusetts. He is remembered for being part of a crowd of 30 or more workers protesting against the presence of British troops in Boston. Boston had been under military occupation since 1768. Colonial sailors resented the presence of the British because of the danger of press gangs. Other workers in Boston were disturbed because British soldiers worked part-time jobs at low wages in order to supplement their army pay, which potentially took away jobs and drove down wages for the colonial workers. Revolutionaries such as Samuel Adams actively encouraged these protests against the soldiers.

This chromolithograph by John Bufford after William L. Champey, ca. 1856, of the Boston Massacre prominently features a black man believed to be Crispus Attucks.

In the 1850s, the abolitionists of Boston put forth the story that the first matyr of the Revolutionary War was a black man named Crispus Attucks even though there were no written records to that effect and he is always referred to as being a mulatto. It should also be noted that Paul Revere's contemporary engraving of the Massacre does not depict a black man among the victims.

Tensions had been rising over the weekend when the crowd appeared before the British barracks, where some teenage boys were involved in an incident with the soldiers. Attucks has been often depicted as one of the leaders of the crowd, waving a club and urging an attack on the heavily outnumbered troops. Eventually, despite attempts by their officer to prevent it, the eight soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot fired, massacring five members of the crowd: Attucks and four other men.

John Adams, Samuel Adams's cousin, successfully defended the British soldiers against a charge of murder, calling the crowd "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and molattoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs."

Samuel Adams, on the other hand, gave the event the name of the Boston Massacre and assured that it would not be forgotten. The five who were killed were buried as heroes in the Granary Burying Ground, despite laws against burying blacks with whites. This further suggests that Crispus Attucks was not considered a black man.

Some controversy remains over whether Attucks was a revolutionary leader or simply a rabble rouser; it is possible he was both. The Boston Massacre was an important event that underscored the commitment of ordinary Americans to the ideas of the coming revolution.

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to Crispus Attucks in the introduction of "Why We Can't Wait" as a specific example of a man whose contribution to history has been overlooked by standard histories.

Crispus Attucks is also the name of a late 1990s hardcore band from Washington D.C.

External links

• Africans in America biography
• The Murder of Crispus Attucks Library of Congress exhibit, including trial documents.