Attucks, Crispus

By: Scott A. Miltenberger

Source:

 Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass

Attucks, Crispus

Sex:  Male

Born:  Probably, Mashpee, Near Framingham, Massachusetts, United States
c.1723

Died:  Boston, Massachusetts, United States
5 March 1770

Activity/Profession:  Sailor, Patriot (American Revolution)

(b. c. 1723; d. 5 March 1770),
often celebrated as the first martyr in the American bid for independence.

The death of Crispus Attucks is shrouded in myth. John Adams, the future second president of the United States and the defense attorney for the British troops charged with Attucks's murder, accused him of being a rabble-rouser and the instigator of the confrontation that resulted in the now famously known “Boston Massacre” of 1770. John Hancock, a Boston merchant and, like Adams, a member of the Sons of Liberty, celebrated Attucks as a defiant patriot. Attucks's true role remains unclear—much like his life prior to 1770.

Attucks was most probably born a slave in Framingham, Massachusetts, in 1723. He was likely of mixed African and Native American parentage (attuck is the Natick Indian word for “deer”). In 1750, at about age twenty-seven, Attucks ran away from his master, most likely a William Brown. For the next twenty years he worked as a sailor and longshoreman in and around the port of Boston. In that city on the night of 5 March 1770, while purportedly awaiting a ship bound for North Carolina, Attucks found himself embroiled in a controversy that ultimately contributed to a revolution.

Following the Seven Years' War (1754–1763), Boston had become a hotbed for colonial discontent with British imperial policies. To recover the costs of defending the American colonies from French and Native American forces, British authorities had enacted various revenue-collecting measures—among them tariffs on sugar (via the Sugar Act of 1764), paper (via the Stamp Act of 1765), and various imported goods (via the Townshend duties of 1767). Believing that such taxes ought to have come not from the British Parliament but from their colonial assembly, Bostonians intimidated collectors and refused to pay outright. In response, the British Crown began quartering troops in the city both to protect tax collectors and to enforce smuggling laws. Clashes between Bostonians and the soldiers were inevitable, but the resulting confrontations were rarely violent. The altercation that broke out on the evening of 5 March 1770, however, quickly escalated into bloodshed.

That night a barber's apprentice confronted a soldier for not having paid his master for services rendered. The two came to blows, the soldier striking the apprentice with his musket butt. The youth fled through the streets, screaming as he went. Rumors of the fight quickly began to circulate: the soldier was unprovoked, the apprentice had been stabbed, and the apprentice was dead. Bostonians congregated outside the barracks and customhouse on King Street; Attucks was at a tavern on that street when a British sentry's alarm bell rang. Perhaps having heard the rumors about the barber's apprentice, Attucks reportedly led a group of men armed with sticks to the barracks. There they found young boys pelting the soldiers with stone-bearing snowballs. Attucks's group immediately sided with the boys and began striking the soldiers. According to eyewitnesses, Attucks was at the lead and dared the soldiers to fire. Accounts vary, but nearly all concur that at some point someone shouted, “Fire!” The besieged soldiers promptly shot into the crowd, which quickly dispersed as eleven Bostonians fell. Five, including Attucks, were fatally wounded and perished in the street.

In the wake of the King Street altercation, Attucks and the others achieved the status of popular and, later, national heroes. A public funeral held three days later shut down the city. Shops were closed, and the bells of the Boston city churches as well as those of surrounding towns tolled in remembrance of the deaths. For several days Attucks and the others lay in state at Boston's Faneuil Hall. Ever eager to advance their political agenda, the Sons of Liberty seized the opportunity to attack British imperials. On 12 March the Massachusetts Gazette, published by the silversmith and Son of Liberty Paul Revere, depicted Attucks and three of the other victims in a pool of blood beneath the headline “Bloody Massacre.” The ensuing public outcry forced a trial, in which nine soldiers were charged with murder. Only two were convicted, but all the British forces were forced to withdraw to an island in Boston Bay.

The Sons of Liberty kept Attucks's memory alive for years; until the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, they celebrated 5 March as a national holiday. Adams himself later identified that particular night as the birth of American independence. In 1888 Boston erected a monument to Attucks and the others on Boston Common. A poem written by John Boyle O'Reilly for the occasion declared that Attucks “was leader and voice that day: / The first to defy, and the first to die.” For decades after, black and white scholars alike continued to honor Attucks in histories and textbooks as the first martyr in the American War of Independence.

The Boston Massacre. This engraving by Paul Revere accomapnied an account of the massacre dated 12 March 1770. The caption included a poem beginning “Unhappy Boston! See thy sons deplore/The hallowed walks besmeared with guiltless gore . . . ” and a list of the “unhappy sufferers,” one of whom was Crispus Attucks.

New-York Historical Society.

view larger image

Historians later questioned Attucks's role in the so-called Boston Massacre. Some have suggested that he was far more a victim of historical circumstance, drunk on rum and spoiling for a fight, than a heroic champion against arbitrary authority. Others have objected to the uses of Attucks's memory, pointing out the contradiction in celebrating the death of a runaway slave in the cause of liberty for a nation that ultimately sanctioned the enslavement of just such men.

These issues aside, Attucks remains a crucial figure in African American history as well as the history of the United States. While scholars will never be sure of his precise intentions and actions on that fateful night, Attucks nevertheless offers an entry point into the experience of African Americans in colonial and Revolutionary America. The essential irony of his situation—as a runaway slave caught up in a fight for an independence he wouldn't share—is one of the most essential ironies of American history, which scholars and the public alike ought to recognize.

See also Adams, John, on African Americans; American Revolution; Black Seafarers; Fugitive Slaves; Monuments, Museums, Public Markers; Native Americans and African Americans; Resistance; Riots and Rebellions; and Seven Years' War.

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