Crispus
Attucks
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free encyclopedia
Crispus Attucks born March 5 1723-1770 was a Bostonian
killed at the Boston Massacre. Very little is known for
certain about his life. He is thought to have been a
runaway slave with mixed African and Native American
ancestry. An October 2, 1750 advertisement placed in the
Boston Gazette may refer to him: "ran away from his Master
William Brown from Framingham, Massachusetts, United
States, on the 30th of Sept. last, a Mollato 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." The owner offered
a reward of £10 for his return.
 Attucks
had become a sailor and laborer. 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.
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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. |
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 outnumbered
troops. Eventually, despite attempts by their officer to
prevent it, the eight soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot
fired, killing five members of the crowd: Attucks and four
white men.Samuel Adams's cousin, John Adams, 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.
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. |
