Dates: 1723 - March 5, 1770
Occupation: sailor
Crispus Attucks, the Seaman
Little is known about Crispus Attucks, except that he was an escaped slave. It is believed that he was of African and Natick or Nantucket Indian descent. Historians also believe that he was the same escaped slave that had been referred to by William Brown in the Boston Gazette and Weekly Journal twenty years before the Boston Massacre. According to the advertisement, Attucks was a 27 year old mulatto named Crispus. The advertisement also offered a reward for his return and cautioned seamen to refrain from assisting in his escape. Seamen, however, did not adhere to Brown’s caution. From the time of Attucks’ escape and until his death, he worked as a Boston sailor on a whaling crew and as a rope maker.
Attucks is Killed in the Boston Massacre
Prior to the Boston Massacre, tension between the Boston laborers and the British troops, who often worked part-time for lower wages, was high. On March 2, 1770, with anxiety high, an altercation occurred between rope makers and three British soldiers. By March 5, tension escalated when a group of colonists began taunting, heckling, and mocking the British soldiers. The soldiers finally reached their boiling point after one solder was injured. They fired at the colonists, and when it was all over, Attucks was the first to be killed. Attucks and the four others killed were considered the first casualties in the fight for independence. Attucks and the other victims were buried in the Park Street Cemetery.
The six soldiers responsible for the five deaths were tried for their murders. Their lawyer, John Adams, who would later become the second President of the United States, argued that Attucks had attacked the soldiers first. Adams’ portrayal of Attucks as a villain was successful; all of the soldiers were acquitted.
Tributes to Crispus Attucks
In 1858, black abolitionists created the Crispus Attucks Day. Thirty years later, the Crispus Attucks Monument was built on the Boston Common.
