Crispus Attucks (c.1723—March 5, 1770) was the first person killed in the Boston massacre, in Boston, Massachusetts, and is widely considered to be the first American casualty in the American Revolutionary War. Aside from the event of his death, along with Samuel Gray and James Caldwell, little is known for certain about Attucks.
He may have been a Native American slave or freeman, merchant seaman and dockworker of Wampanoag and African descent.
Some circumstantial evidence suggests that his father may have been Prince Yonger, an African-born slave and his mother, Nanny Peterattucks, a Natick Native American.
Despite the lack of clarity, Attucks became an icon of the anti-slavery movement in the mid-19th century. He was held up as the first martyr of the American Revolution, while the others killed were largely ignored. In the 1850s, as the abolitionist movement gained momentum in Boston, supporters lauded Attucks as an African American who played a heroic role in the history of the United States.
Historians disagree on whether Crispus Attucks was a free man or an escaped slave, but most agree that he was of Wampanoag and African descent.
Two major sources of eyewitness testimony about the Boston Massacre, both published in 1770, did not refer to Attucks as "black" nor as a "Negro"; it appeared that Bostonians of European descent viewed him as being of mixed ethnicity.
According to a contemporary account in the Pennsylvania Gazette (Philadelphia), he was a "Mulattoe man, named Crispus Attucks, who was born in Framingham, but lately belonged to New-Providence, and was here in order to go for North Carolina . . ." Because of his mixed heritage, his story is also significant for Native Americans.
Attucks appears to have been born in Framingham, Massachusetts. While nothing is known with certainty about Attucks's family, some sources speculate that his father married a woman who originated from the Natick Tribe. Framingham had a small population of black inhabitants from at least 1716. Attucks was almost certainly of mixed African and Native American parentage and many assume he was descended from John Attuck (or Uktuck) of Massachusetts, who was hanged during King Philip's War.
In 1750 William Brown, a slave-owner in Framingham, advertised for the return of a runaway slave named Crispas. In the advertisement, Brown describes what Attucks looked like and was wearing when he was last seen.
He also said that a reward of 10 pounds would be given to whoever found and returned Attucks to him. Attucks's status at the time of the massacre as either a free black or a runaway slave has been a matter of debate for historians.
What is known is that Attucks became a sailor and he spent much of the remainder of his life at sea or working around the docks along the Atlantic seaboard. Many historians also believe that he went by the alias Michael Johnson in order to avoid being caught. He may only have been temporarily in Boston in early 1770, having recently returned from a voyage to the Bahamas. He was due to leave shortly afterwards on a ship for North Carolina
In the fall of 1768, British soldiers were sent to Boston in an attempt to control growing colonial unrest, which had led to a spate of attacks on local officials following the introduction of the Stamp Act and the subsequent Townshend Acts. Radical Whigs had coordinated waterfront mobs against the authorities. The presence of troops, instead of reducing tensions, served to further inflame them.
After dusk on March 5, 1770, a crowd of colonists confronted a sentry who had chastised a boy for complaining that an officer did not pay a barber bill. Both townspeople and a company of British soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot gathered. The colonists threw snowballs and debris at the soldiers. Attucks and a group of men with Attucks approached the Old State House armed with clubs. A soldier was struck with a piece of wood, an act some witnesses claimed was done by Attucks. Other witnesses stated that Attucks was "leaning upon a stick" when the soldiers opened fire.
Five colonists were killed and six were wounded. Attucks took two ricocheted bullets in the chest and was the first to die. County coroners Robert Pierpoint and Thomas Crafts Jr. conducted an autopsy on Attucks. Attucks' body was carried to Faneuil Hall, where it lay in state until Thursday, March 8, when he and the other victims were buried together in the same grave site in Boston's Granary Burying Ground. He lived for approximately 47 years.
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