Independence Day Hero–Crispus Attucks

As you enjoy a July 4th picnic and watch fireworks, don’t forget about Crispus Attucks, and often forgotten African-American hero of the Revolutionary War.

In 1770, he became the first casualty of the American Revolution, shot and killed during the Boston Massacre. Over the centuries Attucks has been called “the first to defy, the first to die,” a true martyr.

Not much is known about Attucks, who was mixed race, black and Native American. Despite some debate, he was believed to be an escaped slave. His owner, William Brown, placed an ad in the Boston Gazette and Weekly Journal in 1750 offering a reward for his return. He described Attucks as a “Mulatto fellow, about 27 Years of Age, named Crispus, 6 feet 2 inches high, short cur’l hair, his knees nearer together than common.”

Attucks managed to avoid capture and became a sailor, working on a whaling crew that sailed out of Boston harbor. At other times he was employed as a rope maker.

Attucks’ occupation as a seaman made him particularly vulnerable to the presence of the British. He got pulled into the fray during a squirmish on March 5, 1770. Attucks and four other Americans were killed and six were wounded in what came to be called the Boston Massacre. He was the first one shot, taking two bullets in the chest.

Martin Luther King, Jr., referred to Crispus Attucks in the introduction of Why We Can’t Wait (1964) as an example of a man whose contribution to history, though much-overlooked by standard histories, provided a potent message of moral courage.

Learn more about Attucks here.