Crispus attucks
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Black History Boston: The hero of the Boston Massacre, Crispus Attucks
Crispus Attucks was born around 1723 in Framingham, Massachusetts. In 1750, Crispus was believed to be a runaway that a slave master had put out an advertisement for to return to Framingham. However, he managed to escape slavery, spending the next two decades on trading ships and whaling vessels.
Tensions escalated in Boston as British Control tightened. As a seaman, he was constantly in fear of the threat of being forced into the British Navy. In other areas, British soldiers regularly took part-time work away from colonists.
On March 5, 1770, tensions reached its peak. After an altercation between colonists and British soldier Private Hugh White, more than 50 people surrounded Private White, led by Crispus Attucks. They taunted the private.
As more soldiers arrived to back him up, including the captain, they began loading their muskets and pointing them at a crowd that was now between 200 and 300 colonists. Snowballs and small objects, and taunts were continually thrown at the sold
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Crispus Attucks
18th-century African-American stevedore; first victim of the Boston Massacre
This article is about the 18th century American. For other uses, see Crispus Attucks (disambiguation).
Crispus Attucks (c. 1723 – March 5, 1770) was an American whaler, sailor, and stevedore of African and Native American descent who is traditionally regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre, and as a result the first American killed in the American Revolution.[2][3][4]
Although he is widely remembered as the first American casualty of the American Revolutionary War, 11-year-old Christopher Seider was shot a few weeks earlier by customs officer Ebenezer Richardson on February 22, 1770.[4][5] Historians disagree on whether Attucks was a free man or an escaped slave, but most agree that he was of Wampanoag and African descent.[6][7] Two major sources of eyewitness testimony about the Boston Massacre published in 1770 did not refer to him as black or as a Negro; it appears he was instead viewe
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Crispus Attucks, a sailor of mixed African and Indigenous ancestry, died in Boston on March 5, 1770 after British soldiers fired two musket balls into his chest.1 His death and that of four other men at the hands of the 29th Regiment became known as the Boston Massacre. Death instantly transformed Attucks from an anonymous sailor into a martyr for a burgeoning revolutionary cause.
The life of Crispus Attucks is far less documented than his death. Early coverage and investigations into the details of the Massacre refer to Attucks as Michael Johnson,2 a name he may have used as an intentional alias. After uncovering his actual name, newspapers published a few details about his life, notably his profession, a sailor; his birth in Framingham, Massachusetts; his current residence of New Providence in the Bahamas; and his ship's destination of North Carolina.3 His last name, "Attucks," is of Indigenous origin, deriving from the Natick word for "deer."4 Witness testimony during the Massacre trial interchangeably used "mulatto" or "Indian" to describe Attucks, indicating his mi
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