Who Was Crispus Attucks? The Life and Legacy of the Boston Massacre’s First Victim
Crispus Attucks was the first man killed in the Boston Massacre of 1770. Here is what historians know about his life and how Boston has remembered him.
On the night of March 5, 1770, British soldiers fired into a crowd on King Street in Boston. Five men died. The first to fall was Crispus Attucks, a sailor and laborer of African and Native American descent. In the centuries since, he has become one of the most remembered figures of the American Revolution.
What we know about his life
Much about Attucks’s early life is uncertain, but historians have pieced together some details. He is generally believed to have had African and Native American ancestry, with Native roots often linked to the Wampanoag or the Natick community in Massachusetts.
In 1750, an advertisement in a Boston newspaper offered a reward for the return of an enslaved man named Crispas who had run away from his enslaver in Framingham. Many historians believe this was Crispus Attucks. If so, he had escaped slavery about twenty years before his death and spent much of the time since working at sea and on the docks.
The night of the massacre
By 1770, tension between Bostonians and British troops stationed in the town was high. Soldiers competed with local workers for jobs, and arguments and fights were common. On March 5, a confrontation outside the Custom House on King Street, now State Street, drew a growing crowd. Some people threw snowballs, ice and objects at the soldiers.
The soldiers opened fire. Attucks was killed, along with Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr. Several others were wounded.
The trial
The soldiers and their captain were put on trial. John Adams, a lawyer who would later become president, agreed to defend them because he believed everyone deserved a fair trial. Most of the soldiers were acquitted, and two were convicted of manslaughter. During the trial, Attucks was portrayed by the defense as a leader of the crowd.
How Boston remembered him
The five victims were given a large public funeral and buried together in the Granary Burying Ground, where visitors can still see their grave marker. Over time, Attucks’s memory took on special meaning:
- In the 1850s, Black abolitionists in Boston, including the historian William Cooper Nell, held Crispus Attucks Day celebrations to highlight Black contributions to American freedom.
- In 1888, the Crispus Attucks Monument, also called the Boston Massacre Memorial, was dedicated on Boston Common.
- Later generations of civil rights advocates pointed to Attucks as a symbol of Black patriotism and sacrifice.
Visiting the sites
You can trace Attucks’s story along the Freedom Trail. A circle of cobblestones near the Old State House marks the area of the massacre, and the Granary Burying Ground holds the victims’ grave. The monument on Boston Common stands near Tremont Street. The Old State House museum, run by Revolutionary Spaces, also offers exhibits and programs about the massacre; check its website for hours.
Crispus Attucks left no letters or speeches. We know him mostly through how he died and how others chose to remember him. That remembrance, kept alive by Black Bostonians in particular, ensured that the first person to die for the cause of American liberty would not be forgotten.
