Crispus Attucks
Crispus Attucks | |
---|---|
Framingham, Massachusetts Bay, British America | |
Died | March 5, 1770 (approximately aged 47) Boston, Massachusetts Bay, British America |
Occupation(s) | Whaler, sailor, stevedore[1] |
Known for | Death in the Boston Massacre |
Crispus Attucks (c. 1723 – March 5, 1770) was an American whaler, sailor, and
While he is widely remembered as the first American casualty of the
Attucks became an icon of the anti-slavery movement in the mid-19th century. Supporters of the abolition movement lauded him for playing a heroic role in the history of the United States.[9][10]
Early life and ethnic origins
Attucks was born in
Attucks became a sailor and whaler, and he spent much of his life at sea or working around the docks along the Atlantic seaboard. In an 1874 article in The American Historical Record, Jebe B. Fisher recounts a passage in the memoirs of
Though he is commonly described as an
Question: Did you see a mulatto among the persons who surrounded the soldiers?
Answer: I did not observe...
Question: Did they seem to be sailors or townsmen?
Answer: They were dressed some of them in the habits of sailors.
Question: Did you know the Indian who was killed?
Answer: No.
Question: Did you see any of them press on the soldiers with a cordwood stick?
Answer: No.[15]
Historians differ in opinion on Attucks's heritage: some assert his family had intermarried with African slaves, while others maintain he had no African heritage. It is widely acknowledged that Attucks had considerable Native American heritage.[16]
Biographer Mitch Kachun, as well as multiple 19th century Framingham town histories, have drawn a connection between Attucks and John Attuck of
Several persons are now living in Natick who remember the Attucks family, viz., Cris, who was killed March 5th; Sam, whose name was abbreviated into Sam Attucks, or Smattox; Sal, also known as Slattox; and Peter, called Pea Tattox [...] my mother, still living, aged 89, remembers Sal in particular, who used to be called the gourd-shell squaw, from the fact that she used to carry her rum in a gourd shell [...] the whole family are said to be the children of Jacob Peter Attucks... it has been conjectured that they are of Indian blood, but all who knew the descendants describe them as negroes.[26][27]
The letter continues, "his sister [Sal] used to say that if they had not killed Cris, Cris would have killed them."
Prince Yonger has been posited as the father of Attucks. However, according to Framingham town histories, Yonger did not arrive in Massachusetts until 1725, after Attucks was born, and did not marry Nanny Peterattucks until 1737, after which point they had children, who are noted in multiple town histories but among whom Crispus is not mentioned: "a son, who died young, and Phebe, who never married." It is possible Yonger became Attucks' stepfather in 1737, though it is unclear whether Attucks had permanently left his mother's home by that point.[28] Neither Phebe nor the son are recorded with the Attucks or Peterattucks surname.
Boston Massacre
In the fall of 1768,
After dusk on March 5, 1770, a wigmaker's apprentice mistakenly accused a British officer of not paying a bill. The officer ignored his insults but a sentry intervened after the boy began physically assaulting the officer. Both townspeople and nine soldiers of the 29th Regiment of Foot gathered. The colonists threw snowballs and debris at the soldiers. A group of men including Attucks approached the Old State House armed with clubs and sticks. 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.[30]
Five colonists were killed and six were wounded. Attucks took two ricocheted bullets in the chest and was believed to be the first to die.
Reaction and trials
Two years later United States Founding Father Samuel Adams, a cousin of John Adams, named the event the "Boston Massacre," and helped ensure it would not be forgotten.[36] Boston artist Henry Pelham (half-brother of the celebrated portrait painter John Singleton Copley) created an image of the event. Paul Revere made a copy from which prints were made and distributed. Some copies of the print show a dark-skinned man with chest wounds, presumably representing Crispus Attucks. Other copies of the print show no difference in the skin tones of the victims.[37]
The five who were killed were buried as heroes in the
Legacy and honors
- 1858, Boston-area abolitionists, including William Cooper Nell, established "Crispus Attucks Day" to commemorate him.
- 1886, the places where Crispus Attucks and Samuel Gray fell were marked by circles on the pavement. Within each circle, a hub with spokes leads out to form a wheel.
- 1888, Boston Common. It is over 25 feet high and about 10 feet wide. The "bas-relief" (raised portion on the face of the main part of the monument) portrays the Boston Massacre, with Attucks lying in the foreground. Under the scene is the date, March 5, 1770. Above the bas-relief stands a female figure, Free America, holding the broken chain of oppression in her right hand. Beneath her right foot, she crushes the royal crown of England. At the left of the figure is an eagle. Thirteen stars are cut into one of the faces of the monument. Beneath these stars in raised letters are the names of the five men who were killed that day: Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, James Caldwell, Samuel Maverick, and Patrick Carr. Some men died a day later. Although that year leaders of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the New England Historic Genealogical Society opposed the creation of the Crispus Attucks memorial, since the 20th century both organizations have acknowledged his role and promoted interest in black history and genealogy.
- 1940, Attucks was honored with 1 of the 33 dioramas at the American Negro Exposition in Chicago.[41]
- 1998, the United States Treasury released the "Black Revolutionary War Patriots Silver Dollar" coin featuring Attucks' image on the obverse side. Funds from sales of the coin were intended for a proposed Black Revolutionary War Patriots Memorial in Washington, D.C.[42]
- 2002, the Afrocentrist scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Crispus Attucks as among the 100 Greatest African Americans.[43]
- Institutions named for Attucks include the Dorchester, Massachusetts; Crispus Attucks Place, a residential street in Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts; and the Crispus Attucks Bridge in Framingham, Massachusetts.
- The Wellcome Library, in London, owns a notebook bound in what a note with it claims is Attucks' skin,[44] although the library believes the book's leather actually comes from camel, horse, or goat.[45]
In popular culture
- "First man to die for the flag we now hold high was a black man" is a line from Stevie Wonder's 1976 song "Black Man".[46]
- "Crispus Attucks, the first blasted" is a line from Nas's 2008 song "You Can't Stop Us Now".
- The poet John Boyle O'Reilly wrote the following poem when the monument was finally unveiled:
And to honor Crispus Attucks who was the leader and voice that day: The first to defy, and the first to die, with Maverick, Carr, and Gray. Call it riot or revolution, or mob or crowd as you may, such deaths have been seeds of nations, such lives shall be honored for aye [...]
- Melvin Tolsonbegins his poem "Dark Symphony" with the lines: "Black Crispus Attucks taught / Us how to die / Before white Patrick Henry’s bugle breath / Uttered the Vertical / Transmitting cry: / 'Yea, give me liberty or give me death.'"
- 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 provided a potent message of moral courage.
- In the successful sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Will Smith names Crispus Attucks as one of many inspirational African-American figures in history when he tries to explain why he is failing history.
- In February 2012, Wayne Brady, J. B. Smoove, and Michael Kenneth Williams, as well as Keith David, appeared in a satirical rap music video about Crispus Attucks.[47]
- In the Netflix series Luke Cage, based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, there is a housing development called the Crispus Attucks Complex, named in honor of Attucks. Cage also explains Attucks' role in the Boston Massacre at the end of the second episode of the series.[48]
- Spike Lee's 2020 film Da 5 Bloods refers to Crispus Attucks.
References
- ^ "Africans in America – Part 2 – Crispus Attucks". PBS. Retrieved 1 November 2011.
- ^ "Africans in America: Crispus Attucks". PBS. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
In 1770, Crispus Attucks, a black man, became the first casualty of the American Revolution when he was shot and killed in what became known as the Boston Massacre. Although Attucks was credited as the leader and instigator of the event, debate raged for over as century as to whether he was a hero and a patriot, or a rabble-rousing villain.
- ^ "Crispus Attucks". Biography.com. 26 March 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2022.
Crispus Attucks was an African American man killed during the Boston Massacre and believed to be the first casualty of the American Revolution.
- ^ ISBN 978-1108577434.
While Attucks is widely remembered as the first American casualty of the Revolutionary War, eleven-year-old Christopher Seider had been shot a few weeks earlier by the British.
- ^ "Christopher Seider: The First Casualty in the American Revolutionary Cause". New England Historical Society. 2015-07-31. Retrieved 2019-02-05.
- ISBN 978-0190092498.[page needed]
- ^ "Crispus Attucks Family". Crispus Attucks. The Crispus Attucks Museum. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
- ^ Pennsylvania Gazette. March 22, 1770. p. 2.
- S2CID 144216986.
- ISBN 978-0199910861.[page needed]
- ^ Thatcher, Benjamin Bussey (1835). Traits of the Tea Party: Being a Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, One of the Last of Its Survivors : with a History of that Transaction, Reminiscences of the Massacre, and the Siege, and Other Stories of Old Times. Harper & Brothers. pp. 103–104.
- ^ Parr & Swope, p. 45.
- ^ Kachun, "From Forgotten Founder to Indispensable Icon."
- ^ Mulatto#cite note-6
- ^ "Potter's American Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine of History, Literature, Science and Art". 1872.
- ^ "Potter's American Monthly: An Illustrated Magazine of History, Literature, Science and Art". 1872.
- ^ Parr & Swope, p. 44.
- ^ Kachun, "From Forgotten Founder to Indispensable Icon"
- ^ Roger Williams, A key into the language of America p. 106 (London: Gregory Dexter, 1643)
- ^ Palliser, Jerome J. (March 5, 2014). "The hidden life of Crispus Attucks". Journal of the American Revolution.
- ^ Kachun, "From Forgotten Founder to Indispensable Icon" p. 26
- ^ Temple, Josiah Howard (1887). History of Framingham, Massachusetts: Early Known as Danforth's Farms, 1640–1880; with a Genealogical Register. town of Framingham. p. 668.
peterattucks, jacob.
- ^ Perry, Arthur Latham (1894). Origins in Williamstown. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 234.
peter attucks.
- ^ Niles, Grace Greylock (1912). The Hoosac Valley: Its Legends and Its History. G.P. Putnam's Sons. p. 533.
peter attucks.
- ISBN 978-1429022736.
- ISBN 978-1574780192.
- ^ "16 Mar 1860, Page 2 – The Liberator at". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2022-06-05.
- ISBN 978-1429022736.
- Northeastern University Press, 2001), p. 56.
- ^ The Trial of William Wemms, James Hartegan, William M'Cauley, Hugh White, Matthew Killroy, William Warren, John Carrol, and Hugh Montgomery, soldiers in His Majesty's 29th Regiment of Foot, for the murder of Crispus Attucks, Samuel Gray, Samuel Maverick, James Caldwell, and Patrick Carr, on Monday-evening, the 5th of March,1867 at the Superior Court of Judicature, Court of Assize, and General Goal Delivery, held at Boston, the 27th day of November, 1770, by adjournment, before the Hon. Benjamin Lynde, John Cushing, Peter Oliver, and Chris Metzler, Esquires, justices of said court (Boston: J. Fleeming, 1770); and A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston (New York: John Doggett, Jr., 1849).
- ^ The Trial of William Wemms; and A Short Narrative of the Horrid Massacre in Boston.
- ^ Hiller B. Zobel, The Boston Massacre. (W. W. Norton and Company, 1970).[ISBN missing][page needed]
- OCLC 953617831.
- ^ "The Murder of Crispus Attucks". Library of Congress.
- ^ One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- ^ Fradin, Dennis B. Samuel Adams: The Father of American Independence. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998. pp. 63–66 [ISBN missing]
- ^ "Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Massacre, 1770", description of item in collection of The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, accessed August 22, 2016 at http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/road-revolution/resources/paul-revere%E2%80%99s-engraving-boston-massacre-1770
- Boston, Massachusetts: City of Boston. Retrieved 4 August 2011.
The gravestones' original haphazard configuration was rearranged into straighter rows over to [sic] the years to accommodate both nineteenth-century aesthetics and the modern lawnmower.
- ISBN 978-1476620428.
- ^ "Copp's Hill | Historic Burying Grounds | City of Boston". cityofboston.gov. 14 July 2016. Retrieved 2017-06-08.
- ^ "American Negro Exposition 1863–1940, July 4 to Sept. 2, 1940, Chicago, IL" (PDF). Living History of Illinois. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-03-03.
- ^ USmint.gov Archived 2015-12-25 at the Wayback Machine, United States Mint: "Plinky's Coin of the Month February 2000"
- ^ Molefi Kete Asante, 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2002).
- ^ "A notebook allegedly covered in human skin".
- ^ Schuessler, Jennifer; Jacobs, Julia (19 April 2024). "Books Bound in Human Skin: An Ethical Quandary at the Library". The New York Times. Retrieved 19 April 2024.
- ISBN 978-0199714049.
- ^ Brady, Wayne (16 February 2012). "Crispus Attucks 'Today Was a Good Day' with Wayne Brady, JB Smoove & Michael Kenneth Williams". Retrieved 17 February 2012.
- ^ Schremph, Kelly (30 September 2016). "Is The Crispus Attucks Complex A Real Place? 'Luke Cage' Is Putting An Important Figure In The Spotlight". Retrieved 30 September 2016.
- Kachun, Mitch. First Martyr of Liberty: Crispus Attucks in American Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Nell, William C. The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, 1855.
- Parr, James L. & Swope, Kevin A. Framingham: Legends and Lore. The History Press, 2009.
External links
- "Crispus Attucks", Africans in America, PBS
- Crispus Attucks Association, Inc.
- "The Murder of Crispus Attucks", Library of Congress exhibit, including trial documents.
- "Trial of Murderers", Framingham Website
- "The Knock-Kneed Man" a radio presentation, by Richard Durham, in the series Destination Freedom