An ongoing illustrative history study
This piece originally posted 7/27/2020
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"...a stout mulatto fellow, whose very looks was enough to terrify any person."
--Defense Counsel John Adams, from the Boston Massacre trial transcripts, using verbiage to justify the British troops' violent actions (in other words, the standard "I feared for my life" defense)
Unfortunately there is precious little solid biographical information on the "First Casualty of American Independence," but hyperbole or not, Crispus Attucks is forever enshrined as the first victim of British aggression in the American colonies, and was swiftly transformed into a cause celebré to provoke outrage and to rally support for the growing independence movement. Massachusetts-born, Attucks is alternately described as an escaped slave and free-born; fully black ("Negro") or of mixed descent ("mulattoe"), or in some accounts even described as full-blooded Native American.
What is known, is that Attucks was a career sailor and dockworker, and was among a group of angry colonials who approached a nervous company of British soldiers on the evening of March 5, 1770. According to testimony, the colonials threw debris, rocks, and chunks of ice at the soldiers (keep in mind this was in early March --Boston natives know full well that chunks of ice could easily be classed as lethal weapons). In the chaos the soldiers fired back and killed Attucks and four other colonists. All five victims laid in state at Fanueil Hall before ultimately being buried at the Old Granary Burial Ground.
Years later Attucks's name again rose to iconic prominence, this time playing a particular role in the abolitionist movement. The only known depiction of Attucks (aside from the artist-unknown portrait that I have humbly attempted to replicate here), is in a popular lithograph by Paul Revere depicting the events of the Boston Massacre. This particular piece was re-created in 1858, in a manner which depicts Attucks in greater prominence at the center of the violence, and became a popular symbol in the years leading up to the Civil War. Attucks's role as perennial martyr would later be referenced by Dr. Martin Luther King in his 1964 book Why We Can't Wait. Stevie Wonder's 1976 song Black Man is referencing Attucks in its very first line: "First man to die for the flag we now hold high was a black man."
Next page - Lesson 23: Arna Wendell Bontemps