Crispus Attucks 1723?–1770
First Hero of the Revolutionary War
Crispus Attucks was forced into slavery as a child. His mother was a Natick Indian and his father was an enslaved African in Massachusetts. In 1750, when he was about 27 years old, Attucks escaped from slavery. He traveled to Boston, where he worked as a sailor on whaling ships.
The British treated the colonists unfairly in Boston. As a sailor, Attucks could have been forced to join the British navy. Attucks was angry about the high taxes the British charged the colonists. He saw that many colonists felt the same way. Fights often broke out between soldiers and colonists.
On March 5, 1770, Attucks led a group of angry sailors to protest. They threw snowballs and sticks at a group of soldiers. The soldiers fired shots into the crowd. When it was over, Crispus Attucks and four other men were dead. Patriots remembered Crispus Attucks as the first hero to die for their cause. African American soldiers in the Revolutionary War named their companies “Attucks Guards” in memory of him.
Critical Thinking
Why did soldiers and colonists fight in the streets of Boston during the years before the Revolutionary War?