March 5, 1770. It's a cold, snowy winter morning in Boston, Massachusetts. By the end of this day, America will never be the same.
In the first half of the 18th century, the American colonies were prospering. From weak settlements to relatively powerful economic and political regions, the colonies were starting to form their own identities, separate from those of their British overlords. Yet, the colonists were content to remain under the crown's control in London because they were allowed to do as they pleased. Although Britain imposed strict laws regulating commercial activity in the colonies through the Navigation Acts of the mid-1600s, they chose to adopt the unofficial policy of salutary neglect by the start of the 1700s in which the enforcement of said laws would be practically nonexistent.
By the 1750s however, war erupted between Britain and France in North America over control of the continent. The French and Indian War, considered an extension of the Seven Years' War back in Europe, raged from 1754 to 1763 with the British ultimately defeating the French and establishing control over all of North America (well not exactly, as the Spanish still firmly held onto Florida, Mexico, and Central America, and various European empires had strongholds in the Caribbean). The war however was costly, and Britain had to find a way to pay for it.
Britain began imposing strict duties on the colonists, of which they did not approve. The colonists didn't believe the British Parliament had the right to tax the colonies without their say in the matter; "Taxation without Representation" became the rallying cry as the colonists began protesting en masse against the tyranny of their British rulers.
New England became the center of the rebellion, where the most radical and violent colonists expressed their discontent. To maintain order in the region, Britain sent troops to Boston to act as keepers of the peace, but for Bostonians, this was seen as more proof of the evil tyranny of the British. Small clashes erupted between the colonists and the soldiers, and tensions peaked.
On the morning of March 5, 1770, an apprentice wig-maker hurled an insult toward a British soldier. The soldier retaliated by whacking the colonist in the head with the butt of his musket. A crowd gathered and surrounded the soldier on the steps of the custom house. Captain Thomas Preston and a group of reinforcements arrived and, bayonets fixed, stood as the mob began throwing oyster shells, snowballs, and blocks of ice at the soldiers. At the front of this mob, a tall, strong man stood above the crowd, brandishing a wooden stick.
His name was Crispus Attucks, forever known as the first man to die for American independence.
Crispus Attucks was born in 1723 near Framingham, Massachusetts. His parents were both slaves: his dad was Black and his mom was a Wampanoag Indian. Attucks grew up as property of Framingham plantation owner William Browne but managed to escape when he was 27, in 1750.
As a runaway slave, Attucks was only able to find work in Boston as a seaman and spent the rest of his adult life on whaling ships and working as a rope-maker.
A runaway slave, Attucks had to work hard to establish himself as a free citizen in New England. Attucks despised the presence of British troops in America. Because of poor wages, soldiers were forced to look for other jobs when they were off-duty, and so Attucks believed that the British threatened his job security. Additionally, as a sailor, he faced the danger of impressment into the Royal Navy when at sea. His resentment towards the British, like the majority of Bostonians at the time, was apparent.
As the mob gathered around the steps of the custom house on that March morning, Crispus Attucks made his way to the front. Aggressive and rowdy, Attucks displayed his anger against the British quite strongly. Waving a wooden stick in Captain Preston's face, Attucks was seen by the soldiers as quite a menacing man. Standing at 6'2" (very tall for the standards of the age) and taking a robust, muscular stature, Attucks was described as "a stout mulatto fellow, whose very looks [were] enough to terrify any person".
As Attucks and the mob continued to harass the soldiers, Captain Preston kept them at bay. The crowd would taunt the soldiers by yelling "Fire". Attucks knocked away a soldier's gun and punched him in the face, then grabbed his bayonet with his other hand and shouted at the crowd to "kill the dogs; knock them over!"
At that moment, someone from behind the custom house steps yelled "Fire".
In the chaos, one of the soldiers fired his musket, and the others, believing Preston had given the order to shoot, followed suit. Rifle shots pierced the air as the crowd screamed.
Crispus Attucks was shot twice in the chest and died almost immediately. He was one of five colonists to be killed by British soldiers in what became known as the Boston Massacre.
The event is widely known as the spark that set off the fight for American independence. From that point on, Americans were no longer discontent with the British, but downright outraged. The Boston Massacre was the first in a series of incidents that eventually led to the American War of Independence in 1775.
Crispus Attucks was the first man to fall to the bullets of the redcoats that March morning. He was hailed as a Boston hero.
Samuel Adams, leader of the New England radicals, organized for his body to lay in state at Boston's Faneuil Hall. Later, over half the city's population joined in the procession that carried his and his fellow victims' caskets to a common grave.
Crispus Attucks shouldn't even have been up at the front of that crowd. A fugitive slave, he faced the risk of being arrested and returned to slavery. But, as a tough, fearless fighter, Attucks stepped up to protect his fellow citizens and ensure his basic economic survival. A victim of the system of discrimination he faced, even in relatively liberal New England, as a person of color he was forced to defend his job from the competition of the British soldiers.
Although he certainly didn't go up to those soldiers with any ideological convictions on America's freedom, he went up and defended his freedom to economic success. Over the next 250 years, as America gained its independence and established itself as the most powerful and influential nation on the planet, Crispus Attucks became not only a hero of the fight for racial equality but an American hero.
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