Who was Crispus Attucks?

Crispus Attucks was a black man who became the first casualty of the American Revolution. He was shot by the British in the Boston Massacre as the leader of the protest that led to the massacre.

Attucks was the child of a black father and Indian mother. He spent time as a slave, a ship's deckhand and a rope maker. At all of these jobs, he felt the sting of British rules, such as the impressment of sailors into the British Navy. In 1858 abolitionists began celebrating Crispus Attucks Day, and a monument of to Crispus Attucks has sat in the Boston Commons since 1888.