Crispus Attucks
First to die in the American Revolution…?
African and Indigenous background
Died after being hit with two musket balls in the Boston Massacre
Sailor
“Attucks” is the Natick for “deer”
Attucks and the other slain Patriots were portrayed by John Adams as “a motley rabble of saucy boys” (etc.; I’m trimming the quote here)
Most of the British were acquitted
Years later, Abolitionist William Cooper Nell featured Attucks’ death in his book as “the first in the cause for liberty”
