by Sally Morem

Created on: August 23, 2009

It was a snowy, bitterly cold day in Boston on March 5, 1770. But things were very hot on the street. The people of Boston were furious with orders from London to quarter British troops in private homes. These orders were part of a set of punitive acts put in place in response to Boston's resistance to British authority. Americans feared capitulation would mean the end of American freedom forever.

For several days, fighting had been taking place between mobs of Bostonians and British troops. On the 5th, things came to a head. A mob attacked a British soldier. Captain Thomas Preston called for reinforcements. Apprentices and other laborers had been out on the street jeering at the British soldiers stationed there. Throwing snowballs, rocks, sticks, and excrement. Trading insults with the troops.

The furious British aimed their muskets and fired. Three Americans died immediately - Crispus Attucks, a black sailor; rope maker Samuel Gray; and James Caldwell, another sailor. Eight others were wounded, two of whom died later.

The Sons of Liberty immediately canonized the five dead patriots, calling them martyrs to the Cause. Their bodies were taken to Faneuil Hall. Two days later, the city closed down for their funeral, which was believed to be the largest gathering of people anywhere in North America up to that time.

Crispus Attucks was born a slave in 1723 in Massachusetts, serving his master as an expert horse trader. His father was from Africa and his mother was a member of the Natick Indian tribe. "Attuck" was an Indian name for "deer."

He ran away in 1750 when he failed to convince his owner to permit him to buy his freedom. Nothing is known of his life for the next 20 years, except that he took up sailing as a profession. He may have served as a harpooner aboard whaling ships.

When he heard about the fight at Dock Square, he picked up a stick and pushed his way to the front of the crowd and shouted at them to follow him to King Street. There, he hit a soldier with the stick. The soldier fired and hit him with two musket balls.

The British soldiers were put on trial for murder. Ironically or not, Josiah Quincy and John Adams served as their defense attorneys and won their acquittal while using the trial as a means of attacking London's policies. Samuel Quincy and Robert Treat Paine served as attorneys for the prosecution. Later, two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter.

The Royal Governor attempted to head off further conflict by evacuating the occupying army from Boston. His efforts failed.

Boston won sympathy from all the colonies for what was quickly dubbed the Boston Massacre. A superb piece of political propaganda in the form of a cartoon illustration showing British soldiers firing at point blank range at Americans was used to fuel the fire. It was published in newspapers up and down the coast.

In response to the Boston Massacre, Committees of Correspondence sprang up throughout the colonies, permitting patriots to share information and to plan and coordinate action against the British.

This galvanizing event, which included the death of Crispus Attucks, led directly to the American Revolution five years later.

Attucks is buried in the Old Granary Burial Ground. In 1888, a monument to the life of Crispus Attucks was erected on Boston Common. A coin was struck in 1998 in honor of the 275th anniversary of his birth, the first black man to die for American freedom.

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