Posted on 05/29/2017 8:09:56 AM PDT by Texas Eagle
As we remember our brothers and sisters who have sacrificed and continue to sacrifice so we can have Liberty, let us also remember those that history denies their due glory. How many know that the first man to die in the Revolutionary War was a black man named Crispus Attucks? Crispus Attucks was freed slave who had become a whaler for the merchant marines. Here is a poem written about Attucks by John Boyle O’Riley:
(Excerpt) Read more at krisannehall.com ...
On a somewhat brighter note, Oscar Robertson (the Big “O”), college and NBA basketball star, attended Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis, Indiana. When I taught school in Northwest Indiana some 40 years ago (back in the 1970s), that was the first time I ever heard of Crispus Attucks (because of Robertson).
The Boston Massacre, of which I had obviously heard, always elicited visions of some huge confrontation, but would probably be deemed a “minor peaceful protest” by our modern day media. History (as well as beauty) is in the eye of the beholder.
Well said.
I learned of Crispus Attucks as a schoolboy in the sixties, but today's schools have expunged all mention of black patriots from history texts. Their very existence undermines the leftist narrative of 'evil whites victimizing non-white people', so they had to go.
I'll bet you dollars to donuts most young blacks today have never heard of Booker T Washington.
Hancock’s most glaring fault was that he was a shameless self-promoter. He would have his own TV show today.
LOL! Are you aware of some of the antics Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty engaged in?
Lord o' mercy.
I've never heard him called that before. Care to elaborate?
Those “Thugs” were fir tge most part dock workers and sailors who had watched their livelihoods erode because of British trade policies and their brothers grabbed by British press gangs to serve in the floating hell holes called British Warships until they bodies fell apart. If I were alive then, I hope I would have had the courage to be such a “thug”
Ah....so this is all just your opinion. I figured as much.
I suppose it never occurred to you that Crispus Attucks was just one among hundreds of angry Americans involved in that incident, and that their collective anger was based upon the root issues that sparked the revolution.
No, Attucks must have been a thug, because BLM and the Trayvons of America are all thugs. Couldn't have possibly been a patriot, because he was black = thug.
Just damn...
Yep. Provided plenty of degenerate thugs an excuse to act out under the cover of a good cause.
"No, Attucks must have been a thug, because BLM and the Trayvons of America are all thugs. Couldn't have possibly been a patriot, because he was black = thug."
I never said that. The imagery of anti-social thugs trying to taunt the police into reacting fits perfecting with the actions of Attucks. I notice that you discarded my reference to Antifa, who are mostly privileged white liberals, to make your narrative fit.
Have you read any of the posts on the thread?
Attucks WAS a thug and an armed rioter, not a hero or patriot.
Attucks and the other rioters assaulted the guard and the relief force, throwing clubs, chunks of ice, snow balls and oyster shells and assorted filth at the soldiery while screaming at them and daring them to fire.
Ever stood guard duty, been part of the reaction force or faced demonstrators?
I don’t know about 1770, but today deadly force is authorized to prevent or halt the commission of serious crimes; arson, rape, murder or serious bodily injury to oneself or another or other situations covered in the special orders for the post, ie, keeping intruders from breaching perimeter or interior fences surrounding stored arms or munitions for example.
Attacking soldiers on guard duty is an excellent way to get shot.
Attucks and the other dead of the “massacre” brought their deaths on themselves.
I don't know why you're singling out Crispus Attucks as a "thug". He was just one of hundreds of people who confronted the British troops that day. Were they all "thugs"?
Hundreds of townsfolk would not have rioted over something as trivial as a soldier's mistreatment of the barber's boy. No, they had much deeper resentments fueling their ire. Resentments that led to the revolution.
You have a mighty poor opinion of our ancestors' motivations in that incident. Do you also object to the revolution itself? Was the Revolutionary Army a rabble rousing bunch of "thugs"?
Geez...
Yes. Hundreds of ordinary townsfolk risked their lives because a soldier slapped the barber's boy. They were a rabble of miscreants and "thugs", just looking for any excuse to defy the authorities, and wreak havoc on any convenient pretense, because they were no better than BLM.
Those colonists had NO underlying grievances or motivations fueling their anger that day. Just a dirty crowd of malcontents, intent on disrupting the peace and tranquility of America's wonderful life under the boot heel of King George III.
Right.
Thug, schmug.
Crispus Attucks was a bit of a brawler, but he certainly wasn't the sort of lowlife criminal implied by use of the term "thug".
History has made its judgement on Crispus Attucks, and has portrayed him somewhat more favorably than your rather harsh characterization. He was a Patriot who supported the cause—"First to defy, first to die".
Jeez, man, it's Memorial Day. The guy was an unarmed man who was shot dead by Redcoat at The Boston Massacre...
This is why I love the history threads. Hstorical figures are people with good and bad aspects. We can’t see them in absolute terms, but as a complex blend of traits and circumstances. Our job is to know all the facts possible about them and factor in the context of their times.
That today is Memorial Day, is precisely the reason I feel compelled to defy that Attucks’ name belongs alongside those who truly merit remembrance as American heroes.
Great post.
No of course not, he doesn’t fit the anti-American narrative.
Guess we’re going to have do some more research, eh? Excerpt.
The first death in the Revolutionary War was an 11-year-old boy. The second death was truth.
By DEVIN FARACI May. 28, 2012
Every American school child knows about the Boston Massacre. Many know about Crispus Attucks, the runaway slave who died that day. But few, if any, know about Christopher Seider, the 11 year old boy whose death is considered the first of the Revolutionary War, or the truth behind the Incident on King Street, as the British called it.
It’s always been about taxes in America. There are a lot of secondary reasons for the Revolutionary War, but the main reason that the rebellion happened is because the Colonists were right pissed off about taxation. The argument between the Crown and the Colony about taxes had been long and ugly before the war began, but in 1768 it reached the boiling point. The Townshend Act is what sent everybody over the edge, the latest in a series of taxes on the Colonies that were attempting to succeed where the Stamp Act had failed. The Townshend Act was also partially about punishing the Colonies for their rebellion against the Quartering Act*.
The idea was that while the Stamp Act was a direct tax on goods, the Townshend Act would be more invisible as a general tax on imported goods. The colonists were infuriated, and unrest began. The unrest took the form of hectoring mobs, and the local government in Boston was essentially on the side of the mobs. The British customs officer asked for help from the military, and in 1768 the HMS Romney, a fifty gun warship, showed up in Boston Harbor. One of the first things it did was seize John Hancock’s boat Liberty, which was a smuggling ship that had locked up a customs official onboard rather than pay taxes on the goods it was surreptitiously importing**.
The Romney also began impressing the locals. I don’t mean that it showed off for them, I mean it started shanghaiing Bostonians to serve on board. This was a deeply unpopular practice.
For two years tensions rose in Boston. Two regiments of red coats were stationed in the city. Small skirmishes broke out constantly. But the shit didn’t really hit the fan until 1770.
On February 22nd a group of boys started an angry mob outside the home of a British customs agent, as boys will do. Adults started to join the group, and they took up the good natured Boston tradition of throwing rocks through the windows of the house. One of the rocks hit the customs agent’s wife, and seeking to disperse the mob, he fired his gun into its general direction, looking to scare them off.
Unfortunately he shot 11 year old Christopher Seider, son of German immigrants. The boy lingered for a few hours and died that evening. Samuel Adams, chief propagandist of the rebels, staged the biggest funeral Boston had ever seen. The boy’s death became a rallying point for the colonists who were getting angrier and angrier with the Crown.
You were the one who brought up Sam Adams and John Hancock!
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