Crispus Attucks: First black "hero" of American Revolution or "rabble-rousing villain"?

Famous Trails ^ | Prof. Doug Linder

[yankeedame]

excerped from:

Famous Trials: The Boston Massacre
by Doug Linder (2003)

The shooting of Attucks
(detail from African-American monument)

Some called Crispus Attucks (also known as Michael Johnson), a forty-seven-old mulatto, a "hero" and a "patriot"--"the first martyr of the American Revolution."

Others, such as John Adams, lawyer for the British soldiers, saw Attucks as the rabble-rousing villain whose "mad behavior" as responsible for the carnage of March 5, 1770.

Attucks, believed to be the son of an African father and Natick Indian mother, was known around the lower docks 1770 as a hard man and a drifter. He resented the British presence in Boston. As a seaman on whaling voyages, he had worried about impressment into the British navy, while now as a part-time laborer he faced competition for work from British troops willing to do work during off-duty hours for lower wages.

On the evening of March 5, 1770, Attucks was in the front lines of a group of thirty to sixty Americans--described by John Adams as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mullatoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs"--taunting private Hugh Montgomery, the sentry stationed in front of the Custom House near King Street.

After other British soldiers rushed to Montgomery's assistance, the crowd continued to hurl insults, pieces of ice, and sticks. According to eyewitness testimony, Attucks fanned the flames, calling the soldiers "Lobsters!" and

telling the crowd that the soldiers dared not fire. Then, according to one witness, Attucks took hold of a bayonet" of one of the soldiers, Hugh Montgomery, knocking him down with a club (or "cord stick") in his other hand.

This testimony was disputed by another witness, James Bailey, who placed Attucks fifteen feet from Montgomery at the time he was struck with a stick. The assault on Montgomery brought on a hail of fire from British muskets that left five Americans dead and a half-dozen others injured.

Attucks was the first to fall, stuck twice in the chest by bullets.

In 1888, over objections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, which saw Attucks more as a villain than a hero, the Crispus Attucks Monument was dedicated on the Boston Common.

The Crispus Attucks Monument

[yankeedame]

"I neither praise nor blame. I merely relate."- Voltaire

[dandelion]

Dissent about the methods of revolution and the mechanics of military resistance were widely debated, too. Smithsonian ran an article this month about the debate and movement for the removal of Gen. Washington as the leader of the Continental Army. Evidently even George Washington had his dissenters, so I'm not surprised that they debated Mr. Attucks' actions. They were, to say the least, revolutionary.

Those who step up to the plate of history sometimes get the ball thrown at their head...

[Destro]

One of our founding fathers defended the Red Coats in court and got them found not guilty.

[fnord]

"a motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mullatoes, Irish teagues and outlandish jack tarrs"--

now THAT'S how you write descriptively

[Luke Skyfreeper]

So did Mr. Attucks, or did Mr. Attucks not, strike Private Montgomery with a stick?

If he did, was he justified in doing so?

If he did, were the British troops justified in firing upon him and the other members of the crowd?

We shall likely never know for certain.

[donmeaker]

The rabble of Boston, empanelled in a jury, found the British soldiers NOT GUILTY. As the article states, John Adams, our first vice president was the defense lawyer for the soldiers.

Of course now, there would be a military court, no civilians need apply.

[zook]

They tried to smear Jebedia Springfield the same way!