DEATH OF CRISPUS ATTUCKS.
While leading an attack against British troops in Boston.
But it was not until 1770, when the fervor of rebellion had influenced the people of the colonies, and Capt. Preston, with the King's soldiers, appeared in King Street, Boston, to enforce the decree of the British Parliament, that the people met the troops face to face. This lent force to the rebellious spirit against the Mother Country, which the people of the United Northern Colonies had felt called upon to manifest in public meetings and by written resolutions. The soldiers were regarded as invaders. And while the leading men of Boston were discussing and deliberating as to what steps should be taken to drive the British troops out of the town, Crispus Attucks, a negro runaway slave,[1] led a crowd against the soldiers, with brave words of encouragement. The soldiers fired upon them, killing the negro leader, Attucks, first, and then two white men, and mortally wounding two others. A writer says:
"The presence of the British soldiers in King Street, excited the patriotic indignation of the people. The whole community was stirred, and sage counsellors were deliberating and writing and talking about the public grievances. But it was not for the 'wise and prudent' to be first to act against the encroachments of arbitrary power. A motley rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish Jeazues, and outlandish Jack tars, (as John Adams described them in his plea in defence of the soldiers), could not restrain their emotion, or stop to enquire if what they must do was according to the letter of the law. Led by Crispus Attucks, the mulatto slave, and shouting, 'The way to get rid of these soldiers is to attack the main guard; strike at the root; this is the nest;' with more valor than discretion they rushed to King Street, and were fired upon by Capt. Preston's company. Crispus Attucks was the first to fall; he and Samuel Gray and Jonas Caldwell were killed on the spot. Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were mortally wounded. The excitement which followed was intense. The bells of the town were rung. An impromptu town-meeting was held, and an immense assembly was gathered. Three days after, on the 17th, a public funeral of the martyr took place. The shops in Boston were closed, and all the bells of Boston and the neighboring towns were rung. It is said that a greater number of persons assembled on this occasion, than ever before gathered on this continent for a similar purpose. The body of Crispus Attucks, the mulatto, had been placed in Fanueil Hall with that of Caldwell; both being strangers in the city. Maverick was buried from his mother's house in Union Street, and Gray, from his brother's, in Royal Exchange Lane. The four hearses formed a junction in King Street, and then the procession marched in columns six deep, with a long file of coaches belonging to the most distinguished citizens, to the Middle Burying Ground, where the four victims were deposited in one grave; over which a stone was placed with the inscription:
'Long as in Freedom's cause the wise contend,
Dear to your country shall your fame extend;
While to the world the lettered stone shall tell
Where Caldwell, Attucks, Gray and Maverick fell.'
"The anniversary of this event was publicly commemorated in Boston by an oration and other exercises every year until our National Independence was achieved, when the Fourth of July was substituted for the Fifth of March, as the more proper day for a general celebration. Not only was the event commemorated, but the martyrs who then gave up their lives were remembered and honored."
Thus the first blood for liberty shed in the colonies was that of a real slave and a negro. As the news of the affray spread, the people became aroused throughout the land. Soon, in every town and village, meetings were held, and the colonists urged to resist the oppressive and aggressive measures which the British Parliament had passed, and for the enforcement of which troops had been stationed in Boston, and as we see, had shot down those who dared to oppose them. In all the colonies slavery was at this time tolerated, though the number of slaves was by no means large in the Northern Colonies, nor had there been a general ill treatment of them, as in after years in the Southern States. Their war-like courage, it is true, had been slackened, but their manhood had not been crushed.
Crispus Attucks was a fair representative of the colonial negro, as they evinced thereafter, during the prolonged struggle which resulted in the Independence of the United States. When the tocsin sounded "to arms, to arms, ye who would be free," the negro responded to the call, and side by side with the white patriots of the colonial militia, bled and died.
Mr. Bancroft in his history of the United States says:
"Nor should history forget to record, that as in the army at Cambridge, so also in this gallant band, the free negroes of the colony had their representatives. For the right of free negroes to bear arms in the public defense was, at that day, as little disputed in New England as other rights. They took their place, not in a separate corps, but in the ranks with the white men; and their names may be seen on the pension-rolls of the country, side by side with those of other soldiers of the Revolution."