The Boston Massacre was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which a group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of three or four hundred who were abusing them verbally and throwing various missiles. The event was heavily publicized as "a massacre" by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. British troops had been stationed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay since 1768 in order to support crown-appointed officials and to enforce unpopular Parliamentary legislation.
Crispus Attucks was an American whaler, sailor, and stevedore of African and Native American descent, commonly regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre and thus the first American killed in the American Revolution. While he is widely remembered as the first American casualty of the Revolutionary War, eleven-year-old Christopher Seider had been shot a few weeks earlier by the British. Historians disagree on whether Attucks was a free man or an escaped slave, but most agree that he was of Native American and African descent. Two major sources of eyewitness testimony about the Boston Massacre published in 1770 did not refer to him as "black" nor as a "Negro"; it appears that Bostonians viewed him as being of mixed ethnicity. According to a contemporaneous account in the Pennsylvania Gazette, he was a "Mulattoe man, named Crispus Attucks, who was born in Framingham, but lately belonged to New Providence, and was here in order to go for North Carolina."
Prince Whipple (1750–1796) was an African American slave and later freedman. He was a soldier and a bodyguard during the American Revolution under his enslaver General William Whipple of the New Hampshire Militia who granted him his freedom after the war. Prince is depicted in Emanuel Leutze's painting Washington Crossing the Delaware and Thomas Sully's painting Passage of the Delaware.
Crispus Attucks High School is a high school of the Indianapolis Public Schools in Indianapolis, in the U.S. state of Indiana. It is named for Crispus Attucks, an African American patriot killed during what became known as the Boston Massacre. The school was built near Indiana Avenue northwest of downtown Indianapolis and opened on September 12, 1927, when it was the only public high school in the city designated specifically for African Americans. Despite the passage of federal and state school desegregation laws, Attucks was the city's only high school with a single-race student body in 1953, largely due to residential segregation, and remained a segregated school until 1971. Attucks was converted to a junior high school in 1986, due to declining enrollment, and a middle school in 1993. It became a medical magnet high school in 2006, partially due to the school's proximity to the campus of the Indiana University School of Medicine and its associated hospitals.
Lewis Hayden escaped slavery in Kentucky with his family and escaped to Canada. He established a school for African Americans before moving to Boston, Massachusetts to aid in the abolition movement. There he became an abolitionist, lecturer, businessman, and politician. Before the American Civil War, he and his wife Harriet Hayden aided numerous fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad, often sheltering them at their house.
Seymour Burr (1754/1762–1837) was an African-American slave in the Connecticut Colony in the North American British Colonies and United States. Owned by the brother of Colonel Aaron Burr, who was also named Seymour, he was known only as Seymour until he escaped and used the surname Burr to enlist in the British Army in the early days of the American Revolution. The British promised the personal freedom of any African-American slave who enlisted or escaped to fight against the Continental Army, and Burr wanted more than anything to be free. However, he was quickly captured and forcibly returned to his owner.
Osborne Perry Anderson was an African-American abolitionist and the only surviving African-American member of John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. He became a soldier in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
In the American Revolution, gaining freedom was the strongest motive for Black enslaved people who joined the Patriot or British armies. It is estimated that 20,000 African Americans joined the British cause, which promised freedom to enslaved people, as Black Loyalists. Around 9,000 African Americans became Black Patriots.
The Bucks of America was a Patriot Massachusetts Militia company, during the American Revolutionary War, that was composed of African-American soldiers. Few records survive about the unit; most of its history is constructed from eyewitness accounts. No official military records pertaining to the Bucks of America exist or have survived.
William Cooper Nell was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, publisher, author, and civil servant of Boston, Massachusetts, who worked for the integration of schools and public facilities in the state. Writing for abolitionist newspapers The Liberator and The North Star, he helped publicize the anti-slavery cause. He published the North Star from 1847 to 18xx, moving temporarily to Rochester, New York.
A Black Patriot was an African American who sided with the colonists who opposed British rule during the American Revolutionary War. The term Black Patriots includes, but is not limited to, the 5,000 or more African Americans who fought in the Continental Army during the war.
The William C. Nell House, now a private residence, was a boarding home located in 3 Smith Court in the Beacon Hill neighbourhood of Boston, Massachusetts, opposite the former African Meeting House, now the Museum of African American History.
Jeffrey Brace was a former slave who was taken from West Africa around 1750 and a veteran of the American Revolutionary War. He became the first African-American citizen of Poultney, Vermont. Brace became blind in his later years and published his memoirs under the title The Blind African Slave or the Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace. The faculty union at the University of Vermont now offers a $500 book award in his name "to students who exemplify academic excellence and an active commitment to achieving social and economic justice."
Austin Dabney was an enslaved African American who fought against the British in the American Revolutionary War.
Primus Hall was born a slave. He was the son of Prince Hall, an abolitionist, Revolutionary War soldier and founder of the Prince Hall Freemasonry.
John Telemachus Hilton was an African-American abolitionist, author, and businessman, who established barber, furniture dealer, and employment agency businesses. He was a Prince Hall Mason and established the Prince Hall National Grand Lodge of North America and served as its first National Grand Master for ten years. He also was a founding member of the Massachusetts General Colored Association, and active member and author in the Anti-Slavery movement.
For the Mississippi politician see Gilbert Horton (politician)
The Massasoit Guards were an African-American militia company active in 1850s Boston. Clothing retailer John P. Coburn founded the group to police Beacon Hill and protect residents from slave catchers. Attorney Robert Morris repeatedly petitioned the Massachusetts legislature on their behalf, but the Massasoit Guards were never officially recognized or supported by the state. The group was a precursor to the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.
Joel W. Lewis was a prominent African-American businessman and abolitionist. He was among the best known and respected reformers in antebellum Boston.
Jude (Judas) Hall was an African-American soldier in the American Revolutionary War. He served from 1775 to 1783, thus earning his freedom from slavery. After the war, he married and settled in Exeter, New Hampshire, where his homestead is still known as Jude's Pond. Three of his children were kidnapped and sold into slavery, and two of his grandsons fought in the American Civil War.
