Who was the first African American killed in the Boston Massacre?

Crispus Attucks was the first African American killed in the Boston Massacre, on March 5, 1770.

Attucks was a sailor, whaler, and dockworker of African and Native American ancestry. During the confrontation on King Street, British soldiers fired into a crowd of colonists. Attucks was struck in the chest and died immediately, along with Samuel Gray and James Caldwell. Two other victims, Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr, later died from their wounds.

Attucks’s identity and background were more complicated than the modern label suggests. Contemporary accounts described him as a “mulatto” and associated him with Native American heritage; historians have also debated whether he was free or had escaped slavery. In modern American history, he is widely remembered as an African American patriot and the first person killed in the massacre.

His death became especially important to abolitionists in the nineteenth century. In 1888, a monument honoring Attucks and the other victims was erected on Boston Common. The victims were also buried together at Boston’s Granary Burying Ground.