Crispus Attucks ( 1723 – March 5 , 1770 ) was an American stevedore of African and Native American descent , widely regarded as the first person killed in the Boston Massacre and thus the first American killed in the American Revolution . Historians disagree on whether he was a free man or an escaped slave , but most agree that he was of Wampanoag 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 . " Attucks became an icon of the anti-slavery movement in the mid-19th century . Supporters of the abolition movement lauded him for playing a heroic role in the history of the United States
Boston Massacre
Boston Massacre
Crispus Attucks