Attucks lived in a world where many people were descended from both Native and African peoples. These two groups had much in common, including enslavement at the hands of white colonists. Working side by side, people of African and Native descent built families, communities, and a shared culture.
With this background, Attucks would have had a deep understanding of British oppression. He would have known how African and Native people fought back against British efforts to control them. And as a mariner going through the port of Boston, he would have heard people both Black and white making the case for liberty and freedom in louder and more certain terms.
Digital Exclusives
- Video | Man of Many Worlds Online Panel
A lively discussion about Attucks’s Afro-Indian community and reflect on the experiences he might have had that informed his thinking about resistance and protest and ultimately brought him to King Street on the night of the Boston Massacre.Read more → - Video | Liberty & Sovereignty in 18th Century New England
Examining the political conversations that were taking place around the time of the Boston Massacre among white colonists and the African- and Native-descended communities.Read more →
More in this Section
- A Man of Many Worlds
Attucks’s views were likely shaped by his life as a mariner of African and Native descent living in British-occupied Boston.Read more → - Putting the Pieces Together
Key written documents offer clues to Attucks’s life.Read more → - African and Native Families
Attucks belonged to a blended community created by the forces of colonialism, slavery and love.Read more → - Connection to Native Peoples
As a man of Native ancestry, Attucks would have had many reasons to resent both the colonists and the British.Read more → - Connection to Black Communities
Attucks likely interacted with Bostonians of African descent who were pressing for their freedom before the Revolution.Read more → - Life at Sea
On the docks, Attucks encountered many discontented sailors and colonists who opposed British authority.Read more →