having turned one of the muskets, he seized the bayonet with his left hand, as if he intended to execute his threat. At this moment, confused cries were heard: ‘The Wretches dare not fire!’ Firing succeed, Attucks is slain. The other discharges follow…

Nell himself writes, “Attucks was killed by Montgomery, one of Capt. Preston’s soldiers. He had been foremost in resisting, and was first slain. As proof of a front engagement, he received two balls, one in each breast.” Many other firsthand accounts say Attucks died on the spot when the British fired. Several other men were shot and killed during the scuffle that ensued.

Remember, Remember, the Fifth of March

Despite laws and customs regulating the burial of blacks, Attucks was buried in the Park Street Cemetery with theother honored dead from the massacre. For years colonists observed March 5 as a day of remembrance. During the fortification of Boston in preparation for a battle several years later, George Washington said to his soldiers “Remember, it is the fifth of March, and avenge the death of your brethren!”

The signing of the Declaration of Independence had not happened yet, so for years this event was the most important day of remembrance for the colonists during the Revolutionary War. John Adams, a Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States, later wrote in hindsight that the Boston Massacre served as the “foundation of American independence” from British rule.

Attucks also became a symbol against slavery to American abolitionists. In the mid-1800s, Thomas Sims, a fugitive