The Bloody Massacre

This iconic image of the Boston Massacre by Paul Revere sparked fury in both Americans and the British by portraying the redcoats as brutal slaughterers and the onlookers as helpless victims.

The first casualty of this incident was Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave and merchant seaman of Native American and African descent. In this well-worn copy of Revere’s The Bloody Massacre, Attucks cannot be identified. Did Revere intentionally de-emphasize Attucks’s color, or was it a coincidence? What does the absence of Attucks’s identity as African American mean?

Only in some copies of the engraving is Attucks visible in the left corner, shot dead with blood gushing from his wounds. His darker skin tone and curly black hair distinguish him from others, yet he is certainly not at the center of the action. As is the case with many other pieces of European art from the 1400s–1800s, the black person appears on the edge of an image. See also The Fishing Party and The Washington Family.