Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The route from Boston to Lexington is littered with monuments and historical displays. At the Dawes Island, you can read about Paul Revere's less famous co-rider, while you wait for a bus. Pouring out of a party, I stumbled across the most disconcerting. Near the corner of Beech and Elm Streets, a tombstone is wedged between the sidewalk and the curb, marking the grave of three British regulars.
Like every other colony, Massachusetts was a slave society. But, I never saw a historical or marker describing the role of enslaved people. At Lexington, one of the wounded was Prince Estabrook, a slave and militia private. After serving in the Continental Army, he was emancipated.
On the morning of April 19, three companies left Framingham to join the battle. With many of the (white) men gone, fears of a slave revolt spread through parts of Framingham. A militia captain's wife and other women barricaded themselves, waiting for the slave revolt that did not come.
Also, Framingham is the birthplace of Crispus Attucks, killed in the Boston Massacre. Born a slave, Attucks had both Wampanoag and African ancestors.
Source: J.H. Temple, History of Framingham 275 (1887). Available here.
Brian--related to this; I'm interested in the monuments, which I've seen several of, from the 1930s that deal with reconciliation between the US and Great Britain regarding our Revolutionary War. (I recall one at King's Mountain in particular.) I've wondered whether those are related to the movement for reconciliation between North and South related to the Civil War.
Posted by: Alfred Brophy | April 19, 2012 at 10:25 AM
Brian, some of us would suggest a different date -- October 3, 1951. See link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_Heard_'Round_the_World_(baseball)
Posted by: Tim Zinnecker | April 19, 2012 at 07:10 PM