all the rights and privileges to which an American citizen
could be eligible. This at once, enfranchised the native citizen, and
the posterity of all those at the time, who may have been so fortunate
as to have been born on the American continent. The question was at once
settled, as regards American citizenship. And if we establish our right
of equal claims to citizenship with other American people, we shall have
done all that is desirable in this view of our position in the country.
But if in addition to this, we shall be able to prove, that colored men,
not only took part in the great scene of the first act for independence,
but that they were the actors--a colored man was really the hero in the
great drama, and actually the first victim in the revolutionary
tragedy--then indeed, shall we have more than succeeded, and have reared
a monument of fame to the history of our deeds, more lasting than the
pile that stands on Bunker Hill.

For a concise historical arrangement of colored men, who braved the
dangers of the battlefield, we are much indebted to William C. Nell,
Esq., formerly of Boston, now of Rochester, N.Y., for a pamphlet,
published by him during the last year, which should be read by every
American the country through.

For ten years previous, a dissatisfaction had prevailed among the
colonists, against the mother country, in consequence of the excessive
draughts of supplies, and taxation, made upon them, for the support of
the wars carried on in Europe. The aspect began to change, the light
grew dim, the sky darkened, the clouds gathered lower and lower, the
lightning glimmered through the black elements around--the storm
advanced, until on the fifth of March, 1773, it broke out in terrible
blasts, drenching the virgin soil of America, with the blood of her own
native sons--Crispus Attuck, a colored man, was the first who headed,
the first who commanded, the first who charged, who struck the first
blow, and the first whose blood was spilt, and baptized the colony, as a
peace-offering on the altar of American liberty. "The people were
greatly exasperated. The multitude, armed with clubs, ran towards King
street, crying, 'Let us drive out the ribalds; they have no business
here!' The rioters rushed furiously towards the Custom House; they
approached the sentinel crying, 'Kill him, kill him!' They assaulted him
with snowballs, pieces of ice, and whatever they could lay their hands
upon. They encountered a ba