Christopher Seider (or Snider) (1758 – February 22, 1770) was a young boy who is considered to be the first American killed in the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

. He was 11 years old when he was shot and killed by

loyalist Loyalism, in the United Kingdom, its overseas territories and its former colonies, refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the British C ...

Ebenezer Richardson in Boston on February 22, 1770. His funeral became a major political event, with his death heightening tensions that erupted into the

Boston Massacre The Boston Massacre (known in Great Britain as the Incident on King Street) was a confrontation in Boston on March 5, 1770, in which a group of nine British soldiers shot five people out of a crowd of three or four hundred who were harassing t ...

on March 5, 1770.

Samuel Adams Samuel Adams ( – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, political philosopher, and a Founding Father of the United States. He was a politician in colonial Massachusetts, a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, an ...

, one of the

Founding Fathers of the United States The Founding Fathers of the United States, known simply as the Founding Fathers or Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the war for independence from Great Britai ...

, called Christopher "the first martyr of American liberty".

Life

Seider was born in 1758, the son of poor German immigrants. On February 22, 1770, he joined a crowd outside the house of Ebenezer Richardson in the North End. Richardson was a customs service employee who had tried to disperse a protest in front of the shop of a Loyalist, Theophilus Lillie. The crowd threw stones that broke Richardson's windows and struck his wife. Richardson fired a gun into the crowd and wounded Seider in the arm and the chest. The boy died that evening.

arranged for the funeral, which was attended by more than 2,000 people. Seider was buried in

Granary Burying Ground The Granary Burying Ground in Massachusetts is the city of Boston's third-oldest cemetery, founded in 1660 and located on Tremont Street. It is the final resting place for many notable Revolutionary War-era patriots, including Paul Revere, th ...

, and the victims of the

are buried nearby. Seider's killing and large public funeral fueled public outrage, which reached a peak in the Boston Massacre 11 days later. Richardson was convicted of murder that Spring but received a

royal pardon In the English and British tradition, the royal prerogative of mercy is one of the historic royal prerogatives of the British monarch, by which they can grant pardons (informally known as a royal pardon) to convicted persons. The royal prerogat ...

and a new position within the customs service on the grounds that he had acted in self-defense. This became a major American grievance against the British government.

In popular culture

Christopher's death, his funeral, and the subsequent

are featured in the 2015 television miniseries ''

Sons of Liberty The Sons of Liberty was a loosely organized, clandestine, sometimes violent, political organization active in the Thirteen American Colonies founded to advance the rights of the colonists and to fight taxation by the British government. It pl ...

'' and season 2 of the 2016 television docuseries '' Legends & Lies: The Patriots''.

References

* Zobel, Hiller B., ''The Boston Massacre'', (1970, reissue 1996) W. W. Norton and Co., pp 164–179, .

External links

Boston Massacre Historical Society website

Christopher Seider: The First Casualty in the American Revolutionary Cause
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seider, Christopher 1770 in the Thirteen Colonies History of Boston 1770 deaths Deaths by firearm in Massachusetts Murdered American children 1758 births Burials at Granary Burying Ground Boston Massacre American people of German descent Protests in the United States Civil disobedience