{{short description|American businessman}}
{{Infobox person | name = Absalom Boston | image = AbsalonBostom.gif | caption = Absalom Boston | image_size = | birth_date = c. 1785 | birth_place = Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA | death_date = 1855 | death_place = Nantucket, Massachusetts, USA | occupation = Mariner, entrepreneur, civic leader | spouse = | parents = | children = }}
'''Absalom Boston''' (c. 1785–1855) was a United States mariner who was the first African-American captain to sail a whaling ship, with an all-black crew, in 1822.<ref name=NI>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uuVLEXSHUqsC&pg=PA207 | title=Nantucket Impressions |author=Robert Gambee and Elizabeth Heard |publisher=Robert Gambee|year=2001|pages=206–207|isbn=0-393-01010-4 |accessdate=2009-11-23}}</ref>
==Biography== Absalom Boston was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, to Seneca Boston, an African-American ex-slave father, and Thankful Micah, a Wampanoag Indian mother.<ref name=BW>{{cite news|url=http://www.nha.org/history/hn/HNracerelations.html|title= Black-White Relations on Nantucket |last=Johnson|first=Robert|date=Spring 2002|work=Historic Nantucket |accessdate=2009-11-23}}</ref> His uncle,<ref name="google">{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass Three-volume Set|author=Finkelman, P.|date=2006|publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|isbn=9780195167771|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cCMbE4KKlX4C|pages=1–417|accessdate=2015-04-01}}</ref> a slave named Prince Boston, was part of the crew of a 1770 whaling voyage, but refused to turn over his earnings to his white master. Instead, he went to court and won both his earnings and freedom, making him the first black slave to win his freedom in a U.S. jury trial.<ref name=Delahunt>Bill Delahunt, remarks made during [http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-1997-02-11/html/CREC-1997-02-11-pt1-PgH436.htm "The Role of Civil Rights Organizations in History"], February 11, 1997, ''Congressional Record'' Volume 143, U.S. Government Printing Office.</ref>
Boston spent his early years working in the whaling industry. By the time he reached 20, he acquired enough money to purchase property in Nantucket. Ten years later, he obtained a license to open and operate a public inn.<ref name=BW />
In 1822, Boston became the captain of the ''Industry'', a whaleship manned entirely with an African-American crew. The six-month journey returned with 70 barrels of whale oil and the entire crew intact.<ref name=WMPFM>{{cite news|url=http://www.afroammuseum.org/bhtn_site1.htm|title= Whaling Museum and Peter Foulger Museum |work= Museum of African American History |accessdate=2009-11-23}}</ref>
Boston retired from the sea after the ''Industry'' returned to Nantucket from its historic voyage. He concentrated on becoming a business and community leader, and also ran for public office.<ref name=WMPFM /> Together with fellow captain, Edward Pompey, he led the Nantucket abolitionist movement. He was also a founding trustee of Nantucket's African Baptist Society,<ref name=BW /> and the African Meeting House in Nantucket.<ref name=Delahunt/> In 1845, after his daughter Phebe Ann Boston was barred from attending a public school, he successfully brought a lawsuit against the Nantucket municipal government to integrate the public education system.<ref name=NI /><ref name=BW />
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Boston, Absalom}} Category:1780s births Category:Year of birth uncertain
Category:Sailors from Massachusetts Category:1855 deaths Category:19th-century African-American businesspeople Category:American people in whaling Category:American sea captains Category:African-American people with free status before 1865 Category:People from Nantucket, Massachusetts Category:19th-century American businesspeople Category:Black Wampanoag people Category:African-American abolitionists Category:Abolitionists from Massachusetts Category:Businesspeople from Massachusetts Category:Native American people from Massachusetts Category:19th-century Native American people Category:19th-century American sailors