When American kids learn about slavery if they learn anything at all about slavery, they do not learn about the resistance and fight against slavery by those who were enslaved. Captured human beings did in fact wage many uprisings against the slave republic that was the southern United States. Although it took the Civil War to overthrow state sponsored slavery, we want to give a shout to those who fought and died to destroy the regime plantation by plantation. Let us at least attempt to put to rest the myth of the docile slave. A review of slavery uprisings, reveal that our ancestors captured from their homeland and enslaved in a foreign land were anything but docile they were fighters who watched their captors, and when the opportunity presented itself they fought or died trying.

5. Stono Rebellion

Stono Rebellion was a slave uprising that began in the then British colony of South Carolina in September 1739. It was the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies with approximately 25 white slave owners killed. Led by a man named Cato, who with 60 other slaves who may have been soldiers in the Kingdom of Kongo headed south to Florida to secure their freedom. At the time the Spanish offered freedom to those enslaved in Florida. Although they were ultimately defeated by a militia, their uprising created great fear in South Carolina which at the time had a larger slave population than free. This led to the Negro Act of 1740 which among many things prohibited the assembly of enslaved Africans, and prohibited learning to write, earn money, and raise food.

4. Igbo Landing

In May 1803 75 captured Igbo from modern day Nigeria upon arrival to the U.S. captured and killed their enslavers, causing the grounding of the slave ship. Instead of submitting to slavery, the Igbo turned around and marched back to Africa. These ancestors chose to drown in the marsh over a life of slavery. Igbo landing is now a historic site in the sand and marshes of Dunbar Creek in St. Simons Island, Georgia.

3. 1811 German Coast Slave Uprising

The country’s largest slave revolt had been largely omitted by the history books. In January 1811 slaves from what was known as the German coast of Louisiana organized and set out to march to New Orleans and end slavery. Upwards of 500 slaves participated in two day twenty mile march, killing captors, burning plantations and crops along the way. Although, the uprising was ultimately defeated by an army militia. The silence of this history is the legacy of this uprising. It so threatened the slave-ocracy it was the Voldemort of slave rebellions, it could not be spoken of again. On November 8-9, 2019, this uprising was reenacted, bringing again to life the history and recognition who gave their life to end slavery.

2. Poison and Arson

Often not mention in the history of slavery is to the extent to which captives being held as slaves chose the weapons of poison and arson to free themselves.

Poison

Poison was at times used as the weapon of choice in eliminating slave masters. In 1751 South Carolina enacted a law providing the death penalty without benefit of clergy for slaves found guilty of poisoning white people. Georgia passed a similar law in 1770 citing the frequency of poisoning slave masters.

Arson

Arson also posed a huge threat to the slave-ocracy including the remaining remnants in the North. For instance, although New York was on its way to outlawing slavery, For people being held in captivity in Albany, things were not moving fast enough enough. So in November 1793 they burned half the city of Albany down. In March and April of 1814 the city of Norfolk, Virginia was plagued by fires several times a day creating a panic in the city. 

Arson was more frequent than poison and according to some scholars represented the greatest danger to Southern society. 

1. I’m out. Runaway is rebellion.

Americans for the most part know that many people held as slaves escaped, risking life and the life of the family they left behind in leaving the brutal conditions of slavery. But as a culture we fail to connect these acts in their totality. They were not mere individual acts, these acts of defiance when seen as a collective tell a different story. There were networks for escaped people who were held as slaves, and there were heroes like the great Harriet Tubman who led many to freedom. Consider the words of the great historian John Hope Franklin, Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

“Few contemporaries would deny the cruel and brutal treatment accorded to those who defied the system. Slaves escaped with the mark of the whip on their backs irons on their ankles, brands on their cheeks and foreheads, and missing fingers and toes. Joe, Bill, and Isaac left the Richard Terell farm in Roanoke County, Virginia, with “Irons around their necks.”

Escaping the horrors of slavery was too an act of defiance that’s due recognition as such.

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