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SLAVE REBELLIONS

UNIT I

COLONIAL LAWS AND REVOLTS Laws controlling the lives of slaves varied from region to region. Every colony passed its own slave laws, and colonies revised these laws over time. Settlers in Georgia, for example, barred slavery from the colony in 1735 but lifted the ban in 1750. Virginia enacted its first slave code in 1661. South Carolina passed fairly weak regulations in 1690 and then revised its laws in 1696, 1712, and 1740, each time strengthening the restrictions placed on slaves. Generally, slaves could not go aboard ships or ferries or leave the town limits without a written pass. Crimes for slaves ranged from owning hogs and carrying canes to disturbing the peace and striking a white person. Punishments included whipping, banishment to the West Indies, and death. Many of these laws also applied to free African Americans and to Native Americans. Laws restricting the movement of slaves made organizing slave rebellions extremely difficult. Because slaves could not travel or meet freely, they had only limited contact with slaves in other areas. A few early documented cases of slave revolts do stand out. In 1739, several dozen slaves near Charleston, South Carolina, killed more than twenty whites in what is known as the Stono Rebellion. The slaves burned an armory and began to march toward Spanish Florida, where a small colony of runaway slaves lived. Armed planters captured and killed the rebels. In New York City, brutal laws passed to control African Americans led to rebellions in 1708, 1712, and 1741. After the 1741 revolt, thirteen African Americans were burned alive in punishment. African Americans undertook almost fifty documented revolts between 1740 and 1800. More commonly, African Americans resisted slavery through a series of silent acts, such as pretending to misunderstand orders or faking illness. While these actions could not give them freedom, they did grant the slaves a small degree of control over their own lives.

19TH CENTURY SLAVE REVOLTS Only a small percentage of slaves ever managed to

escape their captivity or to win their freedom. Rebellion, especially on a large scale, stood little chance of success. While historians have documented scores of slave rebellions, most were small, spontaneous responses to cruel treatment and ended in tragic failure. Vesey’s Plan In 1800, the year of Gabriel Prosser’s revolt, a young slave named Denmark Vesey bought his freedom with $600 he won in a street lottery. He worked as a carpenter and became a preacher at the local African Methodist Episcopal Church. Vesey was self-educated and read anti-slavery literature. He grew increasingly angry at the sufferings of his fellow African Americans. Vesey preached against slavery, quoting the Declaration of Independence and the Bible. He criticized African Americans who would not stand up to whites. In 1822 Vesey’s anger turned to action. He laid plans for the most ambitious slave revolt in American history. In a conspiracy that reportedly involved hundreds or even thousands of rebels, Vesey plotted to seize the city of Charleston in July 1822. Later accounts said that he intended to raid the arsenal, kill all the white residents, free the slaves, and burn the city to the ground. Like Gabriel Prosser, Vesey was betrayed by some of his followers. In June, South Carolina troops smashed the rebellion before it could get started. Thirty-five African Americans were hanged, including Vesey. Another 32 were expelled from South Carolina. Four white men received fines and prison terms for aiding the rebels.

Nat Turner, a 31-year-old African American preacher, planned and carried out a violent uprising in August 1831 known as Turner’s Rebellion. Acting under what he believed was divine inspiration, he led up to 70 slaves in raids on white families in southeastern Virginia. In attacks on four plantations, the rebels killed 57 white people. Eventually, local militia captured most of the rebels. The state of Virginia hanged about 20 of the slaves, including Turner. Crowds of frightened and angry whites rioted, slaughtering about a hun-

Turner’s Rebellion

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR

dred African Americans who had had no part in the revolt. White Southerners Alarmed Slave revolts were a

white southerner’s nightmare, since in many communities African Americans out-numbered the white population. Virginia, which was not a cotton state, briefly considered ending slavery in order to ease this threat. But instead, it joined other southern states in tightening restrictions on slaves following the Vesey and Turner rebellions. Virginia and North Carolina passed laws against teaching enslaved people to read. Some states prevented African Americans from moving freely or meeting.

THE AMISTAD INCIDENT Although no significant revolt occurred after Turner’s death, his passion and success escalated the conflict between the states over slavery. One more revolt, however, would seriously change the entire issue of slavery and slave revolts: the Amistad incident. In general, Amistad is overlooked by historians in favor of the more lurid and more deliberate revolts in Haiti and in the southern United States. The Amistad incident, however, dramatically changed the European-American idea of

SLAVE REBELLIONS

2

slave revolt and the moral constitution of slave revolts. The year is 1839. Slave traffic is officially illegal in every country in the world. Despite this, a Cuban boat, the Amistad, is still trading in human lives kidnapped from Western Africa. On this trip, however, a powerful African, who speaks no European language, named Cinque, leads a revolt against the crew and kills everyone except the captain and first mate. He demands that the Africans be returned to Africa, but instead the captain sails to New York. Claiming that the Africans are Cuban slaves rather than Africans, the United States put them on trial for murder and revolt. The result, however, was a stunning reversal in European ideas of slave revolts. Defended by no less than John Quincy Adams, the court declares the African revolutionaries to be justified in their murder of the crew. For the first time, Americans applied to slaves the same right to revolt as they believed they had. The southern revolts, from Haiti to Turner, suddenly shifted in the minds of many Americans as representing what they really were: freedom wars. To many Americans, it was becoming increasingly evident that the answer to slavery in the south had to be violent.