Slave rebellion and resistance in the United States
Slave rebellions and slave resistance were means of opposing the system of chattel slavery in the United States from 1776 to 1865. According to Herbert Aptheker, "there were few phases of ante-bellum Southern life and history that were not in some way influenced by the fear of, or the actual outbreak of, militant concerted slave action."[2] Slave rebellions in the United States were small and diffuse compared with those in other slave economies in part due to "the conditions that tipped the balance of power against southern slaves—their numerical disadvantage, their creole composition, their dispersal in relatively small units among resident whites—were precisely the same conditions that limited their communal potential."[3]: 597 As such, "Confrontation in the Old South characteristically took the form of an individual slave's open resistance to plantation authorities,"[3]: 599 or other individual or small-group actions, such as slaves opportunistically killing slave traders in hopes of avoiding forced migration away from friends and family.[4][5]
List of slave rebellions in the United States
Historians in the 20th century identified 250 to 311 slave uprisings in U.S. and colonial history.[6] Those after 1776 include:
- Gabriel's conspiracy (1800)
- Igbo Landing slave escape and mass suicide (1803)
- Chatham Manor Rebellion (1805)
- 1811 German Coast uprising, (1811)[7]
- George Boxley Rebellion (1815)
- Denmark Vesey's conspiracy (1822)
- Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831)
- Black Seminole Slave Rebellion (1835–1838)[8]
- Amistad seizure (1839)[9]
- 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation[10]
List of slave-ship mutinies in the United States
There are four known mutinies on vessels involved in the coastwise slave trade: Decatur (1826), Governor Strong (1826), Lafayette (1829), and the
Escape
The most common forms of resistance was self-emancipation—escaping an enslaver's control either temporarily or permanently.[3]: 600 The legal condition of fugitive slaves in the United States was a major hot-button political issue in antebellum America. In the years immediately prior to the American Civil War, collective escape actions called stampedes became increasingly common.[12]
Non-violent resistance
Resistance took many forms; as one historian, George P. Rawick, wrote, "While from sunup to sundown the American slave worked for another and was harshly exploited, from sundown to sunup he lived for himself and created the behavioral and institutional basis which prevented him from becoming the absolute victim."[3]: 579
There is evidence that some enslaved people in the United States "added back doors to their dwellings that provided access to an open space shielded by the dwellings on all sides."[13]
Nat Turner's Rebellion
In 1831,
This rebellion prompted Virginia and other slave states to pass more restrictions on slaves and free people of color, controlling their movement and requiring more white supervision of gatherings. In 1835, North Carolina withdrew the franchise for free people of color, and they lost their vote.
See also
- Slavery in the colonial United States § Slave rebellions
- Suicide, infanticide, and self-mutilation by slaves in the United States
- Enslaved women's resistance in the United States and Caribbean
- Anti-Americanism among African Americans
- Haitianism
References
- ISSN 0004-1823.
- ISBN 978-0717806058
- ^ doi:10.2307/1903484.
- ^ "Awful Tragedy". The Louisville Daily Courier. 1848-02-21. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-01-22.
- ProQuest 10156550. pages viii, 62–64
- Gates, Henry Louis (January 12, 2013). "The Five Greatest Slave Rebellions in the United States | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross". The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. WTTW. Retrieved October 11, 2016.
- ISBN 978-0061995217.
- ^ J.B. Bird. "The slave rebellion the country tried to forget". John Horse. Retrieved October 4, 2013.
- ^ "Unidentified Young Man". World Digital Library. 1839–1840. Retrieved July 28, 2013.
- ^ "Slave Revolt of 1842 | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture". www.okhistory.org.
- S2CID 203494471.
- ^ "About the Project | Slave Stampedes on the Southern Borderlands". Retrieved 2023-08-31.
- ISSN 0084-6570.
- ^ a b c Foner, Eric (2009). Give Me Liberty. London: Seagull Edition. pp. 406–407.
Further reading
- Henderson, Errol A. (2015). "Slave Religion, Slave Hiring, and the Incipient Proletarianization of Enslaved Black Labor: Developing Du Bois' Thesis on Black Participation in the Civil War as a Revolution". Journal of African American Studies. 19 (2): 192–213. ISSN 1559-1646.