Slave rebellion

A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves. Slave rebellions have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery, and are amongst the most feared events for slaveowners. Famous historic slave rebellions have been led by Denmark Vesey; the Roman slave Spartacus; the thrall Tunni who rebelled against the Swedish king Ongenþeow, a rebellion that needed Danish assistance to be quelled; Madison Washington during the Creole case in 19th Century America; and Granny Nanny of the Maroons who rebelled against the British.

North America

Numerous slave rebellions, and insurrections took place in North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. There is documentary evidence of more than 250 uprisings or attempted uprisings involving ten or more slaves. Three of the best known are the revolts by Gabriel in Virginia in 1800, Denmark Vesey in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, and Nat Turner at Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.

Slave resistance in the antebellum South finally became the focus of historical scholarship in the 1940s, when historian Herbert Aptheker started publishing the first serious scholarly work on the subject. Aptheker stressed how the rebellion was rooted in the exploitative conditions of the Southern slave system. He traversed libraries and archives throughout the South, managing to uncover roughly 250 similar instances, though none of which reached the scale of the great Nat Turner uprising.

List of North American slave revolts

New York Revolt of 1712 (1712)
Stono Rebellion (1739)
New York Slave Insurrection of 1741
Gabriel's Rebellion (1800)
Louisiana Territory Slave Rebellion, led by Charles Deslandes (1811)
George Boxley Rebellion (1815)
Fort Blount Revolt (1816)
Denmark Vesey's Uprising (1822)
Nat Turner's Rebellion (1831)
Amistad Seizure (1839)
John Brown leads the Pottawatomie massacre (1856)
John Brown raids Harper's Ferry, West Virginia (1859)

South America and Caribbean

Slave revolt around 1570, led by Yanga near Veracruz, Mexico; the group then escaped to the highlands and built a free colony
Quilombo dos Palmares in Brazil most famously led by Zumbi.
The most successful slave uprising in the Americas was that in Haiti in the 1800s led by Toussaint L'Ouverture.
Panama also has an extensive history of slave rebellions going back to the 16th Century. Slaves were brought to the isthmus from many regions in Africa now in modern day countries like the Congo, Senegal, Guinea, and Mozambique. Immediately before their arrival on shore, or very soon after, many enslaved Africans revolted against their captors, or participated in mass maroonage, or desertion. The freed Africans founded communities in the forests and mountains, organized guerrilla bands known as Cimarrones, and began a long guerrilla war against the Spanish Conquistadores, sometimes in conjunction with nearby indigenous communities like the Kuna and the Guaymí. Despite massacres by the Spanish, the rebels fought until the Spanish crown was forced to concede to treaties that granted the Africans a life without Spanish violence and incursions. The leaders of the guerrilla revolts included Felipillo, Bayano, Juan de Dioso, Domingo Congo, Antón Mandinga, and Luis de Mozambique.
Surinam, constant guerrilla warfare by Maroons, in 1765-1793 by the Aluku led by Boni
Berbice, 1763 slave revolt, led by Cuffy
Curaçao, 1795 slave revolt, led by Tula
Barbados, 1816 slave revolt, led by Bussa
Jamaica's Baptist War, 1831-1832, led by the Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe.

Europe

Probably the most famous slave rebellion in Europe was that led by Spartacus in Roman Italy, the Third Servile War. This was the third in a series of unrelated Servile Wars, all involving slave rebellions.

Bibliography

Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, 6. ed., New York : International Publ., 1993 - classic
David P. Geggus, ed., The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001
Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World, Louisiana State University Press 1980
Joao Jose Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia (Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture), Johns Hopkins Univ Press 1993

External links

PBS online article: New York: The Revolt of 1712
Rebellion: John Horse and the Black Seminoles, First Black Rebels to Beat American Slavery, these maroons affiliated with Seminole Indians in Florida led an slave rebellion that would be the largest in U.S. history.