Freedmen101

Stono Rebellion

a.k.a. Hutchinson’s Rebellion

The Stono Rebellion was the largest slave revolt ever staged in the 13 colonies. On Sunday, Sept. 9, 1739, a day free of labor, about 20 slaves under the leadership of a man named Jemmy provided whites with a painful lesson on the African desire for liberty. Many members of the group were seasoned soldiers, either from the Yamasee War or from their experience in their homes in Angola, where they were captured and sold, and had been trained in the use of weapons. They gathered at the Stono River and raided a warehouse-like store, Hutchenson’s, executing the white owners and placing their victims’ heads on the store’s front steps for all to see. They moved on to other houses in the area, killing the occupants and burning the structures, marching through the colony toward St. Augustine, Fla., where under Spanish law, they would be free.As the march proceeded, not all slaves joined the insurrection; in fact, some hung back and actually helped hide their masters. But many were drawn to it, and the insurrectionists soon numbered about 100. They paraded down King’s Highway, according to sources, carrying banners and shouting, “Liberty!” — lukango in their native Kikongo, a word that would have expressed the English ideals embodied in liberty and, perhaps, salvation.The slaves fought off the English for more than a week before the colonists rallied and killed most of the rebels, although some very likely reached Fort Mose. Even after Colonial forces crushed the Stono uprising, outbreaks occurred, including the very next year, when South Carolina executed at least 50 additional rebel slaves.

Name: Stono Rebellion (v2)
Alternative Details:
On Sunday, September 9th, 1739 the British colony of South Carolina was shaken by a slave uprising that culminated with the death of sixty people. Led by an Angolan named Jemmy, a band of twenty slaves organized a rebellion on the banks of the Stono River. After breaking into Hutchinson’s store the band, now armed with guns, called for their liberty. As they marched, overseers were killed and reluctant slaves were forced to join the company. The band reached the Edisto River where white colonists descended upon them, killing most of the rebels. The survivors were sold off to the West Indies.

The immediate factors that sparked the uprising remain in doubt. A malaria epidemic in Charlestown, which caused general confusion throughout Carolina, may have influenced the timing of the Rebellion. The recent (August 1739) passage of the Security Act by the South Carolina Colonial Assembly may also have played a role. The act required all white men to carry firearms to church on Sunday. Thus the enslaved leaders of the rebellion knew their best chance for success would be during the time of the church services when armed white males were away from the plantations.

After the Stono Rebellion South Carolina authorities moved to reduce provocations for rebellion. Masters, for example, were penalized for imposing excessive work or brutal punishments of slaves and a school was started so that slaves could learn Christian doctrine. In a colony that already had more blacks than whites, the Assembly also imposed a prohibitive duty on the importation of new slaves from Africa and the West Indies. Authorities also tightened control over the enslaved. The Assembly enacted a new law requiring a ratio of one white for every ten blacks on any plantation and passed the Negro Act of 1740 which prohibited enslaved people from growing their own food, assembling in groups, earning money they, rather than their owners, could retain or learning to read.
Reference: Sutherland, C. (2018, September 18). Stono Rebellion (1739). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/stono-rebellion-1739/

Source of Authors Information: Peter H. Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670s through the Stono Rebellion (London: W.W. Norton and Co, 1974); http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/1p284.html.

Name: Stono Rebellion (v3)
Alternative Details:
A band of slaves march down the road, carrying banners that proclaim "Liberty!". They shout out the same word. Led by an Angolan named Jemmy, the men and women continue to walk south, recruiting more slaves along the way. By the time they stop to rest for the night, their numbers will have approached one hundred.

What exactly triggered the Stono Rebellion is not clear. Many slaves knew that small groups of runaways had made their way from South Carolina to Florida, where they had been given freedom and land. Looking to cause unrest within the English colonies, the Spanish had issued a proclamation stating that any slave who deserted to St Augustine would be given the same treatment. Certainly this influenced the potential rebels and made them willing to accept their situation. A fall epidemic had disrupted the colonial government in nearby Charlestown (Charleston), and word had just arrived that England and Spain were at war, raising hopes that the Spanish in St. Augustine would give a positive reception to slaves escaping from Carolina plantations. But what may have actually triggered the rebellion on September 9th was the soon-to-be-enacted Security Act.

In mid-August, a Charlestown newspaper announced the Security Act. A response to the white's fears of insurrection, the act required that all white men carry firearms to church on Sundays, a time when whites usually didn't carry weapons and slaves were allowed to work for themselves. Anyone who didn't comply with the new law by September 29 would be subjected to a fine.

Whatever triggered the Rebellion, early on the morning of the 9th, a Sunday, about twenty slaves gathered near the Stono River in St. Paul's Parish, less than twenty miles from Charlestown. The slaves went to a shop that sold firearms and ammunition, armed themselves, then killed the two shopkeepers who were manning the shop. From there the band walked to the house of a Mr. Godfrey, where they burned the house and killed Godfrey and his son and daughter. They headed south. It was not yet dawn when they reached Wallace's Tavern. Because the innkeeper at the tavern was kind to his slaves, his life was spared. The white inhabitants of the next six or so houses they reach were not so lucky -- all were killed. The slaves belonging to Thomas Rose successfully hid their master, but they were forced to join the rebellion. (They would later be rewarded. See Report re. Stono Rebellion Slave-Catchers.) Other slaves willingly joined the rebellion. By eleven in the morning, the group was about 50 strong. The few whites whom they now encountered were chased and killed, though one individual, Lieutenant Governor Bull, eluded the rebels and rode to spread the alarm.

The slaves stopped in a large field late that afternoon, just before reaching the Edisto River. They had marched over ten miles and killed between twenty and twenty-five whites.

Around four in the afternoon, somewhere between twenty and 100 whites had set out in armed pursuit. When they approached the rebels, the slaves fired two shots. The whites returned fire, bringing down fourteen of the slaves. By dusk, about thirty slaves were dead and at least thirty had escaped. Most were captured over the next month, then executed; the rest were captured over the following six months -- all except one who remained a fugitive for three years.

Uncomfortable with the increasing numbers of blacks for some time, the white colonists had been working on a Negro Act that would limit the privileges of slaves. This act was quickly finalized and approved after the Stono Rebellion. No longer would slaves be allowed to grow their own food, assemble in groups, earn their own money, or learn to read. Some of these restrictions had been in effect before the Negro Act, but had not been strictly enforced.

Additional Document
Name: Stono Rebellion
In a letter dated October 5, 1739, less than a month after the Stono Rebellion, Lieutenant Governor William Bull reported to Britian's Board of Trade, informing them of the revolt and updating them on the status of the rebels. Bull, who had personally spread the alarm regarding the revolt, also requests that rewards be offered to Indians who would help re-capture the slaves. . .
My Lords,

I beg leave to lay before your Lordships an account of our Affairs, first in regard to the Desertion of our Negroes. . . . On the 9th of September last at Night a great Number of Negroes Arose in Rebellion, broke open a Store where they got arms, killed twenty one White Persons, and were marching the next morning in a Daring manner out of the Province, killing all they met and burning several Houses as they passed along the Road. I was returning from Granville County with four Gentlemen and met these Rebels at eleven o'clock in the forenoon and fortunately deserned the approaching danger time enough to avoid it, and to give notice to the Militia who on the Occasion behaved with so much expedition and bravery, as by four a'Clock the same day to come up with them and killed and took so many as put a stop to any further mischief at that time, forty four of them have been killed and Executed; some few yet remain concealed in the Woods expecting the same fate, seem desperate. . . .

It was the Opinion of His Majesty's Council with several other Gentlemen that one of the most effectual means that could be used at present to prevent such desertion of our Negroes is to encourage some Indians by a suitable reward to pursue and if possible to bring back the Deserters, and while the Indians are thus employed they would be in the way ready to intercept others that might attempt to follow and I have sent for the Chiefs of the Chickasaws living at New Windsor and the Catawbaw Indians for that purpose. . . .

My Lords,
Your Lordships Most Obedient and Most Humble Servant
Wm Bull

Additional Document
Name: Stono Rebellion
As an example to other enslaved persons, the African Americans who opposed Jemmy and his fellow Stono rebels were rewarded, as were the Indians who later helped to capture rebels still at large
A Commons House of Assembly Committee Report, in a Message to the Governor's Council

November 29, 1739

1. That upon Inquiry your Committee find that a negro man named July belonging to Mr. Thomas Elliott was very early and chiefly instrumental in saving his Master and his Family from being destroyed by the Rebellious Negroes and that the Negro man July had at several times bravely fought against the Rebels and killed one of them. Your Committee therefore recommends that the [said] Negro July (as a reward for his faithful Services and for na Encouragement to other Slaves to follow his Example in case of the like Nature) shall have his Freedom and a Present of a Suit of Cloaths, Shirt, Hat, a pair of stockings and a pair of Shoes.

2. That the several Slaves heareafter named Ralph, Prince, Joe, Larush and Pompey belonging to the [said] Mr Thos Elliott, Sampon belonging to to Mr Wilkinson, two Negro Men and a Negro Woman (whose names your Committee do not know) belonging to Mr Thomas Rose, Two Negro Men (whose names are also unknown to your Committee) who belong to the Estate of Mr John Haynes decd. And one Negro Man (his name not known by your Committee) belonging to the Estate of Mr Christopher Wilkinson decd a Negro man belonging to Mrs Wilkson Widow named Mingo; a Mustee Man have behaved themselves very well and been a great source in opposing the Rebellions Negroes; For which your Committee recommend that they be rewarded as follows (that is to say) the Men to have each a Suit of Cloths, hat, shirt, a pair of Shoes, and a pair of Stockings, And the Women to have each a Jacket and Petticoat, a Shift, a pair of Stockings, and a pair of Shoes and also the sum of 20[lb] in Cash to each of the Slaves above named. . . .

7. That several of the Neighbouring Indians did assist in hunting for, taking and destroying the [said] Rebellious Negroes, For which your Committee propose that the [said] Indians be severally rewarded with a Coat, a Flap, a Hat, a pair of Indian Stockings, a Gun, 2 pounds of Powder and 8 Pounds of Bullets, Which Indians Names are as follows (that is to say) Tobb, Old Jack, Peter, Tom and Philip and five other Indians (whose names your Committee do not know) that came down to Stono with Captain Coachman. . . .

New York slave rebellion of 1741

a.k.a. The Great Negro Plot of 1741

New York slave rebellion of 1741, also called New York Conspiracy of 1741 or the Great Negro Plot of 1741, a supposed large-scale scheme plotted by Black slaves and poor white settlers to burn down and take over New York City. Possibly fueled by paranoia, the city’s white population became convinced that a major rebellion was being planned. After a witch-hunt-like series of trials, no specific plot was ever uncovered.
The details of the events that took place in New York City in the spring and summer of 1741 are recorded in numerous historic and later accounts, many of which contain contradictory information. According to nearly all accounts, a fire on March 18, 1741, at Fort George—then Lieutenant Governor George Clarke’s home—was the first in a series of fires in the city that may or may not have been set by slaves. The fires occurred at regular intervals and then with increased frequency until April 6, when four fires were set in a single day. Rumors raced across the city when a witness claimed to have seen a Black man, identified as a slave named Cuffee, running from the scene of one of the fires. A month or so earlier that year, in a seemingly unrelated incident, three slaves had robbed a small store owned by a white couple, Robert and Rebecca Hogg. One of the slaves, Caesar, had brought his booty to a dockside tavern owned by John Hughson, who was known for dealing in stolen goods from slaves and for selling them alcohol. His tavern had a reputation as a meeting point for the city’s deviants. Caesar and one of his partners in crime, a slave named Prince, were arrested. When it came time to investigate the fires, Daniel Horsmanden, a judge who was appointed to lead the investigation and preside over the robbery trials, was eager to uncover a plot and its perpetrators and therefore connected the fires to the burglary.
The notion of a conspiracy was brewing. Meanwhile overseas, England had been at war for the previous two years with Spain, inciting a fear of Spanish attack on New York City and a general sentiment of anti-Catholicism. Causing widespread suspicion was a group of Black Spaniards who had been free citizens of Spain until they were captured by the British in the Caribbean and sold into slavery when they reached Manhattan in 1740. Harbouring resentment, the Spaniards continued to declare themselves free and that, when captured, they should have become “prisoners of war,” not slaves. Thus, Roman Catholics, African-born slaves, and Spanish-born Blacks were all under suspicion.A jury was impaneled on April 21, and Mary Burton, a young indentured servant at Hughson’s tavern, was brought to testify before the jury. Under duress, Burton testified that three slaves—Caesar, Prince, and Cuffee—along with a contingent of poor white settlers, had plotted to burn the fort and the city and kill its inhabitants. Burton also implicated a white prostitute named Peggy Kerry, who had ties to Caesar. Kerry was then forced to testify and implicated many Blacks in the conspiracy, and, on the basis of her testimony, those named were kept in custody. Those held in custody were also forced to provide testimony and name names, which they did.
In May Caesar and Prince were charged not with conspiracy but with burglary and were hanged. Kerry (who was pregnant with Caesar’s child), Hughson, and his wife were arrested next and were publicly executed in June. Hughson’s body (and possibly those of his wife and Kerry as well) was left hanging for all to observe. Still desperate to uncover a plot, Horsmanden offered rewards (of varying amounts, depending on the informant’s skin colour and status) to anyone who would provide evidence of a conspiracy. Over the course of the three-month investigation, some 150 people were arrested and “confessed” or testified. Burton continued her accusations throughout the summer, eventually accusing more than 20 white people, including a Latin teacher named John Ury who was accused of using his Catholic faith to influence the rebellion. By the end of summer, the hysteria had died down and the accusations stopped.As a result of the rumours, false confessions, and finger-pointing, approximately 30 Blacks and 4 whites (the Hughsons, Kerry, and Ury) were executed, and some 80 more people, mostly Black but some white, were exiled. A journal written by Horsmanden in 1744 served as an important primary source on the proceedings of the 1741 conspiracy, revealing important details and offering valuable insight into the context in which the trials took place. In the 21st century, historians of the event were wary of Horsmanden’s factual accuracy, as his book was likely published as justification for his actions, and they remained agnostic about the actuality of a slave conspiracy.

Reference: Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "New York slave rebellion of 1741". Encyclopedia Britannica, 26 Sep. 2020, https://www.britannica.com/event/New-York-slave-rebellion-of-1741. Accessed 1 January 2021.

American Revolutionary War

By Edward Ayres

Only 50 years after the defeat of the British at Yorktown, most Americans had already forgotten the extensive role black people had played on both sides during the War for Independence. At the 1876 Centennial Celebration of the Revolution in Philadelphia, not a single speaker acknowledged the contributions of African Americans in establishing the nation. Yet by 1783, thousands of Black Americans had become involved in the war. Many were active participants, some won their freedom and others were victims, but throughout the struggle Blacks refused to be mere bystanders and gave their loyalty to the side that seemed to offer the best prospect for freedom. By 1775 more than a half-million African Americans, most of them enslaved, were living in the 13 colonies. Early in the 18th century a few New England ministers and conscientious Quakers, such as George Keith and John Woolman, had questioned the morality of slavery but they were largely ignored. By the 1760s, however, as the colonists began to speak out against British tyranny, more Americans pointed out the obvious contradiction between advocating liberty and owning slaves. In 1774 Abigail Adams wrote, “it always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me to fight ourselves for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.” Widespread talk of liberty gave thousands of slaves high expectations, and many were ready to fight for a democratic revolution that might offer them freedom. In 1775 at least 10 to 15 black soldiers, including some slaves, fought against the British at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. Two of these men, Salem Poor and Peter Salem, earned special distinction for their bravery. By 1776, however, it had become clear that the revolutionary rhetoric of the founding fathers did not include enslaved Blacks. The Declaration of Independence promised liberty for all men but failed to put an end to slavery; and although they had proved themselves in battle, the Continental Congress adopted a policy of excluding Black soldiers from the army. In spite of these discouragements, many free and enslaved African Americans in New England were willing to take up arms against the British. As soon states found it increasingly difficult to fill their enlistment quotas, they began to turn to this untapped pool of manpower. Eventually every state above the Potomac River recruited slaves for military service, usually in exchange for their freedom. By the end of the war from 5,000 to 8,000 Blacks had served the American cause in some capacity, either on the battlefield, behind the lines in noncombatant roles, or on the seas. By 1777 some states began enacting laws that encouraged white owners to give slaves for the army in return for their enlistment bounty, or allowing masters to use slaves as substitutes when they or their sons were drafted. In the South the idea of arming slaves for military service met with such opposition that only free blacks were normally allowed to enlist in the army. Most black soldiers were scattered throughout the Continental Army in integrated infantry regiments, where they were often assigned to support roles as wagoners, cooks, waiters or artisans. Several all-black units, commanded by white officers, also were formed and saw action against the British. Rhode Island’s Black Battalion was established in 1778 when that state was unable to meet its quota for the Continental Army. The legislature agreed to set free slaves who volunteered for the duration of the war, and compensated their owners for their value. This regiment performed bravely throughout the war and was present at Yorktown where an observer noted it was “the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers.”Although the Southern states were reluctant to recruit enslaved African Americans for the army, they had no objections to using free and enslaved blacks as pilots and able-bodied seaman. In Virginia alone, as many as 150 black men, many of them slaves, served in the state navy. After the war, the legislature granted several of these men their freedom as a reward for faithful service. African Americans also served as gunners, sailors on privateers and in the Continental Navy during the Revolution. While the majority of Blacks who contributed to the struggle for independence performed routine jobs, a few, such as James Lafayette, gained renown serving as spies or orderlies for well-known military leaders. Black participation in the Revolution, however, was not limited to supporting the American cause, and either voluntarily or under duress thousands also fought for the British. Enslaved Blacks made their own assessment of the conflict and supported the side that offered the best opportunity to escape bondage. Most British officials were reluctant to arm Blacks, but as early as 1775, Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, established an all-Black “Ethiopian Regiment” composed of runaway slaves. By promising them freedom, Dunmore enticed over 800 slaves to escape from “rebel” masters. Whenever they could, enslaved Blacks continued to join him until he was defeated and forced to leave Virginia in 1776. Dunmore’s innovative strategy met with disfavor in England, but to many blacks the British army came to represent liberation.

Lafayette, who supported the American cause as a spy, may have been the inspiration for the figure above in the 18th-century engraving, in the Jamestown-Yorktown collection, depicting the Marquis de Lafayette at Yorktown.

Name: The Revolutionary War
Accounts and Alternative Details
And I hereby further declare all indented servants, Negroes, or others (appertaining to Rebels) free, that are able and willing to bear arms, they joining His Majesty's Troops, as soon as may be, for the more speedily reducing the Colony to a proper sense of their duty, to this Majesty's crown and dignity.
-- Lord Dunmore's Proclamation
While the Patriots were ultimately victorious in the American Revolution, choosing sides and deciding whether to fight in the war was far from an easy choice for American colonists. The great majority were neutral or Loyalist. For black people, what mattered most was freedom. As the Revolutionary War spread through every region, those in bondage sided with whichever army promised them personal liberty. The British actively recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters and, consequently, more blacks fought for the Crown. An estimated 100,000 African Americans escaped, died or were killed during the American Revolution.
Many African Americans, like Agrippa Hull and Prince Hall, did side with the Patriot cause. 5,000 black men served in the Continental Army, and hundreds more served on the sea.
Had George Washington been less ambivalent, more blacks might have participated on the Patriot side than with the Loyalists. When he took command of the Continental Army in 1775, Washington barred the further recruitment of black soldiers, despite the fact that they had fought side by side with their white counterparts at the battles of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill.
The Governor of Virginia, whose royal title was Lord Dunmore, on the other hand, sought to disrupt the American cause by promising freedom to any slaves owned by Patriot masters who would join the Loyalist forces. (Runaway slaves belonging to Loyalists were returned to their masters.) Dunmore officially issued his proclamation in November, 1775, and within a month 300 black men had joined his Ethiopian regiment. Probably no more than 800 eventually succeeded in joining Dunmore's regiment, but his proclamation inspired thousands of runaways to follow behind the British throughout the war.
By the winter of 1777-78, the Continental Army had dwindled to 18,000 from disease and desertion. This, together with the active recruitment of enslaved blacks by the British, finally convinced Washington to approve plans for Rhode Island to raise a regiment of free blacks and slaves.Colonel Tye was perhaps the best-known of the Loyalist black soldiers. An escaped bondman born in Monmouth County, New Jersey, he wreaked havoc for several years with his guerrilla Black Brigade in New York and New Jersey. At one time he commanded 800 men. For most of 1779 and 1780, Tye and his men terrorized his home county -- stealing cattle, freeing slaves, and capturing Patriots at will. On September 1, 1780, during the capture of a Patriot captain, Tye was shot through the wrist, and he later died from a fatal infection.
Boston King was an escaped slave who joined up with the Loyalists and later documented his experience. When he reached the black Loyalist encampment, it was a rife with smallpox. King became ill himself, and discovered that the British removed sick runaways from camp to die or heal on their own. King survived, and rejoined General Cornwallis' troops at Camden, South Carolina, where he served as a military messenger and an orderly. But while fighting for the Crown, King was kidnapped by a band of southern Loyalists who tried to sell him back into slavery. He escaped and again rejoined the army.
Many thousands of African Americans who aided the British lost their freedom anyway. Many of them ended up in slavery in the Caribbean. Others, when they attempted to leave with the British, in places like Charleston and Savannah, were prevented. And there are incredible letters written by southerners of Africans after the siege of Charleston, swimming out to boats, and the British hacking away at their arms with cutlasses to keep them from following them. So it was a very tragic situation. And of the many thousands of Africans who left the plantations, not many of them actually got their freedom.
-- Margaret Washington, historian, on the evacuation of Charleston
In October 1781, as Patriot and French ground forces and the French fleet surrounded Cornwallis' men at Yorktown, Virginia, the British sent their black allies to face death between the battle lines. After Cornwallis' surrender, the Americans rounded up the surviving blacks for re-enslavement. For the next year, as Loyalists withdrew from southern ports, scores of black refugees sought passage to New York -- the last British stronghold.
In November 1782, Britain and America signed a provisional treaty granting the former colonies their independence. As the British prepared for their final evacuation, the Americans demanded the return of American property, including runaway slaves, under the terms of the peace treaty. Sir Guy Carleton, the acting commander of British forces, refused to abandon black Loyalists to their fate as slaves. With thousands of apprehensive blacks seeking to document their service to the Crown, Brigadier General Samuel Birch, British commandant of the city of New York, created a list of claimants known as The Book of Negroes. Boston King and his wife, Violet, were among 3,000 to 4,000 African Americans Loyalists who boarded ships in New York bound for Nova Scotia, Jamaica, and Britain.
[P]eace was restored between America and Great Britain, which diffused universal joy among all parties, except us, who had escaped from slavery, and taken refuge in the English army; for a report prevailed at New-York, that all the slaves, in number 2000, were to be delivered up to their masters, altho' some of them had been three or four years among the English. This dreadful rumour filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror, especially when we saw our old masters coming from Virginia, North-Carolina, and other parts, and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New-York, or even dragging them out of their beds. Many of the slaves had very cruel masters, so that the thoughts of returning home with them embittered life to us. For some days we lost our appetite for food, and sleep departed from our eyes.
-- Boston King
The Book of Negroes
Date: 1783
In 1776, British troops under the command of General Billy Howe captured New York City. The city continued to be a British stronghold for the duration of the war, and large numbers of enslaved blacks sought refuge there.

When the British evacuated Savannah in July, 1782 and Charleston five months later, they transported thousands of black men and women, many of whom had escaped from enslavement to Patriot masters. This emerged as an issue of protest for the Continental government, affecting the terms of the peace treaty.

Prior to the evacuation of New York, Congress instructed General Washington to obtain American property held by the British, including slaves, as stipulated under the terms of the agreement signed in Paris in November, 1782.

Sir Guy Carleton, negotiating on behalf of the British, dismayed the Americans when he expressed an intention to honor the proclamations of freedom issued by previous commanders, claiming that to do otherwise would be a "dishonorable Violation of the public Faith." Carleton proposed to compensate slaveowners for the loss of property.

Carleton assigned three men to compile a register of Negroes who were eligible for evacuation from New York, and Congress appointed a three-man commission to inspect and supervise the process. For the next several months the British board and the American commission met each Wednesday at the Queen's Head, a tavern owned by Samuel Fraunces, a free black, and reviewed cases brought by slaveowners.

Within a year, the British had compiled a register of 3,000 former slaves who had joined them prior to the signing of the 1782 provisional treaty; all others were to be returned. Among the 3,000 who departed New York in November, 1783 were 1119 men, 914 women, 339 boys, 335 girls and 76 children whose gender was unidentified. Of these, the largest group comprised those who had joined the British military and therefore claimed freedom by proclamation; the second largest was those who claimed to have abandoned their master during the war; and the third largest group was those who claimed to have been born free or to have been emancipated.

The Book of Negroes (v2)
Accounts and Alternative Details
As Revolution began in the thirteen American colonies in the late 1770s, the British were badly outnumbered. When in desperation they promised freedom to any slave of a rebel who fought the Americans on their behalf, the response was greater than they could have imagined; as many as 30 000 slaves escaped to British lines. Working as soldiers, labourers, pilots, cooks, and musicians, they were a major part of the unsucessful British war effort. As defeat became inevitable, these free blacks were evacuated to Nova Scotia with the other Loyalists.But their hoped-for promised land never arrived. Their land was never granted, and most were reduced to a position not so different from slavery, where they were dependent on the meagre wages they could earn from manual labour. In the end most chose to seek a new life in Sierra Leone, away from the cold lands where they had experienced so much prejudice.
This is the story of those Black Loyalists.
The Book of Negroes” is a series of documents listing persons of African ancestry who were evacuated from the United States at the end of the American Revolution. One copy is held with the Guy Carlton Papers in The National Archives of Great Britain in London, England. The second copy, titled “Inspection Roll of Negroes New York, New York City Book No. 1 April 23-September 13, 1783,” is held in the United States National Archives in Washington, D.C. These rolls were compiled over a six month period by a group of British and American representatives who convened each Wednesday from April to September, 1783 at the Queens Head Tavern owned by Samuel Fraunces, a free black resident of New York who was born in St. Catherine’s, Jamaica.

The Book of Negroes was completed prior to November 25, 1783, which was designated as the date the British Army and Loyalists (pro-British residents of New York and other colonies) would depart for Canada. American slaveholders wanted to take possession of their human property who had fled to the British and whom they believed were promised to be repatriated by the Paris Peace Treaty of November 1782, which recognized American independence and officially ended the fighting between British and American forces. Sir Guy Carlton, the British commander in charge of the negotiations, however vowed that he would not surrender human property stating it was “A dishonorable violation of public faith.” Carlton proposed instead to compensate slave owners for their loss of property but no known compensation was made by Great Britain.

Samuel Jones, who later became comptroller for New York State, signed the documents on behalf of the United States. Signing for Loyalists were W.L. Smith, a future Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, along with Lt. Colonel Richard Armstrong of the Queen’s Rangers and Lt. Alexander McMillin of DeLancy’s 1st battalion. Armstrong and McMillan settled in New Brunswick along with many black Loyalists.

The Book of Negroes, a document of over 200 pages, consisted of a ledger of individuals and where possible, short accounts of individual lives which included country of origin, free or enslaved status, dates, indentures, owners, status of owners (whether they were Loyalists or Patriots), descriptions of appearance, parents, race, and age. The informants included slave owners wanting compensation for runaways, military officers in command of black Loyalist regiments, civilian Loyalists, and those with freedom papers.

It is estimated that about 3,500 free black Loyalists left New York City with the total group of 35,000 bound for New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. There were also approximately 1,500 enslaved individuals who belonged to slaveholding Loyalists. Thus persons of African ancestry comprised nearly 15 percent of the Loyalist exodus to Canada.
Many thousands of African Americans who aided the British lost their freedom anyway. Many of them ended up in slavery in the Caribbean. Others, when they attempted to leave with the British, in places like Charleston and Savannah, were prevented. And there are incredible letters written by southerners of Africans after the siege of Charleston, swimming out to boats, and the British hacking away at their arms with cutlasses to keep them from following them. So it was a very tragic situation. And of the many thousands of Africans who left the plantations, not many of them actually got their freedom.
-- Margaret Washington, historian, on the evacuation of Charleston
In October 1781, as Patriot and French ground forces and the French fleet surrounded Cornwallis' men at Yorktown, Virginia, the British sent their black allies to face death between the battle lines. After Cornwallis' surrender, the Americans rounded up the surviving blacks for re-enslavement. For the next year, as Loyalists withdrew from southern ports, scores of black refugees sought passage to New York -- the last British stronghold.
In November 1782, Britain and America signed a provisional treaty granting the former colonies their independence. As the British prepared for their final evacuation, the Americans demanded the return of American property, including runaway slaves, under the terms of the peace treaty. Sir Guy Carleton, the acting commander of British forces, refused to abandon black Loyalists to their fate as slaves. With thousands of apprehensive blacks seeking to document their service to the Crown, Brigadier General Samuel Birch, British commandant of the city of New York, created a list of claimants known as The Book of Negroes. Boston King and his wife, Violet, were among 3,000 to 4,000 African Americans Loyalists who boarded ships in New York bound for Nova Scotia, Jamaica, and Britain.
[P]eace was restored between America and Great Britain, which diffused universal joy among all parties, except us, who had escaped from slavery, and taken refuge in the English army; for a report prevailed at New-York, that all the slaves, in number 2000, were to be delivered up to their masters, altho' some of them had been three or four years among the English. This dreadful rumour filled us all with inexpressible anguish and terror, especially when we saw our old masters coming from Virginia, North-Carolina, and other parts, and seizing upon their slaves in the streets of New-York, or even dragging them out of their beds. Many of the slaves had very cruel masters, so that the thoughts of returning home with them embittered life to us. For some days we lost our appetite for food, and sleep departed from our eyes.
-- Boston King

Choose Sides During the American Revolution
Accounts and Alternative Details
The biggest misconception is that black Americans were invisible during the American Revolution, and that they did not participate in direct action towards American independence. The reasons for these misconceptions largely stem from nineteenth century efforts to whitewash history as slavery became a far more divisive issue. Efforts continued into the twentieth century as the Lost Cause narrative relegated African American contributions to our history as secondary footnotes when necessary for discussion. It wouldn’t be until the 1960s where a new school of researchers, historians and scholars peeled back the layers of neglect, and rediscovered the impact these early Americans indeed had on significant events during the American Revolution. Since then, hundreds of excellent works have been produced that show and explain just how vital these Americans were and remain to our understanding of how we became a nation through revolution

This is a portrait of Crisps Attucks.

A portrait of Crispus Attucks, one of the five men killed in the Boston Massacre. Wikimedia Commons
To be fair, it would not be accurate to suggest black Americans were commanding troops on the battlefield, nor should we sensationalize their actual contributions and place during the Revolutionary War. Participation was largely contingent on several main factors, chief among them the necessity for aiding the existing army in the field. Both the Continental and British armies would employ blacks into the ranks for this reason. Fighting for emancipation or for liberty, particularly in the case of the American Cause, was not the driver for enlisting them into service. But it also would be inaccurate to state that many Continental officers didn’t advocate for their freedoms in the name of liberty. The best we can do is separate the motives of both sides in using black support where it could best aide each army, sometimes at the expense of these individuals, and sometimes to their eventual goal of achieving freedom for themselves.

Looking at the American side, black Americans were in thick of it from the very first minutes of the revolution. Whether we want to point to Crispus Attucks being the first man shot down at the Boston Massacre on March 5, 1770, or the actions of minutemen assembling from the hills around Lexington and Concord, the evidence is plain and clear that black citizens rallied to defend their mixed communities from the British army. Individuals like Peter Salem, Lemuel Hayes, Barzillai Lew, and Salem Poor, among other noted participants, were eyewitness to events because they were fighting in them. The Battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, is of specific importance because Salem Poor was officially recognized by his superiors for mortally wounding British Lieutenant-Colonel James Abercrombie, the highest-ranking officer to die in the battle.

The first calls for suppressing visible black enlistment came with the influx of officers and soldiers from colonies outside of New England. While many of the Massachusetts men were farmers, many more were sailors and port workers accustomed to interracial employment and cooperation. This was not the case with arriving soldiers from Virginia and elsewhere, as those black workers in the South were more likely to be enslaved than those in Boston. Gen. George Washington, himself a slave owner and understanding of these sentiments, also understood the need for a continental force that identified beyond regional differences. This is not to suggest he immediately welcomed black soldiers in the army, but for us to understand that even Washington, as wary as he was with the look of armed black men, was desperate for capable armed men. African Americans who had been fighting in Massachusetts were grandfathered into the army after new rules went into effect on July 10, 1775, which barred both free and enslaved black Americans from enlistment.

This would not last long. As stated, Washington, along with the sentiments of fellow Southern officers and soldiers, was not induced to arm enslaved black Americans as it presented a clear conundrum for the institution of chattel slavery. But Washington was also desperate for men, and as the events of 1776-77 played out, he soon relented and gradually became supportive of arming free citizens, regardless of their skin color. Further prodding by a handful of animated junior officers pushed Washington in the last remaining years of the war. Chief among these officers was John Laurens, son of Continental Congress president Henry Laurens; Alexander Hamilton, a skillful aide-to-camp of Washington’s inner circle, and the Marques de Lafayette, the young Frenchman whose zeal for liberty and faith in the commander in chief brought him under the wing of Washington like no other. Along with a handful of others, these officers became vocally supportive of allowing black Americans to fight in the army. And when it came to arming slaves, John Laurens was unequaled in his quest to raise regiments within South Carolina and Georgia in 1780-81. These efforts proved futile against the ruling plantation gentry, but they clearly signaled a contradiction that the American Revolution presented: who was eligible for this liberty and freedom we speak to fight for? Their effect surely spread as even American general Nathanael Greene, himself a slave owner, was advocating the arming of slaves to battle proxy loyalist raiders in South Carolina.

This watercolor depicts an African-American soldier of the Rhode Island Regiment, and three other soldiers in American uniforms.

1781 watercolor illustrating Continental soldiers at the Siege of Yorktown which includes a member of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment. Brown University Library
At the beginning of the war, free black citizens could and did join the ranks of the Continental army. This was when the existence of the army was still coming together; there was no official order and decorum established yet of who could join. We also must understand that black soldiers were not segregated from white soldiers. The only instance of segregation came with the raising of the First Rhode Island Regiment under Colonel Christopher Greene. Famed for their bright white dress, they were one of several regiments to participate in the defense of Rhode Island in August 1778. This segregation effort was not done to shun black participation, but rather to prove that blacks could fight as well as whites. Their regiment aside, the vast majority of the remaining black Americans who served in the Continental army did so fully integrated within other regiments and units. But most black soldiers were not armed recruits; they were cooks, laborers, craftsman, drummers, flag-bearers, couriers and medical assistants. We can document the instances where individual black soldiers fought in battle under arms, such as the storming of Redoubt 10 at Yorktown in October 1781, but it would not be accurate to claim that every regiment had black soldiers marching with muskets shoulder-to-shoulder with white soldiers. In some cases, regiments did have more black soldiers than others, making them a visible presence for eyewitnesses to account for. This is where we’ve gotten the assumption that one-fifth of the Continental army at Yorktown was black, the observation made by a visiting European officer. Records show that only about 5,000 black soldiers fought for American independence with the army over the eight years of war. But we also must remember that the Continental Army was never larger than 15,000 strong at any given time, and that the army became divided into four separate entities by 1780: northern, main, southern, and western. Having a detachment of three hundred men with less than fifty of whom were black is not insignificant, nor should we assume it was that way for purely racial reasons.

A large portion of black Americans enlisted in the army, but a sizable amount, particularly those who were enslaved, were signed up by their masters to serve in their place. It was not uncommon for wealthy people to pay an individual to be their substitute if drafted into service, as was the case later in the Civil War. Despite the ban of enlisting slaves into the army, those serving in place of their masters were taken. When policies loosened, and individual states began recruiting whoever they could get to satisfy muster rolls for the army, more enslaved people filled the ranks of the army. In some instances, it was difficult to find white Americans willing to enlist; it was also far more common that black Americans did not own property to tend to, making them more suited for the military. We also know that many who escaped their plantations also passed as free black Americans. There was some suspicion of this going on, and some states demanded that black enlistees showed proof of their legal status upon registering. But the Continental Congress, Washington, and others generally approved of the enlistments. The same approval can be said of those black Americans who joined the Continental Navy. Whereas the sight of armed black soldiers held a menacing position with many white Americans, no such thought was given to black sailors aboard merchant vessels. Between centuries of employment on the high seas, and the noted presence of black workers in shipyards throughout the continent, it was simply a far more accepted position for them to be in. And the navy, more desperate for men than even the Continental army, literally could not say no.

Turning our attention to how the British coerced black Americans into service, one must begin with Lord Dunmore’s proclamation in 1775 that stipulated all enslaved persons in Virginia who escaped and joined up with the British/Loyalist forces would thereby be legally freed. As much as some of us might want to presume this was done as a motion of pure abolitionism, it was, in fact, a way of creating chaos among the Virginian and southern plantation ecosystem. As Virginia’s royal governor, John Murray, Earl of Dunmore was deliberately trying to intimidate rebels from organizing; this would hopefully keep them busy. Perhaps nothing stirred fears more among ruling white perpetrators of slavery than the thought of their black slaves rising up and overthrowing their masters with lethal force. A handful of insurrections had already ingrained themselves into colonial memory, so these fears were not entirely unjustified. Nevertheless, Lord Dunmore’s proclamation stoked these embedded nightmares among the ruling elite, and within months of its public debut, hundreds of enslaved black men were joining the British side in support of fighting for their freedom. The immediately effects, though, were far more mixed than hoped. The first regiment of black troops fell victim to smallpox while others who expected to be armed were in fact given laborer positions aiding the British army. Dunmore’s proclamation would later inspire Sir Henry Clinton, the commanding general of British forces in America, to issue his own decree known as the Philipsburg Proclamation. Unlike the Virginian’s move, by 1779, the war was not going well for the British, and Clinton sought to reroute the campaign into the South. Knowing that the enslaved population far outnumbered the free population of white civilians, Clinton sought to destabilize the southern states by offering freedom to any enslaved person who escaped their rebel masters and came to the British side. Rather than being an abolitionist-at-heart, Clinton’s plan hoped to inspire the collapse of rebel support in the South. While this did not happen, it did create the atmosphere for fierce partisan warfare among neighbors and inspired upwards of 100,000 enslaved black Americans to flee their plantations. Throughout the revolution, most black Americans, free and enslaved, believed the British held a better argument for liberty than the Americans did, which explains why so many risked all to flee to them. In some cases, the British army seized slaves for themselves. By war’s end, the British had the logistical nightmare of trying to transport not just their defeated army, but also loyalist citizens who wished to leave the United States, and now freed slaves looking for a new life out of bondage in America.

This is a portrait painting of Lord Dunmore.
John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore (1765) Sir Joshua Reynolds

In many ways, the British army used eager black participants as secondary supporters to the main forces. This is not to suggest there weren’t armed black men fighting within the British ranks. It’s only to suggest that such examples were few and far between, mostly left to loyalist raiding parties that were informal and not part of the regular army. Examples of black regiments within the British army show up during the early years of the war in the northern states, and during the Southern Campaign in 1780-81. As stated, the primary task of military-age black men was not to fight in the army, but to serve as support staff for it. Laborers dug ditches and assembled redoubts for the army, most notably at Yorktown. Others were given a gruesome fate: dying of smallpox, many were intentionally left near rebel farms and routes of the American forces in Virginia. Others, like their counterparts on the American side, spied for the British where possible.

In this brief overview of African American participation during the Revolutionary War, we should be aware of a few things. There were black men who served in the armies as soldiers and black men who served for the armies as support. There were also countless black women and children who aided and supported both armies as well. The role of camp follower is for another discussion, however. Both free and enslaved men fought for American independence and for the British attempt to squash the rebellion. Most black Americans supported the British for reasons we know, but many served with the Continental Army because they believed in what the revolution presumably stood for. Some decided to serve for person reasons, detached from skin color while others served precisely for the color of their skin. The complexities are part of the reason why these stories have remained on the margins of our general knowledge of the time period. The lack of simplicity leaves many to fumble the truth. To see contradiction befall many of these explanations is to first see with clarity how the principles that drove the American Revolution were what would undo slavery’s legitimacy within the United States. Among even those men fighting for liberty, it became difficult to explain how some people were destined for freedom and others were destined for bondage. For African Americans, the choice has always been freedom, and the many who served during the American Revolution is further proof of how much they were willing to sacrifice to obtain it.

Gabriel's Rebellion

"Death or Liberty"

Gabriel (1776 – October 10, 1800), today commonly known as Gabriel Prosser, was a literate enslaved blacksmith who planned a large slave rebellion in the Richmond, Virginia area in the summer of 1800. Information regarding the revolt was leaked prior to its execution, and he and twenty-five followers were hanged.

Gabriel Prosser's uprising was notable not because of its results—the rebellion was quelled before it could begin—but because of its potential for mass chaos and widespread violence. There were other slave rebellions, but this one "most directly confronted" the Founding Fathers "with the chasm between the ideal of liberty and their messy accommodations to slavery."[1]

Virginia and other state legislatures passed restrictions on free blacks, as well as prohibiting the education, assembly, and hiring out of slaves, to restrict their ability and chances to plan similar rebellions.

In 2002, the City of Richmond passed a resolution in honor of Gabriel on the 202nd anniversary of the planned rebellion. In 2007, Governor Tim Kaine gave Gabriel and his followers an informal pardon, in recognition that his cause, "the end of slavery and the furtherance of equality for all people—has prevailed in the light of history".

Gabriel was born into slavery in 1776 at Brookfield, a large tobacco plantation in Henrico County, Virginia.[1] He and two brothers, Solomon and Martin, were held in bondage by slaveholder Thomas Prosser, the owner of Brookfield. Gabriel was literate.[2][3] He was one of the rare 5% of enslaved people of the colonial era who were able to learn to read and write.[1]

Gabriel trained as a blacksmith and a carpenter.[1][2] His brother Solomon, and perhaps his father, was a blacksmith.[2] Gabriel, "hired out" by his enslaver to work in Richmond foundries,[4] was able to keep a portion of the wages that he earned. The bulk of it went to Thomas Prosser.[1] Gabriel traveled freely throughout Richmond and Henrico County to work for plantation and business owners.[5]

Gabriel was married to Nanny, an enslaved woman. They were not known to have had any children.[5] He was described in newspaper articles as having stood "six feet two or three inches high". His long and "bony face, well made", was marred by the loss of his two front teeth and "two or three scars on his head".[1][2] White people as well as black people regarded the literate young man as "a fellow of great courage and intellect above his rank in life".[2]

In 1799, Gabriel, his brother Soloman, and a man named Jupiter, tried to steal a pig from Absalom Johnson. Gabriel got into a scuffle with Johnson and he bit off part of Johnson's ear.[1][5] Jupiter was charged with stealing a hog, which was a misdemeanor and Soloman was not charged. It was a capital offense for an enslaved person to assault a white person. He could have been hanged for the assault. Because he was a valuable bondsman for Prosser, the judge sentenced him to jail for one month and had his thumb branded.[5] Gabriel was released from jail when slaveholder Prosser paid a bond for his release and he promised a year of good behavior. Richmond history professor and slave law expert Philip J. Schwarz states that it showed Gabriel's intention "to consciously challenge the system of slave control."[1][5] See also History of slavery in Virginia § Food.

Historian Douglas R. Egerton and author of Gabriel's Rebellion, states: "He was physically big, he was literate, he's a fighter, he's a skilled artisan. For all these reasons, he was a natural leader."[1]

Background to the Revolt:
In Richmond, there were slightly more blacks than whites, with a total population of 5,700 in 1800. Richmond was a slave town, with a community whipping post where slaveholders had punishment meted out in a public square. Enslaved men loaded and moved flatboats of tobacco and other cargo. [6] Throughout the state in 1800, 39.2% of the total population were slaves; they were concentrated on plantations in the Tidewater region and west of Richmond.[7]

Gabriel, living in Virginia in the late eighteenth century, was influenced by the prevailing themes of liberty expounded by the supporters of the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions.[3][8] During his lifetime, the number of free people of color had grown markedly in the Upper South. Many slaves were manumitted thanks in part to the efforts of Methodist and Quaker abolitionists.[9][a] Their number was augmented by free black refugees from the Haitian Revolution, many of whom had been slaveowners themselves.[10] Some Virginia slaveholders were nervous about the sharp increase in the number of free blacks in the slave state.[b]

Gabriel's Rebellion
Part of the Slave Revolts in North America
Date  1800
Location  Henrico County, Virginia
Goals  Emancipation
Resulted in  Discovered, suppressed
Parties to the civil conflict
Rebel slaves
United States
VirginiaVirginia militia

Lead figures
Gabriel Prosser Executed  James Monroe
Number
Likely hundreds

Casualties and losses
70 arrested, 23 hanged

Historians assert that Prosser became the leader of the planned rebellion because he was a blacksmith, and enslaved people respected and feared blacksmiths because of their ability to forge weapons and their connection to the spirit of iron Ogun. Ogun is the "god of iron," warfare and metalwork in West Africa. In West Africa, blacksmiths are feared and respected because they can forge weapons and they hold the secrets to the mysteries of metal and its spiritual properties. On plantations in Virginia, enslaved blacks continued the West African tradition of holding blacksmiths to a high degree of respect and fear. During the slave trade, Virginia imported blacksmiths from West Africa into the colony and the state. Enslaved and free African-American men in Virginia taught their metalwork skills to their sons.[11]

During the spring and summer of 1800, Gabriel began to plan a revolt that intended to end slavery in Virginia.[10] Plans were made with enslaved people over 10 counties and the cities of Richmond, Norfolk, and Petersburg, Virginia.[12]

He and his brothers, as well as other blacksmiths, turned scythe blades into as many as twelve dozen swords. Musket balls and 50 spears were created. They intended to steal muskets from a tavern.[10] Hundreds of slaves from central Virginia[c] expected to march into Richmond and take control of the Virginia State Armory and the Virginia State Capitol. The plan was to hold Governor James Monroe hostage so that they could negotiate for their freedom.[3]

But on August 30, 1800, the planned day of attack, heavy rain flooded the streets of Richmond and the creeks in central Virginia.[3] In addition, two slaves told their owner, Mosby Sheppard, about the plans. Sheppard warned Virginia's Governor, James Monroe, who called out the state militia. They patrolled the area and began picking up conspirators.[14][10] Gabriel escaped downriver to Norfolk, but he was spotted and betrayed there by another slave named Will "Billy" King.[14] More than 70 enslaved men were arrested by law enforcement for conspiracy and insurrection.[10]

Gabriel was returned to Richmond for questioning, but he did not submit.[15] The trial was heard by five justices in courts of oyer and terminer, rather than a jury. A recruit, Ben Woolfolk, testified that Gabriel intended on writing the words 'death or liberty' on a silk flag, referring to Patrick Henry's Give me liberty, or give me death! speech of 1775.[3] One of the enslaved men reportedly said "I have nothing more to offer than what General Washington would have had to offer, had he been taken by the British and put to trial."[3]

Gabriel, his two brothers, and 23 other slaves were hanged.[15] One individual committed suicide before his arraignment. Eight enslaved men were moved or sold outside of Virginia. Thirteen were found guilty, but were pardoned by the governor. Twenty five were acquitted.[10] Two men received their freedom for informing their slaveholder of the plot.[3]

Influence:
The rebellion was reported in newspapers across the country. James Monroe and Thomas Jefferson were concerned about the optics of having so many people executed. Jefferson said, "the other states & the world at large will forever condemn us if we indulge in a principle of revenge." The Federalists argued that the rebellion occurred as a result of the Democratic-Republican Party's support of the French Revolution.[3]

Fears of a slave revolt regularly swept major slaveholding communities. After the rebellion, many slaveholders greatly restricted the slaves' ability to travel after a second conspiracy was discovered in 1802 among enslaved boatmen along the Appomattox and Roanoke Rivers.[16] New laws were enacted to restrict free blacks and slaves.[3] The Virginia Assembly in 1802 made it illegal for blacks, whether free or enslaved, to obtain and pilot's boat or to navigate a boat. Two years later, they were unable to meet in groups after their work was done or on Sundays. In 1808, state legislators banned hiring out of slaves and required freed blacks to leave the state within 12 months or face re-enslavement. The growing population of free blacks had to petition the legislature to stay in the state.[17]

Historiography:
The historian Douglas Egerton offered a new perspective on Gabriel in his book Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 & 1802 (1993). He based this on extensive primary research from surviving contemporary documents.[4] Egerton concluded that Gabriel would have been stimulated and challenged at the foundries by interacting with co-workers of European, African and mixed descent. They hoped Thomas Jefferson's Republicans would liberate them from domination by the wealthy Federalist merchants of the city.[18]

The internal dynamics of Jefferson's and Monroe's party in the 1800 elections were complex. A significant part of the Republican base were major planters and colleagues of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Egerton believes that any sign that white radicals, and particularly Frenchmen, had supported Gabriel's plan could have cost Jefferson the presidential election of 1800. Slaveholders feared such violent excesses as those related to the French Revolution after 1789 and the rebellion of slaves in Saint-Domingue. Egerton believed that Gabriel planned to take Governor Monroe hostage to negotiate an end to slavery. Then he planned to "drink and dine with the merchants of the city".[19]

Egerton noted that Gabriel instructed his followers not to kill white Methodists, Quakers and Frenchmen. During this period, Methodists and Quakers were active missionaries for manumission.[1][3]

Legacy and honors:
Gabriel's rebellion served as an important example of slaves' taking action to gain freedom.

In 2002, the City of Richmond adopted a resolution to commemorate the 202nd anniversary "of the execution of the patriot and freedom fighter, Gabriel, whose death stands as a symbol for the determination and struggle of slaves to obtain freedom, justice and equality as promised by the fundamental principles of democratic governments of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the United States of America".[12][20]

The Spring Park Historic Site in Henrico County commemorates Gabriel.[12]
In 2004, the Virginia Board of Historic Resources approved a marker at the spot where Gabriel was hanged on October 10, 1800. It is between 15th and 16th streets, on the north side of East Broad Street. The state worked with individuals from a group called the Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality.[12]

In the fall of 2006, the Virginia State Conference of the NAACP requested Gov. Tim Kaine pardon Gabriel in recognition of his contributions to the civil rights struggle of African Americans and all peoples.[20]

On August 30, 2007, Governor Kaine informally pardoned Gabriel and his co-conspirators. Kaine said that Gabriel's motivation had been "his devotion to the ideals of the American revolution—it was worth risking death to secure liberty". Kaine noted that "Gabriel's cause—the end of slavery and the furtherance of equality of all people—has prevailed in the light of history", and added that "it is important to acknowledge that history favorably regards Gabriel's cause while consigning legions who sought to keep him and others in chains to be forgotten".[21]

Popular culture:
Arna Bontemps wrote Black Thunder (1936), a historical novel based on Gabriel's Rebellion.
In Roots, Alex Haley's historical fiction, the rebellion is heard of by the book's characters.
In Sally Hemings, Barbara Chase-Riboud's 1979 novel about Hemings's relationship with Thomas Jefferson, Monroe writes Jefferson asking his advice on what to do about the insurrectionists still in jail after "(m)ore than thirty-five" had been executed. Hemings intercedes on their behalf, telling Jefferson, "I think there has been enough hanging", and suggests they be exiled instead. Although it is not made explicit in the novel, it is implied that Jefferson followed her suggestion and advised Monroe accordingly. At the end of the chapter, Hemings says, "I heard that the last of Gabriel's rebels had been reprieved and banished from Virginia by James Monroe. I had not pleaded in vain."[22]

Songs:
Tim Barry, a singer/songwriter from Richmond, wrote and performed "Prosser's Gabriel" for the album 28th & Stonewall. It chronicles the events of Gabriel's life, focusing on the attempted revolution.
Gabriel is mentioned in Public Enemy's song "Prophets of Rage".
Gabriel is the hero of a cleverly subversive[23][d] sea shanty recorded[24][e] some forty years after events in Frederick Marryat's book, Poor Jack (1840).[25][f]

Notes:
^ The percentage of free blacks as part of the black population rose from less than 1 percent in 1782 to more than 10 percent by 1810. By that time, free blacks in Virginia numbered 30,466 or 7.2 percent of the total black population. By 1810 nearly three-quarters of Delaware's black population were free.[9]
^ They were uneasy as well by the violent aftermath of the French Revolution and the uprising of slaves in the 1790s in Saint Domingue. In 1792 France granted social equality to free people of color, and in 1793 French Revolutionary commissioners in Saint-Domingue granted freedom to all the slaves. Whites and free people of color, some of whom were also slaveholders, emigrated as refugees to the US during the years of upheaval, now known as the Haitian Revolution. They added to the population of free people of color in Charleston, Richmond and New Orleans. In addition, slaveholders brought thousands of ethnic African slaves with them, especially adding to the African population of New Orleans. In 1804, the black and mulatto revolutionaries succeeded in gaining freedom, declaring the colony the independent black nation of Haiti.
^ No reliable numbers existed regarding slave and free black conspirators; most likely, the number of men actively involved numbered only several hundred.[13]
^ '[the] song subverts...by exaggerating the reward and by foregrounding the extent of state repression aimed at a single man. This emphasizes White fear of slaves’ potential power to ruin the state, rather than accenting the majesty of White power. This, then, was a song slaves could sing in front of Whites. It appeared to focus on exactly what authorities hoped slaves would remember about the conspiracy, but it did not accept a White version of the story. The song reversed the meaning...turning it into a tale of White anxiety rather than White power.'[23]
^ Although elsewhere in his fiction Marryat sometimes invents lyrics to songs, this is unlikely to be the case with the shanty about Gabriel. It refers to a rebellion which occurred over thirty years earlier and contains details which Marryat, as an Englishman, was unlikely to have known. Furthermore he had sailed to North America in 1837, noting in his diary his interest in the shanties he repeatedly heard: '‘The seamen, as usual lightened their labour with the song and chorus...The one they sung was particularly musical, though not refined; and the chorus of ‘Oh! Sally Brown’, was given with great emphasis by the whole crew between every line of the song'.[24]
^ In the book the shanty is sung by an African American sailor. It refers to its subject as "General" Gabriel, and claims a bounty of £1000 was put on his head. After being betrayed and captured he is heavily loaded with chains and "a troop of light horse" is appointed to guard him. He is taken before the governor, whose name is slightingly alluded to ("Monroe he set up for go[ver]nor"). The whole country turns out to see him. Gabriel makes a last speech in which he proclaims his own "right name" and that he is "here today and gone tomorrow / I did not come for to stay for e[v]er". He is taken to the gallows in a wagon drawn by four grey horses.[26] Commenting with heavy irony that the execution was a "Very sad loss to Major Prosser" the verse concludes by describing Gabriel as the man "who almost ruined old Virginny".

References:
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j DeFord, Susan (2000-02-06). "Gabriel's Rebellion". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Egerton, Douglas R. (1993). Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. pp. 21–22. ISBN 978-0-8078-4422-9.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h i j "Gabriel's Conspiracy". www.lva.virginia.gov. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
^ Jump up to: a b Egerton, Douglas R. (1993). Gabriel's Rebellion : The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. pp. 24–25]. ISBN 978-0807844229.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e Tucker, Spencer C. (2014-06-11). The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783–1812: A Political, Social, and Military History [3 volumes]: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. p. 556. ISBN 978-1-59884-157-2.
^ Egerton, Douglas R. (1993). Gabriel's Rebellion : The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. p. 25. ISBN 978-0807844229.
^ "Historical Census Browser" Archived December 6, 2009, at the Wayback Machine, University of Virginia Library, accessed 21 Mar 2008
^ Egerton, Douglas R. (1993). Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 3. ISBN 0807844225.
^ Jump up to: a b Kolchin, Peter (1994). American Slavery: 1619–1877. New York: Hill and Wang. pp. 78, 81.
^ Jump up to: a b c d e f "Gabriel's Conspiracy of 1800". Encyclopedia Virginia. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
^ Rucker, Walter (2008). The River Flows On Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America. Louisiana State University Press.
^ Jump up to: a b c d "Gabriel's Rebellion to Have Lasting Marker". Style Weekly. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
^ Wood, Gordon S. "Chapter 14". Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815.
^ Jump up to: a b "John Moss to [Governor James Monroe?]". www.lva.virginia.gov. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
^ Jump up to: a b Foner, Eric (2006). Give me liberty!: An American History. I. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 259.
^ Egerton, Douglas R. (1993). Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 120–125. ISBN 0807844225.
^ Egerton, Douglas R. (1993). Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 164–168. ISBN 0807844225.
^ Egerton, Douglas R. (1993). Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 13. ISBN 0807844225.
^ "Testimony in the Trial of Gabriel". www.lva.virginia.gov. 6 October 1800. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
^ Jump up to: a b C. Ruth Ebrahim, "Virginia State NAACP Conference requests pardon of Gabriel" Archived 2009-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, The Caroline Register, Oct 2006, accessed 23 Jul 2008
^ Associated Press (August 31, 2007). "Gov. 'Pardons' Gabriel's Rebellion Slave". The Washington Post.
^ Chase-Riboud, Barbara (2009) [1979]. Sally Hemings: A Novel. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. pp. 222–24. ISBN 978-1-55652-945-0.
^ Jump up to: a b Sidbury, James (1997). Ploughshares into Swords: Race, Rebellion and Identity in Gabriel's Virginia. Cambridge University Press. p. 260. ISBN 978-0521598606.
^ Jump up to: a b Frederick Marryat, A Diary in America (London, 1839)
^ Frederick Marryat (1840), "Chapter 17", Poor Jack
^ "Africans in America - Part 3 Gabriel's Conspiracy". www.pbs.org. Retrieved 2021-05-18.

Resources in other libraries:
Aptheker, Herbert. American Negro Slave Revolts. New York: International Publishers, 1943.
Egerton, Douglas R. Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993.
Nicholls, Michael L. Whispers of Rebellion: Narrating Gabriel's Conspiracy. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2012.
Schwarz, Philip J. "Gabriel's Challenge: Slaves and Crime in Late Eighteenth-Century Virginia", Virginia Magazine of History and Biography Volume 90, Issue 3, pp. 283–309, 1982.
Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2006.

German Coast Uprising

Freedom or Death!

In 1811, about 40 miles north of New Orleans, Charles Deslondes, a mulatto slave driver on the Andry sugar plantation in the German Coast area of Louisiana, took volatile inspiration from that victory seven years prior in Haiti. He would go on to lead what the young historian Daniel Rasmussen calls the largest and most sophisticated slave revolt in U.S. history in his book American Uprising. (The Stono Rebellion had been the largest slave revolt on these shores to this point, but that occurred in the colonies, before America won its independence from Great Britain.) After communicating his intentions to slaves on the Andry plantation and in nearby areas, on the rainy evening of Jan. 8, Deslondes and about 25 slaves rose up and attacked the plantation’s owner and family. They hacked to death one of the owner’s sons, but carelessly allowed the master to escape.

That was a tactical mistake to be sure, but Deslondes and his men had wisely chosen the well-outfitted Andry plantation — a warehouse for the local militia — as the place to begin their revolt. They ransacked the stores and seized uniforms, guns and ammunition. As they moved toward New Orleans, intending to capture the city, dozens more men and women joined the cause, singing Creole protest songs while pillaging plantations and murdering whites. Some estimated that the force ultimately swelled to 300, but it’s unlikely that Deslondes’ army exceeded 124.

The South Carolina congressman, slave master and Indian fighter Wade Hampton was assigned the task of suppressing the insurrection. With a combined force of about 30 regular U.S. Army soldiers and militia, it would take Hampton two days to stop the rebels. They fought a pitched battle that ended only when the slaves ran out of ammunition, about 20 miles from New Orleans. In the slaughter that followed, the slaves’ lack of military experience was evident: The whites suffered no casualties, but when the slaves surrendered, about 20 insurgents lay dead, another 50 became prisoners and the remainder fled into the swamps.

By the end of the month, whites had rounded up another 50 insurgents. In short order, about 100 survivors were summarily executed, their heads severed and placed along the road to New Orleans. As one planter noted, they looked “like crows sitting on long poles.”

German Coast Uprising (v2)
The 1811 German Coast uprising was a revolt of black slaves in parts of the Territory of Orleans on January 8–10, 1811. The uprising occurred on the east bank of the Mississippi River in what is now St. John the Baptist, St. Charles and Jefferson Parishes, Louisiana.[1] The slave insurgency was the largest in US history, but the rebels killed only two white men. Confrontations with militia and executions after trial killed 95 black people.

Between 64 and 125 enslaved men marched from sugarcane plantations in and near present-day LaPlace on the German Coast toward the city of New Orleans.[2] They collected more men along the way. Some accounts claimed a total of 200 to 500 slaves participated.[3] During their two-day, twenty-mile march, the men burned five plantation houses (three completely), several sugarhouses, and crops. They were armed mostly with hand tools.[4]

White men led by officials of the territory formed militia companies, and in a battle on January 10 killed 40 to 45 of the escaped slaves while suffering no fatalities themselves, then hunted down and killed several others without trial. Over the next two weeks, white planters and officials interrogated, tried, executed, and decapitated an additional 44 escaped slaves who had been captured. Executions were generally by hanging or firing squad. Heads were displayed on pikes to intimidate other slaves.

Since 1995, the African American History Alliance of Louisiana has led an annual commemoration in January of the uprising, in which they have been joined by some descendants of participants in the revolt.[5]

Destrehan Plantation House, Louisiana:
The sugar boom on what was known as Louisiana's German Coast (named for immigrants in the 1720s) began after the American Revolutionary War, while the area near New Orleans was still controlled by Spain. In the 1780s, Jean Saint Malo, an escaped slave, established a colony of maroons in the swamps below New Orleans, which eventually led Spanish officials to send militia, who captured him. St. Malo became a folk hero after his execution in New Orleans on June 19, 1784. A decade later, during the height of the French Revolution, Spanish officials discovered a slave conspiracy at Pointe Coupee (established by French settlers around 1720 between Natchez and New Orleans). That slave uprising during the Easter holidays was suppressed before it came to fruition, and resulted in 23 executions by hanging (with the decapitated heads then displayed on the road to New Orleans) and 31 additional slaves were flogged and sent to serve hard labor in other Spanish outposts.[6]

After the Haitian slave revolution, planters attempted to establish similar lucrative sugarcane plantations on the Gulf Coast, resulting in a dense slave population. They converted from cotton and indigo plantations to sugar cane, so that by 1802, 70 sugar plantations produced over 3,000 tons in a year.[7] However, they replicated the brutal conditions which had led to numerous revolts in Haiti—the high profits were made by working slaves longer hours and punishing them more brutally, so that they lived shorter lives than any other slave society in North America.[8] Some accounts claimed blacks outnumbered whites by nearly five to one by 1810, and about 90% of whites in the area owned slaves. More than half of those enslaved may have been born outside Louisiana, many in Africa, where various European nations established slave trading outposts and Kongo was ripped apart by civil wars.[9]

After the U.S. negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, both the Marquis de Lafayette and James Monroe declined to become the Territorial Governor. President Thomas Jefferson then turned to a fellow Virginian, William C.C. Claiborne, whom he appointed on an interim basis, and who arrived in New Orleans with 350 volunteers and eighteen boats. Claiborne struggled with the area's diverse population, particularly because he spoke neither French nor Spanish. The population also included a larger proportion of native Africans among the slaves than elsewhere in the U.S. In addition, the mixed-race Creole and French-speaking population grew markedly with refugees from Haiti (and their slaves) following the successful Haitian slave revolution. Claiborne was not used to a society with the number of free people of color that Louisiana had, but he worked to continue their role in the militia that had been established under Spanish rule.

Long-term French Creole residents complained to Washington, D.C. about Claiborne and new U.S. settlers in the territory, and wanted no part of President Jefferson's plan to pay 30,000 Americans to move into the new territory and amalgamate with the residents. Thus, by 1805, a delegation led by Jean Noël Destréhan went to Washington to complain about the "oppressive and degrading" form of the territorial government, but President Madison continued to support Claiborne, who had expressed great doubts about the planters' honesty and trustworthiness.[10] Lastly, Claiborne suspected that the Spanish in nearby West Florida might encourage an insurrection. Thus, he struggled to establish and maintain his authority.

In the overall Territory of Orleans, from 1803 to 1811, the free black population nearly tripled, to 5,000, with 3,000 arriving as migrants from Haiti (via Cuba) in 1809–1810. In Saint-Domingue they had enjoyed certain rights as gens de couleur, including owning slaves themselves.[11] Furthermore, between 1790 and 1810, slave traders brought around 20,000 enslaved Africans to New Orleans.[12] The masters and slaves were virtually all Catholic.[13]

The waterways and bayous around New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain made transportation and trade possible, but also provided easy escapes and nearly impenetrable hiding places for runaway slaves. Some maroon colonies continued for years within several miles of New Orleans. With the spread of ideas of freedom from the French and Haitian revolutions, European-Americans worried about slave uprisings, particularly in the Louisiana area. In 1805, they heard a traveling Frenchman was preaching about liberty, equality, and fraternity to the French-speaking slaves, and arrested him as dangerous.[14]

Rebellion
Beginning:
A group of enslaved plantation workers met on January 6, 1811.[15] It was a period when work had relaxed on the plantations after the fierce weeks of the sugar harvest and processing. As planter James Brown testified weeks later, "The black Quamana [Kwamena, meaning "born on Saturday"], owned by Mr. Brown, and the mulatto Harry, owned by Messrs. Kenner and Henderson, were at the home of Manuel Andry on the night of Saturday–Sunday of the current month in order to deliberate with the mulatto Charles Deslondes, chief of the brigands."[citation needed] Slaves had spread word of the planned uprising among the slaves at plantations up and down the "German Coast", along the Mississippi River.

The revolt began on January 8 at the Andry plantation.[16] After striking and badly wounding Manuel Andry, the slaves killed his son Gilbert. "An attempt was made to assassinate me by the stroke of an axe," Andry wrote. "My poor son has been ferociously murdered by a horde of brigands who from my plantation to that of Mr. Fortier have committed every kind of mischief and excesses, which can be expected from a gang of atrocious bandittis of that nature."[17]

Escalation:
The rebellion gained momentum quickly. The approximately 15 slaves at Andry's plantation, about 30 miles (50 km) upriver from New Orleans, joined another 8 slaves from the next-door plantation of the widows of Jacques and Georges Deslondes. This was the home plantation of Charles Deslondes, a slave driver (an enslaved overseer of other slaves) later described by one of the captured slaves as the "principal chief of the brigands". Small groups of slaves joined from every plantation the rebels passed. Witnesses remarked on their organized march. They carried mostly pikes, hoes, and axes, but few firearms, and they marched to drums while some carried flags.[4] Approximately 10–25% of any given plantation's slave population joined with them.

At the plantation of James Brown, Kook, one of the most active participants and key figures in the story of the uprising, joined the insurrection. At the next plantation down, Kook attacked and killed François Trépagnier with an axe.[18] He was the second and last planter killed in the rebellion. After the band of slaves passed the LaBranche plantation, they stopped at the home of the local doctor. Finding the doctor gone, Kook set his house on fire.

Some planters testified at the trials in parish courts that they were warned by their slaves of the uprising. Others regularly stayed in New Orleans, where many had town houses,[19] and trusted their plantations to overseers to run. Planters quickly crossed the Mississippi River to escape the insurrection and to raise a militia.

As the slave party moved downriver, they passed larger plantations, from which many slaves joined them. Numerous slaves joined the insurrection from the Meuillion plantation, the largest and wealthiest plantation on the German Coast. The rebels laid waste to Meuillion's house. They tried to set it on fire, but a slave named Bazile fought the fire and saved the house.

After nightfall the slaves reached Cannes-Brulées, about 15 miles (24 km) northwest of New Orleans. The men had traveled between 14 and 22 miles (23 and 35 km), a march that probably took them seven to ten hours. By some accounts, they numbered "some 200 slaves," although other accounts estimated up to 500.[20] As typical of revolts of most classes, free or slave, the insurgent slaves were mostly young men between the ages of 20 and 30. They represented primarily lower-skilled occupations on the sugar plantations, where slaves labored in difficult conditions with a low life expectancy.

Suppression:
With an axe wound, Colonel Andry crossed the river to contact other planters and round up a militia, which pursued the rebel slaves. By noon on January 9, people in New Orleans had heard about the German Coast insurrection. By sunset, General Wade Hampton I, Commodore John Shaw, and Governor William C.C. Claiborne sent two companies of volunteer militia, 30 regular troops, and a detachment of 40 seamen to fight the slaves. By about 4 a.m. on January 10, the New Orleans forces had reached Jacques Fortier's plantation, where Hampton thought the escaped slaves had encamped overnight.

However, the escaped slaves had started back upriver about two hours before, traveled about 15 miles (24 km) back up the coast and neared Bernard Bernoudy's plantation. There, planter Charles Perret, under the command of the badly injured Andry and in cooperation with Judge St. Martin, had assembled a militia of about 80 men from the river's opposite side. At about 9 o'clock, this local militia discovered slaves moving toward high ground on Bernoudy's plantation. Perret ordered his militia to attack the rebel slaves, which he later wrote numbered about 200 men, about half on horseback. (Most accounts said only the leaders were mounted, and historians believe it unlikely the slaves could have gathered so many mounts.) Within a half-hour, 40 to 45 slaves had been killed; the remainder slipped away into the woods and swamps. Perret and Andry's militia tried to pursue them despite the difficult terrain.

On January 11, militia, assisted by Native American trackers as well as hunting dogs, captured Charles Deslondes, whom Andry considered "the principal leader of the bandits." A slave driver and son of a white man and a slave, Deslondes received no trial or interrogation. Naval officer Samuel Hambleton described his execution as having his hands chopped off, "then shot in one thigh & then the other, until they were both broken – then shot in the Body and before he had expired was put into a bundle of straw and roasted!"[21] His cries under the torture could intimidate other escaped slaves in the marshes. The following day Pierre Griffee and Hans Wimprenn, who were thought the murderers of M. Thomassin and M. François Trépagnier, were captured, killed, and their heads hacked off for delivery to the Andry estate. Major Milton and the dragoons from Baton Rouge arrived and provided support for the militia, since Governor Hampton believed them supported by the Spanish in West Florida.[22]

Trials:
Having suppressed the insurrection, the planters and government officials continued to search for slaves who had escaped. Those captured later were interrogated and jailed before trials. Officials convened three tribunals: one at Destrehan Plantation owned by Jean Noël Destréhan in (St. Charles Parish), one in St. John the Baptist Parish, and the third in New Orleans (Orleans Parish).

The Destrehan trials, overseen by Judge Pierre Bauchet St. Martin, resulted in the execution of 18 of 21 accused slaves by firing squad.[23][24] Some slaves testified against others, but others refused to testify nor submit to the all-planter tribunal.

In New Orleans, Commodore Shaw presumed that "but few of those who have been taken were acquitted." The New Orleans trials resulted in the conviction and summary executions of 11 more slaves. Three were publicly hanged in the Place d'Armes, now Jackson Square. One of those spared was a thirteen-year-old boy, who was ordered to witness another slave's death and then received 30 lashes. Another slave was treated with leniency because his uncle turned him in and begged for mercy. The sentence of a third slave was commuted because of the valuable information he had given.[25]

The heads of the executed were put on pikes, and the mutilated bodies of dead rebels displayed to intimidate other slaves. By the end of January, nearly 100 heads were displayed on the levee from the Place d'Armes in central New Orleans along the River Road to the plantation district and Andry's plantation, nearly quadrupling the number of heads nailed to posts from New Orleans to Pointe Coupee after the 1795 slave uprising.[26] The naval officer Samuel Hambleton described the heads posted on stakes that lined the levee as follows, "They were brung up here for the sake of their Heads, which decorate our Levee, all the way up the coast. I am told they look like crows sitting on long poles."[27]

U.S. territorial law provided no appeal from a parish court's ruling, even in cases involving imposition of a death sentence on an enslaved individual. Governor Claiborne, recognizing that fact, wrote[28] to the judges of each court that he was willing to extend executive clemency ("in all cases where circumstances suggest the exercise of mercy a recommendation to that effect from the Court and Jury, will induce the Governor to extend to the convict a pardon.") In fact, Gov. Claiborne did commute two death sentences, those of Henry,[29] and of Theodore,[30] each referred by the Orleans Parish court.[31] No record has been found of any referral from the court in St. Charles Parish, or of any refusal by the Governor of any application for clemency.

Outcome:
Militias killed about 95 slaves between the battle, subsequent summary apprehensions and executions, as well as by execution after trials.[19] From the trial records, most of the leaders appeared to have been mixed-race Creoles or mulattoes, although numerous slaves were native-born Africans.[9] Fifty-six of the slaves captured on the 10th and involved in the revolt were returned to their masters, who may have punished them but wanted their valuable laborers back to work. Thirty more slaves were captured, but returned to their masters after planters determined they had been forced to join the revolt by Charles Deslondes and his men.[19]

The heirs of Meuillon petitioned the legislature for permission to free the mulatto slave Bazile, who had worked to preserve his master's plantation. Not all the slaves supported insurrection, knowing the trouble it could bring and not wanting to see their homes and communities destroyed.[32] As was typical of American slave insurrections, the uprising was short-lived and quickly crushed by local authorities.[20] Showing planter influence, the legislature of the Territory of Orleans approved compensation of $300 to planters for each slave killed or executed. The Territory accepted the presence of U.S. troops after the revolt, as they were grateful for their presence. The national press covered the insurrection, with some Northerners seeing it arising out of the wrongs suffered under slavery.[33]

Legacy:
The uprising started in present-day LaPlace and followed a twenty-mile trek on the old River Road through the present-day towns of Montz, Norco, New Sarpy, Destrehan, St. Rose and ended at much of what had once been the Kenner and Henderson Plantations and is now Rivertown and Louis Armstrong International Airport (named after prominent African American musician Louis Armstrong) in Kenner.

While the Destrehan Plantation tour concentrates on architecture and white lifestyle and family histories, a small museum in a converted slave cabin (not on the standard tour) features folk paintings of the 1811 uprising.[34] Louisiana's historical marker for the former Andry plantation mentions "Major 1811 slave uprising organized here."[35] Despite its size and connection to the French and Haitian revolutions, the rebellion is not thoroughly covered in history books. As late as 1923, however, older black men "still relate[d] the story of the slave insurrection of 1811 as they heard it from their grandfathers."[36]

The Whitney Plantation, in St. John the Baptist Parish, opened in 2014 and is the first plantation museum in the country dedicated to the slave experience. The Whitney Plantation includes a memorial and information to commemorate the 1811 Slave Uprising of the German Coast.

Since 1995, the African American History Alliance of Louisiana has led an annual commemoration at Norco in January, where they have been joined by some descendants of members of the revolt.[5] In 2015, artist Dread Scott began organizing a massive re-enactment of the uprising;[37] the 26 mile, 2-day event took place in November 2019.[38][39]

The Uprising is featured in Talene Monahon's 2020 play about historical reenactment, How to Load a Musket.[40]

References:
Rothman (2005), p. 106.
Sternberg, Mary Ann (2001). Along the River Road: Past and Present on Louisiana's Historic Byways. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press. p. 12.
"'American Rising': When Slaves Attacked New Orleans". NPR. January 16, 2011. Retrieved January 16, 2011.
Genovese, Eugene D. (1976). Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York: Vintage Books. p. 592.
Lowen, James W. (2007). Lies Across America: What Our History Sites Get Wrong. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 192.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 88–90.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 47.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 49.
Rothman (2005), p. 111.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 52–58.
Buman, Nathan A. (August 2008). "To Kill Whites: The 1811 Louisiana Slave Insurrection" (PDF). Louisiana State University. pp. 32–33, 37, 51, 58. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 4, 2016. Retrieved January 18, 2013.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 90.
"The Role of Slaves and Free People of Color in the History of St. Charles Parish". St. Charles Parish, Louisiana Virtual History Museum. March 27, 2019. Retrieved September 17, 2021.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 89–90.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 11.
Andry, Manuel (April 21, 2017). "Dictionary of Louisiana Biography". Archived from the original on April 21, 2017. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 135.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 109.
"January 8, 1811". African American Registry. 2005. Archived from the original on October 1, 2009. Retrieved December 8, 2008.
Kolchin, Peter (1994). American Slavery: 1619–1877. New York: Hill and Wang. p. 156.
Smith, T.R. (2011). Southern Queen: New Orleans in the Nineteenth Century. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 31. ISBN 978-1847251930. Retrieved April 6, 2015.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 142–43.
"Jean Noël Destrehan" by John H. Lawrence, KnowLouisiana.org Encyclopedia of Louisiana. Ed. David Johnson. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 18 Jun 2013. Web. 15 Apr 2017.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 156.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 148.
Rasmussen pp. 148–50
Clint Smith (2021). Ibram X. Kendi; Keisha N. Blain (eds.). Four Hundred Souls. New York: One World. p. 175. ISBN 9780593134047.
January 16, 1811, and January 19, 1811, Rowland, Dunbar, ed. Official Letter Books of WCC Claiborne, 1801–1816. Vol. 5. State department of archives and history, 1917, pp. 100–01, 107–08.
Carter, 1940, p. 983
Carter, 1940, p. 982; Rowland, pp. 198–99
Eaton, Fernin (November 7, 2011). "Slave Uprising; Governor on Trial: Claiborne in His Own Words". Salon publique, Pitot House, New Orleans. Academia.edu. Retrieved February 19, 2015
Rothman (2005), p. 115.
Rothman (2005), p. 116.
Rasmussen (2011), p. 199–201.
Marael Johnson, Louisiana, Why Stop?: A Guide to Louisiana's Roadside Historical Markers, Houston: Gulf Publishing Co., 1996, p. 52.
Lubin F. Laurent, "A History of St. John the Baptist Parish", Louisiana Historical Quarterly, 7 (1924), pp. 324–25.
Boucher, Brian (September 29, 2015). "Dread Scott Stages Slave Uprising". Artnet News. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
Fadel, Leila; Bowman, Emma (November 9, 2019). "Hundreds March In Reenactment Of A Historic, But Long Forgotten Slave Rebellion". NPR. Retrieved November 12, 2021.
Rick Rojas, "'Join Us! Cry of an 1811 Slave Revolt Resounds for New Ears" New York Times p. A18 Nov. 11, 2019
Soloski, Alexis (January 16, 2020). "'How to Load a Musket' Review: A Play About Re-enactors Gets Real". New York Times. Retrieved January 20, 2020.
Category: Illustration

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