Madison Washington

Last updated

Madison Washington was an American enslaved man who led a slave rebellion in America on November 7, 1841, on board the brig Creole, which was transporting 134 other slaves from Virginia for sale in New Orleans, as part of the coastwise slave trade. [1]

Contents

Washington was born into slavery in Virginia. After spending most of his life on a slave plantation he managed to escape in 1839 and, with the help of the Underground Railroad, he fled to Canada. [2] During his travels he was harboured by abolitionist Robert Purvis. Purvis recalled that Washington was fascinated by a portrait of Joseph Cinqué, a slave who led a successful uprising aboard the schooner La Amistad . [3] Washington later returned to Virginia to look for his still-enslaved wife, which resulted in his being recaptured by an overseer and placed aboard the Creole to be sold alongside her. [2]

On the night of Nov. 7, 1841, Washington led 18 of his fellow slaves into rebellion, killing slave trader John R. Hewell and subduing the crew. Taking control of the Creole, they commanded that it be sailed to Nassau, which was a British colony. The United Kingdom had already abolished slavery in 1833 in the British Empire. Despite American protests, the British declared the slaves to be free persons under their law and refused American demands for their return. [4]

The British authorities in Nassau took Washington and his 17 conspirators into custody under charges of mutiny. A special session of the Admiralty Court heard the case, but ruled in favor of the men and freed them in April 1842. The remaining 116 slaves had achieved freedom immediately in the preceding fall. [4] Five had remained on the ship and chose to return to the United States and slavery. As 128 slaves gained freedom resulting from this revolt, it is considered the most successful in United States history. [4]

Legacy among abolitionists

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abolitionism</span> Movement to end slavery

Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate slaves around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave rebellion</span> Armed uprising by slaves

A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by slaves, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of slaves have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freedom and the dream of successful rebellion is often the greatest object of song, art, and culture amongst the enslaved population. These events, however, are often violently opposed and suppressed by slaveholders.

David Walker was an American abolitionist, writer, and anti-slavery activist. Though his father was enslaved, his mother was free; therefore, he was free as well. In 1829, while living in Boston, Massachusetts, with the assistance of the African Grand Lodge, he published An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, a call for black unity and a fight against slavery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Anti-Slavery Society</span> Abolitionist society in existence from 1833–1870

The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, had become a prominent abolitionist and was a key leader of this society, who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown, also a freedman, also often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had 1,350 local chapters with around 250,000 members.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Highland Garnet</span> American abolitionist (1815–1882)

Henry Highland Garnet was an American abolitionist, minister, educator, orator, and diplomat. Having escaped as a child from slavery in Maryland with his family, he grew up in New York City. He was educated at the African Free School and other institutions, and became an advocate of militant abolitionism. He became a minister and based his drive for abolitionism in religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Purvis</span> American abolitionist

Robert Purvis was an American abolitionist in the United States. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and was likely educated at Amherst Academy, a secondary school in Amherst, Massachusetts. He spent most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1833 he helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society and the Library Company of Colored People. From 1845 to 1850 he served as president of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and also traveled to Britain to gain support for the movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coastwise slave trade</span>

The coastwise slave trade existed along the southern and eastern coastal areas of the United States in the antebellum years prior to 1861. Hundreds of vessels of various capacities domestically traded loads of slaves along waterways, generally from the Upper South which had a surplus of slaves to the Deep South where new cotton plantations created high demand for labor.

<i>Creole</i> mutiny 1841 slave-ship seizure

The Creole mutiny, sometimes called the Creole case, was a slave revolt aboard the American slave ship Creole in November 1841, when the brig was seized by the 128 slaves who were aboard the ship when it reached Nassau in the British colony of the Bahamas where slavery was abolished. The brig was transporting enslaved people as part of the coastwise slave trade in the American South. It has been described as the "most successful slave revolt in US history". Two died in the revolt, an enslaved person and a member of the crew.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joshua Reed Giddings</span> American politician (1795–1864)

Joshua Reed Giddings was an American attorney, politician and abolitionist. He represented Northeast Ohio in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1838 to 1859. He was at first a member of the Whig Party and was later a Republican, helping found the party.

<i>La Amistad</i> 1839 slave-ship takeover

La Amistad was a 19th-century two-masted schooner owned by a Spaniard living in Cuba. It became renowned in July 1839 for a slave revolt by Mende captives who had been captured and sold to European slave traders and illegally transported by a Portuguese ship from West Africa to Cuba, in violation of European treaties against the Atlantic slave trade. Spanish plantation owners Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes bought 53 captives in Havana, Cuba, including four children, and were transporting them on the ship to their plantations near Puerto Príncipe. The revolt began after the schooner's cook jokingly told the slaves that they were to be "killed, salted, and cooked." Sengbe Pieh unshackled himself and the others on the third day and started the revolt. They took control of the ship, killing the captain and the cook. Two Africans were also killed in the melee.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nat Turner's Rebellion</span> 1831 slave rebellion in Virginia, US

Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a slave rebellion that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831. Led by Nat Turner, the rebels, made up of enslaved African Americans, killed between 55 and 65 White people, making it the deadliest slave revolt for the latter racial group in U.S. history. The rebellion was effectively suppressed within a few days, at Belmont Plantation on the morning of August 23, but Turner survived in hiding for more than 30 days afterward.

<i>The Heroic Slave</i> Book by abolitionist Frederick Douglass (1852)

The Heroic Slave, a Heartwarming Narrative of the Adventures of Madison Washington, in Pursuit of Liberty is a short piece of fiction, or novella, written by abolitionist Frederick Douglass, at the time a fugitive slave based in Boston. When the Rochester Ladies' Anti Slavery Society asked Douglass for a short story to go in their collection, Autographs for Freedom, Douglass responded with The Heroic Slave. The novella, published in 1852 by John P. Jewett and Company, was Douglass's first and only published work of fiction.

The Liberty Party was an abolitionist political party in the United States before the American Civil War. The party experienced its greatest activity during the 1840s, while remnants persisted as late as 1860. It supported James G. Birney in the presidential elections of 1840 and 1844. Others who attained prominence as leaders of the Liberty Party included Gerrit Smith, Salmon P. Chase, Henry Highland Garnet, Henry Bibb, and William Goodell. They attempted to work within the federal system created by the United States Constitution to diminish the political influence of the Slave Power and advance the cause of universal emancipation and an integrated, egalitarian society.

The Enterprise was a United States merchant vessel active in the coastwise slave trade in the early 19th century along the Atlantic Coast. Bad weather forced it into Hamilton, Bermuda waters on February 11, 1835 while it carried 78 slaves in addition to other cargo. It became the centre of a minor international incident when the British authorities freed nearly all the slaves. Britain had abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies effective 1834. At that time it advised "foreign nations that any slavers found in Bermuda [and the Bahamas] waters would be subject to arrest and seizure. Their cargoes were liable to forfeiture" without compensation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abolitionism in the United States</span>

In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of slavery in North Carolina</span>

Slavery was legally practiced in the Province of North Carolina and the state of North Carolina until January 1, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Prior to statehood, there were 41,000 enslaved African-Americans in the Province of North Carolina in 1767. By 1860, the number of slaves in the state of North Carolina was 331,059, about one third of the total population of the state. In 1860, there were nineteen counties in North Carolina where the number of slaves was larger than the free white population. During the antebellum period the state of North Carolina passed several laws to protect the rights of slave owners while disenfranchising the rights of slaves. There was a constant fear amongst white slave owners in North Carolina of slave revolts from the time of the American Revolution. Despite their circumstances, some North Carolina slaves and freed slaves distinguished themselves as artisans, soldiers during the Revolution, religious leaders, and writers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the Bahamas</span>

Slavery in the Bahamas dates back several centuries.

The National Convention of Colored Citizens was held August 15–19, 1843 at the Park Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, New York. Similar to previous colored conventions, the convention of 1843 was an assembly for African American citizens to discuss the organized efforts of the anti-slavery movement. The convention included individuals and delegates from various states and cities. Henry Highland Garnet and Samuel H. Davis delivered key speeches. Delegates deliberated courses of action and voted upon resolutions to further anti-slavery efforts and to help African Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas McCargo</span> American slave trader (c. 1790–aft. 1854)

Thomas McCargo, also styled Thos. M'Cargo, was a 19th-century American slave trader who worked in Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana. He is best remembered today for being one of the slave traders aboard the Creole, which was a coastwise slave ship that was commandeered by the enslaved men aboard and sailed to freedom in the British Caribbean. The takeover of the Creole is considered the most successful slave revolt in antebellum American history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slave rebellion and resistance in the United States</span>

Slave rebellions and resistance were means of opposing the system of chattel slavery in the United States. There were many ways that most slaves would either openly rebel or quietly resist due to the oppressive systems of slavery. According to Herbert Aptheker, "there were few phases of ante-bellum Southern life and history that were not in some way influenced by the fear of, or the actual outbreak of, militant concerted slave action." Slave rebellions in the United States were small and diffuse compared with those in other slave economies in part due to "the conditions that tipped the balance of power against southern slaves—their numerical disadvantage, their creole composition, their dispersal in relatively small units among resident whites—were precisely the same conditions that limited their communal potential." As such, "Confrontation in the Old South characteristically took the form of an individual slave's open resistance to plantation authorities,"or other individual or small-group actions, such as slaves opportunistically killing slave traders in hopes of avoiding forced migration away from friends and family.

References

  1. Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2006). "Madison Washington". Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Vol. 1. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 571–572. ISBN   0-313-33272-X . Retrieved February 2, 2010.
  2. 1 2 R. Edward Lee, "Madison Washington, Slave Mutineer," Blacfax, Winter/Spring 1998, Vol. 8 Issue 36, p. 8
  3. Clifton E. Sorrell; Daina Ramey Berry (28 January 2021). "This 1841 Rebellion at Sea Freed More Than 100 Enslaved People". History.com.
  4. 1 2 3 Williams, Michael Paul (2002). "Brig Creole slaves". Richmond Times-Dispatch . Richmond, VA. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
  5. Garnet, Henry Highland. (1843) Henry Highland Garnet, "An Address To The Slaves Of The Corrupted United States", full text.
  6. Douglass, Frederick. The Heroic Slave Archived 2010-01-18 at the Wayback Machine , full text with commentary.