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.
Ancient Sparta had a special type of serf called helots who were often treated harshly, leading them to rebel.[1] According to Herodotus (IX, 28–29), helots were seven times as numerous as Spartans. Every autumn, according to Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus, 28, 3–7), the Spartan ephors would pro forma declare war on the helot population so that any Spartan citizen could kill a helot without fear of blood or guilt in order to keep them in line (crypteia). In the Roman Empire, though the heterogeneous nature of the slave population worked against a strong sense of solidarity, slave revolts did occur and were severely punished.[2] The most famous slave rebellion in Europe was led by Spartacus in RomanItaly, the Third Servile War. This war resulted in the 6,000 surviving rebel slaves being crucified along the main roads leading into Rome.[3] This was the third in a series of unrelated Servile Wars fought by slaves against the Romans.
The Mamluk Sultanate reigned for centuries out of a slave rebellion[dubious–discuss] in Egypt. It gave birth to both the Bahri dynasty and Burji dynasty and their countless artistic and scientific achievements. Among many accomplishments, the Mamluks were responsible for turning back the Mongol conquest. In Russia, the slaves were usually classified as kholops. A kholop's master had unlimited power over his life. Slavery remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs. Russian agricultural slaves were formally converted into serfs earlier in 1679.[4] During the 16th and 17th centuries, runaway serfs and kholops known as Cossacks, ("outlaws") formed autonomous communities in the southern steppes. There were numerous rebellions against slavery and serfdom, most often in conjunction with Cossack uprisings, such as the uprisings of Ivan Bolotnikov (1606–1607), Stenka Razin (1667–1671),[5]Kondraty Bulavin (1707–1709), and Yemelyan Pugachev (1773–1775), often involving hundreds of thousands and sometimes millions.[6] Between the end of the Pugachev rebellion and the beginning of the 19th century, there were hundreds of outbreaks across Russia.[7]
In 1808 and 1825, there were slave rebellions in the Cape Colony, newly acquired by the British. Although the slave trade was officially abolished in the British Empire by the Slave Trade Act of 1807, and slavery itself a generation later with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, it took until 1850 to be halted in the territories which were to become South Africa.[8]
São Tomé and Príncipe
On 9 July 1595, Rei Amador, and his people, the Angolars, allied with other enslaved Africans of its plantations, marched into the interior woods and battled against the Portuguese. It is said that day, Rei Amador and his followers raised a flag in front of the settlers and proclaimed Rei Amador as king of São Tomé and Príncipe, making himself as "Rei Amador, liberator of all the black people".
Between 1595 and 1596, part of the island of São Tomé was ruled by the Angolars, under the command of Rei Amador. On 4 January 1596, he was captured, sent to prison and was later executed by the Portuguese. Still today, they remember him fondly and consider him a national hero of the islands.
In the first decades of the 17th century, there were frequent slave revolts in the Portuguese colony of São Tomé and Príncipe, off the African shore, which damaged the sugar crop cultivation there.
Asia
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The Zanj Rebellion against the slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate was the culmination of a series of small revolts. It took place near the city of Basra, in southern Iraq over fifteen years (869−883 AD). It grew to involve over 500,100 slaves, who were imported from across the Muslim empire.
The Mamluk Sultanate reigned for centuries out of a slave rebellion[dubious–discuss] in Egypt. It gave birth to both the Bahri dynasty and Burji dynasty and their countless artistic and scientific achievements. Among many accomplishments, the Mamluks were responsible for turning back the Mongol conquest.
When the Russian general Konstantin Petrovich von Kaufmann and his army approached the city of Khiva during the Khivan campaign of 1873, the Khan Muhammad Rahim Khan II of Khiva fled to hide among the Yomuts, and the slaves in Khiva rebelled, informed about the imminent downfall of the city, resulting in the Khivan slave uprising.[9] When Kaufmann's Russian army entered Khiva on 28 March, he was approached by Khivans who begged him to put down the ongoing slave uprising, during which slaves avenged themselves on their former enslavers.[10] When the Khan returned to his capital after the Russian conquest, the Russian General Kaufmann presented him with a demand to abolish the Khivan slave trade and slavery, which he did.[11]
Europe
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In the 3rd century BCE, Drimakos (or Drimachus) led a slave revolt on the slave entrepot of Chios, took to the hills and directed a band of runaways in operations against their ex-masters.[12][13]
A number of slave revolts occurred in the Mediterranean area during the early modern period:
1748: Hungarian, Georgian and Maltese slaves on board an Ottoman galley named Lupa revolted against Ottoman slavery and sailed the ship to Malta.[14]
1749: Conspiracy of the Slaves – Muslim slaves in Malta planned to rebel and take over the island, but plans leaked out beforehand and the would-be rebels were arrested and many were executed.[14]
1760: Christian slaves on board the Ottoman ship Corona Ottomana revolted and sailed the ship to Malta.[14]
Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness invented by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that allegedly caused black slaves to run away. Today, drapetomania is considered an example of pseudoscience, and part of the edifice of scientific racism.
Slave resistance in the antebellumSouth did not gain the attention of academic historians until the 1940s, when historian Herbert Aptheker started publishing the first serious scholarly work [15] on the subject. Aptheker stressed how rebellions were rooted in the exploitative conditions of the Southern slave system. He traversed libraries and archives throughout the South, managing to uncover roughly 250 similar instances.
The 1811 German Coast Uprising, which took place in rural southeast Louisiana, at that time the Territory of Orleans, early in 1811, involved up to 500 insurgentslaves. It was suppressed by local militias and a detachment of the United States Army. In retaliation for the deaths of two white men and the destruction of property, the authorities killed at least 40 black men in a violent confrontation (the numbers cited are inconsistent); at least 29 more were executed (combined figures from two jurisdictions, St. Charles Parish and Orleans Parish). There was a third jurisdiction for a tribunal and what amounted to summary judgments against the accused, St. John the Baptist Parish. Fewer than 20 men are said to have escaped; some of those were later caught and killed, on their way to freedom.
Although only involving about seventy slaves and free blacks, Turner's 1831 rebellion is considered to be a significant event in American history. The rebellion caused the slave-holding South to go into a panic. Fifty-five men, women, and children were killed, and enslaved blacks were freed on multiple plantations in Southampton County, Virginia, as Turner and his fellow rebels attacked the white institution of plantation slavery. Turner and the other rebels were eventually stopped by state militias.[16] The rebellion resulted in the hanging of about 56 slaves, including Nat Turner himself. Up to 200 other blacks were killed during the hysteria that followed, few of whom likely had anything to do with the uprising.[17] White fear led to new legislation passed by Southern states prohibiting the movement, assembly, and education of slaves, and reducing the rights of free people of color. In 1831–32, the Virginia legislature considered a gradual emancipation law to prevent future rebellions. In a close vote, however, the state decided to keep slaves.[18]
The abolitionistJohn Brown had already fought against pro-slavery forces in Bleeding Kansas for several years when he decided to lead a raid on a Federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. This raid was a joint attack by freed blacks and white men who had corresponded with slaves on plantations in order to create a general uprising among slaves. Brown carried hundreds of copies of the constitution for a new republic of former slaves in the Appalachians. But they were never distributed, and the slave uprisings that were to have helped Brown did not happen. Some believe that he knew the raid was doomed but went ahead anyway, because of the support for abolition it would (and did) generate. The U.S. military, led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, easily overwhelmed Brown's forces. But directly following this, slave disobedience and the number of runaways increased markedly in Virginia.[19]
The historian Steven Hahn proposes that the self-organized involvement of slaves in the Union Army during the American Civil War composed a slave rebellion that dwarfed all others.[20] Similarly, tens of thousands of slaves joined British forces or escaped to British lines during the American Revolution, sometimes using the disruption of war to gain freedom. For instance, when the British evacuated from Charleston and Savannah, they took 10,000 freed slaves with them. They also evacuated slaves from New York, taking more than 3,000 for resettlement to Nova Scotia, where they were recorded as Black Loyalists and given land grants.[21]
There are 485 recorded instances of slaves revolting on board slave ships.[29] A few of these ships endured more than one uprising during their career.[29]
Most accounts of revolts aboard slave ships are given by Europeans. There are few examples of accounts by slaves themselves. William Snelgrave reported that the slaves who revolted on the British ship Henry in 1721 claimed that those who had captured them were "Rogues to buy them" and that they were bent on regaining their liberty.[30] Another example that Richardson gives is that of James Towne who gives the account of slaves stating that Europeans did not have the right to enslave and take them away from their homeland and "wives and children".[31]
Richardson compares several factors that contributed to slave revolts on board ships: conditions on the ships, geographical location, and proximity to the shore.[30] He suggests that revolts were more likely to occur when a ship was still in sight of the shore. The threat of attack from the shore by other Africans was also a concern. If the ship was hit by disease and a large portion of the crew had been killed, the chances of insurrection were higher.[30] Where the slaves were captured also had an effect on the number of insurrections.[30] In many places, such as the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra, the percentage of revolts and the percentage of the slave trade match up.[30] Yet ships taking slaves from Senegambia experienced 22 percent of shipboard revolts while only contributing to four and a half percent of the slave trade.[31] Slaves coming from West Central Africa accounted for 44 percent of the trade while only experiencing 11 percent of total revolts.[31]
Lorenzo J. Greene gives many accounts of slave revolts on ships coming out of New England. These ships belonged to Puritans who controlled much of the slave trade in New England.[32] Most revolts on board ships were unsuccessful. The crews of these ships, while outnumbered, were disciplined, well fed, and armed with muskets, swords, and sometimes cannons, and they were always on guard for resistance.[33] The slaves on the other hand were the opposite, armed only with bits of wood and the chains that bound them.[34]
However, some captives were able to take over the ships that were their prisons and regain their freedom. On October 5, 1764 the New Hampshire ship Adventure captained by John Millar was successfully taken by the enslaved aboard.[33] The slaves on board revolted while the ship was anchored off the coast and all but two of the crew, including Captain Millar, had succumbed to disease.[35] Another successful slave revolt occurred six days after the ship Little George had left the Guinea coast. The ship carried ninety-six slaves, thirty-five of which were male.[33] The slaves attacked in the early hours of the morning, easily overpowering the two men on guard. The slaves were able to load one of the cannons on board and fire it at the crew. After taking control of the ship they sailed it up the Sierra Leone River and escaped.[33] After having defended themselves with muskets for several days below decks the crew lowered a small boat into the river to escape. After nine days of living on raw rice they were rescued.[36]
Mariana P. Candido notes that enslaved Africans worked on the ships that transported other Africans into slavery. These men, 230 in all,[37] were used onboard slave ships for their ability to communicate with the slaves being brought on board and to translate between Captain and slaver.[38] Enslaved sailors were able to alleviate some of the fears that newly boarded slaves had, such as fear of being eaten.[39] This was a double-edged sword. The enslaved sailors sometimes joined other slaves in the revolts against the captain they served. In 1812 enslaved sailors joined a revolt on board the Portuguese ship Feliz Eugenia just off the coast of Benguela.[37] The revolt took place below decks. The sailors, along with many of the children who were on board, were able to escape using small boats.[40]
South America and the Caribbean
December 25, 1521 rebellion in Diego Colón de Toledo's plantation in what is known today as Dominican Republic is the first known slave rebellion of the region.[41] Despite the suppression of this revolt, many of the slaves successfully escaped, which led to the establishment of the first Maroon communities of the Americas. It would also open the doors for more slave revolts to transpire in the region. In 1532, Sebastián Lemba, of the Lemba tribe, rebelled against the Spanish colonists and for the next 15 years, attacked various other villages on the island liberating other slaves and ransacking from the Spaniards. Other leaders such as Juan Vaquero, Diego del Guzmán, Fernando Montoro, Juan Criollo, and Diego del Campo followed in Lemba's footsteps. Dominican slave revolts continued throughout the 18th and 19th century such as the slave insurrections of Hincha and Samaná in the spring of 1795, the revolt of Nigua in 1796, the Gambia revolt of 1802, and the revolt led by José Leocadio, Pedro de Seda, and Pedro Henríquez in 1812.[42]
In 1552 Miguel de Buría [43] a former slave in San Juan, Puerto Rico,[44] reigned as the King of Buría Golden mines in the modern-day state of Lara, Venezuela, after leading the first African rebellion in the country's history.[45] His incumbency began in 1552 and lasted until 1554 after a failed attempt to take Barquisimeto city was killed by Spanish forces.
St. John, 1733, in what was then the Danish West Indies. The St. John's Slave Rebellion is one of the earliest and longest lasting slave rebellions in the Americas. It ended with defeat, however, and many rebels, including one of the leaders Breffu, committed suicide rather than being recaptured.[50]
Panama also has an extensive history of slave rebellions going back to the 16th century. Slaves were brought to the isthmus from many regions in Africa, including the modern day countries of the Congo, Senegal, Guinea, and Mozambique. Immediately before their arrival on shore, or very soon after, many enslaved Africans revolted against their captors or participated in mass maroonage or desertion. The freed Africans founded communities in the forests and mountains, organized guerrilla bands known as Cimarrones. They began a long guerrilla war against the SpanishConquistadores, sometimes in conjunction with nearby indigenous communities like the Kuna and the Guaymí. Despite massacres by the Spanish, the rebels fought until the Spanish crown was forced to concede to treaties that granted the Africans a life without Spanish violence and incursions. The leaders of the guerrilla revolts included Felipillo, Bayano, Juan de Dioso, Domingo Congo, Antón Mandinga, and Luis de Mozambique.[citation needed]
In the 1730s, the militias of the Colony of Jamaica fought the Jamaican Maroons for a decade, before agreeing to sign peace treaties in 1739 and 1740, which recognised their freedom in five separate Maroon Towns.[citation needed]
Tacky's War (1760) was a slave uprising in Jamaica, which ran from May to July before it was put down by the British colonial government.[citation needed]
Cuba had slave revolts in 1795, 1798, 1802, 1805, 1812 (the Aponte revolt), 1825, 1827, 1829, 1833, 1834, 1835, 1838, 1839–43 and 1844 (the La Escalera conspiracy and revolt).[citation needed]
Vincent Brown, a professor of History and of African and African-American Studies at Harvard, has made a study of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In 2013, Brown teamed up with Axis Maps to create an interactive map of Jamaican slave uprisings in the 18th century called, "Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760–1761, A Cartographic Narrative".[52] Brown's efforts have shown that the slave insurrection in Jamaica in 1760-61 was a carefully planned affair and not a spontaneous, chaotic eruption, as was often argued (due in large part to the lack of written records produced by the insurgents).[53]Tacky's War was a widespread slave uprising across Jamaica in the 1760s.
In Jamaica, the descendants of Africans who fought and escaped from slavery and established free communities in the mountainous interior of Jamaica (Maroons), fought to preserve their freedom from British colonialists, in what came to be known as the Second Maroon War. However, this featured just one of the five Maroon towns in Jamaica.
In Cuba, there were several revolts starting in 1825 with an uprising in Guamacaro and ending with the revolts of 1843 in Matanzas. These revolts have been widely studied by scholars such as Robert L. Paquette, Gloria García, Manuel Barcia, Aisha K. Finch and Michele Reid-Vazquez.
In the Danish West Indies an 1848 slave revolt led to emancipation of all slaves in the Danish West Indies.
In Puerto Rico in 1821, Marcos Xiorro planned and conspired to lead a slave revolt against the sugar plantation owners and the Spanish Colonial government. Even though the conspiracy was unsuccessful, Xiorro achieved legendary status among the slaves and is part of Puerto Rico's folklore.[56]
Many slave rebellions occurred in Brazil, most famously the Malê Revolt of 1835[58] by the predominantly Muslim West African slaves at the time. The term malê was commonly used to refer to Muslims at the time from the Yoruba word imale.
Herbert Aptheker, American Negro Slave Revolts, 6. ed., New York: International Publ., 1993 – classic
Matt D. Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle Against African Slavery, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006
David P. Geggus, ed., The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001
Eugene D. Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World, Louisiana State University Press 1980
Joao Jose Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia (Johns Hopkins Studies in Atlantic History and Culture), Johns Hopkins Univ Press 1993
Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2007.
Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2007.
Urbainczky, Theresa Slave Revolts in Antiquity (University of California Press, Berkley), 2008
↑ "Rebellions". Schools.cbe.ab.ca. Archived from the original on 2018-05-02. Retrieved 2013-10-04.
↑ Aptheker, Herbert; Woodward, C. Vann. "The Slave Revolts". Nybooks.com. Archived from the original on 2009-01-12. Retrieved 2013-10-04.{{cite magazine}}: Cite magazine requires |magazine= (help)
↑ Giliomee, Hermann (2003). "The Afrikaners", Chapter 4 – Masters, Slaves and Servants, the fear of gelykstelling, pp. 93–94
↑ Eden, J. (2018). Slavery and Empire in Central Asia. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. pp. 187–189
↑ Eden, J. (2018). Slavery and Empire in Central Asia. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. pp. 187–189
↑ Eden, J. (2018). Slavery and Empire in Central Asia. Storbritannien: Cambridge University Press. pp. 187–189
↑ Urbainczyk, Theresa (2008). "Maintaining resistance". Slave Revolts in Antiquity. London: Routledge (published 2016). pp.30–31. ISBN9781315478807. Archived from the original on 2022-09-14. Retrieved 2018-11-14.
↑ Shapiro, Herbert. "The Impact of the Aptheker Thesis: A Retrospective View of American Negro Slave Revolts". Science and Society.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
1 2 Richardson, David (January 2001). "Shipboard Revolts, African Authority, and the Atlantic Slave Trade". The William and Mary Quarterly. 3. 58 (1): 72. doi:10.2307/2674419. JSTOR2674419. PMID18634185.
1 2 3 4 5 Richardson, David (January 2001). "Shipboard Revolts, African Authority, and the Atlantic Slave Trade". The William and Mary Quarterly. 3. 58 (1): 69–92. doi:10.2307/2674419. JSTOR2674419. PMID18634185.
1 2 3 Richardson, David (2001). "Shipboard Revolts, African Authority, and the Atlantic Slave Trade". The William and Mary Quarterly. 58 (1): 69–92. doi:10.2307/2674419. JSTOR2674419. PMID18634185.
↑ Holly Kathryn Norton (2013). Estate by Estate: The Landscape of the 1733 St. Jan Slave Rebellion (PhD). Syracuse University. p.90. ProQuest1369397993.
↑ "Slave revolts in Puerto Rico: conspiracies and uprisings, 1795–1873"; by: Guillermo A. Bar alt; Publisher Markus Wiener Publishers; ISBN978-1-55876-463-7
↑ August, Thomas (1991). "Rebels with a cause: The St. Joseph Mutiny of 1837". Slavery & Abolition. 12 (2): 73–91. doi:10.1080/01440399108575034.
The Stono Rebellion was a slave revolt that began on 9 September 1739, in the colony of South Carolina. It was the largest slave rebellion in the Southern Colonial era, with 25 colonists and 35 to 50 African slaves killed. The uprising's leaders were likely from the Central African Kingdom of Kongo, as they were Catholic and some spoke Portuguese.
Denmark Vesey was a free Black man and community leader in Charleston, South Carolina, who was accused and convicted of planning a major slave revolt in 1822. Although the alleged plot was discovered before it could be realized, its potential scale stoked the fears of the antebellum planter class that led to increased restrictions on both enslaved and free African Americans.
The Baptist War, also known as the Sam Sharp Rebellion, the Christmas Rebellion, the Christmas Uprising and the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831–32, was an eleven-day rebellion that started on 25 December 1831 and involved up to 60,000 of the 300,000 slaves in the Colony of Jamaica. The uprising was led by a black Baptist deacon, Samuel Sharpe, and waged largely by his followers. The revolt, though militarily unsuccessful, played a major part in the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.
Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas and Islands of the Indian Ocean who escaped from slavery, through flight or manumission, and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with Indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into separate creole cultures such as the Garifuna and the Mascogos.
The Berbice Rebellion was a slave rebellion in Guyana that began on 23 February 1763 and lasted to December, with leaders including Coffij. The first major slave revolt in South America, it is seen as a major event in Guyana's anti-colonial struggles, and when Guyana became a republic in 1970 the state declared 23 February as a day to commemorate the start of the Berbice slave revolt.
The First Maroon War was a conflict between the Jamaican Maroons and the colonial British authorities that started around 1728 and continued until the peace treaties of 1739 and 1740. It was led by Indigenous Jamaican born to the land who helped liberated Africans to set up communities in the mountains who were coming off of slave ships. The name "Maroon" was given to these Africans, and for many years they fought the British colonial Government of Jamaica for their freedom. The maroons were skilled in guerrilla warfare. It was followed about half a century later by the Second Maroon War.
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.
Tacky's Revolt was a slave rebellion in the British colony of Jamaica which lasted from 7 April 1760 to 1761. Spearheaded by self-emancipated Coromantee people, the rebels were led by a Fante royal named Tacky. It was the most significant slave rebellion in the West Indies between the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John and the 1791 Haitian Revolution. The rebels were eventually defeated after British colonial forces, assisted by Jamaican Maroons, waged a gruelling counterinsurgency campaign. According to historian Trevor Burnard, "[in] terms of its shock to the imperial system, only the American Revolution surpassed Tacky's War in the eighteenth century." It was also the largest slave rebellion in the British West Indies until the Baptist War of 1831, which also occurred in Jamaica.
Jamaican Maroons descend from Africans who freed themselves from slavery in the Colony of Jamaica and established communities of free black people in the island's mountainous interior, primarily in the eastern parishes. Africans who were enslaved during Spanish rule over Jamaica (1493–1655) may have been the first to develop such refugee communities.
The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John or the Slave Uprising of 1733, was a slave insurrection started on Sankt Jan in the Danish West Indies on November 23, 1733, when 150 African slaves from Akwamu, in present-day Ghana, revolted against the owners and managers of the island's plantations. Led by Breffu, an enslaved woman from Ghana, and lasting several months into August 1734, the slave rebellion was one of the earliest and longest slave revolts in the Americas. The Akwamu slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. They intended to resume crop production under their control.
The 1811 German Coast uprising was a slave rebellion which occurred in the Territory of Orleans from January 8–10, 1811. It occurred on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the modern-day Louisiana parishes of St. John the Baptist, St. Charles and Jefferson. The rebellion was the largest of its kind in the history of the United States, but the rebels only killed two white men. Confrontations with U.S. military personnel and local militiamen who were sent to suppress the rebellion, combined with post-trial executions, resulted in the deaths of 95 rebels.
Coromantee, Coromantins, Coromanti or Kormantine is an English-language term for enslaved people from the Akan ethnic group, taken from the Gold Coast region in modern-day Ghana.
Cudjoe, Codjoe or Captain Cudjoe, sometimes spelled Cudjo – corresponding to the Akan day name Kojo, Codjoe or Kwadwo – was a Maroon leader in Jamaica during the time of Nanny of the Maroons. In Twi, Cudjoe or Kojo is the name given to a boy born on a Monday. He has been described as "the greatest of the Maroon leaders."
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
Marcos Xiorro was the slave name of an enslaved African in Spanish Puerto Rico who, in 1821, planned and conspired to lead a slave revolt against the sugarcane plantation owners and the Spanish Colonial government. Although his rebellion was unsuccessful, he achieved legendary status among the island's slave population and has become part of Puerto Rican folklore.
Sebastián Lemba was an early Dominican slave rebel leader who led a prolonged maroon rebellion in the colony of Santo Domingo,. He is remembered as a significant figure in Dominican history, as that his actions paved the way for the eventual liberation of the Dominicans from their Spanish oppressors.
Following Robert Cavelier de La Salle establishing the French claim to the territory and the introduction of the name Louisiana, the first settlements in the southernmost portion of Louisiana were developed at present-day Biloxi (1699), Mobile (1702), Natchitoches (1714), and New Orleans (1718). Slavery was then established by European colonists.
Carlota Lucumí, also known as La Negra Carlota was an African-born enslaved Cuban woman of Yoruba origin. Carlota, alongside fellow enslaved Lucumí Ferminia, was known as a leader of the slave rebellion at the Triunvirato plantation in Matanzas, Cuba during the Year of the Lash in 1843–1844. Together with Ferminia Lucumí, Carlota led the slave uprising of the sugar mill "Triunvirato" in the province of Matanzas, Cuba on November 5, 1843.
Free black people in Jamaica fell into two categories. Some secured their freedom officially, and lived within the slave communities of the Colony of Jamaica. Others ran away from slavery, and formed independent communities in the forested mountains of the interior. This latter group included the Jamaican Maroons, and subsequent fugitives from the sugar and coffee plantations of coastal Jamaica.
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.
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