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.
Nat Turner was an enslaved Black carpenter and preacher who led a four-day rebellion of both enslaved and free Black people in Southampton County, Virginia in August 1831.
William Clark Styron Jr. was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work.
William Lloyd Garrison was an American abolitionist, journalist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator, which Garrison founded in 1831 and published in Boston until slavery in the United States was abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.
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.
Southern United States literature consists of American literature written about the Southern United States or by writers from the region. Literature written about the American South first began during the colonial era, and developed significantly during and after the period of slavery in the United States. Traditional historiography of Southern United States literature emphasized a unifying history of the region; the significance of family in the South's culture, a sense of community and the role of the individual, justice, the dominance of Christianity and the positive and negative impacts of religion, racial tensions, social class and the usage of local dialects. However, in recent decades, the scholarship of the New Southern Studies has decentralized these conventional tropes in favor of a more geographically, politically, and ideologically expansive "South" or "Souths".
John Henrik Clarke was an African-American historian, professor, prominent Afrocentrist, and pioneer in the creation of Pan-African and Africana studies and professional institutions in academia starting in the late 1960s.
Clotel; or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States is an 1853 novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. Brown, who escaped from slavery in 1834 at the age of 20, published the book in London. He was staying after a lecture tour to evade possible recapture due to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Set in the early nineteenth century, it is considered the first novel published by an African American and is set in the United States. Three additional versions were published through 1867.
William Wells Brown was an American abolitionist, novelist, playwright, and historian. Born into slavery near Mount Sterling, Kentucky, Brown escaped to Ohio in 1834 at the age of 19. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked for abolitionist causes and became a prolific writer. While working for abolition, Brown also supported causes including: temperance, women's suffrage, pacifism, prison reform, and an anti-tobacco movement. His novel Clotel (1853), considered the first novel written by an African American, was published in London, England, where he resided at the time. It was later published in the United States.
Goodbye Uncle Tom is a 1971 Italian mondo docudrama co-directed and co-written by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi with music by Riz Ortolani. Based on true events, the filmmakers explore antebellum America, using period documents to examine in graphic detail the racist ideology and degrading conditions faced by Africans under slavery. Due to the use of published documents and materials from the public record, it is labeled a documentary, though all footage is re-staged using actors.
Events from the year 1831 in the United States.
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.
Thomas Roderick Dew was a professor and public intellectual, then president of The College of William & Mary (1836-1846). Although he first achieved national stature for opposing protective tariffs, today Dew may be best known for his pro-slavery advocacy.
Thomas Ruffin Gray was an American attorney who represented several enslaved people during the trials in the wake of Nat Turner's Rebellion. Though he was not the attorney who represented Nat Turner, instead he interviewed him and wrote The Confessions of Nat Turner.
William Henry Brodnax was a nineteenth-century American militia Brigadier General and American politician from Virginia.
James Strange French (1807–1886) was a lawyer, novelist, and later hotel keeper.
Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property is a 2003 documentary film about Nat Turner co-written and directed by Charles Burnett.
John Wesley Cromwell was a lawyer, teacher, civil servant, journalist, historian, and civil rights activist in Washington, D.C. He was among the founders of the Bethel Literary and Historical Society and the American Negro Academy, both based in the capital. He worked for decades in administration of the US Post Office.
The Texas slave insurrection panic of 1860, also known as the Texas Troubles, was a moral panic or mass hysteria and a resulting massacre in North and East Texas. Vigilantes killed an estimated 30 to 100 people who they claimed were planning a conspiracy of coordinated arson and slave rebellion. Law-enforcement agencies stepped aside to allow extrajudicial killing of Black Texans and of white people thought to be abolitionists. Historians consider the conspiracy to have been imaginary as little evidence of arson or rebellion was ever produced.
