The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was a system that targeted Black people from different regions of the African continent and forcibly removed them to other lands.
It drew deeper wedges between long-established communities.
It also had another effect.
The resulting turmoil of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade provided the impetus for the unification of African people as they were dispersed across the world. The Middle Passage was a funnel that consolidated thousands of tribes.
What was the result?
Over time, Africans in small pockets of the diaspora came to recognize a common language, culture, and psychology.Â
A fusion of these elements under a tremendous amount of pressure brought forth new alliances, new movements, and new leaders for a new African society. The new African was an African body possessed by a Black conscience.
From their first encounter with the environment of a slave ship, Africans were learning how to navigate a society that stigmatized them. With each law and enforcement of oppression, the new society threatened to outline the limits of their expression, and by extension, their identity.
Against these restrictions from the dominant society, Africans began to develop connections with each other based on similar struggles and shared interests. These scattered connections developed into distinct networks of individuals with their own ideas and aspirations. The Black communities of the Americas were born through these very processes of collective resolve in favor of the status quo or against it.
African rebellions became Black rebellions. In the defense of their freedom, by choosing to act within the framework of the group, they were also defending their right to their newfound identity. They were defending their Blackness.
In this article, we will examine 10 such moments in history when Black people were united against their oppression.
These are just some of the cases in which Black rebels worked together and succeeded in freeing themselves.
10. The Southampton Insurrection
Woodcut depiction of the Southampton Insurrection
*Parts of this print inspired a later depiction of the 1835/1836 Seminole War titled ‘Massacre of the Whites by the Indians and Blacks in Florida.’
From the Authentic and Impartial Narrative of the Tragical Scene Which Was Witnessed in Southampton County (1831)
(Source: The New York Public Library)
In 1831, a series of events unfolded which developed into the deadliest slave rebellion in U.S. history.
There was no warning.
An unassuming Christian minister led an uprising of enslaved Black men that took the lives of 57 White Virginians – men, women, and children. Nat Turner was his name.
Turner’s plot left no room for compromise. There were to be no negotiations for freedom. No hostages were taken. No enemy was spared. Even though the conspirators were ultimately executed and their plans were put to a sudden stop, Turner’ rebellion was successful in many ways.Â
Nat Turner’s rebellion was a wake-up call to the nation.
News of the rebellion in the Northern press fueled support for the abolitionist movement as it signaled to many that America’s centuries-old system of slave labor was not sustainable.
The rebellion had quite the opposite effect in the Southern states. It shook the South to its core. Almost overnight, slavery apologists were radicalized into full-blown pro-slavery activists. White politicians and business leaders warned of a Black male apocalypse should they spare the slightest sin against the standard of White Supremacy. Some advocated for the mass removal of Blacks – free and enslaved – to another land.
In fact, it struck fear into the hearts of both the enslavers and the enslaved.Â
Black writers of the century often reflected on the general situation of the South in the aftermath of the Turner Rebellion.
We see here the example of one such comment:
The argument against the Negro is that he has never rebelled or resisted slavery, that his docility and contentment in slavery suggested that this was his normal condition.
But we need understand the true condition of the Negro, his helplessness, and lack of leadership, to see the falsity of such arguments. Negro insurrections wherever the opportunity presented itself, were not wanting in the south land.
We need but refer to what is called the Nat Turner insurrection to show that the Negro was struggling for freedom, and was not as docile as the White slaver would make him.
The influence of this bloody insurrection in which the lives of so many Whites were taken spread throughout Virginia and the South. For years afterwards, they lived in a constant state of dread for fear another Nat Turner might arise.
A prominent White preacher around that same time expressed the sentiments of the White community in this way:Â
It almost makes one's blood run cold, even at this remote period of time, to recall the trepidation and alarm that pervaded the whole community.
The stoutest hearts were made to quail.
Rumors of Negro insurrection filled the air.
Sleep ceased to be refreshing, haunted as it was by hideous dreams of murder blood and arson. Mothers and maidens, and even little children, for months, not to say years, following the 'Nat Turner Insurrection,' looked pale and ghastly as the shadows of evening gathered around them, from the horrifying apprehension that with bludgeon they might be brained, or with torch might be burned to a crisp before morning.
I speak from experience. Nor would I go through the agony of those years again for all the gold that ever passed hands in the Negro traffic from Colonial times 'til President Lincoln emancipated them with the stroke of a pen.
Pharaoh and his people under the visit of the destroying angel, when the first born was convulsively quivering in the death struggle in every household, did not more earnestly desire the quick departure of the Hebrews out of the land of Egypt than did the great majority of the slave holders in the Carolinas and Virginias desire the removal of the Negroes from among them immediately after the Southampton Insurrection.
The fear of slave-holders in the United States was the same fear that griped at the heart of slave-holders in the Caribbean.
A planter in Barbados could not forget the insomnia that plagued him during the height of slavery.
How often have I retired to bed fearing that I should have my throat cut before morning!
The West African abolitionist Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745-1797) thought the extent of White anxiety far more dire than Whites were willing to admit. In addressing his slave-holding opponents, he thought it pertinent to ask:
Are you not hourly in dread of an insurrection?
What was it that made Turner so successful?
The historian Eugene Genovese (1930-2012), who is best remembered for his more controversial perspectives on slavery and the American South, believed that it was Turner’s emotional appeal and the simplicity of his plan that spared it from the betrayal that had done in other schemes.
In his book, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World (1992), Genovese highlighted the resulting efficiency of Turner’s troops compared with those who fought in other rebellions. By the sheer numbers of its victims, Turner’s rebellion far outpaced that of slave revolts in other parts of the Americas which were both ‘bigger’ and ‘harder fought.’
As an example, he cited the 1835 Malê revolt of enslaved Muslims in Brazil’s Black-dominant center of Salvador, Bahia. Although there was an estimated 1,500 Africans involved and a staggering 98 percent of the participants were born outside of Brazil, they took out a measly 7 enemy soldiers and lost over 70 comrades based on official records.
The proportion here between casualties on both sides is relatively consistent with other cases for which we can provide numerical data.
A 1763 uprising in the Dutch colony of Berbice resulted in the deaths of just 40 White men – a rather dismal figure considering that 1,800 rebels were massacred in the fighting and 119 were executed in its aftermath.
Another 1823 Guyanese rebellion in Demerara-Essequibo, involving some 10,000 Africans, did not even come close to half of the previous mark. To the great delight of the colonial government, one enemy soldier was reported injured; a mere handful of planters died.
In 1816, Bussa’s Barbadians – 400 strong – dispatched with two soldiers – one White, one Black. Meanwhile, a whopping 120 rebels were slaughtered on the battlefield – 70 on their knees; an additional 144 were slain post-trial.
While only Nat Turner was noted to have evaded his ultimate fate for six weeks, his accomplices were executed and hundreds of Blacks were killed to satisfy White fears – most having nothing at all to do with the insurrection. Still, his expressed mission of haunting the American psyche with a crisis of ‘terror and alarm’ was masterfully accomplished.
Scenes from the Demerara Rebellion of 1823
9. The Ibo Landing/The St. Jan Rebellion
The Ibo Landing was a rebellion in which a group of 75 Ibo (or Igbo) warriors, from what is now Nigeria, committed mass suicide upon their arrival at St. Simons Island off the Georgia coast in 1803.
These Africans were first purchased by slave merchants when they were landed on the slave ship Wanderer in Savannah. Then, they were loaded under the deck of a small vessel, the York, to be resold to plantation owners on St. Simons Island not far away. During this second voyage, the Ibo captives managed to escape to the upper deck, force the crew overboard, and drive the York into a creek.
They, then left the ship, turned toward the sea, and marched into the water.
A White overseer on a plantation near to the scene claimed to have recovered 30 of the bodies. Some have taken this as an indication that there must have been survivors. But this outcome was unlikely for one simple reason: those who may have attempted to swim for safety were still in chains.
The deaths of these rebels does nothing to subtract from their triumph over slavery. In fact, suicide was an effective tactic of resistance against enslavement as exemplified in a case of rebellion on the Danish island colony of St. Jan in 1733.
A tsunami of slaves scared slave-holders and their families clear off the island. For eight months, over 100 Africans held most of St. Jan, while the Danes scrambled to regain control.
At a turning point in the conflict, recognizing a certain death awaited them, a key leader named Breffu (or Beafuu) and 23 of her fellow rebels took their own lives. Another leader tried to slit his own throat when he was captured. These rebels thought it better to die free than to live under oppression and if one was to die, they would do so on their own terms.
Despite its tragic end, local scholars regard the St. Jan episode as “the first successful slave rebellion.”
The most memorable accounts of the Ibo Rebellion are those captured by the people who lived through enslavement in that region of the United States.
In the early 20th century, federal workers were tasked with collecting the stories of former slaves all across the U.S. South. By then, Black Georgians had connected further details to the Ibo rebellion. They spoke of an Ibo chief who led the rebels home singing a song of healing and redemption. One legend said that as they were summoned by the spirit of the water, the Ibos sprouted wings, took on the forms of birds, and flew back the way they came.
In her book The Legacy of Ibo Landing: Gullah Roots of African American Culture (1998), Gullah chieftess Marquetta L. Goodwine (also known by her title Queen Quet) presents the Gullah perspective of this story – one that is rooted in oral history and folklore.
Goodwine has since released a second anthology, Webe Gullah/Geechee Cultural Capital & Collaboration Anthology (2015), which details the evolution of the Gullah/Geechee culture up to the nation’s present day struggles for human rights on the world stage.
The Gullah have never wavered in their resistance to racial oppression. As a result, Gullah identity has survived the test of time.
Views near the approximate location of the Ibo Landing
8. The German Coast Uprising
The largest revolt of enslaved Blacks in North American history was that of Charles Deslondes in Louisiana on January 8, 1811.
Deslondes, the free son of an enslaved Black woman and her White enslaver, led 200 to 500 revolutionaries from St. John the Baptist Parish towards New Orleans 30 miles to the east. The rebellion was quelled two days later when the group was cornered by the military and a local militia. Over 100 of the insurgents were killed or later executed. Their heads were placed on spikes and displayed along a stretch of land where they had traveled as a warning to other slaves.
Although the insurgents had only taken the lives of two or three White persons and focused their rampage on the destruction of plantation property, this revolt was greater, by the volume of its participants, than the Chesapeake Rebellion of 1730, which involved about 200 enslaved Africans, and the Stono Rebellion of 1739, which involved 60 African rebels and claimed the lives of 25 South Carolina colonists.
What made this event so peculiar among revolts is the great diversity of the organizers and participants both in terms of their African roots and their positions in the social hierarchy.
The 11 leaders of the revolt originated from different ethnic groups. Deslondes himself was a slave driver on his master’s plantation and he was not the only one.
Harvard historian Daniel Rasmussen presents two years of his research on this revolt in his book American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt (2011). In summarizing his greatest findings, he had this to say:
My biggest surprise as I dug through the sources was...just how close they came to conquering New Orleans and establishing a Black republic on the shores of the Mississippi.
All this is evident in the letters of enslavers and politicians of that time. Yet, the German Coast Uprising of 1811 is largely unknown today and has received very little attention outside of academic circles.
7. The Misericordia Mutiny
Revolt Aboard a Slave Ship
Late 18th Century
From The Story of the Sea, Volume 2 (1896)
(Source: Slavery Images)
One of the earliest uprisings against the slave trade occurred in 1532 on the Portuguese ship Misericordia, which was transporting captives from the island of São Tomé, off the west coast of Africa to Elmina Castle in what is now Ghana.
Since the 1490s, the two islands of São Tomé and PrÃncipe were used as a site for storing captives from West and Central Africa before their ultimate journey on the ships arriving at the mainland.
According to records in the National Archives of Portugal, there were 109 Africans being held on the Misericordia – the largest “cargo” of all voyages recorded for that year. During a regular shipment, which would not have taken more than a month, these Africans broke free and slaughtered all but the pilot and two sailors. These prisoners lived to tell the tale after escaping to Elmina in a longboat.
The ship and its captors were never seen or hear from again.
British historian Hugh Thomas (1931-2017) suggested that the Africans left behind would not have understood the ship’s mechanics and, therefore, were likely lost at sea. This, he believed, was a common outcome in such situations.
It is interesting to note that the Portuguese word “misericordia” translates to “mercy.” In this case, it would seem that the only mercy to be found came from the very cargo of this ship – African captives who traded their lives for their freedom.
6. The Mary Massacre
Insurrection on Board a Slave Ship
1787
From A Brief History of the Wesleyan Missions on the West Coast of Africa (1851)
(Source: Slavery Images)
In his book If We Must Die: Shipboard Insurrections in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade (2006), Eric Robert Taylor reported that 3 out of every 4 shipboard rebellions in the course of the Middle Passage, for which the location was recorded, happened within sight of the African coastline (in literal numbers, that is 300 out of the roughly 400 cases Taylor studied).
21 percent of revolts were effected at sea.
Taylor offers a few good reasons for this disparity.
- African captives knew they had better chances of survival the closer they were to home.Â
- It was typical for slave ships to spend twice as many months loading their human cargo on land than they did traveling at sea.
- Foreign sailors were prone to the diseases that ravaged the African coasts and usually did not recover until they were well into their journey across the Atlantic.
All of these reasons combined created the ideal situation for a revolt on board the Mary in 1742.
The galley Mary was not far from the African coat when local people ran it ashore, plundered the vessel, and destroyed it in the river Gambia. Meanwhile, the captives escaped, killing all of the crew members except for the captain and first mate who they held as prisoners for 27 days. Eventually, these survivors fled to a French fort on the river Sénégal (likely at the slaving station of Albreda).
Albreda as it appears today
5. The Creole Conflict
The Creole was a ship transporting 134 enslaved Blacks from Virginia to Louisiana for sale in the markets of New Orleans. There were 26 other persons on board. Among them were the captain’s wife, daughter, and niece. There were also four Black servants who helped crew members to keep watch on the other slaves.
One week into its voyage, on November 7, 1841, an enslaved man named Madison Washington led a group of 18 men in overpowering the crew. They stabbed one of the slave traders to death and wounded several other crew members, including the captain. They then commanded a plantation overseer to steer the ship towards the Bahamas where they knew slaves had been freed under British law after the schooner Hermosa capsized there the previous year.
The Creole arrived in Nassau the morning of November 9th.
After much political squabbles and a foiled attempt to retake the ship by force, the case against the main conspirators was dropped and Black Bahamians welcomed the rebels to a new life of liberty.
Unfortunately, two of them perished in prison, while awaiting the decision of the British authorities.
It would not be until another 12 years that all financial claims relating to the case were finally settled with the U.S. government.
‘Wreck of the American Brig “Créole” (a slaver) during the great Storm at Madeira in 1842’
Artist: Emily Geneviève Smith
(Source: Quinta das Cruzes Museum via Wikipedia Commons)
Cinqué, the chief of the Amistad captives
1840
Artist: Nathaniel Jocelyn
(Source: New Haven Museum via Slavery Images)
Madison Washington, who was enslaved from birth, had escaped to Canada before the Creole episode, but returned to the South to rescue his wife from slavery. According to the abolitionist William Wells Brown (c. 1814-1884), Washington had succeeded in his noble quest. Without his prior knowledge, his wife had been stowed on board the Creole and, by all indications, they lived happily ever after.
4. The Amistad Attack
‘Death of Capt. Ferrer, the Captain of the Amistad’
Artist: John Warner Barber
From A History of the Amistad Captives (1840)
(Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art)
The Amistad mutiny of 1839 was one in which African rebels on a schooner escaped their chains somewhere along the Cuban coast, slew the captain and cook, and attempted a return voyage to Africa.Â
Instead, the remaining sailors carried them into U.S. waters where they were recaptured. Later, the rebels were released following a Supreme Court trial in which they were defended by former U.S. president John Quincy Adams (1767-1848).
The leader of the Amistad mutiny, Sengbe Pieh (also known as Joseph Cinque) (ca. 1814–ca. 1879), dictated a plea to the court on behalf of himself and the other 52 Africans on trial, claiming they were ‘unlawfully kidnapped…forcibly and wrongfully carried on board of a…vessel…unlawfully engaged in the slave trade…unlawfully transported to the Island of Cuba for the unlawful purpose of being there sold as slaves, and were then illegally landed for the purpose aforesaid.’ He further asserted their right to freedom and their determination to return home.
[We were] treated...by [the traders], the Capt, & crew thereof with great cruelty and oppression...[and] were incited by the love of liberty natural to all men, and by the desire of returning to [our] families and kindred, to take possession of [the Amistad], ...as [we] had right to do.
These Africans from Sierra Leone defeated their oppressors, were caught red-handed, argued their case through a system foreign to them, and legally got away with murder.
Upon the conclusion of their trial, they were no longer destined to be slaves, but free men and women. This decision recognized the common humanity of African people with ‘all human beings.’ It also recognized their right ‘to resist oppression, and to apply force against ruinous injustice.’ 35 of the survivors were returned to their homeland. The rest died during the journey or in prison while awaiting trial.
Like the rebellion on the Creole, this incident is even more remarkable for another reason.
From Taylor’s research, only 4 percent of shipboard rebellions occurred on ships that had arrived in the New World.
The story of the Amistad rebellion and the valor of its hero Cinque actually inspired the leader of the revolt aboard the Creole. While lodging at the house of the mixed-race abolitionist Robert Purvis (1810-1898) some months earlier, Washington was captivated by a painting of Cinque with a calm, yet resolved expression and a rod of justice in hand (seen above). Washington went on to lead a rebellion of his own.
Unlike the Creole case, Blacks on the Amistad had little precedent for the success of their rebellion. Yet, the case of the Amistad demonstrated that African people were inferior to no one. Even with all the odds stacked against them, any African was capable of forcing their way to freedom.
The fact that it was Portuguese slave hunters who captured them, Spanish traders who transported them in a ship named “friendship,” and American officials who judged them makes this a victory on three fronts.
3. The Gullah Wars
‘The Indians and Negroes Massacreing the Whites in Florida in January 1836’
From A true and authentic account of the Indian war in Florida (1836)
(Source: FSU Libraries/The State University Libraries of Florida)
The Gullah Wars (or Seminole Wars) were a series of conflicts which took place over an extensive period from the early 18th century to the middle of the 19th century.
The Black Seminoles (or ‘Seminole Negroes‘ as the rebels were often called) were Gullah people who had escaped from coastal plantations in Georgia and South Carolina to live among the Natives in Florida.
According to historian Joseph Opala, the Spanish had actually issued a proclamation inviting Natives and enslaved Blacks to establish themselves in North Florida as a buffer between the English settlements and their own colonial possessions. Fort Mose, near Saint Augustine, was a prime location for these early arrivals.
The most significant developments began in 1818 when an army under then U.S. general Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) attempted to seize control of Florida, which was then claimed by the Spanish. After what has been commonly dubbed the First Seminole War, the Native and Gullah communities were forces to relocate to the central and southern parts of the Florida wilderness. Some moved to Cuba and others to the Bahamas.
The Gullah once again fought alongside their Native allies in 1835. During this Second Seminole War, which lasted six years, 1,500 American soldiers were slain by Black and Native warriors. As politicians and army officers acknowledged, this would not have been possible without the help of the Black runaways.
From the front lines, Major General Thomas Sydney Jesup (1788-1860) wrote to Governor William Schley (1786-1858) of Georgia about his knowledge of Black and Red chiefs, cryptically adding:
This you may be assured is a Negro, not an Indian war; and as such it is of the utmost importance to the South that it be instantly closed.
Jesup’s vital testimony proves that it was the Blacks who were doing most of the fighting.
After all, this is a truth he had witnessed with his own two eyes – he had just captured a group of rebels, which he identified as ‘an Indian and about forty Negroes.’
Fearing the tenacious spirit and battle-tested skills of the ‘Seminole Negroes,’ the U.S. Army opted to send them to Oklahoma Territory with the Natives they captured in these wars rather than to return them to slavery. This displacement was effected in 1842.
However, the Black Seminoles would never stop fighting against their sworn enemies. A group of them migrated south of the Texas border in 1850 and built a settlement, where they welcomed and defended other runaways. The Negros Mascogos, descendants of the Black Seminoles, can still be found in Nacimiento de los Negros, Torralba, Mexico to this day.Â
For more about the Black Seminoles, you can read the book The Black Seminoles: History of a Freedom-seeking People (2013), originally written by Kenneth Porter (1905-1981) and published in 1996.
2. The Maroon Wars
‘The Maroons in Ambush on the Dromilly Estate in the Parish of Trelawney, Jamaica’
1801
Artists: J. Bourgoin and J. Merigot
(Source: The British Library)
Maroon communities have consistently identified themselves with anticolonial activities in Surinam, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, the Guianas, and in Haiti close to the border with what we know today as the Dominican Republic.
But nowhere have Maroons been as present in the historical context as in the Maroon Wars in Jamaica.
These conflicts lasted far longer than other rebellions in Jamaican history such as Tacky’s War, which took place over 18 months during the years 1760 and 1761, and the Baptist War (or Christmas Day Rebellion), which lasted 11 days between 1831 and 1832.
It is important to note that while they had liberated themselves, Maroons did not always extend a helping hand for others in the process of self-liberation. Sometimes, they were coerced into alliances with Europeans, who also conscripted free Blacks to track down rebellious Maroons.
With the help of Maroon parties, the British were able to dispatch with the leaders of other rebellions. In this way, 400 of Tacky’s rebels were executed, including the former Guinea chief himself.
The British made agreements with the Maroons which required that they aid in the recovery of runaway slaves. Often, the Maroons went too far in their exploits for the British, wiping out runaway colonies without hesitation and executing stray slaves wherever they were found. Genovese wrote that even the colonial authorities were impressed at the rate at which the Maroons hunted the runaways.
The question is why?
The answer was the same for all Blacks in New World societies: survival.
Harvard scholar Vincent Brown, who authored the book Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (2020), explains:
When new conflicts promised to liberate them or offered rewards for serving their masters, slaves might take up arms for whichever faction presented the prospect for a better life.
But peace was not forever.
Due to a number of political factors leading to an eroding trust between the British and the Trelawney Town Maroons, The Great Maroon War kicked off in July of 1795 and continued well into the next year. This war threatened the balance of power in the British islands until an alliance with Accompong Town Maroons and plantation slaves helped to secure British rule. After the conflict was brought to an end in March of 1796, the Trelawney Town Maroons were rounded up and exiled to Nova Scotia. From there, they were deported to Sierra Leone in 1800.
After all these years, Maroon communities continue to thrive in Jamaica. They have their own land, their own government, and even their own currency.
We cannot entertain a discussion on Maroon peoples without acknowledging the Maroons of the U.S. South. Genovese made a brief outline of their work from the early colonial period up to the peak of the Civil War. While these Maroons often made trouble for the White communities of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Tennessee, the steady requisition of Native American allyship by the ruling elites prevented the stateside Maroons from the clout of their contemporaries in other lands.
They are still deserving of an honorable mention as some of these groups were able to maintain their autonomy until after emancipation.
1. The Haitian Revolution
‘Burning of Cape Français. General revolt of the Blacks. Massacre of the Whites.’
1793
Saint Domingue (Haiti)
From Saint-Domingue, ou Histoire de ses Revolutions (1815)
(Source: Slavery Images)
Of all the slave rebellions in our history, there is none as infamous as the revolution in Haiti.
There are several reasons why this rebellion holds the top spot on this list.
First is the fact that this rebellion brought an end to the enslavement of an entire people. Not only were the Blacks of Haiti able to free themselves, but they freed their descendants from brutal enslavement forever.
Secondly, the Haitian Revolution is not remembered as a national affair but an international spectacle.
The revolution unraveled on the world scene, sending chills down the spine of slavery’s staunchest supporters in the surrounding Caribbean, in Latin America, in the United States, and in Europe.
When Emperor Napoleon attempted to recapture the island colony of St. Domingue in 1802, he was beat back mercilessly, losing two-thirds of is troops in the process.
The ultimate birth of the Republic of Haiti on January 1, 1804 represented a new age for Black people everywhere, suffering the scourge of racism.
In 1815, a free Haiti would supply the weaponry, ammunition, navy vessels, and army reinforcements for the liberation of slaves in Venezuela. With this victory, the freedom fighter Simón BolÃvar (1783-1830) would go on to lead the liberation struggles of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Panama. And, with this cascade of independence movements across the former territories of the Spanish Empire, the end of Black enslavement was inevitable.
The plight of the Haitians under Toussaint-Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines rallied Blacks in the U.S. South under the leadership of Gabriel Prosser in 1800 and Denmark Vesey in 1822 (Vesey had actually been to Haiti in his days as a humble sailor). Neither of these plans came to fruition. But there was one U.S. plot in particular, which exceeded expectations. Charles Deslondes of Louisiana was originally from Haiti and his revolt was also inspired by the Haitian Revolution. Of all the singular plots of rebellion, his was the only one which resulted in complete freedom for a significant portion of the participants. (Many disappeared in the swamplands of Louisiana.)
Haiti’s free soil policy under Alexandre Pétion paved the way for Jamaican fugitives aboard the Deep Nine to sail their way into a freer freedom than the Amistad and Creole mutineers.
The revolution made a stir in lands near and far.
Four years after its outbreak, an enslaved man named Tula Rigaud (?-1795) led another revolution in the Dutch colony of Curaçao. When asked to reconsider, he responded:
French Negroes gained their freedom, Holland was occupied by the French, then we must be free here.
José Antonio Aponte (c. 1760-1812) is purported to have used portraits of Haitian revolutionary leaders L’Ouverture, Dessalines, and Henri Christophe to gather an army against the Cuban government. Like Vesey, he promised his followers that help would come to them from Haiti.
According to Howard professor Ana Lucia Araujo, the Haitian Revolution also led to a decline in the slave trade and the wars feeding that trade in the region of West Africa that had been dominated by the Empire of Benin. In this way, the revolution helped to hasten the end of the trade itself and its continued impact throughout the world.
It is no wonder that the Martinican intellectual Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) crowned Haiti ‘the first Black nation.’
Indeed, it was Black as can be. Just the previous year, Vincent Ogé (1750-1791), a quadroon, led 250 to 300 men in a ‘mulatto war’ against the colonial elite for their denial of White privileges to light-skinned Blacks. But the Haitian Revolution, first launched by the Jamaican Maroon priest Boukman, restored the rights of all Blacks, regardless of their complexion.
The revolution started with a meeting of around 200 in August of 1791. After a series of attacks, that number swelled to 2,000 and then, a week later, 15,000. By November, rebel forces had more than quintupled to 80,000 plus.
The final triumph of the revolution is that the Haitian Revolution affirmed, once and for all, the equality of the Black race with every other race on the planet. The act of revolution, or the uncompromising overthrow of an unjust system, coincided with the truest realization of liberty and justice for all that might have existed up to that moment in the history of the Western world. While the French had merely declared the rights of man, the people of Haiti established them.
The Haitian Revolution was a revolution in every sense of the word.
It was not simply the destruction of a privileged people but the disruption of a parasitic principle.
It was not just an assumption of our potential, but the assertion of our power.
This is what makes the Haitian Revolution the most successful rebellion against slavery.
Conclusion
By what factors can we measure the success of these rebellions?
Is it by the body count on the enemy’s side?
If that is all we are to go by, Tacky’s count of 60 colonist casualties would hardly qualify that rebellion as a war. Due to the extent of retaliation -both from the White public and from agents of the establishment – Turner’s rebellion would not have made this list, either.
Futhermore, it is not about the number of participants who escaped capture or even the size of the army.Â
Author Holly Kathryn Norton, who conducted an extensive study on Breffu’s Rebellion for her doctoral dissertation, writes:
With the exception of the Haitian revolution, no slave rebellion in the western hemisphere achieved the goal of permanent freedom.
From this assumption, we cannot decide the success of a revolt based on any of its immediate outcomes.
Rather, it is the very determination to succeed that defines the success of the revolt. The willpower of Black rebels in the act of resistance can best be measured by the number of obstacles that were overcome in the process of their revolt. This number is further based upon the level of unification that was accomplished in its execution.
By this standard, even the Igbo Landing, in which an entire shipload of Africans marched into the Atlantic shortly after their arrival, was a successful rebellion. It was a rebellion because it was in direct opposition to the plans of the oppressors. It was a success because the intended message was delivered: we will take it no more – we will not be your humble slaves.
That message was loud and clear. And it would seem that each successive revolt delivered a stronger message.
Brown highlighted a quote by a Jamaican slave-holder, who said this of Tacky (Apongo) and his co-conspirators:
When we consider the extent and the secrecy of its plan, the multitude of the conspirators, and the difficulty of opposing its eruptions in such a variety of different places at once, [this revolt was] more formidable than any hitherto known in the West Indies.
The continued strategizing and organizing of these revolts, despite the countermeasures enacted to discourage further disturbances, had a profound impact upon the system of enslavement and the upholders of that system. In time, it was they who were discouraged, downtrodden, and ultimately defeated.
There was no question about it: slavery had to go and it was going to go the easy way or the hard way.
Having witnessed the French being brought to their knees, the British Parliament was convinced of this much. They then persuaded the rest of Europe.
On this point, the American South was slow and stubborn. They required a little help from the realest of rebels: Black regiments in the Union Army.
When we take all of this into account, we have African people to thank for the success of the movement for abolition.
Even while they were being forced to work for their oppressors, they never stopped working for their freedom. This was true for African people in all parts of the diaspora.
Taylor said it best:
Regardless of where or why the Africans rebelled, the most significant point is that they never gave up hope.
That hope is alive today.
It lives on in the way we continue to persevere in our everyday lives despite the obstacles that are hurled in our path. It lives on despite the social and political schemes that threaten to maintain the status quo.
We must acknowledge that while we have more than enough evidence to affirm the truth of our struggles against the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, there is still much that has been lost to history about the resistance of African people against enslavement in the Americas and in Africa.
The discovery of yet another instance of resistance in a ship log obtained by Georgetown University researchers last year reveals that there is still more evidence waiting to be brought to the light.
Thus, the subject of slavery and of our collective resistance to other forms of oppression is deserving of further research.
Omri Coke
Omri is a history and science buff with a passion for research.
Through his research, he hopes to inspire others like himself on their own path of self-education and self-development.
Further Reading
An excellent resource on Black slave revolts is the Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion (2006), published in two volumes and edited by Junius P. Rodriguez. This book details just about every incident known throughout the history of the slave trade.
Also check out the book The Invisible War: The African American Anti-Slavery Resistance from the Stono Rebellion through the Seminole Wars (2020), first written by Dr. Y. N. Kly (1935-2011) in 2006.
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2 Replies to “The Top 10 Most Successful Black Rebellions Against The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade”
Extremely valuable information about the ARMED STRUGGLES of people of AFRICAN descent against EUROPEAN ENSLAVEMENT!
Thanks! I’m glad you enjoyed reading my article.
– Omri C.
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