Slave rebellion facts for kids

A slave rebellion is when enslaved people fight back with force to gain their freedom. These uprisings have happened in almost every society that has used slavery. The hope for freedom and a successful rebellion was often a big part of the songs, art, and culture of enslaved people. However, slave owners often stopped these rebellions with great violence.

The most successful slave rebellion in history was the Haitian Revolution in the 1700s. It was led by Toussaint Louverture and later Jean-Jacques Dessalines. They won their fight against their French rulers. This led to the creation of the independent country of Haiti from the former French colony of Saint-Domingue. Another famous rebellion was led by the Roman slave Spartacus around 73–71 BC. In the 800s, a poet and leader named Ali bin Muhammad led enslaved people from East Africa in Iraq. This was called the Zanj Rebellion. Nanny of the Maroons was a leader in the 1700s who fought against the British in Jamaica. The Quilombo dos Palmares in Brazil was a free community that thrived under Ganga Zumba. The 1811 German Coast uprising in the Territory of Orleans was the largest rebellion in the United States. Other leaders like Denmark Vesey and Madison Washington also led revolts in the 1800s in the United States.

The Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt ruled for centuries after a slave rebellion. They created the Bahri dynasty and Burji dynasty. These groups made many artistic and scientific achievements. The Mamluks also stopped the Mongols from conquering their lands.

Slave Rebellions in Ancient Times

In ancient Sparta, there was a special group of people called helots. They were like serfs and were often treated very badly. This caused them to rebel. The ancient writer Herodotus said that helots outnumbered Spartans seven to one. Another writer, Plutarch, wrote that every autumn, Spartan leaders would declare war on the helots. This meant any Spartan could kill a helot without being punished, just to keep them under control. This practice was called crypteia.

In the Roman Empire, enslaved people came from many different places. This made it hard for them to unite. Still, slave revolts did happen and were punished very harshly. The most famous slave rebellion in Europe was led by Spartacus in Roman Italy. This was the Third Servile War. After this war, 6,000 surviving rebel slaves were crucified along the main roads leading into Rome. This was the third in a series of Roman Servile Wars fought by slaves against the Romans.

Revolts in Europe and Russia

The Peasants' Revolt in England in 1381 led to calls for changes to feudalism. This system was like a pyramid with kings at the top and serfs at the bottom. The revolt helped serfs gain more rights. King Richard II agreed to changes like fair rents and ending serfdom. After the revolt ended, the king took back his promises. But the rebellion was important because it started the end of serfdom in medieval England.

In Russia, enslaved people were called kholops. A kholop's owner had complete power over their life. Slavery was a major part of Russian society until 1723. That's when Peter the Great changed household slaves into house serfs. Farm slaves had already become serfs in 1679. In the 1500s and 1600s, runaway serfs and kholops were known as Cossacks. They formed their own communities in the southern plains. There were many rebellions against slavery and serfdom, often with Cossack uprisings. Famous leaders included Ivan Bolotnikov (1606–1607), Stenka Razin (1667–1671), Kondraty Bulavin (1707–1709), and Yemelyan Pugachev (1773–1775). These revolts sometimes involved hundreds of thousands of people. After the Pugachev rebellion and into the 1800s, hundreds more uprisings happened across Russia.

Rebellions in the Middle East

The Zanj Rebellion was a series of smaller revolts that grew into a huge uprising. It happened near the city of Basra in southern Iraq and lasted for fifteen years (869−883 AD). More than 500,000 enslaved people, brought from across the Muslim empire, joined the rebellion.

The Mamluk Sultanate in Egypt ruled for centuries after a slave rebellion. They created the Bahri dynasty and Burji dynasty. These groups made many artistic and scientific achievements. The Mamluks also stopped the Mongols from conquering their lands.

Revolts in Africa

In 1808 and 1825, slave rebellions happened in the Cape Colony in South Africa. The British had recently taken control of this area. Even though the slave trade was officially ended in the British Empire in 1807, and slavery itself in 1833, it took until 1850 for it to stop completely in the areas that would become South Africa.

Rebellions in the Americas

A Haitian coin with the image of François Mackandal, a leader of a slave rebellion.

The first known slave rebellion in the Americas happened on December 25, 1521. It took place on Diego Colón de Toledo's plantation in what is now the Dominican Republic. Even though this revolt was stopped, many enslaved people escaped. They formed the first Maroon communities in the Americas. This opened the door for more revolts. In 1532, Sebastián Lemba rebelled against the Spanish. For 15 years, he attacked villages, freeing other enslaved people and taking goods from the Spanish. Other leaders like Juan Vaquero, Diego del Guzmán, and Diego del Campo followed him. Revolts in the Dominican Republic continued through the 1700s and 1800s.

Between 1538 and 1542, a Guaraní enslaved woman from Paraguay named India Juliana killed her Spanish owner. She encouraged other indigenous women to do the same. She was later executed. Her rebellion is seen as one of the earliest uprisings by native people against the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

Quilombo dos Palmares in Brazil was a large community of runaway enslaved people. It existed from 1605 to 1694 and was led by Zumbi.

San Basilio de Palenque in Colombia was another community founded by runaway enslaved people. It started in the 1500s and was led by Benkos Biohó.

In St. John in 1733, a major slave rebellion happened in what was then the Danish West Indies. This rebellion was one of the earliest and longest-lasting in the Americas. It ended in defeat, and many rebels, including the leader Breffu, died.

The most successful slave uprising was the Haitian Revolution. It began in 1791 and was led by Toussaint Louverture. It resulted in the independent black republic of Haiti.

Panama also has a long history of slave rebellions dating back to the 1500s. Enslaved Africans were brought to Panama from many parts of Africa. Many revolted right before or soon after arriving. They formed communities in the forests and mountains, creating guerrilla groups called Cimarrones. They fought a long guerrilla war against the Spanish Conquistadores. Sometimes they worked with local native groups. Despite massacres by the Spanish, the rebels fought until the Spanish government had to sign treaties. These treaties gave the Africans freedom from Spanish violence. Leaders of these revolts included Felipillo, Bayano, Juan de Dioso, Domingo Congo, Antón Mandinga, and Luis de Mozambique.

In the 1730s, the militias in Colony of Jamaica fought the Jamaican Maroons for ten years. They then agreed to peace treaties in 1739 and 1740. These treaties recognized the Maroons' freedom in five separate towns.

Tacky's War (1760) was a slave uprising in Jamaica. It lasted from May to July before the British government stopped it.

The Suriname slave rebellion involved constant guerrilla fighting by Maroons. From 1765-1793, the Aluku group, led by Boni, also fought.

The Berbice slave revolt in Guyana in 1763 was led by Cuffy.

Cuba experienced many slave revolts. Some notable ones were in 1795, 1798, 1802, 1805, 1812 (the Aponte revolt), and a series from 1839–43 and 1844 (the La Escalera conspiracy).

Revolts on Caribbean Islands

The Demerara rebellion of 1823.

Vincent Brown, a professor at Harvard, has studied the Transatlantic Slave Trade. In 2013, he helped create an interactive map of Jamaican slave uprisings in the 1700s. His work showed that the slave uprising in Jamaica in 1760-61 was carefully planned. It was not a sudden, disorganized event, as was often thought. Tacky's War was a widespread slave uprising across Jamaica in the 1760s.

Later, in 1795, several slave rebellions broke out across the Caribbean. These were influenced by the Haitian Revolution:

• In Jamaica, the descendants of Africans who had escaped slavery and formed free communities (Maroons) fought to keep their freedom from the British. This was called the Second Maroon War.
• In Dominica, there was the Colihault Uprising.
• In Saint Lucia, there was the Bush War.
• In the Saint Vincent islands, the Second Carib War began.
• In Grenada, there was the Fedon Rebellion.
• Curaçao had a slave revolt in 1795, led by Tula.
• In Venezuela, the uprising led by José Leonardo Chirino happened in 1795.
• In Barbados, a slave revolt occurred in 1816, led by Bussa.
• In Guyana, there was the Demerara Rebellion of 1795.
• In the British Virgin Islands, smaller slave revolts happened in 1790, 1823, and 1830.
• In Cuba, there were several revolts starting in 1825 and ending with the revolts of 1843 in Matanzas.
• In the Danish West Indies, an 1848 slave revolt led to all enslaved people being freed.
• In Puerto Rico in 1821, Marcos Xiorro planned a slave revolt against plantation owners and the Spanish government. Even though it failed, Xiorro became a legendary figure among enslaved people.

Brazil

Many slave rebellions happened in Brazil. The most famous was the Malê Revolt of 1835. This revolt was led by mostly Muslim enslaved people from West Africa. The word malê was used to describe Muslims at that time.

North American Slave Revolts

Many slave rebellions and uprisings took place in North America during the 1600s, 1700s, and 1800s. Records show more than 250 uprisings or attempts involving ten or more enslaved people. One of the first was at San Miguel de Gualdape, the first European settlement in what is now the United States. Three of the most well-known in the United States during the 1800s are the revolts by Gabriel Prosser in Virginia in 1800, Denmark Vesey in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, and Nat Turner in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.

For a long time, historians did not pay much attention to slave resistance in the southern United States before the Civil War. This changed in the 1940s when historian Herbert Aptheker began publishing serious studies on the topic. Aptheker showed that rebellions happened because of the harsh conditions of the southern slave system. He searched libraries and archives across the South and found about 250 similar events.

The 1811 German Coast uprising happened in rural southeast Louisiana in early 1811. At that time, it was the Territory of Orleans. Up to 500 enslaved people took part in this uprising. Local militias and the United States Army stopped it. In response to the deaths of two white men and property damage, authorities killed at least 40 black men in a violent fight. At least 29 more were executed. Fewer than 20 men escaped, but some were later caught and killed.

Even though it involved only about seventy enslaved people and free black individuals, Turner's 1831 rebellion is a very important event in American history. The rebellion caused great fear in the slave-holding South. Fifty-five white men, women, and children were killed. Enslaved black people were freed on several plantations as Turner and his rebels attacked the system of slavery. State militias eventually stopped Turner and the other rebels. About 56 enslaved people, including Nat Turner, were executed. Up to 200 other black people were killed during the panic that followed, even if they had nothing to do with the uprising. Fears after the rebellion led Southern states to pass new laws. These laws made it harder for enslaved people to move, gather, or get an education. They also reduced the rights of free people of color. The Virginia legislature even thought about ending slavery to prevent more rebellions. But in a close vote, they decided to keep slavery.

The abolitionist John Brown had already fought against pro-slavery groups in Bleeding Kansas. He then decided to lead a raid on a federal weapons store in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. This raid was a joint attack by freed black people and white men. Brown had planned to work with enslaved people on plantations to start a general uprising. He carried hundreds of copies of a constitution for a new republic of former slaves in the mountains. But these were never given out, and the slave uprisings that were supposed to help Brown did not happen. Some believe he knew the raid would fail but went ahead anyway because of the support for ending slavery it would create. The U.S. military, led by Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee, easily defeated Brown's forces. But after this, slave disobedience and the number of runaways greatly increased in Virginia.

Historian Steven Hahn suggests that the self-organized involvement of enslaved people in the Union Army during the American Civil War was a slave rebellion larger than all others. Similarly, tens of thousands of enslaved people joined British forces or escaped to British lines during the American Revolution. They sometimes used the chaos of war to gain freedom. For example, when the British left Charleston and Savannah, they took 10,000 enslaved people with them. They also took more than 3,000 enslaved people from New York. These individuals were resettled in Nova Scotia and were known as Black Loyalists.

List of North American Slave Revolts

• 1521 Santo Domingo Slave Revolt (1521)
• San Miguel de Gualdape (1526)
• Bayano Wars (1548)
• Gaspar Yanga's Revolt (around 1570) near the Mexican city of Veracruz. The group escaped to the highlands and built a free community.
• Revolt in Gloucester County, Virginia (1663)
• New York Slave Revolt of 1712
• Samba rebellion (1731)
• Stono Rebellion (1739)
• New York Conspiracy of 1741 (alleged)
• During the American Revolutionary War, enslaved people reacted to promises of freedom from the British. They sometimes joined the British military against their former owners.
• Pointe Coupée Slave Conspiracy of 1791
• Pointe Coupée Slave Conspiracy of 1795
• Gabriel's Rebellion (1800)
• Rebellions in a dozen North Carolina counties (May and June, 1802)
• Chatham Manor Rebellion (1805)
• Enslaved people in three North Carolina counties planned to poison their owners, some successfully (1805).
• 1811 German Coast uprising (1811)
• Aponte Conspiracy (1812)
• George Boxley Rebellion (1815)
• Denmark Vesey's conspiracy (1822)
• Nat Turner's slave rebellion (1831)
• Baptist War (1831)
• Black Seminole Slave Rebellion (1835–1838)
• Amistad seizure (1839)
• Creole case (1841) (the most successful slave revolt in US history)
• 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation
• John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry (1859) (a failed attempt to start a slave rebellion)

Slave Ship Revolts

There are 485 recorded cases of enslaved people revolting on board slave ships. Some ships even had more than one uprising during their journeys.

Most stories of revolts on slave ships come from Europeans. There are few accounts from the enslaved people themselves. William Snelgrave reported that enslaved people who revolted on the British ship Henry in 1721 said that those who captured them were "Rogues to buy them" and that they wanted their freedom back. Another example is James Towne, who heard enslaved people say that Europeans had no right to enslave them and take them from their homes and families.

Historians compare several things that led to slave revolts on ships. These include the conditions on the ships, where the ship was located, and how close it was to the shore. Revolts were more likely to happen when a ship was still in sight of land. The threat of attack from the shore by other Africans was also a worry. If the ship had a disease outbreak and many crew members died, the chances of an uprising were higher. Where the enslaved people were captured also affected the number of revolts. In many places, like the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra, the percentage of revolts matched the percentage of the slave trade. However, ships taking enslaved people from Senegambia had 22 percent of shipboard revolts, even though this region only accounted for four and a half percent of the slave trade. Enslaved people from West Central Africa made up 44 percent of the trade but only experienced 11 percent of total revolts.

Lorenzo J. Greene shares many stories of slave revolts on ships leaving New England. These ships belonged to Puritans who controlled much of the slave trade in New England. Most revolts on ships were not successful. The crews, though outnumbered, were well-trained, well-fed, and armed with guns, swords, and sometimes cannons. They were always ready for resistance. The enslaved people, on the other hand, had only bits of wood and the chains that bound them.

However, some captives were able to take over the ships that held them and regain their freedom. On October 5, 1764, the New Hampshire ship Adventure was successfully taken by its cargo. The enslaved people revolted while the ship was anchored off the coast. All but two of the crew, including the captain, had died from disease. Another successful slave revolt happened six days after the ship Little George left the Guinea coast. The ship carried ninety-six enslaved people, thirty-five of whom were male. The enslaved people attacked early in the morning, easily overpowering the two guards. They were able to load one of the cannons and fire it at the crew. After taking control of the ship, they sailed it up the Sierra Leone River and escaped. The crew defended themselves with guns below decks for several days. Then they lowered a small boat into the river to escape. After nine days of living on raw rice, they were rescued.

Mariana P. Candido notes that enslaved Africans also worked on the ships that transported other Africans into slavery. These 230 men were used on slave ships because they could talk to the newly boarded enslaved people and translate between the captain and the slave traders. Enslaved sailors could help calm some of the fears that new captives had, such as the fear of being eaten. This was a tricky situation. Sometimes, the enslaved sailors joined other enslaved people in revolts against the captain they served. In 1812, enslaved sailors joined a revolt on the Portuguese ship Feliz Eugenia off the coast of Benguela. The revolt happened below decks. The sailors, along with many of the children on board, were able to escape using small boats.