Today, Slave rebellion and resistance in the United States is a highly relevant topic that has captured the attention of people of all ages and interests. With a significant impact on different aspects of daily life, Slave rebellion and resistance in the United States has generated debates, controversy and great interest at a global level. From its origins to its influence today, Slave rebellion and resistance in the United States has left an imposing mark on society, culture and history. In this article, we will explore different facets of Slave rebellion and resistance in the United States, from its origins to its impact today, analyzing its importance and relevance in different contexts.
Slave rebellions and slave resistance were means of opposing the system of chattel slavery in the United States from 1776 to 1865. 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.": 597 As such, "Confrontation in the Old South characteristically took the form of an individual slave's open resistance to plantation authorities,": 599 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.
Historians in the 20th century identified 250 to 311 slave uprisings in U.S. and colonial history. Those after 1776 include:
There are four known mutinies on vessels involved in the coastwise slave trade: Decatur (1826), Governor Strong (1826), Lafayette (1829), and the Creole (1841).
The most common forms of resistance was self-emancipation—escaping an enslaver's control either temporarily or permanently.: 600 The legal condition of fugitive slaves in the United States was a major hot-button political issue in antebellum America. In the years immediately prior to the American Civil War, collective escape actions called stampedes became increasingly common.
Resistance took many forms; as one historian, George P. Rawick, wrote, "While from sunup to sundown the American slave worked for another and was harshly exploited, from sundown to sunup he lived for himself and created the behavioral and institutional basis which prevented him from becoming the absolute victim.": 579
There is evidence that some enslaved people in the United States "added back doors to their dwellings that provided access to an open space shielded by the dwellings on all sides."
In 1831, Nat Turner, a literate slave who claimed to have spiritual visions, organized a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia; it was sometimes called the Southampton Insurrection. Turner and his followers killed nearly sixty white inhabitants, mostly women and children. Many of the men in the area were attending a religious event in North Carolina. Eventually Turner was captured with 17 other rebels, who were subdued by the militia. Turner and his followers were hanged, and Turner's body was flayed. In a frenzy of fear and retaliation, the militia killed more than 100 slaves who had not been involved in the rebellion. Planters whipped hundreds of innocent slaves to ensure resistance was quelled.
This rebellion prompted Virginia and other slave states to pass more restrictions on slaves and free people of color, controlling their movement and requiring more white supervision of gatherings. In 1835, North Carolina withdrew the franchise for free people of color, and they lost their vote.