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Resistance & Rebellion

Background information

Up r isings
The African people who were enslaved resisted against the system of slavery from the moment of
capture to life on the plantations. Resistance took on many forms, from retaining aspects of their
cultures and identities to escape and plotting uprisings to overthrow the plantocracy. The most
successful uprising was the revolution in St Domingue, which led to Haiti becoming the first
independent republic outside Africa. Revolts and rebellions played a significant part in abolition
and emancipation..

The f ight fo r f r e edom

Contrary to the way in which the slaves were often perceived - as submissive, subdued and
incapable of sophisticated intellectual thought -, which enabled the British to justify their
superiority and the continuation of the slave trade, there was a continual undercurrent of
resistance and rebellion. Individuals sought their freedom through escape, even though the odds
were overwhelmingly against them.

Run A w ay Ja ck adve r tisement

Uprisings, or rebellions, were the most dramatic and bloody way that slaves could resist their
enslavement. Several hundreds of rebellions were recorded from as early as 1522 on the Spanish
island of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and before the end of the 17th
century there had been rebellions on the islands of St Kitts, Barbados, Guadeloupe and Jamaica.
Slave rebellions continued into the 18th century, and intensified in the early 19th century as
slaves heard rumours of the abolition of slavery. Failed attempts at escape or rebellion brought
severe punishments.

Slave r evolts onboa rd ship

As well as the high death rates on board ship through disease [click to go to background
information Middle Passage] there was a regular loss of African life through revolts. Africans
were, ‘ever upon the watch to take advantage of the least negligence of their oppressors’,
Alexander Falconbridge, slaving ship’s surgeon. John Newton noted in his diary, ‘I was at first,
continually alarmed with their almost desperate attempts to make insurrections upon us’. He, like
most slavers, kept the men in chains until ‘we saw the land in the West Indies’ because ‘we
receive them on board, from the first as enemies’.

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Activity: West African History - What was Africa like in 1500s? 2
Some of the revolts were violent, others demonstrated resistance through suicide. In 1737 as the
Prince of Orange of Bristol landed in St Kitts, about 100 captives jumped overboard. the crew
tried to save as many as they could but 33 died.

John Newton was faced with revolt twice on his Duke of Argyle voyage. A young slave freed from
his chains because of ulcers managed to pass a spike through the deck grating to the hold below. In
one hour twenty men had broken their chains, but were caught (and no doubt punished with the
whip or thumbscrews) by the crew. Another ship, the Adventure of London trading close to
Newton in 1753 was taken over by captives who ran the ship aground and destroyed it. The
Africans on board the King David from Bristol killed the captain and five crew-members, and later
threw nine more overboard in shackles meant for the slaves. In one case the women (who were
not normally chained) on the Thomas bound for Barbados seized muskets, overpowered the crew,
and freed the men. They did not succeed in sailing the ship back to West Africa and eventually a
British warship recaptured them.

The extent of slave revolts is hard to quantify, but there was probably a significant revolt on
British slavers very two years. Cases were often brought to public attention by insurance claims
for loss of cargo. Parliament again regulated the slave trade in 1790 by declaring the loss of slaves
by natural death, ill treatment or throwing overboard, such as the case of the Zong, was not
covered for insurance purposes

Runa w ays
Many slaves attempted escape. Such attempts were not often successful as places of refuge were
limited particularly on the Caribbean islands. Many runaways were absent only for short periods of
time, perhaps to visit friends and family on another plantation. Thomas Thistlewood recorded 20
runaways a year on his plantation in Jamaica, but only 4 of these stayed away for more than 10
days. In practice it meant 1 in 100 slaves were absent at any one time. If runaways were not found
and returned to the plantation they may well be put to work elsewhere. And if persistent runaways
were captured they were severely punished. They were held in public cages on the streets, waiting
to be collected by their owners, when they would often receive 100-150 lashes, castration,
branding on the face or the loss of an ear; until the late 1780s runaways could even have a limb
amputated. Women as well as men escaped. Sally was a 17 or 18 yea- old Congolese slave,
frequently abused by her owner Thomas Thistlewood. She persistently stole items from her
owners and ran away on several occasions. She also suffered from yaws and had her toe amputated.
This did not deter her from running away repeatedly. When she was captured, she was whipped
and put in the stocks, as Thistlewood recorded in his dairies he ‘ Put a collar and chain about
Sally’s neck, also branded her with TT on her right cheek’ . She was also found to have VD, and
had been sexually assaulted by a sailor, which did not deter Thistlewood from continuing to
sexually abuse her. Quashebah, was a woman field hand who ran away from the Codrington Estate,
Barbados, five times between 1775-1784.

As slaves were seen as valuable ‘commodities’ large rewards were offered for their capture in local
newspapers.

$150 r e w a rd poste r

The M a roons o f Jama ic a

Although individual attempts at escape were rarely successful, some co-ordinated efforts were.
The Maroons were communities of runaway slaves, initially in Jamaica. When the British invaded
Jamaica in 1655 and took control from the Spanish by 1660 1, 1500 Africans who had been
enslaved by the Spanish escaped to the mountainous areas of the island. Most of the Maroons

1
The British fleet which captured Jamaica was led by an admiral who was William Penn’s – the early Quaker
leader – father.

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Activity: West African History - What was Africa like in 1500s? 3
came from the Akan region of West Africa, although over time other runaways joined them. For
150 years these communities escaped capture and engaged in guerrilla warfare against the British
plantation owners, freeing slaves and offering them shelter, as they wrecked havoc on the
plantocracy’s lands and property.

L eona rd P a rkinson, C aptain of the M a roons

Two main groups were the Trelawney and the Windward Maroons on the west and east sides of
the island. The Windward Maroons were led by Queen Nanny 2. The Maroons were self-sufficient,
well-organized, skilled hunters and fighters, and the British could not defeat them. The First
Maroon War began in 1720 and ended in 1739 when the government acknowledged them as free
people and gave them 1500 acres on the Leeward side of Jamaica. In return the Maroons agreed
to cease hostilities and to assist in the capture and return of runaway slaves and put down any
further revolts.

Pa c if ic a tion with the M a roon N eg roes

The truce worked reasonably well until a new Governor in Jamaica in 1795 began to persecute
Maroons in the town of Trelawney resulting in the Second Maroon War. The British brought in
5000 troops and 100 Cuban hunting dogs and the Maroons surrendered on the promise of new
lands and exemption from being executed or transported. However, one year later 568 Maroons
were deported from Trelawney to Nova Scotia, and then three years later moved on to Sierra
Leone. None ever returned to Jamaica.

T r e la wney Town , th e Chie f R esidenc e o f the M a roons

This acted as a deterrent to other rebel fighters and the remaining Maroons, again, co-operated,
helping the government to control runaways and rebellions. Similar free communities existed

2
Nanny was unusual in being a female resistance leader. She became a symbol of strength and unity for her
people. She had the warrior characteristics of her ancestors – Asante. She and 5 brothers escaped slavery soon
after they arrived in Jamaica. She controlled a settlement in the Blue Mountains called Nanny Town and had
exceptional leadership qualities. Nanny also passed down the Asante legends, customs, music and songs

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Activity: West African History - What was Africa like in 1500s? 4
elsewhere in the Caribbean but none were such a threat to the British as the Jamaican Maroons.
Some Maroon communities retain their Akan identity in Jamaica today.

Revolution
The most successful revolution in the Caribbean, as well as the bloodiest, was in the French colony
of St Domingue (now Haiti). The French had a booming slave trade in the 18th century, and
almost three quarters of the million enslaved Africans transported by French ships were deposited
in St Domingue. Perhaps as many as 10% of all African captives ended up in St Domingue; its
slave population increased from 250,000 in 1779 to 480,000 in 1791; massively outnumbering
the 40,000 whites and an enormous expansion for a society to accommodate in such a short
timescale. St Domingue’s wealth was unprecedented, producing 30% of the world’s sugar and half
its coffee as well as cotton and other crops. Its annual production was more than double that of all
the British West Indian Islands put together. The density of unassimilated Africans alongside the
high level of absent plantation owners, and the contradictions raised by the Revolution in France
itself, aided this revolution. The French Revolution in 1789 inspired revolutionary ideas about
freedom, and a series of conflicts from 1789-1791 (initially by the mulatto, population many of
whom owned plantations in St Domingue but were denied the full rights of the ruling white
population) ignited into a full-scale revolt, started on the signal of drumbeats, in 1791. Numerous
French troops died, owners fled, and slaves freed themselves from their plantations, torching
property and killing whites in their thousands – the the force of the violence was driven by
revenge. The French also faced the possibility of an invasion by the Spanish or the British. In
1793 Toussaint L’Ouverture, a freed slave became the military commander of the island.

Toussa int L ’ Ouve r tur e

Toussaint L’Overture was a formidable force organizing illiterate rebel slaves into an effective
army. The revolt was treated like a communicable disease fearing it would spread to other islands
– Jamaica declared marital law and the conditions in which the slaves were kept worsened. In 1794
France freed all slaves in its empire – ‘arguably the most radical, and most overlooked, act of the
French Revolution. It was the slaves of St Domingue, however, who had freed themselves’,
Hochschild, 2005 . Britain took advantage of its war with France from 1793 to attempt to
conquer the French colony – seeing it as a way of acquiring more sugar and coffee plantations as
well as stopping the rebellion from spreading. But L’Ouverture and his followers were determined
never to be slaves again. The British Army lost so many men in the fighting in St Domingue they
began to develop black regiments, and bought some 13,400 slaves in the Caribbean to this end,
making the army the single largest purchaser of slaves and creating a vested interest for the
government to continue to oppose abolition in British colonies and causing Prime Minister Pitt
to switch his allegiance away from the anti-slavery campaigners. The army offered some slaves
freedom after five years service, knowing most would not survive that long. In 1795 the largest
fleet ever to leave Britain for St Domingue consisted of 218 ships carrying 19,284 soldiers (some
officers with wives and children as was the custom). 1000 died en route in the over-crowded troop
ships. L’Ouverture now had an army of 14,000.. The British failed to defeat Toussaint
L’Overture and 60% of the 20,000 British troops died and were buried in St Domingue over five
years of fighting. In 1798 the Union Jack was lowered and the British left St Domingue. The
soldiers of the world’s largest slaving nation had been defeated by an army of ex-slaves.

The war with France – although temporarily halting the abolitionist campaign in England –
brought a greater number of Britons face to face with slavery as more and more soldiers were sent
to the West Indian campaign as Britain fought for Guadeloupe, St Lucia and in the Maroon wars in

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Activity: West African History - What was Africa like in 1500s? 5
Jamaica. 89,000 troops went in total of whom 45,000 died in battle or of disease; 3000 deserted.
Another 19,000 British sailors died on naval transport ships. A peace treaty was signed with
Napoleon in 1801 after eight years of war. The French used their troops to try and recover St
Domingue from L’Ouverture sending 35,000 men. L’Ouverture was captured and sent with 800
supporters to France where he died 10 months later on April 7th 1803. Napoleon attempted to
reintroduce slavery to St Domingue. His efforts failed as he lost 50,000 troops and in 1804 the
island became the Republic of Haiti.. The creation of the first black republic outside Africa
marked an historical turning point as three centuries of slavery were ended.

O the r r evolts
The indigenous groups of Caribs, especially in Dominica and St Vincent, were determined to fight
for their rights, particularly when they saw their land being appropriated by white plantation
owners. In 1772 guerrilla warfare broke out on St Vincent and the Caribs were granted land and
freedom in 1773 in return for handing over runaway slaves. But by the time of the revolutionary
1790s, and urged on by the French, the Caribs struck out again with ferocious fighting. The British
did not defeat them until 1796 when 5000 Caribs surrendered and were transported to Honduras,
becoming the founders of today’s 40,000 Carib people in the region.

Other slave uprisings, revolts and rebellions were frequent and ferociously halted by plantation
owners in order to deter future rebels. Rebellious slaves were executed ‘by progressive mutilation,
slow burnings, breaking on the wheel, or starvation in cages’, Walvin 2001. A failed slave revolt
in Antigua in 1735-36, Tackey’s rebellion, led to 5 rebels broken on the wheel (a form of torture
where bones were dislocated and the body pulled apart on a wheel), six hung to die on a gibbet, and
77 burned alive. When another revolt in Jamaica failed in 1760 Tacky the leader was decapitated
and his head displayed on a pole on-route to the island’s capital, Spanishtown. It was the Maroons
who had cornered and killed Tacky. [need explanation] 400 others died in the fighting, committed
suicide rather than surrender, or were executed for joining the rebellion. 60 whites and 60 free
blacks or mulattos also died.

On Easter Sunday in 1816 a revolt erupted in Barbados, a relative quiet colony not normally
troubled by uprisings. Led by Bussa, an African born overseer, and inspired by the Haitian
Revolution, it caused immense damage in the harvest season before being brutally crushed with the
loss of about 400 lives. Many rebel slaves were transported to Sierra Leone.

Nat Turner led an uprising in Southampton County, Virginia in 1831, killing 60 whites, including
women and children. But only 60 rebels joined Turner and he was captured and hanged.

But perhaps the most significant rebellion in forcing the final step in the emancipation of slaves
and the end of slavery following the Turner uprising in the US was the 1831-32 Baptist War in
Jamaica led by Samuel Sharpe. It resulted in the killing of 200 slaves through fighting and the
execution of 344 but as a result Parliament voted to abolish slavery within a year. It was clear
that if slaves weren’t officially freed they were determined to free themselves. [click to go to
background information on Emancipation].

Non-violent r e sistanc e
Enslaved Africans also demonstrated resistance to slavery in many other ways by keeping aspects
of their West African cultures and traditions alive in languages, , music and spiritual beliefs. In this
way, elements of African character and culture were preserved, although slave owners often tried
to limit this form of resistance by introducing conformity. By diluting a common sense of African
identity plantation owners hoped to better control their slaves and reduce the risk of rebellion.

Music and religious traditions were an important part of life for the enslaved on the plantations,
but were also seen as a threat by the plantocracy. Drumming was often banned for fear that it
could communicate with slaves on other plantations and be used as a signal to start a revolt (as in
St Domingue). Plantation owners were suspicious of African religions, but also reluctant to allow
slaves to convert to Christianity [needs explanation]. The result was hybrid religious practices
throughout the Caribbean and southern states of America.

Other subversive forms of resistance occurred on the plantations. Slaves stole from their owners,
robbing them of property and profit. They damaged machinery, so that it needed lengthy repairs
or costly replacement. And slaves avoided work, by working as slowly as they dared, or by
pretending to be sick.

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Activity: West African History - What was Africa like in 1500s? 6
The children of those enslaved were born as into slavery, and some women would terminate a
pregnancy or even kill newborn babies rather than bring a child into the world to be a slave. .
Many enslaved Africans had knowledge of herbal medicines and could use these skills against their
owners. Plantation owners were often concerned that female slaves who cooked their food might
poison them. There was a continual risk of punishment should a slave be found out resisting or
rebelling in any of these ways.

African languages were combined with the dominant European languages (Spanish, Portuguese,
Dutch, French or English) across the New World resulting in the plethora of pidgin and Creole
languages. Using African words, slaves created variations of Creole that were known only to them,
allowing them to communicate to the exclusion of the whites, again asserting their autonomy and
resisting assimilation by the dominant culture. In South Carolina, where there was a need to learn
English and to retain African speech patterns, a new language was created, Gullah, which
incorporated accents from France and Scotland, the Caribbean, as well as regional peculiarities
from Warwickshire, Lancashire and Ulster.

The process of renaming people (often several times in the course of their lives) was again a way
in which the plantation owners sought to rob a slave of his or her freedom and identity and assert
control. Those who managed to keep their own names, passing them down from generation to
generation, was a powerful assertion of their human rights.

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