The Cause Of The Stono Rebellion, South Carolina

“On Sunday, September 9th, 1739 the British colony of South Carolina was shaken by a slave uprising that culminated with the death of sixty people” (Foster). This was one of the first major slave revolts in which many slaves tried to escape to freedom. The fact that it was Sunday affected the timing of the revolt. The promise of freedom that the Spanish made, contributed to the idea of rebellion. This rebellion forced a negative compromise towards the slaves because all of the slave codes became even more strict; even though there was no long term effect of the uprising. In 1739, the Stono Rebellion created conflict between slaves and South Carolinian elite landowners which resulted in slaves being forced to endure stricter slave codes.

In the early 18th century, South Carolina experienced a boom in their rice industry. This caused a shift from a frontier to a plantation economy, affecting the quality of life of slaves. Their tasks switched from farming, hunting, fishing, and raising cattle, to being trapped in the rice fields. The slaves felt much resent for this extremely difficult, straining work. In the 1730s, there was an outbreak of many slave conspiracies in the West Indies, especially in the Bahamas and Antigua. Furthermore, many runaway slaves from South Carolina had made their way down to Florida, where Spain offered them freedom. This inspired slaves to fight for their freedom. As a result of the Stono Rebellion, slaveowners came to fear their slaves and the threat of future uprisings. Because of this fear, The Slave Code of South Carolina of 1740 was created. This code greatly limited rights of the slaves living in the region.

The Stono Rebellion was at the time the biggest slave rebellion to ever take place in the American colonies. It came at a time when owning slaves was one of the accepted things in the colonies and the colonists depended on the labor the slaves were doing. Some colonies entire economies depended on it. In South Carolina, there were more slaves than free men in the colony. This was because of the African slave trade.

     South Carolina was one of the only states in which the black slaves and abolitionists outnumbered their oppressors. Denmark Vesey’s slave revolt consisted

It did not take too much longer for the other two states to outlaw slavery shortly after the revolution. In Southern States, the revolution seemed to have opposite effects. During the time of the American Revolution, ideas of emancipation for slaves were floating around. "White folk" is the South feared slaves being equal or even close to themselves; they also feared rebellion among their workers. "They feared that without slaves, it would be necessary to recruit a servile white workforce in the South, and that the resulting inequalities would jeopardize the survival of liberties" (Brinkley 120). This fear is what pushed white southerns to reinforce their authority over slaves. They executed men who planned slave rebellions such as Thomas Jeremiah. The reason that slavery existed was human nature, slavery was nothing

The Stono Rebellion was the last major slave uprising until Nat Turner’s Rebellion in Virginia in 1831. What lesson did slaves and masters learn from the Stono Rebellion that would discourage a similar rebellion for almost a century? The Stono Rebellion had a lot of casualties on both sides. It made each side reflect on what exactly happened. The lesson learned from the slaves and the masters was that actions have

The Stono Rebellion occurred in South Carolina on September 9, 1739. A group of about twenty slaves led by a slave named Jemmy went to a local store and attacked. They stole several guns and powder and decapitated the two men working there. The slaves left the decapitated heads on the front porch like they were staring into the distance. The slaves continued to march along what is today’s Highway 17. Along their march, the slaves burned plantations, gathered more to their number, and killed many white slave owners. The slaves also slaughtered the white women and white children of the slave owners. Very few people were spared during the Stono Rebellion. By the time the march was coming to an end, the slaves had killed between twenty and twenty-five white people. The

Stono Rebellion: Was a Rebellion against Slavery, it was the largest slave uprising in the British New World With 21 whites dead and 44 blacks killed.

Just ten years later another significant uprising occurred named the Vesey Uprising in Charleston, South Carolina. A slave named Devany Prioleau told his master that he heard a rumor of an uprising from another slave who was named William Paul. Slaves were taken into questioning but had denied the uprisings. One slave said it was to happen on the sixteenth but it never happened. Still ten slaves were arrested including Prioleau and Paul. A secret testimony was taken to account saying that the slaves arrested and one free slave named Denmark Vesey were all in on an uprising. Vesey and five other slaves were hung for their crime all while protesting their innocence. “…they, in there agony of strangulation, begged earnestly to be dispatched; which was done with pistol-shot by the Captain of the City Guard, who was always prepared for such an emergency; i.e. shooting slaves”. A colored American who was a witness to these events shared their opinion on the matter. From the pamphlet, this person was outraged by the indiscrimination that went on in the Vesey Uprising with the murders of 35 slaves.

Slavery had become a fundamental part of the social and the economic life in Chesapeake and the Southern Colonies. It is estimated that over 270,000 slaves lived and worked in Chesapeake in 1770 (Foner 2012, pg. 136). Blacks accounted for nearly half the population of Virginia by 1750 and in South Carolina they outnumbered whites two to one (Kennedy 2000, pg.

The South Carolina pre-revolutionary Stono Rebellion led to many different forms of reactions from the people in colonial South Carolina. It can be characterized as that of a further dark future for the slaves, while creating more fear and discontent for the white citizens of the area. The revolts output created attitudes that led to the American revolution for whites, while creating the harsh and negative attitudes displayed toward blacks which we still see today. The repercussions created a greater sense of fear for Africans among the white population in Southeastern North America, one which necessitated a means for controlling what they believed to be a dangerous people. The revolt also showed the whites sense for blaming others for the uprising among the slaves, as multiple Spanish men are claimed to have incited the slaves to rise up and kill to gain their freedom in Florida.

Beginning on September 9,1739, the Stono Rebellion was one of the largest slave uprisings in colonial America (Stono's Rebellion). It was the first known slave revolt in the continent of North America in 1739 (Slave Rebellions). Though it was one of the largest slave revolts in colonial America, it was still unsuccessful, but because it was so large, it had several effect on America and its government.

” For many, the economic structure of slavery still held strong and it established status in British America. Slavery had begun in the later half of the 17th century and in many ways, it had made Atlantic commerce and overseas settlement possible. Thousands of Africans had been shipped overseas to work in the fields of staple crops. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, high concentrations of slaves remained in the southern colonies where they continued to labour on cotton and tobacco plantations. Of the thirteen colonies, Georgia, Virginia and the Carolinas held the highest concentrations of slaves. In 1775, it is estimated that of the 2.5 million people living in the thirteen colonies, 500,000 were blacks. The vast majority of these blacks were slaves, with many labouring for their masters under harsh conditions. Although their experiences were difficult, blacks rarely revolted or staged rebellions against their masters. This has often been associated with the plantation system, and the role it played in severing blacks’ ties to one another. As highlighted by historian Silvia Frey, “The North American plantation organization, with the dominating presence of the master, inhibited the development of the tribal cohesiveness that characterized the islands’ plantation organization and produced widespread violence against whites by black guerrilla bands.” However, despite the absence of any significant

The Stono Rebellion was the spark of slave revolts all over the country, which changed the course of history. It was once said that “I think we must get rid of slavery or we must get rid of freedom” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). Some main reasons that the Stono Rebellion happened or caused slave codes to strengthen was because of: the slave’s motives, some of the conflicts that arose during the Stono Rebellion, and the aftermath of the Stono Rebellion. Because of the slave revolt conflict of 1739, known as the Stono Rebellion, the plantation owners of South Carolina compromised by strengthening the slave codes.

On September 1739, a group of South Carolina slaves, most of them recently arrived from kongo where some had appeared to be soldiers, where they had taken a store containing which had a number of weapons at the town of stono. They would use “beating drums to attract followers, the armed band marched southward toward Florida, burning houses and barns, killing whites they encountered, and shouting liberty.”(144). This rebellion took the lives of more than two dozen whites and as many as 200 slaves. Many slaves managed to reach Florida, where in 1740 they were armed by the Spanish to help repel an attack on St. Augustine by a force from