The Cause Of The Stono Rebellion, South Carolina

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

” 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 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.

First off, the Stono Rebellion was led by an Angolan man named Jemmy. “Jemmy and twenty other slaves met up at the Stono River in

In the 1600’s those coming from the West Indies searching for land established a new colony south of Chesapeake. This colony was owned by the Lords Proprietors. To quickly populate the Carolina’s the Lords Proprietors offered large incentives attracting many colonists. These were things such as religious toleration, political representation, and large grants of land. With workers needed Carolina offered freedom dues; attracting many poor people that would work as indentured servants. As Carolina gained the common settlers and indentured servants the Lord Proprietors made sure to include great planters with large land grants and absolute power over their slaves. As the Lord Proprietors were in England they could not fully control Carolina. This was seen as men known as

The fight was between whether whites and blacks should be equal and have the same rights. This lead to Blacks and Whites arguing over rights non stop. The whites thought they should be dominant and the blacks be their slaves, when overall, they were all human and the blacks just wanted to be equal like the whites. Almost all blacks at the time were slaves. Many rebellions were occurring and everyone fought day and night. And then came Newton Knight who was born on November 10, 1830. He was the grandson of one of the largest slave owners in Jones County. Growing up in that area of Mississippi, Newton definitely experienced the use of slavery in many different ways. He saw how harshly they were treated and in his mind, he knew that wasn’t right. He decided to do something about it but he had to figure out how. He knew he could face the death penalty if he refused or disobeyed the law. Later in his life he married Serena Turner. This relationship didn’t last very long due to the fact that Newton fell in love with someone else. This someone else was Rachel who was a former slave of his grandfathers at the time. Serena and Newton never actually divorced but instead, separated. Newton then got married to Rachel. This was illegal at the time, but Knight once explained, you can’t help who you fall in love with. Even though Serena was a slave, it was obvious that it didn’t bother Newton because he thought all were

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

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.

Claiming roughly eighty black and white lives and involving as many as one hundred slaves and perhaps as many whites, the Stono Rebellion of September 1739 was one of the most significant and violent slave uprisings in colonial America. Although the rebels failed in their attempt to reach St. Augustine and claim freedom under Spanish rule, the revolt shaped South Carolina slave society in some important ways and its legacy lingered for years after the event.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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