9.
Nineteenth-Century Rebels against slavery
The American, French, and Haitian revolutions delivered messages about freedom that neither enslaved nor enslaver could ignore. But as enslaved people in the nineteenth century took heart and drew strength from victories over European rulers and bondage, US enslavers tightened control over the people they held captive.
One white southern response was to close off Black people from all information about resistance. Beginning with the American Revolution, and perhaps before, news of uprisings rarely appeared in print. In 1774, James Madison wrote of one revolt, “It is prudent that such attempts should be concealed as well as suppressed.” In 1800, Virginia governor James Monroe asked the legislature to bury news about that year’s massive conspiracy that threatened Richmond. He “hoped it would even pass unnoticed.”
In 1808, Governor John Tyler advised against discussing revolts even at a closed session of the Virginia legislature. He feared it would “probably increase the spirit of insurrection among the slaves.” Governor Tyler was admitting that enslaved people could penetrate a secret session of the state legislature.
Even traditional salutes to US independence, some feared, became ammunition for rebels. “The celebration of the Fourth of July belongs exclusively to the white population,” wrote a white Charlestonian. Keep Blacks from Independence Day ceremonies lest they “imbibe false notions.”
But the spirit of Toussaint Louverture lived on in the quarters of the enslaved. In 1800, a US Gazette reporter in Virginia wrote whites momentarily expected “a rising among the negroes . . . God only knows our fate.” In 1822, a Charleston woman wrote a friend: “Last evening twenty-five hundred of our citizens were under arms to guard our property and lives. But it is a subject not to be mentioned; and unless you hear of it elsewhere, say nothing about it.” These described two carefully directed plans by enslaved people to capture southern cities: Richmond in 1800 and Charleston in 1822.
While visiting the South, British reporter William H. Russell read “several dreadful accounts of murder and violence,” where enslaved men and women rose against their enslavers. After interviewing planters and their wives, Russell concluded, “There is something suspicious in the constant never-ending statement that ‘we are not afraid of our slaves.’ ” Though owners liked to boast, “Our servants are perfectly happy,” privately many admitted, “We are living on a volcano.”
Whites knew what their reactions would be if white families were forced into slavery. Thoughts of bloody Black retribution were never far from their minds. Panicky imaginations heard impending bloodshed in chance remarks, silly rumors, minor brawls, mysterious fires, and unsolved deaths.
Almost any challenge to white authority, even by a few, could be seen as a burning fuse leading to the enslaved people’s quarter. Investigations ruled by the terror-stricken sent whites running for their guns, whips, and horses. Savage bloodletting was the easiest response to actual threats and imagined ones. Many times in the nineteenth century enslaved men and women tried to slash their way to freedom. But the lives they took never matched the barbarity and massive murders of the white reprisals that followed in their wake.
Separating Black uprisings from white hysteria was difficult in the early nineteenth century and poses problems today. Since rebellion was “a subject not to be mentioned,” evidence was buried. No Black rebel survived to publish his or her story; most died quickly at the hands of state authorities or posses in the field. Rebel “confessions” were extracted by white officials and provide an incomplete picture of events. Much of what happened in each plot remains unclear—except there were numerous rebellions, many more conspiracies, and they were invariably crushed with unstinting brutality.
By the nineteenth century, the power to keep men in chains rested on thousands of well-trained troops and command of communication and transportation. Enslaved people began with a few weapons, no military training, and perhaps a hope of seizing an enemy arsenal. They had no experience with guns, no way to practice being an army, and few places to hide once the militia appeared. Solomon Northup wrote: “Without arms or ammunition, or even with them, I saw such a step would result in certain defeat, disaster, and death and always raised my voice against it.”
Rebels had few good choices. If they involved too few, they could quickly be isolated and overwhelmed. If a leader expanded his conspiracy to hundreds or thousands, he risked betrayal by its weakest links. Many schemes were revealed by informers whom whites richly rewarded for their cooperation.
To avoid inevitable exposure, some leaders planned surprise attacks that would seize weapons and recruit volunteers on the way. This idea rested on a shaky faith. Enslaved people on the rebels’ line of march would be asked to risk their lives for those they hardly knew, who suddenly appeared with a plan nobody had time to explain fully. Even if some joined the ranks, could this spontaneous, unarmed rabble stand up against the trained military units whites were bound to summon?
Despite the dangers, time and again those in chains attempted insurrection. Their decision often came as a last desperate stab for freedom and at a system that held their lives and families in contempt.
Four major rebellions by enslaved people shook the South during the first half of the nineteenth century. For African American communities the leaders became legends in the tradition of Toussaint Louverture and Henri Christophe. Whites shuddered at the names.
In 1800, in Henrico County, Virginia, Gabriel Prosser, twenty-four, six-foot-two, with no record of resistance, plotted for months to capture Richmond. A blacksmith taught to read by his enslaver’s wife, Prosser was a devoted student of the Old Testament. Samson was his hero. With his wife, Nanny, and his brothers, Solomon and Martin, on the night of August 30, 1800, Prosser assembled on the estate where he was enslaved a force estimated at more than nine hundred.
Some carried scythes and clubs, others bayonets, and a few had guns. Prosser and his officers, knowing of Louverture’s alliance with France, planned to spare Frenchmen and Quakers, and to recruit Catawba Indians and poor whites. His strategy was to divide his forces into three columns under previously selected officers, capture Richmond’s armory, and subdue the city. Believing fifty thousand Black people and “friends of humanity” would join him, he foresaw a victory as great as the one in Haiti.
A sudden storm brought floods that poured over the six miles of roads to Richmond. The conspirators were drenched, isolated from their target, and disheartened. Convinced heaven had spoken, they went home to wait for a better omen.
The conspiracy began to unravel. Prosser and his officers were betrayed, captured, and sentenced to death. One bravely told his captors he had done for African Americans what Washington had done for white Americans: “I have ventured my life . . . to obtain the liberty of my countrymen.”
Though federal intervention was unneeded, Governor James Monroe requested and received permission to use the Federal Armory at Manchester. Thus, a federal government made its first commitment to crush revolts by those held in bondage. The governor’s investigation claimed the Prosser plot “embraced most of the slaves” in and near the city and “perhaps the whole state.”
Governor Monroe had served in the Revolutionary army and studied law with Thomas Jefferson. Now this former revolutionary came to interview the present one. The governor left no record of the exchange. Prosser “seems to have made up his mind to die” in silence, he wrote. Monroe later added, “Unhappily, while this class of people exists among us, we can never count with certainty on its tranquil submission.”
Gabriel Prosser and thirty to forty followers were hanged at the Richmond jail, but even as they died, some whites spoke of their “true spirit of heroism” and “utmost composure.” This led to an open debate in Virginia on continuing slavery. Enslaver John Randolph said, “The accused have exhibited a spirit, which, if it becomes general, must deluge the Southern country in blood. They manifested a sense of their rights and a contempt of danger and a thirst for revenge which portend the most unhappy consequences.”
Governor Monroe believed the danger to the public posed by the unrest “is daily increasing.” He corresponded with his friend, President Thomas Jefferson, about placing free Black people on frontier land. In a series of secret sessions, the Virginia legislature debated ending slavery, but put off a decision.
Grave warnings came from other southerners. George Tucker wrote a popular pamphlet stating that “the love of freedom is an inborn sentiment” given by God to all humans from philosophers to enslaved people. “At the first favorable moment, it springs forth, and flourishes with a vigor that defies all check.” Tucker wanted to free all in bondage, but whites would not sacrifice so rich a treasure.
The controversy provoked by Prosser’s revolt reached beyond Virginia. Mississippi governor Winthrop Sergeant warned his people to expect uprisings. By 1802, northern states (except New Jersey) had ended bondage. Maryland, Tennessee, and Kentucky soon made manumission, or the granting of liberty to enslaved people, easier. Legislatures in Maryland and Kentucky discussed gradual emancipation, but no southern state seriously considered abolishing slavery.
In June 1802, a Norfolk paper published an enslaved woman’s letter (with her original spelling): “White pepil be-ware of your lives, their is a plan now forming and intended to be put in execution this harvest time. They are to commence and use their sithes as weapons until they can get possession of other weapons; there is a great many weapons hid for the purpose, and be you assured if you do not look out in time that many of you will be put to death.” By October, twenty African American rebels were in jail.
In 1808, the US Congress, fearful of violence from newly enslaved Africans, banned the trade in enslaved people.
A new round of rebel outbreaks came during the conflict between the United States and England that became the War of 1812. In January 1811, an African American who signed himself as “J.B.” wrote a letter to “General T.R.” that was discovered in Richmond. It confirmed white fears. “J.B.” wrote of eighty armed rebels and urged secrecy “till that fateful night.”
In St. John the Baptist Parish, thirty-six miles from New Orleans, that same year, what was probably the largest rebellion of enslaved people in the US erupted. Some five hundred Black people marched toward the city from the Andry estate. They destroyed five plantations and picked up recruits along the way. Orderly companies under officers carried flags, and men walked to the beat of drums. Louisiana’s governor summoned federal troops. General Wade Hampton’s six hundred militiamen surrounded the rebels, executed sixty-eight, and ended the revolution.
During the War of 1812, enslaved men and women fled to whomever promised freedom. A US officer reported: “Our negroes are flocking to the enemy from all quarters, whom they convert into troops, vindictive and rapacious—with the most minute knowledge of every by-path, they return upon us as guides.” John Randolph urged his fellow Virginians to worry less about British troops and more about “our safety at home.”
In 1816, George Boxley, a white Virginia store owner popular among African Americans, led a revolt of enslaved people. Believing “the distinction between rich and poor was too great,” he recruited white assistants in Fredericksburg and Richmond. When his plan was betrayed, Boxley managed to escape, but six Black rebels were executed.
In 1822, Denmark Vesey, a Charleston carpenter, conspired to seize the city. Vesey had been enslaved until he won a lottery in 1800 and used the winnings to purchase his freedom. He found, though, he was not allowed to buy his family’s freedom. A leading member of the Hamstead African Methodist church, Vesey had also traveled widely in the Caribbean and read everything he could find about slavery and Haiti. Louverture’s success and the biblical tale of the Hebrews’ rescue excited Vesey and his co-plotters.
In 1821, when whites closed his Hamstead church, Vesey felt it was “high time for us to seek for our rights.” “If we are only unanimous and courageous, as the San Domingo people were,” Vesey said, “we were fully able to conquer the whites.”
Vesey calculated that a bold strike in Charleston would send eager Black people from nearby plantations rushing to him. Enslavers would flee and their empire would collapse. The plotters discussed fleeing to Africa or the Caribbean if their plan failed, but specific transportation was not arranged.
By May of 1822, Vesey recruited an estimated six to nine thousand. Now the plot became vulnerable to informers, and by early June whites had penetrated it. On June 22, Vesey and other leaders were arrested by state authorities. Governor Thomas Bennett quickly requested federal aid. Secretary of War Calhoun, a South Carolina enslaver, dispatched federal artillery troops from St. Augustine to South Carolina. He did not inform the president, though only the president of the United States has the constitutional power to send federal troops into states.
Conspirators were dealt with quickly. Of Vesey’s band, thirty-five were hanged, forty-two exiled, and four whites were convicted of aiding the conspiracy. On the gallows the doomed shouted out to keep revolt alive. Federal troops stood by to quell any rescue effort by the African American community.
Some two hundred fifty plots and rebellions by enslaved people marked the years of bondage in North America. This old print shows Nat Turner and his men.
The last major revolt by enslaved people, organized by Nat Turner in 1831, shook the foundations of slavery in Southampton, Virginia, and throughout the South. Turner, at thirty, was an enslaved man whom white people had always considered quiet and contented. Then one night he had a vision that his duty was to end bondage. Deeply religious and a country lay preacher on Sundays, Turner was respected far and wide for his piety and leadership.
Turner set about his new task, picking early morning as the time of revolution. On August 22, with sixty to eighty men, most on horseback, Turner led his forces toward the county seat of Jerusalem and its store of arms and ammunition. In the next forty hours, Turner and his men spared a poor white family, but slew fifty-seven to sixty-five white enslavers and their families.
Federal troops from Fort Monroe, the Navy ships Warren and Natchez near Norfolk, and the Hampton with three artillery companies were rushed to Southampton. US Marine guards and sailors from the Warren and Natchez marched through the county to announce a federal presence and terrify any African Americans thinking of joining Turner’s rebellion.
A vast roundup began, but Turner escaped capture by hiding in the woods. He finally walked out and surrendered. Sentenced to death, Nat Turner reminded his captors that Christ had been crucified and calmly went to the gallows.
The revolt’s slayings were soon surpassed by those of white vigilantes. With torch and rifle, fanatical men swooped down on Black communities throughout the countryside. An estimated two hundred men, women, and children were slain, most with no connection to the rebellion. Reprisals reached counties besides Southampton and states beyond Virginia. “The best and the brightest was killed in Nat’s time,” recalled Charity Bowery, an enslaved woman in Edenton, North Carolina.
African Americans celebrated “Ole Prophet Nat” by singing, “You can’t keep the world from turnin’ ’round / Or Nat Turner from gainin’ ground.” For whites, Turner was their worst nightmare in flesh and blood. One enslaver admitted, “I have not slept without anxiety in three months. Our nights are sometimes spent in listening to noises.” Nat Turner died on the gallows, but his ghostly spirit hovered above every southerner.
Enslaver James McDowell told the Virginia legislature the uprising raised the “suspicion that a Nat Turner might be in every family, that the same bloody deeds might be acted over at any time in any place, that the material for it was spread throughout the land, and always ready for a like explosion.”
His revolt crushed, Nat Turner hid in Southampton County until October 30, 1831, when he surrendered to Benjamin Phipps.
Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, niece of George Washington, wrote about “a smothered volcano—we know not when or where the flame will burst forth, but we know that death in the most horrid forms threatens us. Some have died, others have become deranged.”
Southern legislatures voted their fears. Since Turner read and preached, laws were passed against Black preachers and banning the teaching of enslaved people. “To see you with a book in your hand, they would almost cut your throat,” recalled one person held in bondage. Laws were passed in many southern states that made manumission of slaves almost impossible.
One Virginia legislator spoke of his goal for enslaved people: “We have, as far as possible, closed every avenue by which light might enter their minds. If you could extinguish the capacity to see the light, our work would be completed; they would then be on a level with the beasts of the field, and we should be safe!”
The massacres carried out in the wake of Turner’s revolt were designed to terrorize Black communities. However, two mutinies on the ships trading enslaved people showed even terror had its limitations. In 1839, Joseph Cinqué, son of an African king, led fifty-four Africans being transported to the New World in a revolt aboard the Amistad. The Africans tried to steer back to their homeland, but treacherous white crewmen guided the ship toward the Connecticut coast. Interned at first, Cinqué and his men were finally freed by the US Supreme Court. Former president John Quincy Adams served as their volunteer lawyer.
The rebellion by enslaved people on the Amistad led to freedom for the Africans.
In 1841, Madison Washington led a mutiny of nineteen on the Creole sailing from Hampton Roads, Virginia, with a cargo of 135 enslaved people for New Orleans. Washington and his people sailed to the Bahamas. They were warmly welcomed there by fellow Africans who sailed out in small boats to surround a liberated Creole.
The end of the eighteenth century had brought models of successful revolutions against tyranny to the Americas. But it also brought profound changes to communities of enslaved people. They were no longer dominated by people who had lived or been fighters in Africa, or who were steeped in its cultures. The enslaved remained powerless, uneducated, and unarmed in the nineteenth century, while US industrial might and military power soared. Enslavers’ surveillance over and brutality toward enslaved people rose.
Pioneer families settled in the hills and backcountry that might once have been home to maroon colonies. New roads were built and trains reached into frontier regions. These opened a continent to whites and closed it to rebels.
The year after Nat Turner and his men were executed, the US Army began to round up the Five Civilized Nations at bayonet point for a forced march to the deserts of Oklahoma. These great Native American nations that once provided a refuge for enslaved people seeking freedom in the heart of the South were gone. Even as African American rebels conspired, they knew their enemies were gaining on them and their escape hatches were disappearing.
The defeats of Prosser, Vesey, and Turner highlighted painful truths. Enslaved people realized that they were surrounded by southerners who grew up with guns and were capable, in response to resistance, of unlimited racial brutality. Heavily armed militias stood prepared for the first alarm of revolt. Unarmed, enslaved people saw they could be overwhelmed by disciplined, experienced troops with concentrated firepower. “Any attempt at resistance would bring certain and immediate destruction,” said enslaved man Lunsford Lane, wise from seeing many uprisings fail.
The men who fought with Prosser, Vesey, and Turner learned that powerful forces waited in distant ambush. Behind local militias stood the awesome military potential of the United States government. Its marching orders came from proslavery politicians.
But the revolutionary upsurges of 1776, 1789, and 1791 fueled Black hope and nerve. During Prosser’s revolt enslavers warned that “this new-fangled French revolutionary philosophy of liberty and equality” meant trouble. They called enslaved people “clearly the Jacobins of the country . . . the Anarchists and the Domestic Enemy.” Enslavers knew that faith in a Black liberator, despite all the police and propaganda, was a strong force among the enslaved.
The Haitian revolution, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, “appears to have given considerable impulse to the minds of the slaves.” Denmark Vesey originally timed his uprising to take place on the French Revolution’s Bastille Day. Nat Turner originally chose the Fourth of July. Prosser planned for his armies to carry a banner reading “Liberty or Death,” the slogan of liberator Louverture, into Richmond.
Ties of history and blood linked Haiti and enslaved Americans. Prosser, Vesey, and Turner talked of Louverture’s military genius and political success. Vesey, one of his men said, “was in the habit of reading to me all the passages in the newspapers that related to San Domingo.” For generations Florida’s African American maroons had traded with Haiti. A leader in Louisiana’s huge 1811 rebellion was a free Black man from Haiti, Charles Deslondes.
African insurrections in Haiti, South and Central America, and in the United States sealed the doom of the American trade of enslaved African people. Between 1807 and 1820, European governments banned the importation of Africans as a threat to white safety. In 1833, England ended bondage in its overseas colonies.
Insurrections by enslaved people also created a new problem for enslavers. In crushing rebels they were forced to reveal the uncharitable and undemocratic character of a system committed to cruelty. With their whips, chains, and fire, they stood exposed as petty and reckless tyrants. To battle their human property, they were fully prepared to undermine both white constitutional rights and the will of the majority.
To protect their investments, slaveholders demanded greater control over Congress and the presidency. They were no longer able to pose as kindly Christian civilizers. Increasingly, they appeared to fellow citizens as a violent force that scoffed at democratic traditions and threatened the peace.