slave rebellions

In US history, the organized resistance by African-American slaves to their condition of bondage under the slaveholders. Most slave revolts in the USA were small and ineffectual, but they were significant because they contradicted the slaveholders' portrayal of the ‘contented slave’. Three large-scale rebellions took place in the South between 1800 and 1831, led by slaves or former slaves attempting elaborate armed insurrection. In each case government action was swift and the leaders promptly executed. Abolitionists, in general, did not endorse the slave revolts and opposed all forms of violence, although in 1843 former slave Henry Highland Garnet inspired an uprising in his call for a slave ‘strike’. In the South slave revolts inspired fear and increased vigilance, and were used to support the proslavery argument that slaves could not be freed because they posed a danger to society.

The three major uprisings in the South took place in 1800, near Richmond, Virginia, led by the slave Gabriel Prosser; in 1822 in Charleston, South Carolinia, led by former slave Denmark Vesey; and in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia, led by the mystic preacher, Nat Turner, during which 57 white Americans were killed. Even after antislavery legislation had been passed, the South continued to seek control over the movements of freed slaves, suggesting that the slave rebellions may have haunted popular memory in the region.

Rebellion of 1800 In August 1800, Gabriel Prosser, a 24-year-old slave, led 1,000 armed slaves gathered near Richmond, Virginia, in an attempt to invade the city and capture its arsenal. However, a violent rainstorm wiped out roads and bridges, delaying his plans, and two slaves were meanwhile betraying the plot. The government responded immediately and the next day state militia attacked and defeated Prosser's forces; 35 of the rebels, including Prosser, were later hanged. Although Prosser's revolt ended in defeat, it terrified the South and led to more entrenched attitudes on the part of slaveholders.

Rebellion of 1822 In June 1822, Denmark Vesey, a former slave carpenter, planned to inflitrate and storm the city of Charleston, South Carolina, to free his fellow slaves. He had collected two hundred pike heads and bayonets, and three hundred daggers to use in the revolt. Like Prosser, Vesey was deeply inspired by Christianity and the Old Testament's emphasis on the delivery of the ‘children of Israel’ from bondage in Egypt. Vesey organized a working group of lieutenants and plotted to take Charleston by night. It was rumoured that 9,000 slaves from the plantations surrounding Charleston planned to join the revolt. However, the day before the planned attack, a slave betrayed Vesey and the entire plot. Over a hundred arrests were made, including four whites who had promoted the project, and 35 rebels, including Vesey, were hanged.

Rebellion of 1831 Nat Turner, a literate mystical preacher, led the third major rebellion in August 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Driven by a sense of social righteousness and his conviction that the solar eclipse earlier in the year had been a sign from God, Turner and a small band of six slaves began a violent crusade against bondage, killing 57 whites on neighbouring farms and attracting around 70 fellow slaves to join them as they proceeded. Word of the massacre spread and hundreds of militia and volunteers, including slaves, stopped the rebels as they approached the town of Jerusalem. Turner was captured after six weeks in hiding and hanged on 11 November. Virginians were seized with panic and a wave of unrest again spread through the South.