please consider supporting us by clicking on the like And subscribe buttons your support will be greatly appreciated 11 some 19th century slave conspiracies and revolts since the 1960s most American historians have shown considerable sympathy and support for slave conspiracies and revolts as the most extreme form of legitimate resistance against racist dehumanization and oppression in earlier decades most historians who were overwhelmingly white expressed horror over the slaughter of whites especially women and children paid little attention to the execution often without a trial of hundreds of blacks accused of conspiracy or rebellion and looked upon such figures as Nat Turner as pathological Killers few writers noted that in 1777 the famous Samuel Johnson lifted his glass in Oxford and toasted here to the next Insurrection of the Negroes in the West Indies and as early as 1760 a British writer who called himself Filmore set forth the moral justification for such slave violence and so all the black men now in our plantations who are by unjust Force deprived of their Liberty and held in slavery as they have none upon Earth to appeal to May lawfully repel that force with force and to recover their Liberty destroy their oppressors and not only so but it is the duty of others white as well as blacks to assist those miserable creatures if they can in their attempts to deliver themselves out of slavery and to rescue them out of the hands of their cruel tyrants this form of argument resembled the Give me liberty or give me death philosophy that undergirded the American Revolution and for most African-Americans as well as for modern Progressive white historians evidence of resistance of all kinds has seemed extremely important in counteracting the older traditional white view that African-American slaves passively accepted their plight and were even loyal and dutiful to their owners as they were instructed to be by the Epistles of Peter and Paul in the New Testament when the famous Escape slave Frederick Douglas conducted lecture tours around the antibellum north providing Vivid testimony on the evils of Southern slavery whites repeatedly asked him why the slaves did not Rebel since whites in his audience affirmed that they would overthrow such oppressors if they were enslaved Douglas was forced to deal with the growing white consensus that the absence of revolts after 1831 proved that America's slaves were contented with their lot and were docile or cowardly by Nature though often referring to himself as a peaceman Douglas pointed to the heroism of Nat Turner and Madison Washington the slave who led the Mutiny on the American slave ship Creole which we will discuss in chapter 14 he then stressed the North's complicity and the Constitutional commitment to protect slavery and thus the hopelessness of a contest between 17 millions of armed disciplined and intelligent people against 3 millions of unarmed and uninformed he affirmed that millions of slaves long to arise and strike for Liberty as they had in the Caribbean but while admitting the joy he would feel at the news of an Insurrection in the southern states Douglas also maintained as human history is confirmed that slave rebellions are almost always suicidal as matters developed the belief in American slave docility dominated popular and academic history in the long period from the turn of the 20th century to the late 1950s and inevitably gave support to white racist policies in the pre- Civil Rights era there were of course dissenting voices among them was Herbert aaker's 1943 American negro slave revolts which uncovered countless rumors of slave conspiracies and defended figures like Nat Turner but since aper was a known communist as well as a Marxist his work had little influence on mainstream history at least until the 1960s and because the subject of slave conspiracies and revolts has been so charged with high voltage ideology and because the actual evidence of conspiracies has been sparse one-sided and often repressed today's readers need to be aware of conflicting interpretations and should not be sheltered from continuing professional controversies that may never be settled such as the meaning of Nat Turner's bloody Insurrection of 1831 and the reality of Denmark VC's much larger alleged conspiracy of 1822 we have already examined some of the earlier slave uprisings ranging from the Stono Rebellion in South Carolina to the most successful slave Warfare in human history the Haitian revolution in this chapter it is my hope to illuminate three of the controversial acts of resistance in the United States by comparing them to the three major slave revolts in the 19th century British Caribbean at the outset we need to note the Striking contrast between North America and the many other slave societies to the South with respect to the frequency and size of slave revolts as well as slave escapes to fairly durable maroon communities although the population of slaves in the United States eventually dwarfed the numbers in Brazil and the Caribbean there were no significant revolts in the colonial Chesapeake from 1619 to 1775 or in the nation as a whole from 1831 to 1865 in Brazil by contrast slave revolts were more common and in the 1600s thousands of fugitives found refuge for nearly a century in the maroon community of palmares until the Brazilian Army finally destroyed the Refuge in 1694 major slave insurrections continued to erupt in British Jamaica from the 1670s to 1831 and the Island's maroon communities were so formidable that they negotiated treaties with the colonial government somewhat similar patterns appeared in Dutch sanama in Spanish Cuba and in much but not all of the Caribbean as late as 1959 evidence of the American slaves apparent passivity seem so strong that the young historian Stanley Elkins flip the message upside down so to speak he argued in a famous book that as a result of unmitigated capitalism slavery in the United States became so uniquely severe and oppressive especially in its Affliction of psychological damage that it could be compared to the Nazi concentration camps that supposedly reduced many victims to the absolute dependency of the Perpetual child Elkin contrasted the bloody slave revolts and actual Warfare between slaves and whites in Latin America with what seemed like pathetic gestures toward Revolt in the United States although Elkin had wished to underscore the unprecedented harshness of American slavery his portrait of the infantilized [ __ ] infuriated radicals of the 1960s and 1970s both black and white as a new generation of historians and novelists began to celebrate slave resistance they searched for more detailed examples that went beyond what had been termed the day-to-day res resistance of theft sabotage work slowdowns poisoning the whites food and flight some writers pointed with undisguised delight at a well-planned conspiracy LED in 1800 by a slave named Gabriel not prer his owner's name as some historians have assumed Gabriel and his fellow leaders all privileged slaves familiar with the economics and culture of urban Virginia hope to take advantage of the increasing political Warfare between Federalists and rep Republicans as the nation approached its most divisive presidential election prior to 1860 Jefferson versus John Adams mobilizing large numbers of slave Artisans and mechanics in towns from the coast to the pedmont Gabriel's lieutenants might well have captured Richmond Virginia and taken Governor James Monroe hostage if a violent thunderstorm had not prevented a planned rendevu and induced several house slaves to reveal the plot to the authorities while this event Trump Iz Virginia's leaders and much of the slave holding South one should not minimize the fact that loyal slave informers prevented any whites from being killed or harmed won Freedom as their reward and ensured that many other slaves at least 27 would be hanged curiously much less has been written about an actual Revolt in January 1811 in the recently acquired territory of Louisiana led by a privileged slave driver named Charles desande as many as 200 slaves marched toward New Orleans burning three plantations and killing a number of whites before being checked and defeated by an official military force as many as 100 slaves were executed or killed in battle far more attention has been given to the Denmark VC conspiracy of 1822 which we will examine later on and to Nat Turner's Insurrection of 1831 which was primarily aimed at killing whites and has remained the Central and highly contested symbol of American slave resistance the Turner story exemplifies the problem of Highly limited and unverifiable evidence mostly records of slave testimony moreover interpretations of the VC event from the era of abolitionists to Modern histories novels and television documentaries have raised a controversial moral problem of means and ends the attempt to justify the most extreme means of violence in order to raise the human cost of an oppressive system based on sheer violence historians seem to agree on the following bare narrative Turner's Revolt began in the dark early hours of August 22nd 1831 in Southampton County Virginia a somewhat isolated rural region in which most whites owned only a few slaves and many owned none at all starting with Turner's own white family he was legally owned by the 9-year-old putam Moore Turner and his followers killed all the whites in one Farmhouse after another as they moved by horse through the countryside while there is no evidence of rape plunder or burning houses the blacks eventually but briefly including some 50 to 60 mounted insurgents murdered nearly 60 whites most of them women and children by Dawn the next morning the local militia had killed or captured all the rebels except Turner who miraculously escaped and eluded Searchers for 68 days meanwhile Virginia's Governor mobilized over 3,000 Soldiers the militia and Vigilantes killed well over 100 suspected insurrectionists and whites gathered for possible racial war in Virginia and neighboring North Carolina after a series of Rapid trials the authorities executed only 19 of the 30 slaves who were convicted and sentenced to death the others were transported outside the state along with some 300 Southampton County free blacks who agreed to be shipped to Liberia one of the most telling and drastic responses to the Turner group's Slaughter of whites was the Rush by Southern States to pass laws making it a crime to teach slaves to read Because Turner was literate and many whites suspected he and his men had been influenced by such radical anti-slavery works as David Walker's appeal to the colored citizens of the World published in 1829 this legally mandated illiteracy in the words of the historian James Oaks became an appalling ironic indication of the degree to which Southern whites had embi the liberal enlightenment's conception of literacy as crucial for a free citizenry while a writer like Filmore could say that Turner and his men had lawfully set out to destroy their oppressors and repel force with Force we will never know if there was some plan for recovering Liberty or even be sure that Turner was the main or only leader before Turner was hanged on November 11th 1831 he provided a white lawyer Thomas R gray with a long interview gray then published his version of this interchange the confessions of Nat Turner which is the uncorroborated source of most of what we know about Turner and the Revolt there is General agreement that Turner was literate well-versed in the Bible and religious in a Messianic way he spoke of receiving Divine Revelations and before his death demanded was not Christ crucified the late Herbert aper has called this one of the Great Moments in human history but as a powerful PBS documentary film makes clear Nat Turner has always been and remains a Troublesome property a figure who has been portrayed as a murderous religious fanatic and especially an African-American folklore and oral Traditions as a much needed hero prophet and even legendary trickster despite this positive theme many slaves must have learned that the number of blacks killed in summary executions far exceeded the number of Turner Rebels as well as the number of white victims in contrast to various kinds of modern terrorism and attempts at random killings including those by high school students who feel psychologically degraded and dehumanized there were no imitations of Turner or so-called copycat killings indeed Turner stands at the very end of a sequence of relatively small actual slave rebellions in North America yet the Turner crisis Co ided with the upsurge of immediatists in the north and especially in Britain where as we shall soon see the infinitely larger Jamaican slave Insurrection of December 1831 greatly strengthened the hands of abolitionists while at the same time strengthening the conviction of slaveholders that abolitionism would incite insurrections even in Virginia the traumatic Slaughter of so many white families underscored the risks and costs of an allegedly paternal IC institution and In 1832 it enabled legislators from the largely non-slaveholding Western countries to launch a unique and feudal debate in the state legislature over the future of a labor system that greatly favored the Tidewater regions with respect to abolitionism in the Northeast the Bloodshed in Virginia especially of women and children no doubt reinforced the pacifistic bent of the garrisonians William Lloyd Garrison himself horror struck at the the late Tidings from Virginia helped to ensure the non-resistance principles of the American anti-slavery movement which began to crumble only in the 1850s and were finally buried by Nat Turner's white counterpart the murderer and savior John Brown without endorsing the garrisonians extreme rejection of all violence one should note that the defense of indiscriminate killing of people who are part of an oppressive system Bears a disturbing resemblance to historical justifications for murdering infidels alleged upholders of the Anan regime Russian kulacs or capitalists and the psychology governing such massacres is little different from the mental state that leads to the genocide of Jews Armenians tosis or Sudanese blacks Elin had actually taken note of Gabriel vzy and Turner but had stressed that they were not Plantation laborers but rather Negroes whose qualities of leadership were developed well outside the full coercions of the plantation Authority system thus Gabriel was a skilled blacksmith who lived near Richmond Denmark vzy was a freed Carpenter who had earlier worked in s doing and on board a ship that may have been sailed to Africa Nat Turner was a literate preacher of recognized intelligence whose rebellion in elen's words was characterized by little more than aimless Butchery before turning to model insurrections in the British Caribbean we should understand that the lack of such huge uprisings in North America by no means proves or indicates that slaves were happy content Carefree or infantilized sambos in the Caribbean in contrast to the United States slaves often constituted as much as 90% of a colony's population the real mystery is how three or four whites could both manage and control a highly productive Plantation on an isolated island moreover during the Millennia for which we have records of human bondage going back to ancient Greece and Mesopotamia revolts appear to have been extremely rare even though slaveholder societies from Antiquity to Colonial South Carolina often armed slaves to help fight formidable enemies finally when we look at the three major slave rebellions in the 19th century British Caribbean the outcome underscores the futility of any form of violent resistance in a modern slave Society unless that Society like s doing in the 1790s became embro in a revolution and Civil War dividing the slave owners themselves the major revolts in British St Vincent and Granada in 1795 96 which were part of the angl French struggle for the Caribbean following the French Edict of emancipation in 1794 destroyed more British lives and property than any other slave uprisings in the history of British slavery yet as the historian Seymour dresser is written these events literally disappeared from Metropolitan abolitionist Consciousness by 1816 Barbados was hardly typical of the Caribbean since a slave rebellion had not occurred there in 115 years in contrast to most other Islands The Colony slave population had achieved a natural rate of growth and 93% of the 77,4 193 slaves were Creole or New World born compared with 56% in Trinidad which had not been annexed by until 1797 most Barbadian Planters had even favored Britain's ending of slave importations from Africa a law that gave them a competitive advantage over colonies like Trinidad and Jamaica whose declining slave populations made them more dependent on imported labor from Africa Barbados also had an unusually high percentage of Resident whites some 16.6% with only 80% of the population made up of slaves the history of slave resistance highlights the importance of news or at least rumors of significant outside support Frederick Douglas described the Elation he felt as a youth when he first discovered the existence of Northern abolitionists at the beginning of the Haitian revolution many French slaves became convinced that Planters had suppressed an order calling for slave emancipation from the King of France some of Denmark VC's alleged Rebels were said to be inspired by reports of the Congressional debates over the admission of Missouri as a slave state including Senator Rufus King's radical attack in 1820 on the very legality of slavery similar wish fulfilling rumors spread among the slaves of Barbados when Planters received news of the angry debates in Parliament in 1815 over instituting a central registration of all slaves in the British colonies abolitionist MPS like William wilburforce prodded by his brother-in-law James Steven presented this measure as a way of detecting any illegal importation of African slaves but privately saw it as the entering wedge toward their goal of ameliorating the condition of slaves by assessing their mortality and regulating their diet physical punishment and other kinds of treatment in preparation for gradual emancipation though Imperial registration was a seemingly moderate even innocuous measure the West Indian interests fought the proposal as if it demanded outright Aman ation Barbadian Planters engaged in inflammatory talk against such government intervention accused the abolitionists of sending agents and spies to the island in the form of missionaries and demonized wilburforce who quickly became a hero among slaves in Jamaica a slave Diddy began oh me good friend Mr wilburforce make we free God almighty thank ye God almighty thank ye by June 186 even the London Times echoed the Barbadian Planter's conviction that wilburforce had inspired the literate Negroes of the worst dispositions who had instigated the Insurrection when Barbadian Planters expressed relief in January 1816 over the defeat of registration in the Barbados House of Assembly a few of the privileged slaves who could read local and even London newspapers concluded that the embattled colonial authorities were defying England's plan of emancipation Nanny Grigg a literate domestic slave woman living in a great house had argued that Britain intended to free all slaves on New Year's Day 1816 she then revised the prediction to Easter Monday convinced that the Planters were obstructing the will of the British king she told her fellow slaves that they must fight for their freedom as their fellow slaves had done in St Domingo such beliefs radiated outward and downward through a hidden but well- constructed network of slave communication although some slaves favored a nonviolent strike the evidence indicates careful planning for the start of a major Uprising on the evening of Easter Sunday April 14th 1816 later named for Busa an African slave and chief Ranger on the Bailey Plantation the Rebellion quickly spread to the Island's 70 largest Estates leaving great houses and many cane fields of flame Rebels even seized an Armory near St Philip's Church before the militia could defend it what the insurgents had not counted on was the bravery and the loyalty to the whites of the free colored militia and black regular troops during the long Wars with revolutionary and Napoleonic France the British had learned the indispensability of arming black West India regiments in the hotly contested Caribbean they had also found that the free colored population would be mostly pro-white and pro-slavery especially if they could expect to be rewarded with new civil liberties as was the case in Barbados following the Busa Rebellion thus while the rebellious slaves of 1816 could gut the houses of whites burn some 20% of the sugar cane and spread turmoil across the island they could not face the Firepower of the ranks of armed white and black red coats let alone defeat them it is significant that Colonel Edward Cod one of the leaders of the white troops let the black militia March ahead of his own and thus win the battle at Bailey's Plantation in the skirmishes on Easter Monday the government's troops killed at least 50 of the rebels and then summarily executed 70 more in the field some 300 captive insurgents were then carried to Bridgetown the capital for trial the authorities executed 144 of these captives exposed some of their bodies and decapitated heads in public places and deported most of the survivors many to bise in Central America reports reached other British colonies that about a thousand Barbadian slaves have been killed in battle or executed under martial law the most startling statistic however was that despite much destruction of property and the certain death of hundreds of slaves the rebellious blacks killed only one white civilian and one black British soldier paradoxically some white leaders such as Colonel Cod were convinced that the slaves want wanted to kill all the Barbadian white men and then keep the white women for sexual pleasure at least one slave conveyed a similar but secondhand report during interrogation this nightmare image of sexual Conquest is important to note since it had emerged in slave confessions following the 1741 conspiracy in New York City and would resurface in demarara in Jamaica and in the confessions associated with at least two 19th century American slave conspiracies yet in Barbados the rebel slaves must have exercised extraordinary self-discipline in order to protect the many whites barricaded in their great houses and to limit white casualties to a single death one could dismiss this outcome as a totally freakish event if there were not similar surprises in the subsequent and even larger slave rebellions in demarara and Jamaica despite this sparing of White lives the Barbadian Revolt brought a setback to the British anti-slavery movement coming in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars and in a period of conservative reaction against the French Revolution and recent domestic unrest and turmoil the news of thousands of slave insurgents in Barbados enabled Lord Liverpool's Administration to persuade wilburforce to withdraw his motion for imposing an imperial registration and to Simply encourage Colonial legislatures to establish their own systems of slave registration James Steven the true Mastermind of of the anti-slavery movement became so disillusioned by this Retreat that he resigned his seat in the House of Commons when news of the 1816 Barbadian Rebellion reached the British slave colony of demarara Governor John Murray proclaimed that the Barbadian slaves had been misled to believe that an emancipation edict had been sent out by the British king according to Murray such an act would be Unthinkable since slavery had always been an accepted part of human life and every history proves that slavery has existed since the world was made situated on the northeast coast of South America demarara part of later British Guana was a narrow strip of fertile land backed by forests to the west of Dutch sanama and British bbus and to the east of Spanish Venezuela having been occupied several times by the Dutch French and British The Colony fell finally into British hands in 1803 partly as a result of the destruction of French s doing the Planters many of them absentee owners in England intensified their slaves labor by shifting much production from cotton to Sugar by 1823 the year of one of the largest and most significant slave revolts in West Indian history the colony's 77,000 slaves faced only 2500 whites and a roughly equal number of free blacks the year 182 3 happened to be a pivotal one in the Regeneration of the anti-slavery movement in Britain as mostly religious forces continued to shape the complex cultural response to Britain's rapidly developing industrial society while in Britain an Evangelical Revival spread from the dissenting sex to the so-called Saints within the Church of England symbolized by wilburforce the West India colonists and newspapers denounced the religious Trend toward abolitionism and pictured mission Aries all seen as methodists as Democratic subversives embodying the egalitarian ideas that had ignited the French and Haitian revolutions following the creation in 1822 and 1823 of the first societies dedicated to the actual if gradual emancipation of all Colonial slaves Thomas fwell buckon who had succeeded wilburforce as the Abolitionist leader in Parliament presented a motion in the House of Commons affirming that the state of slave slavery is repugnant to the principles of the British constitution and of the Christian religion and that it ought to be abolished gradually throughout the British colonies with as much Expedition as may be found consistent with a due regard to the well-being of the parties concerned since the government was caught between a flood of anti-slavery petitions and bitter opposition from the powerful Society of West India Planters and Merchants George canning the skilled Tory foreign secretary quickly seized the initiative and substituted for buxton's gradual emancipation plan his own administration's program for slave amelioration whereas buckon and the abolitionists had called for the emancipation of all slave children born after a specific date as had been done by four northern states in America canning stressed the importance of religious instruction for slaves prohibiting them from working or running their own markets on the Sabbath and outlawing the fogging of slave women many of dear's wealthiest absentee planter Merchants such as John Gladstone who owned over 2,000 slaves and was the father of the famous future Prime Minister feared that the rhetoric of Evangelical abolitionists would destroy some of the British Elites enormous investment in slaves and land by sparking Haitian likee revolutions yet living in England far from the racism and daily brutalities of colonies like demarara and Jamaica many such slave owners fa faed measures that would soften the public image of Caribbean labor to the dismay of their on-site managers overseers and even Governors they therefore supported the reforms that Lord Bathurst the colonial secretary recommended to the colonies even most English opponents of the abolitionists approved the christianization of slaves and even the bishop of London thought that slaves should be taught how to read and thus gain access to the Bible and as the London missionary soci Society recruited young Artisans like John Smith to spread the word of God Among the Heathen in demarara and other forbidding colonies the young Evangelical missionaries were exhorted to teach all slaves to obey their masters and never in any way endanger the public peace and safety but Smith and his wife Jane had already been exposed to the abolitionists religious indictment of slavery and once in demarara where they faced increasing hostility from most Planters as well as from Governor Murray and his officials they discovered that the Grim realities of slavery vividly confirm the accusations of British abolitionists like other missionaries mainly from the non-conformist sex Smith expressed horror over the sounds of brutal almost endless slogging over the pervasive sexual exploitation of slave women by white males and over the strong efforts to prevent slaves from learning to read or even attend religious Services as the historian Amelia viat dasta has eloquently put it Smith and another missionary went to demarara with the notion that slaves were Savages to be civilized but they soon discovered Humanity in the slaves and savagery in the people of Their Own Kind while Smith would ultimately be tried for inciting the slaves to Rebel but convicted only of complicity he was still sentenced to be hanged with a recommendation of Mercy dependent on appeal to King George IV from his arrival in demor in 1817 at age 25 to his death in jail from consumption in early 1824 Smith remained loyal to the London missionary society's goal of baptizing and saving the souls of heathen but as slaves swarm to attend his daily and multiple Sunday Services often defying their Master's orders and risking severe punishment Smith came to identify himself with their interests and constant ordeals this interaction depended in large measure on Smith's core of slave teachers and on his slave deacons especially Kamina the head Carpenter at the neighboring Plantation success who helped Smith assemble at the Le souvenir plantations Chapel as many as 600 Exodus seeking slaves at a given time slaves generally preferred the Old Testament with its great Exodus from Egypt it was the pious Deacon Kamina who kept track of which Masters prevented their slaves from attending services at Smith's bethl Chapel which slaves had been fogged which ones were in stocks and which ones had committed adultery in dasta's words Smith always consulted Kamina when he wanted to know something about a member of the congregation he was the most loyal well- behaved trustworthy and Pious Deacon it was probably not coincidental that the Great Rebellion first erupted at kamina's Plantation a plantation owned by the wealthy absentee John Gladstone the estate named success as D Costa emphasizes the increasingly overworked slaves had their own internal reasons for violent resistance but news of the canning recommendations and parliamentary debates percolated in various form among the more privileged household slaves and Artisans Kamina heard of a repressed Royal emancipation from his tall adult son jack Gladstone a slave with European features some slaves OD that the repressed law would allow them three days of Freedom each week others believed that the king and wilburforce had abolished slavery in any event despite some dissent groups of Creoles as well as African corantes Congos mandingos and popos joined the uprising launched on the evening of August 18th 1823 the ethnic diversity of these slave insurgents raises a question explored more abstractly by the his historian Walter Johnson with respect to the Clash or reconciliation of temporalities or different perceptions of one's place in time noting that African and creole slaves to say nothing of their masters possess different conceptions of the future and of their place in time Johnson warns against a simplistic interpretation of slave resistance as part of the dominant Slavery to Freedom Narrative of American History how did rebellious slaves imagine the history they were making surely most african-born slaves did not see themselves on a pre-ordained path toward becoming African-Americans in some 18th century revolts Johnson notes Africans drummed danced swore Oaths assigned ranks and made plans to enslave rival groups as an act of War yet in demarara a slave named Daniel advised conspirators who approached him for help that they should wait for Freedom rather than trying to sees it if it was a thing ordained by the almighty it would come in time as Johnson concludes given the extraordinary complexity of the layered temporalities evident in the objections of non-c conspirators it took Feats of extraordinary imagination and sometimes intimidation to synchronize slaves into a shared account of what was happening and what was to be done about it some slaves sought merely to force the government to guarantee a number of free days of a week others when captured and interrogated gave Highly Questionable testimony claiming for example that John Smith had taught slaves to become dissatisfied with their lot and to demand Freedom at least one slave told white interrogators that if the revolution had succeeded Kamina would have been made the king and Jack Gladstone the governor and all white men would have been put to work in the fields according to One account the white women would have been allowed to leave the Colony other slaves reported that the white men would have been killed and the white women some even specifically named taken as wives by the blacks in assessing this claimed sexual intent we should note that at least three of the demarara slaves confessed at the time of their execution that they had lied about Smith and other matters and there was no evidence of a single rape of a white woman during the demarara Rebellion given our more recent knowledge of the false confession of captives of many kinds it is clear that black slaves often spoke the words their white interrogators were eager to hear it is possible of course that sexual or even marital fantasies were part of the expectations or temporalities of certain slaves but what makes the 3-day demarara Uprising so astounding is the way 10 to 12,000 slave Rebels from some 60 plantations treated their white oppressors when slaves in neighboring bbus revolted in 1762 63 against their Dutch Masters they slaughtered large numbers of whites and won control of the colony for nearly a year before a very bloody Dutch repression though many of the demarara slaves carried guns cutlasses or knives they killed no more than two or three white men one white woman was shot in the arm and one proprietor suffered a broken nose as slaves seized his musket and locked him in the stocks where some slave women could slap him in the face as he had done to them clearly John Smith and his disciples had considerable influence on this amazing black slave self-discipline and determination not to kill whites the 1823 rebellion was led and planned by a small group of slaves who now spoke of their rights who vowed to force the local government to recognize and carry out new laws transmitted from England and who were surely aware like Rebel lead in Barbados in 1816 and in Jamaica in 1831 that any widespread killing of whites would undermine their cause in anti-slavery Britain to that end slaves whipped and slapped some Masters managers and overseers and placed many of them in stocks while stealing Goods destroying Bridges and torching some houses but the ominous rallying sound of shell horns and drums on the evening of August 18 did not mean death to the Masters the whites unfortunately had no such inhibitions as with most conspiracies a few loyal slaves tipped off their owners but not soon enough to alert the government still the colonial troops killed or wounded over 255 slaves during the 3 days in which slave leaders had hoped to build a foundation for negotiation after Kamina was shot whites hung his body in Chains then a reign of terror marked by random and summary execution s LED on to the interrogations the trials much public flogging and the display on roadside polls of 10 of the 33 executed slaves heads in order to prevent Jack Gladstone from becoming a hallowed martyr his testimony implicated Smith the authorities wisely banished him to St Lucia but the climax of these rituals of restoring order produced One of 19th century Britain's most influential Martyrs John Smith as the demarara Martyr John Smith in some ways became a pacifist prototype for the American John Brown even their name suggested an almost madeup commonality the London missionary society and Evangelical press bombarded the British public with evidence of Smith's innocence and of the evils of colonies like demarara which treated hundreds of thousands of human beings even Christian human beings like beasts of Burden hundreds of petitions ascended on Parliament providing buckton and Henry broam with the occasion for Sensational speeches attacking the colonial system and arousing the religious public meanwhile in Barbados white mobs attacked a Methodist congregation sacked a church and threatened the life of a leading missionary whose replacement had to travel under a military escort dcosta makes the excellent point that while the demarara Revolt may have briefly strengthened the British abolition movement the dark depictions of the West Indian model of economic exploitation and oppression also provided British laborers with a rhetoric they could Ed to claim their own full rights of citizenship it is against the background of the British workers struggles as well as evangelicals and women's struggles for an ampler concept of citizenship that reactions toward events in demarara can best be understood by the end of 1831 and the outbreak of Jamaica's greatest slave Insurrection the British anti-slavery movement had Advanced to a stage unimaginable in 1816 or 1823 West Indian intransigence coupled with the colonist delay or refusal to implement the British government's ameliorative measures converted younger reformers in particular to the doctrine of immediate emancipation even buckton and the more conservative wing of the anti-slavery Society supported for a time a new agency Committee of paid lecturers who beginning in the summer of 1831 adopted the methods of religious revivalists as they circulated petitions and traveled from town to town preaching that slavery was an unmitigated sin though decisive parliamentary action would require the momentous electoral reform of 1832 which increased the number of liberal MPS and greatly reduced the representation of West Indian interests the European Revolutions of 1830 helped to create even earlier the sense of a new era on the night of December 27th 1831 56 days after Nat Turner's execution in America slaves in mountainous Western Jamaica signaled the beginning of the Revolt by igniting Beacon fires on hilltops especially Ablaze at the Kensington estate high above Montego Bay the Reverend hope wadell a white Presbyterian missionary who had been alerted some hours earlier described the clusters of fire as EST states were consumed Ted and then the sky became a sheet of flame as if the whole country had become a vast furnace yet despite the destruction of these sugar Estates the causes and scenes of their the slaves lifelong trials and degradation tears and blood wadell later recalled amid the wild excitement of the night not one Freeman's life was taken not one free woman molested by the Insurgent slaves though some 60,000 Jamaican slaves joined the month-long rebellion of 18313 2 it became known as the Baptist War as planters and Jamaican legislators blame sectarian missionaries and their slave converts even more sweepingly than demoran authorities had done in 1823 and in fact the slave leaders who had given the cause months of secret planning were typified by the charismatic Chief Deacon of the Baptist missionary Thomas burchel Samuel daddy sharp a Slave who enjoyed amazing freedom to travel and preach thanks to the missionar teaching sharp could speak to the slaves of the natural equality of man with regard to Freedom convey the news that England's King had made them free or resolved upon doing it and urged his followers to drive the whites off the Estates but not to harm them except in self-defense by 1831 the British slave colonies had undergone years of turmoil free blacks had won many civil rights which helped to distance them from slaves and the stream of news from Britain while contradictory was persuading knowledgeable slaves that an imperial emancipation decree was at least imminent ironically household slaves were often better informed than white missionaries since the blacks overheard the ranting and swearing of the Planters and managers who face not only British demands to cease using the whip as an incentive for field work but also declining profits bankruptcies and increasing absenteeism some Jamaican Planters and legislators vowed to resist any emancipation measures which they claimed would lead to bloody uprisings and the rape of white women they openly threatened secession and a possible annexation to the United States missionaries like the Reverend William nib apparently heard nothing of the impending Revolt until a day or so before the nightmare explosion of Beacon fires nib later seen by whites as the John Smith of Jamaica had actually warned the slaves against any form of rebellion discredited the rumors of a British emancipation edict and assumed that he had pacified the Restless slaves who had secretly used his dedication of a chapel on December 27th as the Gathering Place for launching the Revolt even if the missionaries opposed an actual Insurrection their influence can be seen in the number of Rebel leaders who were Christian converts mostly Baptist and in the fact that the uprising occurred in Jamaica western region where most of the missionaries had preached though Africans constituted some 27% of Jamaica's slave population 82% of the rebels were Creoles clearly creolization christianization and an amelioration of material living conditions nourished a conviction that Collective protest could lead to Freedom as the historian Michael kraton has emphasized of the rebels who were later indicted a disproportionately large number were members of the slave Elite including drivers other headmen Carpenters Coopers Masons and blacksmiths this so-called Baptist War involved from five to six times as many Rebels as the demarara uprising 770 times the number in Nat Turner's Revolt the same year it also required over 10 times the number of days to be repressed after hundreds of Plantation houses had been at least partly burned by arson after of slaves had been killed in the fighting and the whites were aided contrary to Modern assumptions by the black Windward and aong Maroons the slave death toll including executions came to 540 given these numbers it is all the more remarkable that this enormous and prolonged Jamaican Rebellion resulted in the death of only 14 whites or about one quar the number killed by Nat Turner's short Revolt indeed Turner's men killed at least 3.5 times as many whites as the combined total who died in the infinitely larger Barbadian demoran and Jamaican insurrections these comparisons suggest three conclusions first Turner and other American Rebels had no possibility of appealing to a strong centralized government that showed increasing sensitivity to a burgeoning anti-slavery movement in Mark contrast to Protestant ministers in the South British missionaries like Smith and nib emphasized I ized with the Caribbean slaves and favored their peaceful but not distant emancipation moreover the rebel slave leaders were at least somewhat aware of British public opinion and the power of the British government thanks to their remarkable networks of communication and the ranting of their masters against British attempts to interfere with a once attempted system of colonial labor in the 19th century British slaves thus showed considerable wisdom and self-discipline when they focused their violence on property and took what must have been Extraordinary Measures to avoid the killing of whites this restraint greatly aided the abolition movement in Britain which would surely have suffered a setback if Jamaican blacks had followed the example of Haiti and had massacred hundreds of whites in 1832 and 1833 William nib and many other missionaries now refugees from the Caribbean preached abolitionism to thousands of Britain testified before the Select Committee of the House of Commons and played a critical part in underscoring the cruelty of Planters the white colonist persecution of Christians and The Virtue and victimization of the slaves the second conclusion is that slave insurrections even with the sparing of White lives and even with a massive turnout of thousands of rebels were suicidal although the Baptist war made an important contribution to the Abolitionist Movement Britain would surely have freed its colon IAL slaves no doubt a bit later even without this sacrifice and while the Reverend nib succeeded in the 1840s in having Samuel Sharp's executed body moved from an unmarked grave in Jamaica to a rebuilt Chapel in Montego Bay it was the white missionaries not the black Rebels who became celebrated as Heroes missionary Smith the demarara Martyr had a far greater impact on British opinion and history than did the 540 Jamaican slaves aves who lost their lives 8 years later I draw a third conclusion from a highly original doctoral dissertation just completed in 2005 at Boston College Edward Bartlett Ruger first documents the long and extremely close economic ties between North America and the West Indies and then shows in Vivid detail how the massive slave revolts in Barbados demarara and Jamaica jolted dismayed and alarmed Planters in the American South who were now able to blame the insurrections on British abolitionism and use this causal linkage to expose the momentous danger of tolerating any similar abolitionism in the northern states as early as 1827 for example Robert J Turnbull a low country planter lawyer and writer proclaimed in some essays entitled The Crisis that any discussion of slavery in Congress would cause death and destruction in the South just as the debate debates in Parliament had sparked huge insurrectionary movements in the West Indies Turnbull provided what I would term paranoid rhetoric for many Southern writers in the future filling in a paradigm that first emerged when British and French writers accused the anti-slavery Ami denoir of precipitating the Haitian revolution in the year 1831 turnbull's thesis seemed to be almost magically confirmed by the seeming convergence of William Lloyd Garrison's new radical abolitionist newspaper The Liberator Nat Turner's bloody Insurrection in Virginia the rising popularity of a mediaism in Britain and then the massive slave rebellion in Jamaica yet despite all the extremist rhetoric of alarm after the founding of the American anti-slavery society and British emancipation in 1833 there were no genuine slave insurrections in the South with the arguable exception of the much neglected second seminol war in Florida in the 1830s the 1840s the 1850s or even the 1860s when Southerners like Turnbull would have expected a Haitian likee revolution ignited by the Civil War at all events South Carolina's Denmark VC conspiracy of 1822 was the largest and probably the most momentous symbol of slave resistance in North American history as with Barbados in 1816 demarara in 1823 and and both the Jamaican and Nat Turner uprisings in 1831 there were interrogations trials executions and deportations but except for testimony and hearsay nothing else really happened as with the far less famous and more recently discovered slave conspiracy in Mississippi in 1861 black informers revealed the plots before they could be brought into action the historian William freeling is written the shest way to free oneself under domestic service itude was not to join a revolution but to betray one to the patriarch and in the 1861 case which we will examine after VC the success of the white authorities in maintaining total secrecy suggests that there were in all probability a good many other slave conspiracies that we know little or nothing about since 2001 the VC conspiracy has been the subject of a bitter and ongoing academic debate the controversy began when P Johnson published in the highly respected William and Mary quarterly a prize-winning 61-page critical essay review of three recently published books that upheld the traditional accounts of the magnitude and importance of the VC slave conspiracy after exposing numerous and serious errors in one author's transcription of The Limited surviving court records as well as the widely speculative character of some historians claims Johnson argued on the basis of his own research SE Arch that the VC conspiracy was the artifact of white Panic political conniving and tortured slaves telling white interrogators what they wanted to hear the court for its own reasons colluded with a handful of intimidated witnesses to collect testimony about an Insurrection that in fact was not about to happen Professor Johnson who is eager to overcome the oversimplified resistance Paradigm and is now working on his own book intended to rectify generation of misinterpretation also maintains that the dramatic VC story has served the interests and wishes of both slaveholding Planters and later black and white historians eager to find examples of heroic slave resistance the William and Mary quarterly printed Johnson's challenging essay as the first part of a forum and formalized the debate in 2002 by enabling the targeted authors and some other historians to reply more recently I have had the pr of reading some new and forthcoming Works especially by Robert L packet and Douglas R ederton attacking Johnson's thesis and introducing new evidence especially the reports of many clergymen who talked with the convicted blacks up to the time they were executed as well as specific oral accounts conveyed within the black community while I have neither the space nor research experience and expertise to become seriously involved in this controversy and have already changed my mind at least once I am now convinced that Denmark VC and a significant number of slaves were in all probability involved in a plot to rise and Insurrection on the night of Sunday July 14th pastile day 1822 no doubt some of the testimony about the size of the rebellion was grossly exaggerated no doubt some of the slaves hanged were innocent only 23 of the 131 men arrested cooperated with the court in John words nearly all the testimony about the conspiracy came from six Witnesses who sought to protect themselves by implicating others given the pity of evidence and the failure of actual insurrections we have no way of knowing how truly serious the threat to whites may have been but even apart from empirical evidence and the outcome of the historian's debate the VC story has for well over 180 years acquired a life of its own like Turner and the leaders of the British Caribbean slave revolts we have just discussed Denmark VC was not a field hand or in any way a typical slave he was instead a Cosmopolitan former slave sailor and Carpenter in his mid-50s in 1799 he had bought a $6 ticket in a Charleston Lottery and had won $1,500 he had then purchased his own freedom for $600 and had continued to work in Charleston as a carpenter while his wife or wives and numerous children remained enslaved as a free black VC remained close to Charleston's independent and highly controversial African Methodist Episcopal Church which the authorities temporarily closed in 1818 the church had ties with the pioneering and anti-slavery black church in Philadelphia a source of Suspicion and alarm for some whites VC a literate reader of the news seems to have known that hadi's president president Jean Pierre buer who had recently conquered Spanish Santo Domingo was inviting American free blacks to migrate to the poverty stricken Island and had agreed to pay at least as a loan the initial cost of their transportation in the 1820s an estimated 6,000 blacks from Philadelphia and other regions did accept this offer but at least 2,000 soon returned to the United States after discovering the realities of Haitian life as a young teenager VC then known as telemach had briefly worked in Haiti then s doing as a slave but his French owner had then returned VC to his seller Captain Joseph VC complaining that the boy was unsound and subject to epileptic fits while Denmark seemed to have no troubles serving on Captain VC's ship as a cabin boy this brief Haitian connection proved to be relevant to the court in 1822 since VC had supposedly sent a letter letter to President buer and had told his Insurgent followers that after killing Charleston's whites and setting the city a blaze they would either be rescued by Haitian ships or could sail to the island safely some testimony also referred to aid from Africa VC's main lieutenants included gulla Jack Pritchard a former East African priest and conjurer who in the eyes of the state's Governor Thomas Bennett was a true leader of the plot Munday gel a harness maker of Eggo origin at whose shop the conspirators often congregated Rola Bennett a trusted house servant of Governor Bennett who defended rola's innocence even though Rola became a key witness in identifying VC as the instigator and chief of this plot and Peter pus who was called a First Rate ship Carpenter though free blacks in Charleston were more feared and more distant to whites than in the British Caribbean they generally separated themselves from slaves only three received sentences from the two special courts that sent 35 men to The Gallows and deported 42 others outside the country as in many other New World conspiracies and revolts V's insurgents included slave Carters drayman Sawyers Porters stors mechanics house servants and according to some testimony rural field workers who would rush into Charleston once the leaders had seized the city's arsenals and had be gun torching the buildings and killing the whites some witnesses testified that vzy had exhorted his followers not to spare one white skin alive as this was the plan they pursued in Santo Domingo he had also supposedly read to slave followers from the Bible perhaps Deuteronomy 2010-18 where in the words of one witness God commanded that all should be cut off both men women and children and said he believed it was no sin for us to do so for the Lord had commanded us to do it in the actual biblical text with respect to the more distant non-c Canaanite towns God had told the Israelites that after putting all its males to the sword they could take as your booty the women the children the livestock and enjoy the use of the spoil of your enemy which the Lord your God gives you Rola Bennett may have had such generally repressed biblical passages in mind when he supposedly told blacks that after they killed the white men we know what to do with the wenches and even boasted that the governor's daughter would be his future wench though even Douglas ederton dismisses these lines as nonsense served up for the magistrates they deserve to be coupled with the no less controversial words of the slave John Hy quoted below as symbols of the supposedly revealed true mentality of domestic servants who had previously confirmed the Planter's paternalistic ideology by acting like happy sambos when waiting on their masters and their Master's guests the exposure of H's true feelings appears in a letter written by Martha Proctor Richardson a wealthy Widow living in Savannah Georgia who was in close touch with the court proceedings in Charleston Richardson told how Elias Hy a rice planter had protested when the police had arrested his beloved Coachman John after hearing some troubling evidence the master turned to his slave are you guilty he asked incredulously what were your intentions John Hy then Whirled on the patriarch I desired to kill you rip open your belly and throw your guts in your face disputes over the reality of this story like the reality of the Insurgent plans to poison individual Wells and Charleston's water supply missed two Central points of the VZ conspiracy first the total failure of whatever plot there was second the traumatic shock in terms of feelings of vulnerability that the slaves testimony delivered to Charleston to South Carolina and even to the nation as a whole a shock that threatened the most basic assumptions about human progress and where time is moving us for readers today the only meaningful analogy would be September 11th 2001 and the prospect of future terrorist attacks with no end in sight even though Charleston escaped from any Massacre of whites or even physical damage some white leaders hope to minimize the sense of danger and prevent slaves from hearing about such possibilities as poisoning water or from drawing dangerous conclusions about the weakness and vulnerability of the social system others particularly the state's Governor Thomas Bennett and his brother-in-law William Johnson a Justice of the US Supreme Court were so wetted to the growing paternalistic ideology that they rejected both the procedures and conclusions of the first special Court of magistrates and freeholders though they never doubted the existence of a conspiracy as some historians have claimed in a letter to Thomas Jefferson Justice Johnson complained that the exaggerated alarm of insurrection would undermine the confidence between us and our domestics and described the plot as a trifling cabal of a few ignorant penniless unarmed uncombined Fanatics which would certainly have blown over without an explosion had it never come to light go Governor Bennett also had a deeply personal interest in the crisis four of his trusted domestic slaves were arrested and indicted and three of them were hanged despite all his doubts about the seriousness of the slave conspiracy Governor Bennett secretly and successfully pleaded with Secretary of War John C Calhoun to move federal troops from Savannah and St Augustine to Charleston to back up the local militia the interrogators attempt to get to the heart of the the plot to force slaves to reveal the very worst scenario no doubt led to much fantasy but this also meant that belief in the paternalistic ideology had to be balanced on a different level with new concerns about security concerns based on the recognition that slavery in the American South was highly vulnerable thus the South Carolina legislature soon passed a negro seen act requiring that all free black and slave Sailors be held in custody while while their ships were in Port the state also barred the admission of slaves from Latin America the Caribbean and northern states many whites expressed a desire to get rid of slave Artisans and other Urban workers making slavery an entirely rural institution while V's men had no chance of winning their own Freedom they did magnify and intensify South Carolina suspicion and fear of anti-slavery in any form we have already stressed the importance of rumors of outside support especially in the British Caribbean According to some theories vzy or other insurgents had been inspired by Senator Rufus King's attacks on slavery in the Missouri debates of 1820 and even by a misunderstanding of local newspaper reports that use the word emancipation when describing the South Carolina legislature's discussion of a bill regarding individual manumissions it is surely noteworthy that Robert J Turnbull was a member of the first court that tried the insurgence he became in the remaining 11 years of his life a rabid nullifier a Neo secessionist who anxiously watched the progress of the anti-slavery movement in Britain and helped to shape an ideology for eventual secession it was only in 1993 that students of slave resistance and general readers interested in the Civil War learned of a hidden slave conspiracy that might have had a considerable impact on the war's Western theater if timed as the slaves had hoped with the Union's capture of the Lower Mississippi Valley I refer to the publication of Winthrop D Jordan's widely praised book tumult and silence at second Creek an inquiry into a civil war conspiracy since the Planters and other authorities involved made no pretense of conducting a trial there are far fewer sources than for V's plot indeed the main document is a record kept by a Mississippi planter l P Connor of slave testimony given to a secret examination committee at an isolated racetrack in Adams County Mississippi in September and October 1861 5 to 6 months after the War Began the interrogation of the slaves conducted apparently with severe torture led to the execution of more than 40 blacks including several privileged drivers of family carriages Jordan's account of what I take to be a major slave conspiracy at the beginning of the Civil War is a venture in historical therapy an attempt to overcome generations of denial and repression concerning the nature of racial interaction in America and the ultimate meaning of the Civil War Jordan's 20 odd years of detective work represent an effort to master silence the curtain of Silence that fell over the whites discovery of and response to the Mississippi plot as we hear the aspirations the pain The Rage of African-Americans as opposed to the happy go-lucky lovable old [ __ ] of Magnolia Blossom historic Legend we come to realize that tyranny is a central theme of American history that racial exploitation and racial conflict have been part of the DNA of American culture as Jordan makes clear however The Lovable old [ __ ] were something more than Legend he quotes from a remarkable letter sent by the daughter of a Mississippi planter politician to her husband a Confederate officer than at the front in Virginia the servants have all behaved extremely well indeed I cannot utter the least complaint of them they are deeply interested and very sympathizing with us all they often speak to me about the war and there was great rejoicing in the kitchen at the news of our recent glorious victory in Virginia Battle of Bull Run what would those miserable abolitionists say to such manifestations of devotion and affection on the part of the poor Mal treated slave whose heart according to them is only the Abode of hatred and revenge against their Master they know nothing of the bond that unites the master and servant of its tenderness and Care on the one side and its Pride Fidelity and attachment on the other in the early 21st century we must guard against treating such words with mockery or contempt since the author Louisa Quitman Lovel was surely being sincere and describing something real yet another reality was hidden from her as she wrote this letter in Late July 1861 3 months after a slave rebellion had begun to simmer in the vicinity of natches where she lived and 2 and a half months after some hitherto trusted Carriage drivers had been hanged for suspected plotting as Jordan notes Mrs Lovel was not writing for any public but herself and her husband she believed what she wrote one might add that she was was also engaged in a private debate with the abolitionists and was eager to shape her experience in ways that would refute them the legend of paternalism in other words could guide and Order Southern Behavior Lemuel Parker Connor the wealthy planter who left the Priceless but puzzling transcript of the rebellious slaves words when they were later interrogated near natches had always remembered to add in letters to his wife when he was away from home howdy to the servants note the common Southern avoidance of the word slaves African-Americans like any human beings were by no means invulnerable to such expressions of care in 1937 when the WPA Federal writers project sponsored the interviewing of large numbers of elderly former slaves throughout the South a local historian in natches recorded the reminiscences of Charlie Davenport a black who had once been owned by Gabriel B shields on a large Plantation near the center of the conspiracy Charlie's slave Father William had somehow escaped joined the Union Army and later fought in the Vicksburg campaign Charlie Davenport was the only veteran of slavery whose recorded interview referred to the planned Uprising along second Creek just south and east of natches his testimony confirms and helps to explain Connor's important transcript of slave interrogation Jordan warns that the document must be treated with great caution Mrs Edith w Moore who interviewed Davenport was white some of the WPA interviewers were black Mrs Moore thus represented the voice of authority in a rigidly segregated cast Society based ultimately on terror certainly the elderly Davenport was aware that he was telling a white audience in the midst of a long economic depression about his memories of slavery still Jordan's exhaustive research shows that many of Davenport's factual statements are confirmed by other sources insisting that us didn't belong to no white trash Davenport like many slaves and former slaves expressed great pride in his master one of the richest and highest quality gentlemen in the whole country and took special delight in the character of the sergit the wealthy family of his owner's wife day was the out fightingest out cussin fastest riding hardest drinking outspending as folks I ever seed but Lord Lord they was gentleman even in De cups that is when drunk Davenport clearly hated the overseer a big hard fisted Dutchman named Charles saer who beat Charlie when he was a child until I thought I'd Die proclaiming that from now on you works in the field but Davenport claimed that our houses was clean and snug we was better fed and I is now and warmer too Kus had blankets and quilts filled with home r wool I just love laying in the big fat fed a bed aering the rain patter on the roof like many of the former slaves interviewed in the 1930s most of whom had known slavery only as children Davenport contrasted his own relatively benevolent Plantation with others that were far less generous after recalling the slaves Garden patches their hunting and fishing and his own support for Jefferson Davis Davenport mused that Mars Randolph Shields is a doctor way off in China I believes they would look after me now if they know I was on charity Davenport then concluded with thoughts that confirmed the white racial mood in 1937 and that presumably brought a glow to the heart of Mrs Moore how I going to know about the rights or wrongs of slavery for as I is concerned I was better treated as a slave than I is now folks say it was wicked but for all I can see the colored folks ain't made much use of the Freedom Day is all in debt and chained down to something same as us slaves was they ain't no such thing as Freedom us is all tied down to something today it is highly unfashionable to discuss the effects of paternalism in either the antibellum or postreconstruction period Jordan who was primarily interested in Davenport's brief account of the planned slave Uprising did not really consider how the prevailing southern white ideology to which Charlie Davenport had been subjected during his long life as a free Negro might have shaped his Recollections and final assessment of slavery one way of dealing with this problem of submission can be found in the speeches and writings of black abolitionists for example a militant fugitive slave named J celam Martin assured audiences in Britain that American slaves were anything but content but let us suppose Martin said in a speech at the Bristol athenium it were the fact that the black man was contented in bondage suppose he was contented to see his wife sold on the auction block or his daughter violated or his children separated from him or having his own manhood crushed out of him I say that is the heaviest condemnation of the institution that slavery should blot out a man's manhood so as to make him contented to accept this degradation and such an institution ought to be swept from the face of the Earth in a sense this anticipates the Stanley Elkin argument summarized at the beginning of this chapter of course A Slave seeming contentment could be a way of making the best of a Grizzly situation in which ill humor or any sign of surliness became an excuse for whipping Jordan has discovered that at Aventine Plantation where Charlie Davenport was born and reared the overseer called the roll of hands three times every Sunday and some male and female slaves were put in the stock by the head or by the legs and then given Lashes in fact in 1859 a slave named Davenport probably Charlie's father was put in the stock and given 39 lashes for being Saucy and clenching his hands against the overseer but many of the second Creek Rebels lived on plantations noted for LAX or erratic discipline hence Jordan had good reason for suggesting that the slaves on Aventine rejected joining the rebels plan because they were kept under unusually rigid and efficient discipline in any event Davenport recalled that one night when he was a little boy a strange [ __ ] come and he aranged to Old Folks but they wouldn't budge this powerful big black fell named Jupiter reported that the slaves had hit all worked out how they was going to march on natches after slaying all their own white folks in one of the two versions of Charlie's report the rebels were determined to take the land after killing day white folks but in contrast to the confessions of many of the Rebel slaves who may have been forced to say what the white interrogators wanted to hear Davenport said nothing that we know of about rape or sexual relations with white women many of the slaves interrogated at the racetrack were clearly filled with rage and resentment and the examinations gave them a chance for self- assertion for shocking some of the whites they had planned to murder knowing that they would soon be called to The Gallows they had little to lose yet we have seen that slaves in demarara when put in a somewhat similar position made shocking statements that were contradicted by the actual behavior of the rebels and later confessed to be lies it is therefore difficult to judge the frequent report in Lemuel Parker Connor's record that specific slaves said they intended to take ravish and ride specific white women often the wives or Daughters of their owners for them apparently nothing could exemplify by the meaning of freedom better than inverting the slave master relationship kill the master possess and rape the white wife or daughter and seize the land in recent times the systematic rape of women in Bosnia Sudan and other countries has added new meaning to the view of rape as a means of Revenge a weapon of war and dishonor though going back to Homer or genis Khan we can find multiple evidence that Collective rape has been a part of military conquest through human history yet another possibility can be seen when one finds that white women in the antibellum and Civil War South expressed little fear of black males despite a long tradition in America illuminated by Jordan in a famous previous book of white males imagining and fantasizing that black slaves were over sexed licentious and secretly eager to rape the bestl looking white women in view of these traditional white male preconceptions why should we not expect the examiners to have asked the captured slaves what did you intend to do with the ladies who was Simon or Albert or Peter going to Ravish after you killed master and Mrs Mosby did you plan to ride Miss Anna and if the slaves were being savagely flogged or tortured in other ways why wouldn't they have told the inquisitors what the inquisitors wanted to hear Davenport did not condemn the rebels plan or express any judgment concerning the capture and hanging of Jupiter except to say they didn't need need no trial cuz he was caught ring to folks to murder he had a simple explanation for the passivity of the blacks at aventin us folks wouldn't join him cuz what would we want to kill om Mars for whatever its other shortcomings this testimony from an allegedly loyal slave combined with other evidence that Jordan has searched out in a remarkable feat of detective work make it virtually certain that scores of slaves in Adams County Mississippi were prepared for a major upro ring in the first months of the Civil War but as I have already indicated given the dire predictions of many rabid pro-slavery writers it may be even more surprising that no such major rebellion occurred perhaps American slaves knew all too well that such actions were suicidal and that as the war progressed many of their Brethren were being freed by Union armies please consider supporting us by clicking on the like And subscribe 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