The Resistance and Protests of Slaves in the United States

One of the things that scholars have been particularly interested in is understanding the ways in which enslaved Africans resisted: “slave rebellions”. Scholars have now documented literally hundreds of rebellions that previously we didn’t know about. One of the bloodiest slave uprisings, known as the Stono Rebellion or Cato's Conspiracy, began in South Carolina in 1739, at the Stono River Bridge close Charleston. One September morning, 20 slaves broke into a store, stole weapons and supplies and set out toward the asylum of Spanish-ruled Florida, leaving 23 homicide exploited people in their way. Developing into a gathering of 100 after touching base in Florida, the agitators ceased in an open field and made a hubbub in expectations different slaves would hear them and join. A neighborhood state army stood up to the gathering, with the vast majority of the got away slaves captured and executed. Charleston had 19 years’ sooner been the focal point of a plotted revolt by 14 slaves intending to demolish manors and assault Charleston. Sold out, they fled, endeavored to persuade Creek Indians to join their uprising and were caught in Savannah, Georgia. All were executed upon come back to Charleston. In 1816 in Camden, slaves intended to burn down the town and slaughter the white populace. Seventeen slaves were captured and seven executed. In 1829, an increasingly effective endeavor saw 85 structures burnt and bulldozed to the ground. Slave revolts happened multiple times in US history, the most famous is Nat Turner’s revolt 1831.

He leads a series of attacks on white people throughout southeastern Virginia. In one case, they storm into a school and killed the teacher and about a dozen children. He basically said “who do you think these children will grow up to be? These children are groomed from a young age to be masters and slave owners”. Supporters of slavery pointed to Turner’s rebellion as evidence that blacks were inherently inferior barbarians requiring an institution such as slavery to discipline them, and fears of similar insurrections led many southern states to further strengthen their slave codes in order to limit the education, movement and assembly of slaves. Enslaved people understand the balance of power; the deck is stacked against them. Hundreds of people would be imprisoned or lynched as a result of the suspicion of a rebellion, and they understand that even if they don’t mind losing their life they don’t have the right to make that choice for their brother, their sister, their child, their parents. But rebellion wasn’t the only way that enslaved Africans could resist, more common was what the world come to call “day-to-day resistance”, which was the seemingly small gestures to push back against the way the system demanded everything of the enslaved person’s life. For instance, deliberately working a little slower, burning food or poisoning food. Mutilating oneself so that one would not be able to do work, to learn how to read and to write and to sometimes just finding the power within that system to survive.

After waging war with England for liberty and independence some people believed it was hypocritical to deny rights to African Americans. Blacks has served in the revolutionary army and were petitioning for EMANCIPATION OF SLAVES. White anti-slavery society agitated for reform and by 1804 they convinced northern states to gradually phase out the practice but the south resisted there thriving economy was dependent on slavery. Stord by agitation among black abolitionists and the zelest reform by white Christians the abolitionist movement grew, some activist wanted a gradual end to slavery and others began to take risk. John Rankin a Presbyterian minister made his home at the top of his 300-foot hill on the banks of the Ohio river, from there he used a lit lantern to alert fleeing slaves that the river was save to cross. Rankin’s effort inspired William Lloyd Garrison a journalist that exposed the crimes committed against slaves in his weekly newspaper “The Liberator”. Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, within seven years it grew from 1,300 to a 1,250,000 people, they lobbied congress and wrote and mailed abolitionists literature to the south. Inspired by the recent efforts of the journalist female abolitionists formed the Boston Female Anti-Slavery society in 1833. While many New Englanders didn’t support slavery, many were also indifferent toward the issue.

The Boston Female Anti-Slavery society wanted to bring awareness to their cause but needed the funds to do so. In 1834 these women, especially Maria Weston Chapman, Lydia Maria Child and Louisa Loring decided to host a small Christmas time fair where people could buy homemade Christmas gifts and meet fellow abolitionists, held in one of the members’ homes. The first event raised over 300$ for the cause, the next year they held another even in a member’s house a pro-slavery mob attacked the fair so Maria Chapman held it in her own home but unfortunately they were also attacked so her parents hosted the event. Maria refused to be intimidated and defiantly proclaimed that the Christmas fair would be an annual event. Over the next 20 plus years, the fair became a Boston tradition, growing into, according to “uncle Tom’s Cabin” author Harriet Beecher Stowe “the most fashionable shopping resort of the holidays.”. In the months leading up to the fair, abolitionist women across New England formed sewing circles in their respective towns to create goods to sell at the fair in Boston. These sewing circles also provided a safe space to discuss abolition in rural areas, where their views might not be supported.

Chapman spread the word in William Lloyd Garrison’s, The Liberator, the pre-eminent abolitionist newsletter of the era. The fair itself also became more openly activist in 1840 after introducing nighttime soirees and abolitionist lecturers featuring both men and women. The goods for sale themselves reflected the cause. Quills were labeled “weapons for abolitionists.” Watch cases read, “The political economists count time by years. The suffering slave reckons it by minutes.” And by the early 1840s, Chapman added a new feature to the fair a Christmas tree, One of New England’s first. The tradition of the Christmas tree had been brought to America by German immigrants and the fair organizers adorned it with children’s gifts for sale, making it prime attraction for New England families. The Bazaar, as the fait became known after 1845, was taking off in popularity, occupying Boston’s Faneuil Hall for over a week by the 1850s but Chapman and the other organizers worries their abolitionist message was getting lost in consumerism so Chapman officially abolished the fair in 1858, replacing it with annual gala dinners attended by the Anti-Slavery society’s most generous donors but the Christmas Bazaar was successful in more ways than one not only did it raise money for the abolitionist cause, it demonstrated the growing political power of women. The Georgia legislature placed a 5,000$ bounty on Garrison’s head.

After the passage of the fugitive slave law, the radical faction attracted free blacks and ex-slaves and one of them is William Still, a free black man in Pennsylvania, was an agent in an underground railroad and he housed around 60 fleeing sleeves a month. During one of the interviews he conducted a fugitive and discovered he was sheltering his own brother who had been left in bondage when his mother escaped 40 years earlier. After escaping to freedom to the underground railroad, Harriet Tubman returned to the south 13 times leading 70 slaves to freedom. Radical abolitionists believed that slavery would never be ended through peaceful means. In 1859, John Brown led a group of black and white men in a raid on Harpers Ferry Virginia hoping to insight a slave rebellion, but the insurrection was quickly put down and John Brown was executed. His death further inflamed anti-slavery sympathy in northern states.