The Stono Rebellion

Group of "Contrabands" at Foller's House
Cumberland Landing, Virginia,
James F. Gibson, photographer,
May 14, 1862.
Civil War Photographs, 1861-1865

Early on the morning of Sunday, September 9, 1739, twenty black Carolinians met near the Stono River, approximately twenty miles southwest of Charleston. At Stono's bridge, they took guns and powder from Hutcheson's store and killed the two storekeepers they found there. "With cries of 'Liberty' and beating of drums," historian Peter H. Wood writes in the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, "the rebels raised a standard and headed south toward Spanish St. Augustine…Along the road they gathered black recruits, burned houses, and killed white opponents, sparing one innkeeper who was 'kind to his slaves.'" Thus commenced the Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution.

Late that afternoon, planters riding on horseback caught up with the band of sixty to one hundred slaves. More than twenty white Carolinians and nearly twice as many black Carolinians were killed before the rebellion was suppressed. As a consequence of the uprising, white lawmakers imposed a moratorium on slave imports and enacted a harsher slave code.

Slaves frequently resorted to insurrection, first in the British colonies and later in the southern United States. At least 250 insurrections have been documented; between 1780 and 1864, ninety-one African-Americans were convicted of insurrection in Virginia alone. The first revolt in what became the United States took place in 1526 at a Spanish settlement near the mouth of the Pee Dee River in South Carolina.

The Confessions of Nat Turner
Richmond
Thomas R. Gray, publisher, 1832.
Slavery — the Peculiar Institution in African American Odyssey

Between 1800 and 1831, African Americans instigated several ambitious rebellions in the American South. Among these were Gabriel's Revolt, which began north of Richmond, Virginia, on August 30, 1800, and Vesey's Rebellion, an 1822 conspiracy to incite as many 9000 plantation and urban slaves in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina. Nat Turner's Rebellion, the most effectual slave revolt, erupted in Southampton County, Virginia on the night of August 21, 1831. Nat Turner and his followers killed nearly sixty white people as they moved toward an armory at Jerusalem, Virginia. Halted mere miles from their goal, the approximately seventy-five insurgents were soon killed or captured by the militia. Turner's November execution failed to assuage fears of continued insurrection. Across the South, renewed legislative efforts to forbid education and greatly restrict movement and assembly further constrained the lives of enslaved people.

• African American Perspectives, 1818-1907 is a rich source of documents pertaining to the history of slavery; to explore this resource, search the collection on the keyword slavery. The collection also contains an address entitled "Nat Turner's Insurrection," delivered by Indiana lawyer George H. Burks in 1885.
• Born in Slavery, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. Browse the collection by State to read narratives and see photos from those areas.

  
  Slave Quarters, The Hermitage
  Savannah, Georgia, between 1900 and 1910.
  Touring Turn-of-the-Century America, 1880-1920

• The interviews recorded in American Life Histories, 1936-1940 include several recollections of the antebellum South from the perspectives of both white and black Southerners. Some of those interviewed were born before the Civil War and offer personal memories of that era, while others relate the experiences of their parents and grandparents before, during, and after the Civil War. Search the collection on slave or plantation to find these documents.
• Find more photographs documenting the history of the antebellum South. Search the American Memory collections of photographs and prints on slave or plantation.
• The African-American Mosaic exhibition contains additional resources for the study of African-American history and includes special sections on the movement to colonize American slaves in Africa and the movement to abolish slavery in the United States.
• Learn about black America's quest for equality. Visit the online exhibition The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship. It includes sections on the history of slavery in America and on free blacks in the antebellum period — and much more.