You know, I have always thought about the things in the beginning of that poem. I don't understand how men sat back and watched that shut go down without dying about it. They would have had to kill me before I watched my wife and kids get gang raped by white devils.
crack open a history book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner's_slave_rebellion
North America
Numerous black slave rebellions and insurrections took place in
North America during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. There is documentary evidence of more than 250 uprisings or attempted uprisings involving ten or more slaves. Three of the best known in the
United States during the 19th century are the revolts by
Gabriel Prosser in
Virginia in 1800,
Denmark Vesey in
Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, and
Nat Turner in
Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.
Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness described by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that caused black slaves to flee captivity. Today, drapetomania is considered an example of pseudoscience, and part of the edifice of scientific racism.
Slave resistance in the
antebellum South did not gain the attention of academic historians until the 1940s when historian
Herbert Aptheker started publishing the first serious scholarly work on the subject. Aptheker stressed how rebellions were rooted in the exploitative conditions of the southern slave system. He traversed libraries and archives throughout the South, managing to uncover roughly 250 similar instances.
The
1811 German Coast Uprising, which took place in
Louisiana outside of
New Orleans in 1811, involved up to 500 slaves. It was suppressed by volunteer militias and a detachment of the
United States Army. They killed at least 40 black men in a violent confrontation (the numbers cited are inconsistent); at least 29 more were executed (combined figures from two separate jurisdictions,
St. Charles Parish and
Orleans Parish). Several men (fewer than 20) are said to have escaped; some of those were later caught and killed, on their way to freedom.
Although only involving about seventy slaves, the
Turner's 1831 rebellion is considered to be a devastating event in American history. Over sixty people were killed, causing the slave-holding South to go into a panic. Fifty-five men, women and children were killed as Turner and his fellow rebel slaves rampaged from plantation to plantation throughout Virginia. Turner and the other slaves were eventually stopped as their ammunition ran out. The rebellion resulted in the hanging of about eighteen slaves, including Nat Turner himself. Up to 200 other blacks were killed during the hysteria which followed, few of whom likely had anything to do with the uprising.
[16] Fears afterwards led to new legislation passed by southern states prohibiting the movement, assembly, and education of slaves, and reducing the rights of
free people of color. In addition, the Virginia legislature considered abolishing slavery to prevent further rebellions. In a close vote, however, the state decided to keep slaves.
John Brown had already fought against pro-slavery forces in
Kansas for several years when he decided
to lead a raid on
Harpers Ferry,
Virginia. This raid was a joint attack by former slaves, freed blacks, and white men who had corresponded with slaves on plantations in order to form a general uprising among slaves. It almost succeeded, had it not been for Brown's delay, and hundreds of slaves left their plantations to join Brown's force - and others left their plantations to join Brown in an escape to the mountains. Eventually, due to a tactical error by Brown, their force was quelled by the U.S. military, led by Lieutenant Colonel
Robert E. Lee. But directly following this, slave disobedience and the number of runaways increased markedly in Virginia.
[17]
The historian
Steven Hahn proposes that the self-organized involvement of slaves in the
Union Army during the
American Civil War composed a slave rebellion that dwarfed all others.
[18] Similarly, tens of thousands of slaves joined British forces or escaped to British lines during the
American Revolution, sometimes using the disruption of war to gain freedom. For instance, when the British evacuated from Charleston and Savannah, they took 10,000 slaves with them. They also evacuated slaves from New York, taking more than 3,000 for resettlement to Nova Scotia, where they were recorded as
Black Loyalists and given land grants.
[19]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_rebellion#North_America
Part of a series of articles on...
1526 San Miguel de Gualdape
(
Sapelo Island, Georgia, Victorious)
c. 1570 Gaspar Yanga's Revolt
(
Veracruz, Victorious)
1712 New York Slave Revolt
(
New York City, Suppressed)
1733 St. John Slave Revolt
(
Saint John, Suppressed)
1739 Stono Rebellion
(
South Carolina, Suppressed)
1741 New York Conspiracy
(New York City, Suppressed)
1760 Tacky's War
(
Jamaica, Suppressed)
1791–1804 Haitian Revolution
(
Saint-Domingue, Victorious)
1800 Gabriel Prosser
(
Virginia, Suppressed)
1803 Igbo Landing
(
St. Simons Island, Georgia, Suppressed)
1805 Chatham Manor
(Virginia, Suppressed)
1811 German Coast Uprising
(
Territory of Orleans, Suppressed)
1815 George Boxley
(Virginia, Suppressed)
1822 Denmark Vesey
(
South Carolina, Suppressed)
1831 Nat Turner's rebellion
(Virginia, Suppressed)
1831–1832 Baptist War
(Jamaica, Suppressed)
1839 Amistad, ship rebellion
(Off the
Cuban coast, Victorious)
1841 Creole case, ship rebellion
(Off the
Southern U.S. coast, Victorious)
1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation
(Southern U.S., Suppressed)
1859 John Brown's Raid
(Virginia, Suppressed)