The biggest slave rebellion in US History is never taught in Schools!
Prior to the Stono rebellion a Proclamation was published at Augustine [Spanish Florida], in which the King of Spain (then at Peace with Great Britain) promised Protection and freedom to all Negro Slaves that were in Spanish territories slaves belonging to Captain Davis escaped to Augustine, and were well received there. News about the good reception of the Negroes at Augustine was spread about. Several attempted to escape to the Spaniards, & were taken, one of them was hanged at Charleston a week before Sunday, September 9th, 1739 when the British colony of South Carolina was shaken by a slave uprising that culminated with the death of conservatively sixty people.
Led by an Angolan named Jemmy, a band of twenty slaves began a rebellion for freedom on the banks of the Stono River.
The largest and most significant slave rebellion in the British North American colonies, the Stono Rebellion revealed tensions that continued in slave states throughout the next century. Slaves were brutalized by lucrative yet pervasive bloody, perverted, and intrinsically evil system of forced labor, torture, dismemberment, pedophilia, rape, homosexuality ,sadism, and warranted that the enslaved violently rebelled. The Stono Rebellion was a violent albeit failed attempt by as many as one hundred slaves to reach St. Augustine and claim freedom in Spanish-controlled Florida. The uprising was South Carolina's largest and bloodiest slave insurrection.
The knowledge of the actual crimes against humanity of the colonial enslavers is hidden and slave narratives are rarely used because their eyewitness accounts would make young white children have anxiety about the mythology of a nation and ancestors that only did good. The Stono Rebellion that began in a storehouse in colonial South Carolina in 1739 has been variously called an insurrection, a rebellion, a revolt, and an uprising. It was also dubbed the “Gullah War” and the “Angola War.” Whatever its name, the rebellion resulted in the passage of the Negro Act that limited the freedom of slaves but failed to completely silence them. However, the kinds of laws enacted in the wake of the Stono Rebellion would have a negative effect on African Americans for years to come. The fear of another rebellion that could topple slavery in America was pervasive. It was the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies at the time, with approximately 60 whites and 44 blacks killed. The uprising was led by natives/ Africans many of whom were likely from the Central African Kingdom of Kongo. Some of the enslaved spoke Portuguese.
malaria and dysentery, two of the major colonial diseases, are more fatal... The outbreak occurring in Charleston in 1699 completely disrupted the lives of the colonizers and afforded an opportunity for the enslaved to escape bondage. Yellow fever, like falciparum malaria, was introduced into South Carolina as a direct result of the African slave trade so many of the enslaved had an acquired immunity. Two types of malaria dominated in South Carolina. Both are highly debilitating diseases that produce lethargy and vulnerability to other infections. Plasmodium vivax, which probably came with European settlers in the 1670s, is the less virulent of the two forms. The introduction of the more deadly Plasmodium falciparum came with the importation of large numbers of African slaves in the 1680s and after. Many West Africans were immune to vivax, and some had acquired or inherited resistance to falciparum. This probably induced slavers to be more cruel to those they blamed for the deaths of their family members.
From the late colonial period, the threat of malaria transformed many of the planting families of the Lowcountry into seasonal migrants. They fled the plantations during the summer and early autumn for locations perceived to be less dangerous: the North, Charleston, the pinelands, the upcountry, and the seashore. The slave revolt started out when 20 enslaved led by a captive renamed Jemmy (Which refers to a tool used to open a window or locked door) Jemmy means window in portuguese) Jemmy may have been what they called the slave who was able to break into the Hutchinson store enabling the slaves to arm themselves with firearms.The recent (August 1739) passage of the Security Act by the South Carolina Colonial Assembly may also have played a role in the necessity of the break in. The act required all white men to carry firearms to church on Sunday. Thus the enslaved leaders of the rebellion knew their best chance for success would be during the time of the church services when armed white males were away from the plantations and their few firearms would be enough to free as many as they could. After breaking into Hutchinson’s store the men, now armed with guns, called for their liberty. during the battle for the rifles the store owners were killed and their heads placed in front of the store as a warning. As they marched, the overseers who tried to stop them by force were killed and the enslaved began to join the fighters. The force grew and moved to nearby households shouting liberty in their African language. Some compassionate slaves hid the family members of the Masters so they would not be killed during the raid.
Jemmy and his group recruited nearly 60 other enslaved and killed more than 20 whites before being intercepted and defeated by the South Carolina militia near the Edisto River. Survivors traveled another 30 miles (50 km) before the militia finally defeated them a week later.The fighting went on for a week but by that time many of the enslaved were eager to journey toward freedom and let go of revenge. It wasn’t until the following Sunday, a week after the revolt had begun when militiamen encountered the largest group of disbanded rebels another thirty miles south. A second battle ensued, killing 52 enslaved this one effectively ending the insurrection. Most of the remaining enslaved were killed or captured, tried, and executed; the decapitated heads of several were placed on posts as a stark warning. Soon after, South Carolina enacted stricter limitations on slaves’ conduct, especially their freedom on Sundays to “work for themselves, ”earn money, learn to read, or even grow their own food. Nothing was allowed that would give them a sense of independence. The enslaved needed to be reliant on their masters for their lives. The state also banned slaveholders from freeing their slaves.
After the Stono Rebellion South Carolina authorities moved to reduce provocations for rebellion. Masters, for example, were penalized for working slaves to death or brutal cruel and unusual tortures of slaves like chopping off limbs or boiling them to death. They needed slaves to be afraid if they were routinely killed eventually they would no longer fear death and instead seek the deaths of the enslavers before they were killed.
The Lieutenant Governor sent an account of what happened to General Oglethorpe, who advised his return from the Indian Nation. He immediately ordered a Troop of Rangers to be ranged, to patrol through Georgia, placed some Men in the Garrison at Palichocolas, which was abandoned, and near which the Negroes formerly passed, being the only place where Horses can come to swim over the River Savannah for near 100 miles, ordered out the Indians in pursuit, and a Detachment of the Garrison at Port Royal to assist the Planters on any Occasion, and published a Proclamation ordering all the Constables of Georgia to pursue and seize all Negroes, with a Reward for any that should be taken. It is hoped these measures will prevent any Negroes from getting down to the Spaniards
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