Antigua - Plantation owners on Antigua discovered a plan by enslaved people to steal gunpowder and blow up the island's gentry at a ball. As punishment, over the next six months 88 enslaved people were put to death, most of them by being burned alive. Tacky's Revolt - Tacky's Revolt took place on Jamaica. This was the largest uprising of enslaved people in a British colony in the 18th century. The Haitian Revolution removed Britain's major competitor France in sugar production in the Caribbean.
Barbados - Enslaved people rose up on Barbados and burned a quarter of the island's sugar crop before the rebellion was suppressed. If organized physical violence was not the solution for most slaves, then how did the majority find ways to address their condition?
If they have not already done so, students will usually recognize that running away was the most common way of overtly rejecting slavery.
By the nineteenth century, running away to the North offered the virtue of a tenuous freedom; however, failed runaways also met with serious reprisals. Most did not try to escape. For those who remained enslaved, resistance took on more familiar everyday forms. Ask students: When the enslaved slowed their work or broke tools, were they resisting the overall institution of slavery or just the work of slavery?
Can these be distinguished? Remind students that slave masters sometimes begrudgingly tolerated these everyday forms of resistance and even responded positively to slave workplace demands. These negotiated compromises provided slaves with incentives to work, ultimately bolstering the institution. For slave masters, acknowledging these small pin pricks of resistance were a small price to pay in order to secure the survival of the overall institution.
Some students likely will not buy the argument that everyday forms of resistance reinforced the institution. Encourage them to unravel exactly why they think this.
The best students will recognize that even the smallest acts of resistance pushed the boundaries of freedom, slowly eroding the institution. Smile at them and then turn to an even more obvious example. What about theft? Of course, stealing from the master MUST have been resistance.
Even some of the enslaved seemed to acknowledge that this was the case. Or were they cleverly manipulating the contradictions inherent to the institution? Finally, as one last consideration of everyday forms of resistance, you might ask your students whether cultural forms like the speaking of African languages, the formation of families, or the practice of religion constituted resistance to slavery. Embedded in each of these were the potential for overt forms of resistance. For instance, those speaking African languages might plan conspiracies or revolts in those languages, thereby hiding their intentions from whites.
The formation of families defied notions of property, sometimes making it difficult for masters to sell husbands, wives, and children, who vehemently protested separation from their loved ones. Some slave masters recognized the potential dangers in these cultural expressions and attempted to curb their practices. Others viewed African and African-American cultural practices as vital ways of appeasing slaves so they would be more efficient workers.
Did the master have to prohibit a particular cultural form in order for its practice to be considered resistant? Or were all cultural expressions a form of resistance? Certainly there is an argument to be made that any assertion of humanity in an institution that defined one as non-human was an expression of resistance.
At the same time, slaves were ultimately human beings and expressed themselves naturally as such, even within the confines of slavery. Slaves in South Carolina staged several insurrections, culminating in the Stono Rebellion in , when they seized arms, killed whites, and burned houses. In and , conspiracies were uncovered in Charleston and New York. During the late 18th century, slave revolts erupted in Guadeloupe, Grenada, Jamaica, Surinam, San Domingue Haiti , Venezuela, and the Windward Island and many fugitive slaves, known as maroons, fled to remote regions and carried on guerrilla warfare during the s, a fugitive slave named Bob Ferebee led a band in fugitive slaves in guerrilla warfare in Virginia.
During the early 19th century, major conspiracies or revolts against slavery took place in Richmond, Virginia, in ; in Louisiana in ; in Barbados in ; in Charleston, South Carolina, in ; in Demerara in ; and in Jamaica and in Southampton County, Virginia in Slave revolts were most likely when slaves outnumbered whites, when masters were absent, during periods of economic distress, and when there was a split within the ruling elite.
They were also most common when large numbers of native-born Africans had been brought into an area at one time. Animals Wild Cities This wild African cat has adapted to life in a big city.
Animals This frog mysteriously re-evolved a full set of teeth. Animals Wild Cities Wild parakeets have taken a liking to London. Animals Wild Cities Morocco has 3 million stray dogs. Meet the people trying to help. Environment COP26 nears conclusion with mixed signals and frustration. Environment Planet Possible India bets its energy future on solar—in ways both small and big. Environment As the EU targets emissions cuts, this country has a coal problem.
Paid Content How Hong Kong protects its sea sanctuaries. History Magazine These 3,year-old giants watched over the cemeteries of Sardinia. Science Coronavirus Coverage What families can do now that kids are getting the vaccine. Magazine How one image captures 21 hours of a volcanic eruption. Science Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. Science The controversial sale of 'Big John,' the world's largest Triceratops. Science Coronavirus Coverage How antivirals may change the course of the pandemic.
Travel A road trip in Burgundy reveals far more than fine wine.
0コメント