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SLAVE INSURRECTIONS.

It is estimated that some twenty-five insurrections of slaves took place in the United States prior to the American Revolution. This takes no account of the insurrections in Louisiana and in the Spanish, French and English colonies in the West Indies.

1526.

1664.

1687.

1710.

1712.

1720.

1722.

1723.

1730. 1730. 1734.

1739.

1740.

1741.

1741.

1768.

1772. 1775.

1800.

1802.

The most important insurrection in the West Indies was the uprising in 1791 of the slaves on the Island of Haiti, by which that country gained its Independ1804 the Republic of Haiti established.

ence.

First insurrection of Negro slaves within present limits of United States
in Ayllon's colony, on the coast of what is now South Carolina.
Insurrection planned in Virginia by white bondmen and Negro slaves. At
that time there was hardly 1,000 Negroes in the colony.

Attempted insurrection of Negroes in the Northern Neck of Virginia. Ne-
gro population was about equal to that of whites.
Negro insurrection planned in Surry County, Virginia. One of the con-
spirators, Will, a slave of Robert Ruffin, revealed the plot and as a reward
was emancipated.

First serious insurrection of slaves in the Thirteen Colonies in New York.
The garrison saved the city from being reduced to ashes.

Charleston, South Carolina, white people attacked in their houses and on
the streets. Twenty-three slaves arrested, of whom six were convicted and
three executed.

Armed body of about 200 Negroes gathered near the mouth of the Rappahannock River, Virginia, for the purpose of attacking the people while they were in church. The plot was discovered.

April 13. Governor Dummer, of Massachusetts issued a proclamation concerning the "fires which have been designedly and industriously kindled by some villainous and desperate Negroes or other dissolute people as appears by the confession of some of them." April 18, the Rev. Joseph Sewell preached a sermon on "The late fires that have broken out in Boston, supposed to be purposely set by ye Negroes." April 19, the selectmen of Boston made a report consisting of nineteen articles, Number 9 of which said, that if more than two Indians, Negro or mulatto servants or slaves be found in the streets or highways, in or about the town, idling or lurking together, unless in the service of their master or employer, every one so found shall be punished at the House of Correction."

August. Insurrection in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Rebellion of slaves reported from South Carolina.

Conspiracy of slaves to gain their freedom by massacre of the whites discovered near Somerville, New Jersey. About thirty Negroes apprehended two hanged, some had ears cut off, others whipped.

Slave conspiracy in Prince George's County, Maryland. The leader was
tried and executed.

Insurrection at Stone River, in South Carolina, was led by a slave Cato.
Houses were burned and men, women and children murdered.
Insurrection in New York City; population 12,000 whites and 2,000 blacks.
Thirteen conspirators burned alive, eighteen hung, and eighty transported.
Rumors of an insurrection among Negroes around Hackensack, N. J. Seven
barnes were burned, two Negroes charged with the crime burned.
Insurrection of slaves planned in Savannah, Georgia. A disagreement
about the method of procedure, caused plot to fail. The population of the
city consisted at this time of 3,000 whites and 2,700 blacks.
Insurrection at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, threatened.
Reported insurrection in Pitt, Beaufort and adjoining counties in North
Carolina; a number of slaves arrested and some whipped severely, but none
were proven to have been connected with any conspiracy.

Two Negroes, Gabriel and Jack Bowler, were leaders in an attempted re-
volt in Henrico County, Virginia. A thousand Negroes marched on the
city of Richmond. Forced by a swollen stream to halt, they disbanded with
the understanding that they would renew the attempt the following night.
The plot was discovered and Gabriel and Bowler were caught and executed.
Slave insurrection reported in Northeastern part of North Carolina in the
counties of Camden, Currituck, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Chowan, Hert-

1805.

1811.

1816.

1818.

1819. 1822.

1831.

1831.

1845.

1853. 1857.

1859.

1859.

1859.

ford, Martin, Bertie, Beaufort and Washington. June 10th had been set for the beginning of the insurrection. Two of the leaders were executed. Slave insurrection occurred in Wayne County, North Carolina. One Negro burned at the stake and two hanged.

Parish of St. John the Baptist, thirty-six miles above New Orleans, about 500 Negro slaves organized and marched toward the city. They destroyed plantations on the way and forced other slaves to join them. Insurrection suppressed by the garrison from Fort St. Charles.

Insurrection planned by slaves at Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was be-
trayed. The leaders were hanged. In this same year slave uprising re-
ported at Camden, South Carolina.

Rebellion of slaves at Charleston, S. C.
Attempted insurrection at Augusta, Georgia.

Extensive conspiracy organized at Charleston, South Carolina, by a free
Negro, Denmark Vesey. Slaves for forty or fifty miles around Charleston
were concerned in the uprising. The plan was to slaughter the whites and
free the blacks. A recruiting committee was formed and every slave en-
listed was sworn to secrecy. Peter Poyas, one of the conspirators, is said
to have personally enlisted six hundred persons. The plot was revealed
by a household servant. After a month's investigation, only fifty of the
thousand supposed to have been concerned were apprehended. Vesey,
with thirty-four others, was put to death. They died without revealing
their secrets.

Southampton Insurrection, Southampton County, Virginia, Nat Turner,
the leader of this insurrection, a slave preacher. His mother, it is said,
taught him that, like Moses, he was to be the deliverer of his race. Turner's
plan was to collect a large number of slaves in the Dismal swamp in the ex-
treme southeastern section of Virginia. August 21, he set out with six
companions, the band soon numbered sixty or more. Sixty white persons
on different plantations killed. The local militia and United States troops
were called out, and after more than a hundred insurrectionists had been
killed the uprising was crushed. Fifty-three Negroes were tried, twenty-
one were acquitted, twelve were convicted and sold out of the State, and
twenty others, including Turner and one woman, were hanged.

October 4. There was to be an uprising of the Negroes in Sampson, Dub-
lin and New Hanover Counties, North Carolina. They were to assemble
at Wilmington. Plot was revealed by a free Negro.
Slave insurrection in Charles County, Maryland.

April. Rumored uprising of slaves in Dorchester, Maryland.
Rumored slave insurrection in Prince George's County, Maryland.
October 16. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry. This was the last of
the attempted slave insurrections. Of the five Negroes who accompanied
him two were killed; two were captured and executed, one escaped. Os-
borne Perry Anderson, was a printer by trade, born July 27, 1830, at West
Fallowfield, Pennsylvania, died, December 13, 1872, at Washington, D. C.
John Anthony Copeland, Jr., for a time a student in Oberlin, was born free,
August 15, 1834, at Raleigh, North Carolina; executed December 16, 1859.
Shields Green, born a slave escaped from slavery on a sailing vessel from
Charleston, S. C.; executed December 16, 1859; he was said to have been
about twenty-three years of age. Lewis Sheridan Leary, saddler and har-
nessmaker, was born free at Fayetteville, North Carolina, March 17, 1835;
killed October 17, 1859. Dangerfield Newby was born a slave in 1815 in
Fauquier County, Virginia. His father, a Scotchman, freed his mulatto
children. Killed, October 17, 1859.

After the John Brown raid, rumor spread that there was to be a slave in-
surrection in the eastern portions of Maryland and Virginia.
October 19. Rumored slave insurrection at Frederick, Maryland.

Ballagh, J. C., History of Slavery in Virginia. ume 24.

REFERENCES

Johns Hopkins University Studies. Vol

Johns Hopkins University Studies,

Bassett, J. S., Slavery in the State of North Carolina. Series XVII.

Cooley, H. S., A Study of Slavery in New Jersey. Johns Hopkins University Studies Series IX. and X.

Williams, G. W., History of the Negro. Volume II Chapter VII.

Atlantic Monthly. Volumes VII and X.

Higginson, T. W., Travellers and Outlaws, 1889.

Drewry, W. S., Slave Insurrections in Virginia. 1900.

Coffin, Joshua, An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections. 1860.
Senate Documents. Fifty-ninth Congress.

Domestic Disturbances.

Cutler, J. E., Lynch Law. 1905.

Second Session. No. 209.

Federal Aid in

Walker, David, Walker's Appeal for Four Articles. 1829; Second Edition. 1830. Hart, A. B., Slavery and Abolition. New York. 1906.

1652.

Phillips, U. B., American Negro Slavery, New York, 1918.

ABOLITION AGITATION IN THE COLONIES.

First enactment in North America looking toward the abolition of slavery adopted by the Rhode Island Assembly. No person, black or white, to serve in bondage more than ten years or after the age of twenty-four years.

1688. First protest of a religious body against slavery made by the Friends Society of Germantown, Penn., under the leadership of Francis del Pastorious.

1696.

1711. 1716.

1716.

1729.

1729.

1737.

Yearly meetings of Friends of New Jersey and Pennsylvania votes to recommend to Friends that they cease from further importation of slaves. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends condemns importation of slaves. New Jersey Yearly Meeting of Friends advises against Friends buying or selling Negroes.

Dartmouth Monthly Meeting of Friends asks the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting "whether it be agreeable to truth for the Friends to purchase slaves and keep them for a term of life."

Philadelphia Yearly Friends Meeting memorialized to the effect that it was wrong to buy and import Negro slaves.

"The Mystery of Iniquity,” a condemnation of slavery, published by Ralph Sandiford.

Benjamin Lee publishes a volume condemning slavery.

1740. The North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends raises question of freeing slaves.

1746-67. John Woolman, of New Jersey, travels in the middle and southern colonies and preaches that "the practice of continuing slavery is not right.' 1750-80. Anthony Benezet, of Philadelphia, anti-slavery agitator, establishes and teaches gratuitously a school for Negroes, also influences Pennsylvania to begin in 1780 the work of emancipation.

1770. The Rev. Samuel Hopkins, of Newport, Rhode Island, attacks slavery. 1773. Dr. Benjamin Rush, eminent physician and philanthropist, publishes in Philadelphia an address against slavery.

1775.

1775.

1776.

1777.

1778.

1780.

April 14, first Abolition Society in America organized for promoting the abolition of slavery, the relief of free Negroes unlawfully held in bondage, and for improving the condition of the African race. (This Society is still in existence. See below Mission Boards of White Denominations, also Educational Funds, the "African Third.")

Petition presented to New Jersey Assembly to "pass an act to set free all the slaves now in the colony."

New Jersey Friends deny the right of membership in their society to slaveholders.

Vermont abolishes slavery. First colony to do this.

Governor Livingstone asks the New Jersey Assembly to make provision for the manumission of slaves.

Bill for gradual emancipation passes Upper House Connecticut Legislature. Slavery Declared To Be

Contrary To Laws

God Man Nature.

1778.

1780.

1780.

Virginia passes an act prohibiting the slave trade.

Pennsylvania prohibits further introduction of slaves.

The meeting of the Annual Methodist Conference at Baltimore put this question and answered it in the affirmative: "Does this conference acknowl

1782.

1783.

1785.

1785.

1786.

1786.

1786. 1786.

edge that slavery is contrary to the laws of God, man and nature and hurtful to society; contrary to the dictates of conscience, pure religion, and doing that which we would not that others should do to us and ours; do we pass our disapprobation on all our friends who keep slaves, and advise their freedom?"

May. A law bearing the title "An act to authorize the manumission of slaves" passed by the Virginia legislature.

The free Negro population of Virginia at that time was probably less than
3,000. It was more than doubled in the space of two years. In 1790 the
number of free colored persons was 12,866; in 1800, it had reached 20,000,
and according to the census of 1810 it was over 30,000.

Every Negro in Virginia who fought or served as a free man in the Revolu-
tionary War was given the legislative pledge of protection by the Virginia
Assembly and every slave who had rendered honorable service to the Ameri-
can cause was freed by special act at the expense of the State.
June 25. New York Abolition Society formed, John Jay, president and
Alexander Hamilton, secretary.
Kent, Caroline, Dorchester, Wor-

December. Citizens of Queen Anne's
cester, Talbot, and other counties in Maryland, present petitions to legis-
lature relative to abolition of slavery. Petition rejected by vote of 32 to

22.

New Jersey provides for manumission without security.
Society for promoting the abolition of slavery in New Jersey formed.
The Virginia Yearly Meeting of Friends condemns the slavery system.
Rhode Island Abolition Society organized.

ABOLITION AGITATION IN THE STATES.

1787. Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Friends presents petition for the Emancipation of slaves to the legislature. Petition rejected by vote of 30 to 17.

1789. Bill to promote gradual abolition of slavery and to prevent rigorous exportation of blacks from Maryland presented to legislature. 1789. September 8. Maryland Society organized for promoting the abolition of slavery and for ameliorating the condition of Negroes and others unlawfully held in bondage.

1789. Rhode Island Anti-slavery Society founded by Jonathan Edwards and others.

1790.

Connecticut Abolition Society organized, Dr. Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale College, president. 1791. Virginia Abolition Society organized.

1792.

1794.

1795.

1797.

1816.

Abolition Society formed in New Jersey.

First convention of Abolition Societies meets in Philadelphia, January 1;
ten states represented; Joseph Broomfield, afterwards Governor of New
Jersey and General in War of 1812, presiding, recommends that annual
addresses be delivered on the subject of "Slavery" and that there be an an-
nual convention of Abolition Societies. An address is sent forth to the
people of the United States, and a memorial presented to Congress, urging
it to pass a law to prohibit American citizens from supplying slaves to for-
eign nations, and to prevent foreigners from fitting out vessels in this country
for the African slave trade. This same year Congress passed a bill to that
effect.

American Convention of Abolition Societies sends addresses to South Caro-
lina and Georgia, calling upon them to ameliorate the condition of slaves,
and to diffuse knowledge among them, also an address to the people of the
United States demanding the universal emancipation of slaves.
Bill presented to Maryland legislature by citizens of Harford County for
the abolition of slavery.

Society for the Gradual Manumission of Slaves founded at Centre, North
Carolina, with several slaveholders as members.

1826. Abolition Societies hold_convention in Baltimore. Estimated that there

1827.

1828. 1829. 1831. 1831.

1832.

1833.

1833. 1833.

1837.

1845.

1848.

1851,

1857.

1859.

were one hundred and forty of these societies, one hundred and six of which were in the South. Eighty-one represented at the Baltimore convention Seventy-three of them from Southern States and forty from North Carolina alone.

About this time Massachusetts General Colored Anti-Slavery Association
formed.

The American Convention of Abolition Societies meets in Baltimore.
The American Convention of Abolition Societies meets in Washington.
January 1. Publication at Boston of the Liberator begins.

First annual convention of the People of Color, June 6-11, Philadelphia.
The New England Anti-Slavery Society founded January 6.
Anti-Slavery Society founded in Indiana.

New York Anti-Slavery Society founded.

The National Anti-Slavery Convention meets in Philadelphia, December 4.
Ten states represented. At this convention American Anti-Slavery Society
organized. Anti-Slavery Societies were now formed in all the Northern
States.

Memorial presented to United States Senate from General Assembly of Ver-
mont praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia.
Schism in the ranks of the Democratic Party over the question of extension
of American slave territory. Barn Burners opposed and Old Hunkers sup-
ported extension.

Connecticut decrees "that no person shall hereafter be held in slavery in this State and that no slave shall be brought into Connecticut." A law had already been passed (1784) providing for gradual abolition, but this law put an absolute end to slavery in that State.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin," by Harriet Beecher Stowe, begins as a serial in the National Era, Boston. First edition issued March 20, 1852.

"The Impending Crisis" by Hinton Rowan Helper, representing the "poor white" class in North Carolina. Demanding the abolition of slavery, the expulsion of the Negroes, and the destruction of the oligarchical despotism made possible by slavery. Circulation of this book forbidden in many parts of the South.

October 16. John Brown's raid on United States Government Arsenal at Harper's Ferry. December 2, John Brown executed. Of the five Negroes who were with John Brown at Harper's Ferry, one escaped, two were killed in the fight, and two were captured and executed. (See Slave Insurrections.)

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.

The secret routes for transporting fugitive slaves to the free States of the North and to Canada were popularly known as "underground railroads." Friends of the fleeing slaves, by systematic and co-operative efforts, aided them to elude the pursuit of the slave hunters.

There were at convenient distances "stations," that is, the houses of persons who held themselves in readiness to receive fugitives, singly or in numbers, at any hour of the day or at night, to feed, shelter and clothe, if necessary, and to conceal until they could be dispatched with safety to some other station along the route. There were other persons known as conductors who held themselves ready at all times to take the fugitives by private or public conveyance and transport them to the next station. If they went by private conveyance, they generally traveled in the night, by such routes and with such disguises as gave the best warrant against detection either by the slave catchers or their many sympathiz

ers.

As early as 1786, there are evidences of an underground road. A letter of George Washington, written in that year, speaks of a slave escaping from Virginia to Philadelphia, and being there aided by a society of Quakers formed for the purpose of assisting in liberating slaves. It was not, however, until after the War of 1812, that escaped slaves began to find their way by the underground roads in considerable numbers to Canada.

From Maine to Kansas, all the northern States were dotted with the underground stations, and covered with a net work of underground roads. It is estimated that between 1830 and 1860 over 9,000 slaves were aided to escape by

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