In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

- 3 introduction ,  ,  , stories shape lives and perspectives. Thus, how history is told generation after generation is crucial. I am reminded of an event from my own childhood in South Carolina. I cannot recall the exact circumstances , but on one occasion a friend’s father told me that, in fact, African Americans had it easy during slavery.When I told my father about this conversation, he was apparently disturbed and decided this was a teachable moment. He took me to the county courthouse and showed me a list etched into a wall of all the men from Orangeburg County who had died fighting in the Civil War. “Son,” he said, “do you see how many Shulers are up on that wall?” “Yes,” I said, “almost more than any other last name.” “That’s right. And do you know why?” I thought for a moment but could not figure it out. “I’ll tell you,” my father said. “They were either bad shots, or they were fighting for the wrong cause. I reckon it’s the latter.” But there are other stories about slavery. One goes like this: on Sunday, September 9, 1739, a group of Kongolese slaves broke into a storehouse about fifteen miles south of Charles Town in the colony of South Carolina. The slaves, now rebels, killed the two storekeepers and took all the guns and powder they could carry. Led by a man named either Jemmy or Cato, the rebels moved southward and killed about twenty-three white colonists, destroyed property, recruited other slaves to join them, and marched toward Spanish Florida, where they expected to find freedom. Before the day ended, they encountered, of all people, South Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor William Bull, who hastened away to alert the local militia. In the meantime, the rebels were spotted in an open field dancing and playing - 4 introduction drums—a call to arms, a preparation for battle.They were soon surrounded by the militia, and in the battle that ensued militia members noted that many among the rebels fought like well-trained soldiers, using flags and fighting in formation. And yet they were outnumbered. The rebellion was put down and many slaves were executed. Some of the rebels escaped into the woods; one was not captured for several years. Soon after the Stono Rebellion, the South Carolina government passed a comprehensive legal code called the Negro Act that helped to re-enforce white power in the colony. This act placed strict controls over the ability of slaves to communicate with one another: the pass system was codified; literacy and drums were outlawed; and blacks could no longer congregate in public. The only positive provisions for slaves were limits on workloads and a ban on the most severe punishments. But the institution of slavery was not abandoned by any means. This legal code, a result of the rebellion, would become a model for slave codes in the American colonies and in the United States for years to come, providing another pillar of support for the plantation regime. Few primary sources on the Stono Rebellion survive, but those that do reveal it to have been an event of some significance for South Carolina and the slave trade—a moment of uncertainty and of choices made that caused widespread reverberations in the Atlantic world.This rebellion had international political implications: white colonists believed that the Spanish, foes of the British, were offering slaves their freedom in Florida if they rebelled. However, displacing the blame for rebellion may also have been a way for South Carolina’s colonial government to assuage fears of future rebellion and negate perceived risk factors of trading with the colony. Disease was taking a toll on South Carolina’s population, and the colony needed to attract new residents; frequent slave rebellions would not serve as an enticing selling point. After the rebellion was put down, the Benjamin Franklin– supported South Carolina Gazette chose to ignore the event, despite the fact that it was one of the largest slave rebellions in North America to date. But word of the rebellion leaked. Correspondence from colonists before and after the rebellion depicts the shaky social and political climate of South Carolina and, in essence, of the European colonial design in general. Letters by Robert Pringle and Andrew Leslie, a minister for the Society for Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, cross the ocean and reveal heightened colonial anxieties and desires for swift retribution. Reports of the...

Share