Post by anansi on Apr 11, 2010 0:42:41 GMT -5
With the current trend to re-whiting history from Texas school boards Virginia politicos wanting to tell the civil-war narrative with-out mentioning slavery, I re-post this here often talked about but still mis-understood aspect of the African experience in the new world that Africans and people of African decent did not simply lay down and accept their oppression..they fought and did so with honor,they used various means to unite and fight their enemies,sometimes with allies form native-Americans sometimes with indentured white slaves and at times with no friends at all,they used what ever spiritual beliefs to aid them from Christianity to some of ancient African oldest religious beliefs.
Yanga, Gaspar (c. 1545- ?)
Known as the Primer Libertador de America or “first liberator of the Americas,” Gaspar Yanga led one of colonial Mexico’s first successful slave uprisings and would go on to establish one of the Americas earliest free black settlements.
Rumored to be of royal lineage from West Africa, Yanga was an enslaved worker in the sugarcane plantations of Veracruz, Mexico. In 1570 he, along with a group of followers, escaped, fled to the mountainous regions near Córdoba, and established a settlement of former slaves or palenque. They remained there virtually unmolested by Spanish authorities for nearly 40 years. Taking the role of spiritual and military leader, he structured the agricultural community in an ordered capacity, allowing its growth and occupation of various locations.
During that time, Yanga and his band, also known as cimarrónes, were implicated in the disruption and looting of trade goods along the Camino Real (Royal Road) between Veracruz and Mexico City. They were also held responsible for attacking nearby haciendas and kidnapping indigenous women. Perceived as dangerous to the colonial system of slavery through their daring actions against royal commerce and authority, New Spain’s viceroy called for the annihilation of Yanga's palenque. Destroying the community and its leader would send a message to other would-be rebellious slaves that Spain’s authority over them was absolute.
In 1609, Spanish authorities sent a well-armed militia to defeat Yanga and his palenque but were defeated. Yanga’s surprise victory over the Spanish heightened the confidence of his warriors and the frustration in Mexico City.
After defeating other Spanish forces sent again the palenque, Yanga offered to make peace but with eleven conditions, the most important being recognition of the freedom of all of the palenque’s residents prior to 1608, acknowledgment of the settlement as a legal entity which Yanga and his descendants would govern, and the prohibition of any Spanish in the community. Yanga, in turn, promised to serve and pay tribute to the Spanish crown. After years of negotiations, in 1618, the town of San Lorenzo de Los Negros was officially recognized by Spanish authorities as a free black settlement. It would later be referred to as Yanga, named after its founder.
Sources:
www.blackpast.org/?q=gah/yanga-gaspar-c-1545
Jamaican Maroons
Jamaican Maroon* Captain Leonard Parkinson, 1796
The history of the Maroons primarily is the saga of Africans who refused to live in slavery, and it begins on the island of Jamaica with the fleeing of the Spanish in 1655. The name Maroon is the British corruption of the Spanish cimarrones, meaning wild or untamed. Living in inaccessible regions of Jamaica, the numbers of the Maroons grew as more and more runaway slaves, this time from the new British plantations, flocked to their cause, and with their continual raiding of the British plantations, they rapidly became a thorn in the side of the British colonists. Unique among all Africans that were brought to the New World as slaves, the Maroons earned for themselves an autonomy that no other African slaves could. (Wikipedia) In 1795-6 the Maroons of Jamaica revolted against the colonial government. The revolt failed. At the request of Jamaica about six hundred Maroons were then transported to Nova Scotia and given assistance in settling here. In 1800 virtually all of them emigrated to Sierra Leone.
www.brh.org.uk/gallery/slavery.html
King Zumbi
Quilombos — Our forefathers bequeathed to us the oral tradition! telling one to the other the history of a people, that is, a group of black slaves who fled from the plantations in the northeastern region of Brazil and founded an independent village. That place of difficult access, called Palmares, rests in Serra da Barriga, which, today in the State of Alagoas, was at that time a capitancy of the state of Pernambuco.
The black men and women, who escaped from the terrible holocaust of slavery, were called the quilombolas. They rallied together the indigenous people and the white allies, and the free Republics that were formed by these groups were called quilombos.
Palmares — History records many qullombos; nevertheless, the Quilombo of Palmares, the greatest in extension and duration and spreading across various points of the sierra, endured practically 100 years, between 1600 and 1695. Around 1654, the Quilombo of Palmares was composed of many villages where the escaped Africans lived in freedom. Among them were:
Macaco — in Serra da Barriga, with 8,000 habitants
Amaro — in the northeast of Serinhadm, with 5,000 habitants
Sucupira — 80krn from Macaco
Zumbi — to the northeast of Porto Calvo
Osenga — 20km from Macaco
The total population of Palmares in that period reached 20,000 habitants who represented 15% of Brazil's population. With the quilombos, the maintenance of African identity and of the costumes functioned as the cement of the communities, stimulating numerous slave escapes from the surrounding sugar plantations.
In Palmares, the Africans would sing:
Rest Africans, whites won't come here,
rest Africans, whites won't come here,
if they come, to rags they will go.
Zumbi — One of the most famous leaders of Palmares was Zumibi, who was born in 1655 in one of the villages of Palmares. As a child, he was captured by soldiers and given to Father Antonio Melo from the parish of Porto Calvo. He studied Portuguese and Latin, was an altar boy, and was baptized with the name of Francisco.
At 15 years old, in 1670, he fled from the parish and returned to Palmares. He became a great leader by having overcome ordeals and by not "whitening" himself. Courageous, with the capacity to organize and command, he became a myth among African Brazilians — not a hidden myth, but one that revealed. Zumbi means: the force and spirit of the present .
The defeat of Palmares was only possible when the authorities of the colony appealed to the frontier explorer, Domingos Jorge Velho, who armed an expedition against Palmares in 1694. After much fighting, Zumbi was martyred and died on November 20, 1695.
www.tributetoafrica.com/onlinestore/Zumbi.html
Nat Turner:
Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia, the week before Gabriel was hanged. While still a young child, Nat was overheard describing events that had happened before he was born. This, along with his keen intelligence, and other signs marked him in the eyes of his people as a prophet "intended for some great purpose." A deeply religious man, he "therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped [him]self in mystery, devoting [his] time to fasting and praying."
In 1821, Turner ran away from his overseer, returning after thirty days because of a vision in which the Spirit had told him to "return to the service of my earthly master." The next year, following the death of his master, Samuel Turner, Nat was sold to Thomas Moore. Three years later, Nat Turner had another vision. He saw lights in the sky and prayed to find out what they meant. Then "... while laboring in the field, I discovered drops of blood on the corn, as though it were dew from heaven, and I communicated it to many, both white and black, in the neighborhood; and then I found on the leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters and numbers, with the forms of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood, and representing the figures I had seen before in the heavens."
On May 12, 1828, Turner had his third vision: "I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first... And by signs in the heavens that it would make known to me when I should commence the great work, and until the first sign appeared I should conceal it from the knowledge of men; and on the appearance of the sign... I should arise and prepare myself and slay my enemies with their own weapons."
At the beginning of the year 1830, Turner was moved to the home of Joseph Travis, the new husband of Thomas Moore's widow. His official owner was Putnum Moore, still a young child. Turner described Travis as a kind master, against whom he had no complaints.
Then, in February, 1831, there was an eclipse of the sun. Turner took this to be the sign he had been promised and confided his plan to the four men he trusted the most, Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam. They decided to hold the insurrection on the 4th of July and began planning a strategy. However, they had to postpone action because Turner became ill.
On August 13, there was an atmospheric disturbance in which the sun appeared bluish-green. This was the final sign, and a week later, on August 21, Turner and six of his men met in the woods to eat a dinner and make their plans. At 2:00 that morning, they set out to the Travis household, where they killed the entire family as they lay sleeping. They continued on, from house to house, killing all of the white people they encountered. Turner's force eventually consisted of more than 40 slaves, most on horseback.
By about mid-day on August 22, Turner decided to march toward Jerusalem, the closest town. By then word of the rebellion had gotten out to the whites; confronted by a group of militia, the rebels scattered, and Turner's force became disorganized. After spending the night near some slave cabins, Turner and his men attempted to attack another house, but were repulsed. Several of the rebels were captured. The remaining force then met the state and federal troops in final skirmish, in which one slave was killed and many escaped, including Turner. In the end, the rebels had stabbed, shot and clubbed at least 55 white people to death.
Nat Turner hid in several different places near the Travis farm, but on October 30 was discovered and captured. His "Confession," dictated to physician Thomas R. Gray, was taken while he was imprisoned in the County Jail. On November 5, Nat Turner was tried in the Southampton County Court and sentenced to execution. He was hanged, and then skinned, on November 11.
In total, the state executed 55 people, banished many more, and acquitted a few. The state reimbursed the slaveholders for their slaves. But in the hysterical climate that followed the rebellion, close to 200 black people, many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion, were murdered by white mobs. In addition, slaves as far away as North Carolina were accused of having a connection with the insurrection, and were subsequently tried and executed.
The state legislature of Virginia considered abolishing slavery, but in a close vote decided to retain slavery and to support a repressive policy against black people, slave and free.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h501b.html
cwmemory.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Nat_Turner_woodcut.jpg
Haiti
For several years the slaves had been deserting their plantations with increasing frequency. The numbers of maroons had swollen dramatically and all that was needed was some spark to ignite the pent up frustration, hatred and impulse toward independence.
This event was a Petwo Voodoo service. On the evening of August 14th Dutty Boukman, a houngan and practitioner of the Petwo Voodoo cult, held a service at Bois Caiman. A woman at the service was possessed by Ogoun, the Voodoo warrior spirit. She sacrificed a black pig, and speaking the voice of the spirit, named those who were to lead the slaves and maroons to revolt and seek a stark justice from their white oppressors. (Ironically, it was the whites and not the people of color who were the targets of the revolution, even though the people of color were often very harsh slave owners.)
The man named Boukman, Jean-Francois, Biassou and Jeannot as the leaders of the uprising. It was some time later before Toussaint, Henry Christophe, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Andre Rigaud took their places as the leading generals who brought The Haitian Revolution to its final triumph.
exploring-africa.blogspot.com/2008/12/portrayal-of-submissive-african.html
Nanny
Queen Nanny is presumed to have been born around the 1680’s in Africa’s Gold Coast (now known as Ghana). She was reported to belong to either the Ashanti or Akan tribe and came to Jamaica as a free woman. It is possible that Queen Nanny brought slaves of her own, reportedly being of royal African blood. It was not uncommon for African dignitaries to keep slaves. She was said to be married to a man named Adou, but had no children. She died in the 1730’s.
Moore Town is now the primary town of the Windward Maroons – it was founded in 1734 after the British destroyed the original Maroon town, which was known as ‘Nanny Town’.
Historical Maroon Identity and Culture
Slaves imported to Jamaica from Africa came from the Gold Coast, the Congo and Madagascar. The dominant group among Maroon communities was from the Gold Coast. In Jamaica this group was referred to as Coromantie or Koromantee. They were fierce and ferocious fighters with a preference for resistance, survival and above all freedom and refused to become slaves. Between 1655 until the 1830’s they led most of the slave rebellions in Jamaica.
The slave rebellion the country tried to forget
John Horse
Few Americans know his story, but the Black Seminole warrior John Horse (1812-1882) was probably the most successful black freedom fighter in U.S. history. His accomplishments were amazing, despite his obscurity. In Florida, he rose to lead the holdouts in the country's largest slave uprising. For forty years afterwards he led his people, the African allies of Seminole Indians, on an epic quest from Florida to Mexico to secure a free homeland.
Imagine that the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history had gone unrecognized for more than a century and a half, even by the country's leading scholars. Imagine further that the rebellion was not some obscure event in a rural backwater, but a series of mass escapes that took place in conjunction with the largest Indian war in U.S. history and that resulted in a massive, well-documented destruction of personal property. How could scholars forget such an event? And what would such an oversight say about the country? A country that had robbed generations of the story of its most successful black freedom fighters. A country that had taught its children a lie, that over the first American century, only white men fought for freedom and won.
There is no need to imagine such a scenario, because the scenario is true.
Slave Uprising: Six story panels on the uprising's peak in 1836.
The rebellion
From 1835-1838 in Florida, the Black Seminoles, the African allies of Seminole Indians, led the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history.[1] The uprising peaked in 1836 when hundreds of slaves fled their plantations to join the rebel forces in the Second Seminole War (1835-1842). At the heights of the revolt, at least 385 slaves fought alongside the black and Indian Seminole allies, helping them destroy more than twenty-one sugar plantations in central Florida, at the time one of the most highly developed agricultural regions in North America.[2]
spacer Three enemies, one war
spacer
During the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), the U.S. fought rebels from three distinct communities:
Seminole Indians: The largest enemy force and the only one the South preferred to acknowledge.
Black Seminoles: Black allies with established ties to the Indians, known as maroons or Seminole Negroes.
Plantation slaves: Recent recruits who fled plantations at the outset of the war.
Amazingly, one would hardly know any of this from the country's textbooks. For over 150 years, American scholars have failed to recognize the true size and scope of the 1835-1838 rebellion. Historians have focused on the Indian warriors of the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), with some attention to the maroon fighters (the Black Seminoles) but almost none to the plantation-slaves.[3]
The omission fits a general pattern in American history. In a trend dating back to the country's earliest national histories, scholars have tended to downplay all incidence of slave resistance. Contemporary scholars may believe that they have overcome this legacy, and yet their failure to identify the country's largest slave revolt speaks to the contrary.
www.johnhorse.com/
Yanga, Gaspar (c. 1545- ?)
Known as the Primer Libertador de America or “first liberator of the Americas,” Gaspar Yanga led one of colonial Mexico’s first successful slave uprisings and would go on to establish one of the Americas earliest free black settlements.
Rumored to be of royal lineage from West Africa, Yanga was an enslaved worker in the sugarcane plantations of Veracruz, Mexico. In 1570 he, along with a group of followers, escaped, fled to the mountainous regions near Córdoba, and established a settlement of former slaves or palenque. They remained there virtually unmolested by Spanish authorities for nearly 40 years. Taking the role of spiritual and military leader, he structured the agricultural community in an ordered capacity, allowing its growth and occupation of various locations.
During that time, Yanga and his band, also known as cimarrónes, were implicated in the disruption and looting of trade goods along the Camino Real (Royal Road) between Veracruz and Mexico City. They were also held responsible for attacking nearby haciendas and kidnapping indigenous women. Perceived as dangerous to the colonial system of slavery through their daring actions against royal commerce and authority, New Spain’s viceroy called for the annihilation of Yanga's palenque. Destroying the community and its leader would send a message to other would-be rebellious slaves that Spain’s authority over them was absolute.
In 1609, Spanish authorities sent a well-armed militia to defeat Yanga and his palenque but were defeated. Yanga’s surprise victory over the Spanish heightened the confidence of his warriors and the frustration in Mexico City.
After defeating other Spanish forces sent again the palenque, Yanga offered to make peace but with eleven conditions, the most important being recognition of the freedom of all of the palenque’s residents prior to 1608, acknowledgment of the settlement as a legal entity which Yanga and his descendants would govern, and the prohibition of any Spanish in the community. Yanga, in turn, promised to serve and pay tribute to the Spanish crown. After years of negotiations, in 1618, the town of San Lorenzo de Los Negros was officially recognized by Spanish authorities as a free black settlement. It would later be referred to as Yanga, named after its founder.
Sources:
www.blackpast.org/?q=gah/yanga-gaspar-c-1545
Jamaican Maroons
Jamaican Maroon* Captain Leonard Parkinson, 1796
The history of the Maroons primarily is the saga of Africans who refused to live in slavery, and it begins on the island of Jamaica with the fleeing of the Spanish in 1655. The name Maroon is the British corruption of the Spanish cimarrones, meaning wild or untamed. Living in inaccessible regions of Jamaica, the numbers of the Maroons grew as more and more runaway slaves, this time from the new British plantations, flocked to their cause, and with their continual raiding of the British plantations, they rapidly became a thorn in the side of the British colonists. Unique among all Africans that were brought to the New World as slaves, the Maroons earned for themselves an autonomy that no other African slaves could. (Wikipedia) In 1795-6 the Maroons of Jamaica revolted against the colonial government. The revolt failed. At the request of Jamaica about six hundred Maroons were then transported to Nova Scotia and given assistance in settling here. In 1800 virtually all of them emigrated to Sierra Leone.
www.brh.org.uk/gallery/slavery.html
King Zumbi
Quilombos — Our forefathers bequeathed to us the oral tradition! telling one to the other the history of a people, that is, a group of black slaves who fled from the plantations in the northeastern region of Brazil and founded an independent village. That place of difficult access, called Palmares, rests in Serra da Barriga, which, today in the State of Alagoas, was at that time a capitancy of the state of Pernambuco.
The black men and women, who escaped from the terrible holocaust of slavery, were called the quilombolas. They rallied together the indigenous people and the white allies, and the free Republics that were formed by these groups were called quilombos.
Palmares — History records many qullombos; nevertheless, the Quilombo of Palmares, the greatest in extension and duration and spreading across various points of the sierra, endured practically 100 years, between 1600 and 1695. Around 1654, the Quilombo of Palmares was composed of many villages where the escaped Africans lived in freedom. Among them were:
Macaco — in Serra da Barriga, with 8,000 habitants
Amaro — in the northeast of Serinhadm, with 5,000 habitants
Sucupira — 80krn from Macaco
Zumbi — to the northeast of Porto Calvo
Osenga — 20km from Macaco
The total population of Palmares in that period reached 20,000 habitants who represented 15% of Brazil's population. With the quilombos, the maintenance of African identity and of the costumes functioned as the cement of the communities, stimulating numerous slave escapes from the surrounding sugar plantations.
In Palmares, the Africans would sing:
Rest Africans, whites won't come here,
rest Africans, whites won't come here,
if they come, to rags they will go.
Zumbi — One of the most famous leaders of Palmares was Zumibi, who was born in 1655 in one of the villages of Palmares. As a child, he was captured by soldiers and given to Father Antonio Melo from the parish of Porto Calvo. He studied Portuguese and Latin, was an altar boy, and was baptized with the name of Francisco.
At 15 years old, in 1670, he fled from the parish and returned to Palmares. He became a great leader by having overcome ordeals and by not "whitening" himself. Courageous, with the capacity to organize and command, he became a myth among African Brazilians — not a hidden myth, but one that revealed. Zumbi means: the force and spirit of the present .
The defeat of Palmares was only possible when the authorities of the colony appealed to the frontier explorer, Domingos Jorge Velho, who armed an expedition against Palmares in 1694. After much fighting, Zumbi was martyred and died on November 20, 1695.
www.tributetoafrica.com/onlinestore/Zumbi.html
Nat Turner:
Nat Turner was born on October 2, 1800, in Southampton County, Virginia, the week before Gabriel was hanged. While still a young child, Nat was overheard describing events that had happened before he was born. This, along with his keen intelligence, and other signs marked him in the eyes of his people as a prophet "intended for some great purpose." A deeply religious man, he "therefore studiously avoided mixing in society, and wrapped [him]self in mystery, devoting [his] time to fasting and praying."
In 1821, Turner ran away from his overseer, returning after thirty days because of a vision in which the Spirit had told him to "return to the service of my earthly master." The next year, following the death of his master, Samuel Turner, Nat was sold to Thomas Moore. Three years later, Nat Turner had another vision. He saw lights in the sky and prayed to find out what they meant. Then "... while laboring in the field, I discovered drops of blood on the corn, as though it were dew from heaven, and I communicated it to many, both white and black, in the neighborhood; and then I found on the leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters and numbers, with the forms of men in different attitudes, portrayed in blood, and representing the figures I had seen before in the heavens."
On May 12, 1828, Turner had his third vision: "I heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first... And by signs in the heavens that it would make known to me when I should commence the great work, and until the first sign appeared I should conceal it from the knowledge of men; and on the appearance of the sign... I should arise and prepare myself and slay my enemies with their own weapons."
At the beginning of the year 1830, Turner was moved to the home of Joseph Travis, the new husband of Thomas Moore's widow. His official owner was Putnum Moore, still a young child. Turner described Travis as a kind master, against whom he had no complaints.
Then, in February, 1831, there was an eclipse of the sun. Turner took this to be the sign he had been promised and confided his plan to the four men he trusted the most, Henry, Hark, Nelson, and Sam. They decided to hold the insurrection on the 4th of July and began planning a strategy. However, they had to postpone action because Turner became ill.
On August 13, there was an atmospheric disturbance in which the sun appeared bluish-green. This was the final sign, and a week later, on August 21, Turner and six of his men met in the woods to eat a dinner and make their plans. At 2:00 that morning, they set out to the Travis household, where they killed the entire family as they lay sleeping. They continued on, from house to house, killing all of the white people they encountered. Turner's force eventually consisted of more than 40 slaves, most on horseback.
By about mid-day on August 22, Turner decided to march toward Jerusalem, the closest town. By then word of the rebellion had gotten out to the whites; confronted by a group of militia, the rebels scattered, and Turner's force became disorganized. After spending the night near some slave cabins, Turner and his men attempted to attack another house, but were repulsed. Several of the rebels were captured. The remaining force then met the state and federal troops in final skirmish, in which one slave was killed and many escaped, including Turner. In the end, the rebels had stabbed, shot and clubbed at least 55 white people to death.
Nat Turner hid in several different places near the Travis farm, but on October 30 was discovered and captured. His "Confession," dictated to physician Thomas R. Gray, was taken while he was imprisoned in the County Jail. On November 5, Nat Turner was tried in the Southampton County Court and sentenced to execution. He was hanged, and then skinned, on November 11.
In total, the state executed 55 people, banished many more, and acquitted a few. The state reimbursed the slaveholders for their slaves. But in the hysterical climate that followed the rebellion, close to 200 black people, many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion, were murdered by white mobs. In addition, slaves as far away as North Carolina were accused of having a connection with the insurrection, and were subsequently tried and executed.
The state legislature of Virginia considered abolishing slavery, but in a close vote decided to retain slavery and to support a repressive policy against black people, slave and free.
www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h501b.html
cwmemory.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/Nat_Turner_woodcut.jpg
Haiti
For several years the slaves had been deserting their plantations with increasing frequency. The numbers of maroons had swollen dramatically and all that was needed was some spark to ignite the pent up frustration, hatred and impulse toward independence.
This event was a Petwo Voodoo service. On the evening of August 14th Dutty Boukman, a houngan and practitioner of the Petwo Voodoo cult, held a service at Bois Caiman. A woman at the service was possessed by Ogoun, the Voodoo warrior spirit. She sacrificed a black pig, and speaking the voice of the spirit, named those who were to lead the slaves and maroons to revolt and seek a stark justice from their white oppressors. (Ironically, it was the whites and not the people of color who were the targets of the revolution, even though the people of color were often very harsh slave owners.)
The man named Boukman, Jean-Francois, Biassou and Jeannot as the leaders of the uprising. It was some time later before Toussaint, Henry Christophe, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Andre Rigaud took their places as the leading generals who brought The Haitian Revolution to its final triumph.
exploring-africa.blogspot.com/2008/12/portrayal-of-submissive-african.html
Nanny
Queen Nanny is presumed to have been born around the 1680’s in Africa’s Gold Coast (now known as Ghana). She was reported to belong to either the Ashanti or Akan tribe and came to Jamaica as a free woman. It is possible that Queen Nanny brought slaves of her own, reportedly being of royal African blood. It was not uncommon for African dignitaries to keep slaves. She was said to be married to a man named Adou, but had no children. She died in the 1730’s.
Moore Town is now the primary town of the Windward Maroons – it was founded in 1734 after the British destroyed the original Maroon town, which was known as ‘Nanny Town’.
Historical Maroon Identity and Culture
Slaves imported to Jamaica from Africa came from the Gold Coast, the Congo and Madagascar. The dominant group among Maroon communities was from the Gold Coast. In Jamaica this group was referred to as Coromantie or Koromantee. They were fierce and ferocious fighters with a preference for resistance, survival and above all freedom and refused to become slaves. Between 1655 until the 1830’s they led most of the slave rebellions in Jamaica.
The slave rebellion the country tried to forget
John Horse
Few Americans know his story, but the Black Seminole warrior John Horse (1812-1882) was probably the most successful black freedom fighter in U.S. history. His accomplishments were amazing, despite his obscurity. In Florida, he rose to lead the holdouts in the country's largest slave uprising. For forty years afterwards he led his people, the African allies of Seminole Indians, on an epic quest from Florida to Mexico to secure a free homeland.
Imagine that the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history had gone unrecognized for more than a century and a half, even by the country's leading scholars. Imagine further that the rebellion was not some obscure event in a rural backwater, but a series of mass escapes that took place in conjunction with the largest Indian war in U.S. history and that resulted in a massive, well-documented destruction of personal property. How could scholars forget such an event? And what would such an oversight say about the country? A country that had robbed generations of the story of its most successful black freedom fighters. A country that had taught its children a lie, that over the first American century, only white men fought for freedom and won.
There is no need to imagine such a scenario, because the scenario is true.
Slave Uprising: Six story panels on the uprising's peak in 1836.
The rebellion
From 1835-1838 in Florida, the Black Seminoles, the African allies of Seminole Indians, led the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history.[1] The uprising peaked in 1836 when hundreds of slaves fled their plantations to join the rebel forces in the Second Seminole War (1835-1842). At the heights of the revolt, at least 385 slaves fought alongside the black and Indian Seminole allies, helping them destroy more than twenty-one sugar plantations in central Florida, at the time one of the most highly developed agricultural regions in North America.[2]
spacer Three enemies, one war
spacer
During the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), the U.S. fought rebels from three distinct communities:
Seminole Indians: The largest enemy force and the only one the South preferred to acknowledge.
Black Seminoles: Black allies with established ties to the Indians, known as maroons or Seminole Negroes.
Plantation slaves: Recent recruits who fled plantations at the outset of the war.
Amazingly, one would hardly know any of this from the country's textbooks. For over 150 years, American scholars have failed to recognize the true size and scope of the 1835-1838 rebellion. Historians have focused on the Indian warriors of the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), with some attention to the maroon fighters (the Black Seminoles) but almost none to the plantation-slaves.[3]
The omission fits a general pattern in American history. In a trend dating back to the country's earliest national histories, scholars have tended to downplay all incidence of slave resistance. Contemporary scholars may believe that they have overcome this legacy, and yet their failure to identify the country's largest slave revolt speaks to the contrary.
www.johnhorse.com/