Throughout the history of slavery, revolts have usually been brutality crushed in order to set an example for the others. Despite that, uprisings have been a regular part of slave societies for as long as one can remember, going as far back as ancient Rome and Persia.
10. Stono Rebellion
The Stono rebellion of 1739 was the largest slave revolt in the Southern Colonies – an association of British-controlled territories in North America at the time. Beginning on September 9, 1739, it involved a number of slaves working on the plantations near the Stono river in South Carolina. They were possibly aiming to march towards Spanish St. Augustine, where Spain was offering freedom and property to all fugitive slaves from the British territories.
It was a violent uprising, as the rebels killed everyone on their way except one innkeeper. It didn’t last long, though, as the rebellion was put down by white militias and plantation owners on horseback within a few hours. Up to a hundred mutineers were killed by the end of it, along with more than 20 white residents killed during the march.
9. Jij Rebellion
By the beginning of the 19th century, slavery was a big part of the economy of Cape Colony – a rapidly-developing region in South Africa under British rule. While some resistance had always existed among the enslaved population, the uprising in 1808 – also called the Jij Rebellion – came as one of the first organized slave revolts in the colony.
It involved around 340 slaves mainly from the fertile and productive grain farms of Swartland and Koeberg. The effort was largely non-violent, as the bands overtook a number of farms, imprisoned the slave-owning families, and freed the slaves. They aimed to march on Cape Town and, in their own words, ‘hoist the bloody flag and fight themselves free’.
While they were successful for a while, the rebellion didn’t last. It was put down within 36 hours, with all of its main leaders sentenced to death or imprisoned. It failed to achieve its larger goals, though the 1808 uprising worked to strengthen revolutionary voices across Cape Colony, eventually leading to the complete abolition of slavery in the 1830s.
8. Amistad Mutiny
The Amistad Mutiny of 1939 took place on a ship of the same name traveling from Havana to Puerto Príncipe, Cuba. It was carrying 53 people recently kidnapped and sold into slavery, most of whom took part in the mutiny. Almost the entire crew of the ship was killed in the revolt, save for a few people required for the journey back home, like the navigator.
Instead of sailing towards Africa like the rebels demanded, however, the Spanish navigator kept moving the ship northwards, ending up in New London, Connecticut, where the rebels were then imprisoned. While Spain demanded that the slaves be returned to their rightful owners, the case wasn’t so clear-cut in the U.S., where the debate around abolition was just heating up.
In a highly-publicized Supreme Court ruling, it was decided that the defendants were illegally kidnapped and exercised their right to escape captivity. All of the 35 surviving captives were freed and transported back home to Sierra Leone, thanks to donations by local abolitionists and other private organizations.
7. Gabriel’s Conspiracy
Gabriel’s conspiracy was a rather ambitious slave rebellion planned across the state of Virginia around the turn of the 19th century. If successful, it would’ve been the largest slave revolts in U.S. history, likely resulting in the freedom of hundreds of slaves across one of the largest slave-holding states at the time. Organized by Gabriel, an enslaved Blacksmith working in and around Richmond, the plan involved slaves from at least eleven counties across Virginia, including Norfolk, Charlottesville, Caroline and Louisa.
According to the plan, on August 30, 1800, Gabriel’s army would move to overtake Capitol Square in Richmond, raid the armory, and kidnap the governor, along with parallel uprisings in Petersburg and Norfolk. It was a good plan and would have likely worked, too, if not for a huge thunderstorm that hit the city right on the day of the insurrection. As the rising water level made some of the planned routes impassable, they decided to postpone until the next day.
Before they could carry it out, though, two slaves in different places got nervous and told their masters about the whole thing. While they were eventually freed, the information resulted in a state-wide chase for the insurgents. By the end of it, 26 people – including Gabriel – were hanged for participating in the conspiracy.
6. Zanj Rebellion
The Zanj Rebellion is often described as one of the most violent and draw-out insurgencies of the early Islamic era. For 15 years beginning in 869, armies of the Abbasid Caliphate fought a bitter battle against east-African slaves – also called ‘Zanj’ – from the marshlands of southern Iraq and southern Iran. Led by a man of mysterious origins – Ali ibn Muhammad – the rebel force successfully repelled the Caliph’s armies for many years, even establishing a polity of their own deep in the marshes called al-Mukhtara.
While precise numbers are unknown, thousands of rebels took part in the years-long civil war, which had a devastating impact on the economy in and around the Basra region. Thousands of people lost their houses and livelihoods, as the rebels systematically destroyed the farmland owned by the landowners. Even major cities like Basra and Wasit were pillaged at one point, forcing much of the population to flee.
The rebels were ultimately defeated, though it came at a heavy price for the Caliph. The destruction caused by the Zanj rebellion gave rise to several regional dynasties, severely weakening the Abbasid Caliphate’s influence across the region and limiting its power to just its capital.
5. Nat Turner’s Rebellion
The Southampton Insurrection – also called Nat Turner’s rebellion after its leader – began on the evening of August 21, 1831. It was one of the most audacious slave revolts in U.S. history, as well as one of the most violent. Over the span of a single day, Turner and his close to 50 followers went around Southampton County and killed at least 55 people. They hoped to march towards the closest town, Jerusalem, where they could procure arms and men to continue the revolt.
Due to the lack of organization and planning on the part of the rebels, the uprising was quickly put down by local militias. Over three dozen rebels were killed as punishment, though Nat Turner himself evaded arrest for two months. The rebellion resulted in even stricter laws for the enslaved population in Virginia, vastly limiting their education and movement until the American Civil War.
4. Gaspar Yanga’s Revolt
In 1570, an African slave named Gaspar Yanga led hundreds of enslaved Africans in east-central Mexico – then called New Spain – into revolt. After killing 23 people, the band made their way to the foothills of the Veracruz mountains, where they established a small town – or palenque – to live on their own.
The experiment worked, too, at least for a while. For about 30 years, the colony waged guerilla warfare against Spanish forces and raided Spanish caravans, along with growing their own food and living sustainably off the Earth. Over time, anyone from the vast colony spread across the Veracruz region was referred to as a Yanguíco.
Despite their military superiority, Spain was never able to defeat the ex-slaves. The conflict ended with a peace treaty with Yanga, establishing the first colony of free slaves in North America.
3. German Coast Uprising
The 1811 uprising in what is now the Louisiana state was easily the largest slave revolt in U.S. history. Beginning on January 8 on one of the plantations on the German Coast – a region along the west bank of the Mississippi river primarily settled by German immigrants – the uprising would soon involve more than 500 enslaved people marching on New Orleans.
Unfortunately for them, the rebels hardly had the training to continue a sustained rebellion. They were barely armed, too, especially compared to the well-armed militias hired by plantation owners and forces of the federal government in New Orleans. The rebellion was put down by the morning of January 10, and many of the slaves were killed during the fighting or summarily executed soon after. To make an example and discourage other similar attempts, the authorities beheaded many of the bodies and placed their heads on poles across New Orleans and along the Mississippi river.
2. Baptist War
Also known as the Christmas Rebellion, the Baptist War was the largest slave rebellion in the British Caribbean. While the numbers are disputed, anywhere between 20,000 to 300,000 slaves from the colony of Jamaica took part in the uprising, beginning on December 25, 1831. For about eleven days, rebels around the St. James parish and nearby countryside refused to work as slaves and demanded full emancipation, even occasionally attacking the property of white landowners to have their demands met.
The rebellion was eventually put down by British counter-insurgency forces and local militias. About 200 rebels were killed during the fighting, along with more than 340 that were later tried and executed. While it failed to achieve its goals, the revolt heavily influenced parliamentary debates around slavery back in Britain, eventually leading to the introduction of the Emancipation Bill of 1933.
1. Haitian Revolution
The revolution of Haiti remains the only slave revolt in history that succeeded in forming a state of its own. Known as Saint-Domingue under French rule, it was easily one of the most lucrative colonies in the world at that time, accounting for nearly two-thirds of all overseas trade in France. Beginning with an organized slave revolt in August, 1791, the revolution would take another twelve years to fully materialize, ultimately resulting in the establishment of the independent republic of Haiti.
While the conflict was restricted to Haiti, it involved multiple other actors looking out for their own interests in the region, including Spain and England. Even by the most conservative estimates, more than 350,000 people lost their lives in the bitter conflict between France and temporary alliances of other colonial powers with Haitian slaves.
By the turn of the century, many parts of Saint-Domingue were under the control of ex-slaves. While Napoleon Bonaparte made a last-ditch effort to retake the colony by sending an invasion force, it was defeated by rebel leaders like Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who’d go on to become the first ruler of the new republic. The conflict officially ended with the Haitian Declaration of Independence on January 1, 1804, which abolished slavery and granted equal rights to all of its citizens.