The Stono Rebellion: Crash Course Black American History #6 - By CrashCourse
Transcript
00:0-1 | Hi , I'm Clint smith and this is crash course | |
00:02 | black american history , as we mentioned before , enslaved | |
00:05 | people resisted their condition in a range of different ways | |
00:09 | . Oftentimes those ways were small and personal , slowing | |
00:13 | down the pace of work , pretending to be sick | |
00:16 | , purposefully misplacing your tools , things that might slow | |
00:19 | down the efficiency of the system and give back to | |
00:22 | the enslave some small sense of agency . There were | |
00:25 | also times when that resistance took on larger , more | |
00:29 | dramatic forms mike with slave uprisings and rebellions . We | |
00:33 | should note that notions of what constitutes as a successful | |
00:36 | versus an unsuccessful rebellion are often subjective , unhelpful , | |
00:41 | gendered and can really obfuscate the significance of the fact | |
00:44 | that such a rebellion took place at all . Still | |
00:48 | some of these uprisings have taken on notable historical significance | |
00:52 | and today we're going to talk about one of those | |
00:55 | and that's the stone of rebellion . Large plantations where | |
01:07 | black people outnumbered the white people who enslaved them . | |
01:10 | We're not at all uncommon to slavery in the Americas | |
01:13 | . This was especially true in south Carolina , where | |
01:15 | the colony was built on the demands of cash crop | |
01:17 | production , raising cash crops like tobacco and rice gave | |
01:21 | rise to plantations that were designed to grow as much | |
01:23 | of that valuable crop as possible and what those plantations | |
01:27 | needed more than anything was labour . The heavy reliance | |
01:31 | on slavery in the southern colonial economy resulted in a | |
01:34 | vast expansion of the practice in south Carolina . The | |
01:37 | high demand for enslaved labor led to a black majority | |
01:40 | in the colony and by the year 17 40 slavery | |
01:44 | in the colonies was no longer characterized only by african | |
01:47 | captives , but had grown to include black people who | |
01:50 | were born on american soil . The population of black | |
01:52 | people in south Carolina had risen to approximately 40,000 compared | |
01:57 | to 20,000 white people , making black people . About | |
02:00 | two thirds of the colonies , entire population . Moreover | |
02:04 | , ships were still bringing large numbers of african captives | |
02:06 | into south Carolina , adding to the growing enslaved population | |
02:10 | there and its demographics of the colony continued to change | |
02:14 | . My planters began to worry about being so outnumbered | |
02:17 | and about the potential of violent resistance , but instead | |
02:20 | of , I don't know , deciding that slavery was | |
02:23 | an unethical and morally unsustainable enterprise , they just decided | |
02:26 | to fight potential fire with fire . In response to | |
02:30 | the growing numbers of enslaved black people in the colony | |
02:32 | . In August of 1739 , South Carolina passed the | |
02:36 | Security Act requiring all white men to carry firearms to | |
02:39 | church . Each sunday before this act , it wasn't | |
02:42 | customary for white men in south Carolina to take their | |
02:45 | weapons to church , and also on Sundays , black | |
02:48 | people regularly worked unsupervised , but these planters wanted to | |
02:52 | be ready at a moment's notice anywhere they went to | |
02:55 | protect themselves from the enslaved people who they were worried | |
02:58 | might turn on them . But notably , this act | |
03:01 | was passed before the Stone of Rebellion took place and | |
03:04 | it wouldn't go into effect for another few weeks , | |
03:06 | estan or rebellion took place in that interim period . | |
03:09 | Also heightening the generalized sense of white fear in south | |
03:12 | Carolina was the spanish threat brewing . Nearby spanish control | |
03:16 | of florida . And although they also practiced slavery , | |
03:19 | the spanish were intent on disrupting colonial life in the | |
03:22 | english territory . So the spanish further disrupted the racial | |
03:26 | dynamics in the english colony by issuing a proclamation that | |
03:29 | with only a few stipulations , including converting to Catholicism | |
03:33 | , spain would grant freedom to any black person who | |
03:35 | can make it to ST Augustine florida . Many captives | |
03:38 | coming to Charlestown , which is present day charleston came | |
03:41 | from areas in west central africa , where the Portuguese | |
03:44 | had spread their language and religious beliefs and many of | |
03:47 | them Would have been aware of . The 1733 offer | |
03:50 | a growing black population , including some African natives not | |
03:53 | yet fully accustomed to plantation culture . In combination with | |
03:56 | the Spanish offer created the perfect storm for the stone | |
03:59 | oh rebellion to take place . This insurrection would become | |
04:03 | the largest the colony would ever face and one of | |
04:06 | the bloodiest in the United States history . Let's go | |
04:09 | to the thought bubble stone . No rebellion which erupted | |
04:11 | on Sunday nine September 1739 was led by an enslaved | |
04:15 | man named jimmy jimmy and those who fought alongside him | |
04:19 | chose sunday to revolt because they believed that it presented | |
04:23 | the best conditions to actually pull this thing off . | |
04:25 | Given that all of the planters and their families were | |
04:28 | at church and the enslaved were working largely unsupervised . | |
04:31 | We don't know too much about jimmy . Historical records | |
04:34 | suggest that he was from what is now Angola and | |
04:37 | many enslaved Africans who came to Carolina from Angola where | |
04:41 | in fact trained soldiers who had fought in the region | |
04:43 | civil war and who had experience with guns and jimmy | |
04:47 | May have been able to read Portuguese and Spanish , | |
04:50 | which increases the likelihood that he would have heard of | |
04:53 | the 1733 Spanish proclamation starting with just 20 enslaved people | |
04:57 | , Jimmy and the group acquired guns and ammunition by | |
05:00 | raiding a warehouse and marched up the stone of riverbanks | |
05:03 | carrying banners that plainly read liberty as they marched south | |
05:08 | . Others , seeing what was happening , dropped their | |
05:11 | tools and joined the group . By nightfall , the | |
05:14 | crowd swelled to nearly 100 black people willing to risk | |
05:17 | it all for their freedom . The rebels hoped to | |
05:19 | make their way to ST Augustine to gain their freedom | |
05:21 | or just 10 miles later , when they reach the | |
05:24 | Edisto River , white colonists overtook them , Killing an | |
05:27 | estimated 30 rebels . While some initially escaped , many | |
05:31 | were ultimately captured and executed . Others were sold and | |
05:35 | shipped off to the caribbean . As for jimmy , | |
05:39 | historians aren't really sure what happened to him . He's | |
05:42 | lost to the missing pages of history . Thanks thought | |
05:45 | bubble . These attacks weren't haphazard or indiscriminate . Many | |
05:49 | of the rebels had specific ideas of who they wanted | |
05:52 | to attack and who they didn't . As a result | |
05:55 | , some white people were spared along the way . | |
05:57 | A local tavern owner , for example , known to | |
06:00 | be relatively kind to his laborers was intentionally left alone | |
06:04 | . Some of the enslaved even protected therein slavers from | |
06:07 | the violence . one group shielded a Quaker man named | |
06:11 | Thomas Elliot by hiding him from the rebels as they | |
06:14 | approach the stone or rebellion was a moment of clarity | |
06:17 | for south Carolina authorities and they wanted to make sure | |
06:21 | that something like this would never happen again . But | |
06:24 | again , it's telling that they did not come to | |
06:26 | the conclusion that maybe slavery and the idea of holding | |
06:30 | large groups of people in intergenerational chattel bondage was actually | |
06:33 | the real problem . Instead , they blame the enslaved | |
06:37 | and they blame the spanish . The south Carolina government | |
06:41 | claimed that the negroes would not have made this insurrection | |
06:45 | had they not depended on ST Augustine for a place | |
06:48 | of reception . Afterwards , following the rebellion , South | |
06:51 | Carolina's House of Assembly passed a law called an act | |
06:54 | for the better ordering and governing of negros and other | |
06:57 | slaves in this province . And if this sounds like | |
07:00 | the slave codes we mentioned previously , you're right . | |
07:04 | It does . The legislation enacted by the south Carolina | |
07:07 | House of Assembly became another legal avenue to block Africans | |
07:11 | from obtaining any rights or liberties among the new statutes | |
07:15 | of limitations was a policy that made it illegal for | |
07:18 | enslaved people to learn how to read and write . | |
07:21 | Throughout the era of slavery , Planters wanted to prevent | |
07:24 | enslaved people from learning to read and write for a | |
07:26 | range of different reasons in this case , jimmy and | |
07:30 | his compatriots proud display of their liberty banner , as | |
07:33 | well as their knowledge of the spanish policy , prove | |
07:36 | that there were dangerous consequences for white planters who allowed | |
07:40 | their laborers to become literate . This idea would remain | |
07:42 | relevant more than 100 years later , In his 1845 | |
07:46 | memoir , Frederick Douglass , the formerly enslaved writer order | |
07:51 | and abolitionists quoted his own enslave er on the subject | |
07:54 | of literacy and enslaved people . If you teach him | |
07:57 | how to read , there would be no keeping him | |
08:00 | . It would forever unfit him to be a slave | |
08:03 | . He would at once become unmanageable and of no | |
08:06 | value to his master . This was an existential fear | |
08:10 | for the planters , who feared that literacy would allow | |
08:14 | enslaved people to recognize words , written clues and directions | |
08:17 | that could help them develop plans to escape . They | |
08:19 | even worried that the enslaved might forge freedom papers , | |
08:23 | which were official documents , that free black people needed | |
08:25 | to prove their free status as they could be stopped | |
08:28 | and questioned by suspecting whites at any time . White | |
08:30 | and slavers also enforced illiteracy to ensure that enslaved people | |
08:35 | couldn't form their own interpretations of biblical texts . Because | |
08:39 | many whites used the idea of evangelism and bringing Christianity | |
08:42 | to enslave people as justification for their enslavement . Many | |
08:46 | labourers were required to attend church services and listen to | |
08:49 | sermons that interpreted scripture to mean that God intended for | |
08:52 | Africans to be enslaved to Europeans , and that obedience | |
08:56 | to one's enslave er was necessary for them to get | |
08:59 | into heaven . So the thinking was if enslaved people | |
09:02 | learn how to read and write , they might come | |
09:04 | to understand that these preachings that they had heard from | |
09:06 | their own slavers , we're actually being manipulated to serve | |
09:09 | their own ideological ends . And to put the cherry | |
09:11 | on top schools were established in south Carolina to indoctrinate | |
09:16 | enslaved people with this ideologically infused interpretation of Christianity . | |
09:21 | These schools taught black people to believe that the institution | |
09:25 | of slavery was ordained by God and should not be | |
09:28 | challenged . This message was disseminated in hopes of discouraging | |
09:33 | any further violent rebellion . Authorities in south Carolina also | |
09:37 | created new policies that they hope might shift the demographics | |
09:40 | of the state , according to historian Peter would , | |
09:43 | After this , don't know , rebellion . Slave importations | |
09:46 | were cut by nearly 90% during the 1740s and policies | |
09:50 | were put in place to encourage immigration from europe , | |
09:53 | with the goal of increasing the white population in the | |
09:56 | colony , There were also some half hearted attempts to | |
09:59 | improve , if you can even call it , that | |
10:02 | the treatment of enslaved people planters could be penalized for | |
10:05 | especially cruel punishment and for imposing excessive work . Legislators | |
10:10 | hope that the improved conditions might reduce the chances of | |
10:13 | another rebellion . But the phrases , cruel punishment and | |
10:18 | excessive work should be understood in context , treating enslaved | |
10:23 | people with less cruelty continuing to keep them enslaved isn't | |
10:29 | really an act of benevolence . Therefore , we should | |
10:32 | be careful to note that these stipulations did not make | |
10:35 | slavery more humane . In south Carolina , slavery is | |
10:40 | still slavery . The record of the Stone Oh , | |
10:42 | Rebellion highlights the courage and bravery of enslaved black people | |
10:46 | who are willing to go to extreme lengths to gain | |
10:49 | their freedom . And I guess when you put it | |
10:51 | that way , it's not so different from the stories | |
10:53 | we've long been told of americans who are willing to | |
10:56 | sacrifice their lives for the prospect of liberty , Those | |
11:00 | who led and participated in the stoning a rebellion . | |
11:03 | We're not the first to rebel violently against slavery in | |
11:05 | the colonies and would certainly not be the last . | |
11:08 | And remember trying to determine whether a rebellion was successful | |
11:12 | or not kind of misses the point . The stone | |
11:16 | of rebellion isn't important because of its relative success or | |
11:19 | failure . It's important because it is emblematic of a | |
11:22 | resistance that will echo throughout the history of slavery . | |
11:25 | I hope you'll keep this in mind as we continue | |
11:27 | to celebrate the myriad forms of resistance that black americans | |
11:31 | have exhibited over time . Thanks for watching . I'll | |
11:35 | see you next time Crash course Black american history is | |
11:38 | made with the help of all these nice people and | |
11:40 | our animation team is thought Cafe Crash course is a | |
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11:52 | to support the content that you love . Thanks to | |
11:54 | all our patrons for making Crash course possible with your | |
11:57 | continued support . |
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