Stono Rebellion (9-12)

The Stono Rebellion of 1739 occurred in South Carolina and was the largest slave revolt in colonial American history. Some eighty enslaved people took up arms and marched south toward Spanish Florida, where they hoped to find freedom. They killed some two dozen whites along the way. Eventually, the insurgents were killed or captured by a white South Carolinian militia. In response to the uprising, South Carolina tightened its laws regarding slavery to prevent future revolts.

On the morning of September 9, 1739, a group of twenty enslaved people on plantations near the Stono River, about twenty miles southwest of Charlestown, began an uprising to win their freedom. Their leader was known as both “Jemmy” and “Cato.” The enslaved people took arms and ammunition from a nearby gun shop, killing the two shopkeepers. They then began to march south.

No one knows precisely what sparked the revolt. South Carolina’s economy relied heavily on rice plantations; many laborers were needed to work in the fields. Therefore, the colony had been importing large amounts of enslaved Africans for years. Indeed, the enslaved outnumbered whites in the colony. Cato and his companions had been recently brought into South Carolina from the Kingdom of the Kongo in Africa.

The day of the revolt was a Sunday, the day when most whites attended church services. The South Carolina legislature had recently passed the Security Act, which required white men to carry firearms to church as a protection against slave revolts. The Act was to take effect at the end of September. The insurgents were likely aware of reports of the new law. The time to strike was before it went into effect.

After arming themselves, the enslaved people marched south toward the Edisto River. They were most likely headed to Florida, where the Spanish had promised freedom to escaped enslaved Africans. The War of Jenkin’s Ear between Spain and England had just broken out, and Spanish agents operating in South Carolina may very well have tried to stir up slave hostility towards their masters to weaken the colony internally. Cato and his men were Catholics, and it is also possible that Spanish priests encouraged the enslaved people to try to go to Florida. Finally, Cato and his men spoke Portuguese. A homeland in Catholic Florida among Portuguese-speaking Spaniards would have sounded quite appealing.

As they marched, the enslaved people hoisted banners emblazoned with the word “liberty” and beat drums. Rebel leaders had likely received military training in Kongo, and now they marched as if they were regular soldiers. They killed several whites along the way, including women and children, as they rallied other enslaved people to their cause. They did spare some whites, including an innkeeper, as he was known to treat his slaves kindly. Some of the enslaved Africans they met resisted going with Cato’s band (a group even hid their master), but they were forced to join the uprising. The slave army’s number swelled to eighty.

Near the Edisto River, the Lieutenant-Governor of South Carolina, William Bull, and a group of friends on horseback observed the band of rebels, “killing all they met and burning several Houses along the road.” Bull rode to sound the alarm. A group of perhaps one hundred white militiamen were assembled and went in pursuit of the enslaved people. An enslaved person named July assisted the whites in the battle against the rebels.

In the ensuing confrontation, 21 whites and 44 blacks were killed. Nearly all the remaining slaves were captured, some with the help of local Chickasaw and Catawba warriors. The slave July was rewarded with his freedom for helping subdue the rebels. Most of the captured rebels were executed; others were sold to the West Indies.

The South Carolina legislature acted quickly to prevent a recurrence of the event, passing the Negro Act in 1740. This law further restricted the freedom of enslaved people and mandated that their white masters keep tighter control of them. Among other provisions, the law made it a crime to teach enslaved people to write, prohibited enslaved people from assembling in groups larger than seven in number, and forbade enslaved people from engaging in commerce, drinking alcohol, or carrying firearms. At the same time, however, the law also prohibited masters from treating their slaves too harshly. “To restrain and prevent barbarity from being exercised towards slaves.” The law confined the punishment of enslaved people to whipping, beating, chaining, or imprisoning. A master who killed his slave was to be fined heavily. Masters were also required to provide decent clothing to their slaves and were not to overwork them.

South Carolina also imposed a ten-year moratorium on the importation of slaves from Africa. Blaming the uprising partly on the fact that the rebels were culturally distinct from their masters, the colony focused on developing a native-born slave population.

The Stono Rebellion had a lasting effect on the minds of South Carolinians. With whites remaining in the minority until the Civil War, the fear of another slave revolt haunted South Carolinians continually and compelled them to maintain tight control of their slaves until freedom was finally won for all enslaved African Americans in 1865.

New Jersey Student Learning Standards:

• 6.1.12.HistoryUP.2.b – Analyze the impact and contributions of African American leaders and institutions in the development and activities of black communities in the North and South before and after the Civil War.
• 6.2.12.EconGE.1.a – Trace the movement of essential commodities (e.g., sugar, cotton) from Asia to Europe to America and determine the impact of trade on the New World’s economy and society.
• 6.2.12.EconGE.1.b – Assess the role of mercantilism in stimulating European expansion through trade, conquest, and colonization.
• 6.2.12.EconGE.1.c – Determine the effects of increased global trade and the importation of gold and silver from the New World on inflation in Europe, Southwest Asia, and Africa.