המתת השור

The level of violence, exploitation, and
invigilation reached in the new colonial
order
defined a new experience of slavery for
the people who lived through it.
But nonetheless, and remarkably,even in
the 18th Century when
the proportion of Africans in the
population was still quite
high the system of plantation labor that
grew up reflected,
at least in part, limits slaves managed to
put on
planters' prerogatives and power.
In fact, the evidence of resistance in the
eighteenth century is quite dramatic.
Planter records, including Byrd's, are
littered with it.
Evidence of poisoning and arson by slaves.
But also of running away, which was
endemic especially in the 1720s and 1730s.
Sometimes slaves ran away to renegotiate
their relationship with
their master, to control the pace, or set
limits
on the amount of work that was demanded of
them.
And sometimes to unite with kin.
African born slaves even engaged in a form
of
[UNKNOWN] that was very common in Jamaica
and other parts
of the Americas by which slaves attempted
to run away
and found independent communities in
remote or isolated parts of
the colony.
But there were also slave insurrections, a
regular occurrence, in fact, during the
18th century.
In the Chesapeake, there were, there were
insurrections in 1710, 39 and 1740.
But the biggest was the one known as Stono
after the river in South Carolina
where the insurrection originated.
It was led by 20 slaves whom
local planters identified as Angolan but
who were probably Congo
people, men used to war and skilled in the
use of weapons.
It's possible even that there were former
soldiers among the leadership of this
rebellion.
The rebellion drew about 60 more slaves
into
its ranks, as it progressed through the
country side.
It was planned by slaves
who were responding they claimed to news
of hostility with, with Spain.
And they and they organized an
insurrection timed for
a Sunday when their master would not know
where they
were with the intention of making it to
Florida, where
they knew there was a sanctuary policy for
English slaves.
They marched under banners.
They were accompanied with drums.
They engaged in war dances.
They killed 20 to 22 whites before they
were engaged in battle by the South
Carolina militia.
So unsettled were the people of the colony
and the legislature that they imposed a
10-year
moratorium on the importation of Africans
into the
colony after the Stono rebellion was put
down.
And when you look at this whole pattern of
rebellion and
of resistance you can begin to see one
principle that governs analysis of all
slave societies.
It's the recognition that as long as
masters control the apparatus
of coercion slaves would have to concede
what they could not resist.
But concessions are not assent.
Slaves constantly signaled masters that
their war would be a long one.
And they continually reminded masters that
their domination would never be total.
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