Slavery and Slave Rebellions

• Sarah Wilson was a slave who was owned by a Cherokee Indian in the Western Frontier of Arkansas.

FONTS

Slavery and Slave Rebellions

Slave Labor

Class Activity

• Word Search

Family Life In Slavery

• Tobacco was a year-round labor
• Rice cultivation
• Hard work in knee-deep water and a disease filled environment raised the mortality rate for slaves
• Cotton (The cotton kingdom was in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama)
• Cotton required many young male slaves to clear trees, which took about 4 months to clear 12 acres

• The slaves were all mistreated by having jobs that were dangerous to their health.
• They became upset which caused them to rebel

Journal About Slave Labor

• Slave merchants separated many african families.
• If a parent was sold other slaves would step in and raise the child as their own.
• Slaves created new families with the other slaves they worked with.
• It was wrong for the merchants to spit up families, this was a big part in why the slaves started to rebel.

"Besides hoeing in the field, chopping sprouts, shearing sheep, carrying water, cutting firewood, picking cotton and sewing I was the only one they picked to work Mistress' litle garden"(Wilson 104).

Slave rebellions changed

America by making a step

towards ending slavery

Journal About Family Life in Slavery

Robert Glenn watches as his family gets separated through the slave trade.

"I saw my brother and sister sold on this same plantation. My mother belonged to the Halls, and my father belonged to the Glenns. They sold me away from my father and mother... I was not allowed to tell my mother and father goodbye"(Glenn 150).

Haitian Slaves Rebel

Slavery

Nat Turner

• The owners tried to keep slaves of the same tribe apart
• They made it forbidden for slaves to have any kind of meetings at all
• Owners would tie their slaves to the plantation, and brutally punish them
• The Haitian Revolt started in August of 1791
• The slaves started to fight back by roaming the land, killing plantation owners, burning fields and destroying equipment
• One of the few weapons they used was poisons
• They would poison their water supplies and animals
• During the years 1791 and 1804 more than 100,000 people were killed
• The slave rebellion escalated into a brutal Civil war
• Haitian History was changed when the slaves started to fight with the french to defeat Britain and Spain and took control over the Island

• Nat Turner was born in Southampton Country, Virginia on October 2,1800
• Both his parents were slaves
• Nat and his parents were sold to various other plantation owners over the years, they were all generally in the same location.
• His mother had considered murdering him at birth to prevent him from suffering slavery
• His father escaped when Nat was a little boy and found freedom for himself and never returned
• When he was growing up he was put to work as a field hand
• He taught himself to read and he studied the Bible
• On Sundays he preached to slaves, Turner said he has seen "visions" and heard "voices" that told him he had a special mission in his life.
• He preached to slaves, telling them to seek self-respect, to fig for justice, and to rebel against the institution of slavery.
• When he was 21 years old, he escaped slavery for a month, he did not think he was doing the right thing so he decided to return to his master
• His master died the following year, and he was sold to a neighboring planter.
• In 1830 he was moved again and became a slave for Joseph Travis

• Slavery existed in almost every society throughout recorded history
• Found everywhere in America, Africa, Asia, and many parts of Europe.
• Slaves were owned, and had no personal freedom
• They were told to do many laborious tasks with no pay or very little pay.

How Slaves got entered into slavery

• Captured enemy soldiers
• Slave trade (Merchants sold slaves for supplies like sugar)
• To pay off debts (sold themselves or family members)
• When they were very poor having a place to sleep and eat was better than having their freedom.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

Haitian Rebellion

John Brown

• "Nat Turner was a Virginia slave who led the largest and bloodies slave rebellion in the U.S. history, a rebellion which cost him his life and caused Americans, North and South, to reexamine the nature of the institution of human bondage" (Nat Turner)
• In February 1831 Nat Turner said he received a sign from God
• After that he said God told him to tell his companions to prepare for a revolt
• "One day, "while labouring in the field, I discovered drops of blood on the corn, as though it were dew from heaven. . . . I then found on the leaves in the woods hieroglyphic characters and numbers . . . portrayed in blood . . . now the Holy Ghost had revealed itself to me." He described his various visions to people he knew and they were convinced that he had been indeed chosen by God for some task beyond the simple preaching for which he was becoming famous in the country. "(Nat Turner, Discovering Biography)
• On August 21st they began their attempt to overthrow slavery
• In 48 hours they killed between 55 and 65 whites throughout the Southampton Country
• They wouldn't kill families of whites that were poor and didn't own slaves
• As Turner moved from plantation to plantation he was joined by between 60 and 80 slaves
• On August 23rd Nat Turner's army was overpowered by a superior state and Federal military force.
• Nat Turner escaped for two months hiding in a cave
• He was later found on October 30th
• On November 5th, he was tried and convicted. He admitted to leading the rebellion but thought he was "not guilty"
• Nat Turner was hanged on November 11, 1831 at noon.
• He had a greater impact than he imagined
• His rebellion caused a debate which started the Civil War by dividing the South from the North
• He encouraged others to try and get freedom, during the next few years there was many uprises throughout the South.

• The Haitian Rebellion was a slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue
• This stopped slavery there, and was the founding of the Republic of Haiti
• This specific rebellion was the only rebellion which led to a founding of a state
• It is one of the most successful slave rebellions in history
• The Rebellion began with black African Slaves
• In the 1740's Saint-Domingue was the main supplier for sugar
• The sugar produced was extensive manual labor by the African slaves
• The white masters knew they were outnumbered by slaves and dreaded the day that they would start a rebellion
• When slaves would leave or disobey their masters, they would be whipped, burned, or extremely tortured
• By 1789 they had half a million slaves in Haiti
• The slave population was steadily decreasing, because of overwork, not enough food, shelter, clothing, and medical care
• The slave ratio of masters to slaves was 10 to 1

• Born on May 4th, 1800 in Torrington Connecticut
• At age 12 John saw an African American boy get mistreated, John swore

"eternal war with slavery"

• He became interested in military history, and the Haitian rebellion.
• John came up with the idea to free the slaves in Africa at gunpoint.
• Brown traveled through the east gathering money for guns.
• In spring of 1856 he killed 5 men, on a proslavery raid.
• In 1585 he had a 10 day meeting describing hs plan to invade the south, free the slaves and set up a

free state with a new constitution.

• He claimed the name Shubel Morgan, and lead the raid into missouri killing only one man, and

took some slaves back to Canada.

• In 1859 he gathered 21 men and planned to raid the Harpers ferry (the site of a federal armory)
• On Oct 16 1859 they set out for Harpers Ferry, and captured the armory watchmen, shooting broke out

and Browns men get trapped in the armory.

• The next day 90 marines come, and storm the armory.
• 10 of Browns men died and 7 were captured.
• Brown was jailed and then was executed a month later.
• Before he died he told the judge "I did no wrong, but right... I am ready for my fate,"(Gale, Cengage Learning, 2)