Riots, Rebellions and Insurrections

The Slave Rebellion Website

The Pan African Studies Department at CSUN has launched a Slave Rebellion Database on its Web site that comprises a collection of documents and data relating to slave populations and slave rebellions in the United States...... Read more

Slave Conspiracies in Colonial Virginia

There was in colonial Virginia a relentless fear of slave uprisings. Rumors and reports fed the anxieties of a slaveholding society, and some of them were founded in fact. But there was no organized slave uprising in Virginia until well into the nineteenth century. All the plots were uncovered or betrayed before they could be carried out. Luck—bad for the slaves, good for the masters—played a role, but there were other factors...... Read more

The Amistad Event

On the morning of June 28, 1839, La Amistad (Friendship) set sail from Havana, beginning an adventure of far-reaching historical consequences. On board the little schooner were 53 Africans who had been abducted from West Africa and sold in violation of international law. Their intended fate was enslavement on plantations down coast from Havana. On the third day out, the Africans revolted and ordered that the ship be guided toward the rising sun back to Africa, but each night the Cubans reversed direction...... Read more

Rebellion: John Horse and the Black Seminoles

Explore the story of John Horse and the Black Seminoles, the first black rebels to beat American slavery and leaders of the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history..... Read more

Exploring Amistad

Mystic Seaport's site explores the Amistad Revolt of 1839-1842 and how we make history of it. The Amistad Revolt was a shipboard uprising off the coast of Cuba that carried itself, inadvertently but fatefully, to the United States--where the Amistad Captives set off an intense legal, political, and popular debate over the slave trade, slavery, race, Africa, and ultimately America itself...... Read more