Transcription
One of the most powerful images that, uh, we associate with the colonial period of American history is that of the first Thanksgiving—a, uh, gathering of Native Americans and English colonists and the celebration of, of not only the, um, harvest, the successful harvest in 1621, but of friendship that existed. The net result is that there’s this kind of romantic image that that many people today have of the colonial period. Okay.
So powerful is the image of the Thanksgiving that we forget, um, that colonial society was plagued by all kinds of conflict, and it resulted in in violence. We want to talk about conflict in colonial society in the in this in the next lecture, and, um, hopefully get a better idea of, of some of the social realities of living in in colonial North America. Okay.
Without a doubt, um, slavery and the slave trade, um, were two institutions, um, that did more to lay a foundation for conflict in in the Americas than anything else. If people are being held in bondage and made to work against their will, obviously there’s going to be an incentive to rise up and challenge the existing social system. And yes, violence, as we’ll see, did occur as a result of that, but there was also the almost perpetual fear among the slave-owning class that at any time, um, slave rebellions could occur. And that just kind of created a heightened sense of an, um, of anticipation and fear that existed among, um, white slave owners in colonial society. So without a doubt, slavery, the slave trade were the especially most prominent sources of potential conflict in colonial society.
Now, we haven’t talked about the experiences of early African Americans. It is important to remember that the people who came to the Americas from Africa did not come voluntarily, and for that reason we cannot say they were immigrants or they migrated. They were bought, brought to the Americas under force. Okay. They were forcibly relocated. All right. And I need to stress that because every once in a while you will hear, uh, comments made that that people who came to the Americas, even as slaves, came here, um, and and found a better life here. Um, the reality is nothing could be further from the truth. All right. Life in Africa was not the terrible, horrendous way of life that some people would like for it to have been. That becomes a way in their minds of justifying slavery, which you can’t do. Right.
So let’s spend a little bit of time talking about Africa before slavery. We’re not going to have time to talk about all of the different tribal societies and cultures in the same way that we didn’t have time to talk about all of the Native American groups, but I do want to say just a few things about pre-contact Africa, especially before the slave trade. And we want to focus especially on the equatorial region of Africa because it is from this region that the largest number of African-Americans actually are originated. This is the area that was most heavily impacted by the slave trade itself.
And so if we look at equatorial Africa, we actually find that, you know, prior to the time of Columbus, prior to the slave trade, equatorial Africa was populated by groups of people who organized as tribes. Tribal societies and tribal cultures differed very much from one another, and ultimately what that meant then is that equatorial Africa was a very diverse place. Yes, the people who lived there had black skin, and yes, the Europeans decided that they were a race of people, but again, the people of Africa who lived there did not think of themselves as a separate race of people. They were very distinct, different among themselves, and most of those differences, all of those differences of course were cultural differences in terms of their, um, written records. They lived in societies that were non-literate, okay, meaning they didn’t leave written records, and for that reason then it’s very difficult to reconstruct the history of these people. The reality is we know some things about their past, but we can’t tell in great detail about their past. What we do know has largely come down to later generations through the oral traditions, through the stories that are told, and those stories can be told, you know, as as verbal stories; sometimes they’re passed on in the form of music and musical expression. So this is part of the communication culture, the culture of communication among the various, um, tribal groups in this part of the world. They, uh, practiced religions that that were and are polytheistic. Okay. By polytheistic, I mean, of course, that they worshipped many different gods, and on some level they were also animistic religions, okay, meaning that oftentimes these gods were associated with features of the physical world. Okay. A good example of this and one that most students are somewhat familiar with, uh, is the religion of Vodoun.
Okay. Vodun, um, is a is a religion that especially was practiced, uh, in Ghana along the west coast of Africa, and it is actually a very, very old religion, and I think that that’s something I need to stress first and foremost. Okay. Vodun was practiced before Christianity; it’s older than Christianity; it’s a it’s a very old religion, and it’s what we call a syncretic religion. A syncretic religion is a religion that basically is adaptable; it adapts to changing circumstances. Okay. An example of, of Christianity as a syncretic religion might be, for example, um, how Christianity evolved in Mexico. In Mexico, um, the figure of the Virgin of Guadalupe became a very powerful, um, symbol of Christianity; that’s that’s evidence of Christianity as a syncretic religion. Okay. The changes and the adaptation to, um, Native American cultures, uh, and and so a syncretic religion is a religion that is is, um, that changes, okay, that that, um, accepts, uh, other religions and other influences and and quite literally adapts those, uh, other influences into the belief system itself. And that’s the way, uh, Vodun is. Vodun, um, to this day, um, reflects images associated with Christianity, uh, and and Islam because these are religions that began to impact Vodou. Okay.
Now, Vodoun, um, as it was practiced in Ghana, basically, uh, was it was a religion in which, um, there were two primary creators: the sun and the moon. One was called, uh, the moon, and the other, um, the sun was Lisa, and they were the creators, and, uh, below the the creators were a variety of different lesser, um, spiritual entities. And when Vodoun was transported then into Haiti, um, those lesser individuals became or lesser spirits became known as the Loa, and the Loa then became a very common part of Haitian Vodoun, which became known to Christians as Voodoo. Okay. And that that religion then was introduced, um, from the Caribbean islands, especially Haiti, into, for example, New Orleans. And if you go today, Voodoo is, um, widely, um, yeah, I don’t know how widely practiced it is; it’s certainly part, very, very much part of the history of, of, of New Orleans. Uh, in any case, Voodoo, um, is for all intents and purposes the American interpretation of Vodoun. All right.
Now, Voodoo here in the United States and throughout Christendom is often equated with evil kinds of spirits, and the reality is that’s largely a reflection of the intolerance that Christianity has historically had for other religions. Historically, Christian Christianity has looked upon other religions as dangerous, heretical influences that deny the individual’s, um, access to the one and only real and true God. Okay. And for that reason then Vodoun and other religions are seen as heretical, um, beliefs that are that are dangerous. Well, Vodoun, um, was tainted by Christians as a dangerous religion; other African religions experienced the same the same thing. Okay. So they were tarnished; they were labeled evil; they were seen as threatening. But I think it’s important in an enlightened society today to recognize and understand Vodoun is a very old religion, and it goes back, um, to the years before there was a Christianity even. Right. So it is important to understand and respect religions, um, in their own right rather than judging them based on one’s own religious beliefs and religious perspectives. Okay. Vodun is a very interesting religion; I I, you know, I wouldn’t characterize or classify it as dangerous, uh, and evil. Okay.
So that’s a little bit about tribal societies and cultures, and again, there were many different languages spoken, many different religions practiced along the coast. We don’t have time to go into all of these. Now, for the most part, equatorial Africa was isolated from Europe and the Mediterranean basin, um, throughout much of the, um, well, the first thousand years of the Christian era, um, by a desert, the Sarah, the Sahara Desert, um, which which limited the ability of, uh, people in in sub-Saharan Africa to have contact with people, um, in the Mediterranean. Okay. The Sahara was a barrier to any kind of cultural interaction. Okay. That began to change slowly, okay, as early as the second century A.D. Okay. There were camel caravans that began to venture southward from the Mediterranean across the Sahara Desert and, um, in the direction of the Niger River and specifically the bend in the Niger River that effectively allowed camel caravans now to travel further southward to the coast of West Africa. Okay. So camels had been, um, domesticated something like 2,000 years earlier, but it was only, um, in the second century A.D. that that camel caravans began to engage especially in commerce, um, between the Mediterranean basin and, um, West Africa. Again, the Niger River bend was important because it allowed these caravans to cross, and these lands, um, were very arid; it allowed camel caravans to to follow the river southward into the coast. Okay.
Now, interestingly enough, while commerce took place, trade took place, religion didn’t diffuse; religion didn’t, um, move, um, out of the Mediterranean into the, um, West into West Africa, uh, very quickly. Okay. Um, it’s partly a reflection of the fact that, um, during the so-called Dark Ages, um, Europeans were not, um, um, exploring in the world, and and missionaries were not actively extending the realm of Christendom. The church was more intent on reclaiming the Holy Land than it was on expanding the realm of of Christendom, and so missionaries didn’t travel southward. But by the 8th century, um, religion was starting to quite literally diffuse over that trans-Saharan trade route, and we began to see the emergence of Islam. Okay. Islam had its origins, of course, in in Saudi Arabia, but it spread throughout North Africa, and by the, um, eighth century, in the ninth century, it was starting to, um, you know, um, Islamic, um, influences, um, were starting to occur, uh, in, um, in equatorial Africa as well. Right. And so ultimately what that meant is that as Islam began to spread, it began to challenge some of the more tribal religions that existed in the area. And then in the 15th century, Portugal began colonizing in this area. Prince Henry the Navigator extended Portuguese trade into this region, and with the arrival of the Portuguese merchants also arrived Christian missionaries, and so Christianity was introduced, uh, into this region, um, into the in the 15th century as well. Okay. And to this very day, countries like, um, Nigeria are very much divided between an Islamic north, uh, and a Christian south, and in in between and among, scattered among, you have people who practice, uh, many of the very old tribal religions as well. So this is a very complicated, very complex region in terms of religion and in terms of of the economy even now.
Here’s what happens because along with Christianity and along with mercantilism, one of the things that the Portuguese also brought then was the slave trade. Okay. In 1482, okay, remember this is still 10 years before Columbus, but in 1482 now the Portuguese established what became known as the first slave factory, and that’s sometimes what they were called—slave factories—on the west coast of Africa. Okay. It was a castle; it’s known as Elmina Castle, and you can visit Elmina Castle up to this very day. It was originally established as a trading post by the Portuguese along the coast of Ghana in West Africa, but it was also an important slave trading, uh, post as well. And Elmina became notorious as a whole; the dungeon of the almighty castle became a dungeon that held many people; some people were kidnapped and held in this in slavery; some people were prisoners of war; there was warfare, and there was conflict; they might be taken to Elmina, but the point is after 1482 then the slave trade for Europeans became very profitable. Initially, this slave trade took, um, Africans to Europe, okay, but after 1492, um, when the Western Hemisphere was opened up, slave trading will take place and begin to relocate Africans in large numbers to the Americas as well. Right. The Portuguese, uh, colonized in Brazil, and so large numbers of Portuguese transports, you know, Africans transported by Portuguese ships ended up in Brazil. But on the other hand, large numbers of Spanish ships after 1492 began transporting, um, African people to Spanish colonies, especially in the Caribbean islands. All right. The point is that between the 1500s and the 1800s then something like 11 to 15 million people were forcibly transported, forcibly relocated from Africa up to the New World. Okay. And no, life was not better for them when they got here because they were held in bondage; they lost all freedom and ultimately were forced to labor against their will, and they were entitled to none of the fruit of their labor. Okay. That is not something that was was prone to happen; slavery might exist in Africa, but on a very, very small scale compared to that which existed in the Americas. Okay.
So where did most Africans end up as a result of this slave trade? Well, I put this slide up just to to give you an idea and to remind you something like 30, 38% of all those 11, 11 to 15 million people, 38% of them ended up in Brazil. Okay. They were transported, uh, by Portuguese ships, but the Spanish were also very active; something like 42% ended up in the West in the Indies, um, Guyana, and Spanish South America also had slavery, and 2% ended up in Mexico. All of these were part of the Spanish realm, and then if you look at the far north into North America, you see that something like 4%, um, ended up in the British North American colonies. All right. So compared to the Spanish and Portuguese trade, the British trade was actually rather small; it was a much smaller percentage of that trade. Okay. Much larger percent was in Latin America, but even at 4%, that would mean more than 500,000 people arrived in Britain’s North American colonies as a result of this slave trade. All right. So more than a half million Africans and African Americans had their origins, um, in this slave trade, and it was from this population then, um, that the African-American population in the United States, uh, began to grow. All right. So the British North American colonies, relatively small percentage of slavery overall, but nevertheless it was considerable. Okay. And ultimately that trade was especially conducted after 1672. Okay. It was later, much later than the Spanish and Portuguese in being established, and that’s part of the reason why it was a smaller percentage of the overall slave trade. If the British had engaged in this in an earlier date, well, a larger percentage of Africans would have been brought to North America. Okay.
Now, the British Royal African Company received a a, uh, charter from the Crown, and this would have been from Charles II, uh, in 1672. Okay. The British Royal African Company now was the only English company that was allowed to legally participate in the slave trade; for that reason, the Royal African Company’s monopoly virtually guaranteed a profit, and it was very profitable. The Royal African Company organized its business operations around a model that’s frequently referred to as the slave triangle. Okay. And that’s what you’re looking at in this, uh, in this map here. Slave ships would load up in Great Britain, in the mother country, and they’d later load up with finished goods, whether they be manufactured goods; sometimes it was rum and other liquor; sometimes it was even firearms; more often than not it was it was foodstuffs; it was textiles, that is fabrics and those kinds of things. They would load up, and they would travel to the coast of Africa and exchange those finished goods for human cargo. Okay. And once their holds, the bottoms of the ship were filled, then those ships would set out for the Western Hemisphere over what’s referred to as the Middle Passage. The Middle Passage was the most notorious leg of the slave triangle, okay, because of the horrendous, uh, abuses, uh, and the tremendous loss of life that existed and was part of that Middle Passage. Once the ships arrived in in the New World, well, their cargo wasn’t loaded, uh, and basically, um, people were placed on the auction block, uh, and they were sold, which was both a humiliating and degrading, um, inhumane process. They were sold basically as livestock, and it was it was a horrendous ordeal for for anyone, uh, to endure. But then the proceeds from the, uh, sale of human cargo, uh, was used to secure, uh, goods, you know, such things as tobacco, indigo, rum, other kinds of goods, flower, or excuse me, flour, lumber, shipbuilding goods more generally, and those raw materials then were sent back to England to to provide for England’s manufacturing economy. All right. So that’s a little bit about how this, um, this slave triangle worked.
Now, it is important, I think, to understand that life, um, for Africans, especially those who had to endure the Middle Passage, um, was absolutely horrendous, and I want to put this couple, a couple of images up and and just make an observation. Um, the image on the left, um, was a very common, uh, image that was actually published in in a brochure by the Royal the British Royal African Company, uh, and and this was actually a means of trying to demonstrate up to potential investors just how profitable, um, the slave trade would be, because in theory this is how, uh, people would be, um, loaded into slave ships, and they would quite literally be packed into the bottoms of the ships like sardines, and and, um, the more people you put in the bottom of the ship, of course, um, the more money and the more profitable, um, the Royal African Company, uh, was going to be. Okay. In truth, um, the the bottom of the slave ship was probably more like the picture on the right. Okay. That is the the hold of the ship; the bottom of the ship was filled with as many people as they could; they were probably not as likely packed side by side like that as as the image demonstrates, uh, but on the other hand, life in the bottom of this ship was was just miserable; it was just it was hell because people could not get out of of the bottom here in order to perform bodily functions, in order to relieve themselves. Slot buckets were dropped down, and people basically relieved themselves in buckets, which were then hoisted out and and in theory, um, dumped over over it over the the side of the boat, and they were, but the point is that they weren’t, they weren’t, um, well, the the the the pale, um, wasn’t, um, lowered as often as it could have been and shouldn’t have been. Point being is the conditions down here were just putrid; they were horrendous; the odor, um, was was simply unbearable; the the potential for disease, um, was simply unbearable, and of course the potential for violence in the bottom of the slave ship was unbearable. People were fighting for scraps of food; people were fighting for space; there were sometimes long-standing tribal rivalries and tensions that incited violence, um, in the bottom of a slave ship. Okay. It’s estimated that something like 15% of all people who were loaded, um, into these ships died along the way. So, um, we know that life was was horrendous on on these ships, and yet it’s it’s very difficult to know exactly how bad things were, and the reason it’s difficult to know is because the Royal African Company certainly wasn’t saying so. The Royal African Company did not want, um, people to realize how horrendous the conditions were on the slave ships, uh, and and so consequently there were very few people who could tell, and certainly we we have very little documentation; the people who endured it didn’t write; they didn’t leave written records, and the Royal African Company wasn’t telling. Okay. Certainly we know through secondhand, hand accounts, um, but we know very little about, um, you know, the stories, in the accounts, the original accounts that people themselves endured. Okay.
One of the great exceptions to that, um, is a story that was written by a man by the name of Olaudah Equiano. Okay. Olaudah Equiano in 1789 published an autobiography, that is a biography of his own life, and it was published as *The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano*. Okay. Equiano, according to his narrative, was born in Africa in Benin, and as a young boy he and his sister were kidnapped by slave traders; they were taken to a a castle; they were held in a dungeon and ultimately loaded up on a ship, and according to his account he endured this Middle Passage. He was about 11 years old when when that happened, and because he was a young man he had the good fortune in many ways of of being able to get out of the hold of the ship, the bottom of the ship in fact, because he was young and could not overpower anybody, was not a physical threat, um, he was given the job of of dumping the slot pail, and so at least for his, um, benefit, if you can call it that, he was able to get out of the bottom of the ship, meaning that he was able to get some sunshine; he was able to escape the the problems and down below. But on the other hand, once he was, when he wasn’t working, he was right back down in the bottom. He told all kinds of horrendous stories about the problems that existed; communication problems; as a young boy he and and others feared that that they were to be cannibalized, that these people were taking them off someplace and that ultimately they would be killed and eaten; they had no idea what to expect. Of course, when he arrived in the New World he was sold into slavery; he was not sold into plantation work; he actually sold was sold to a ship owner, and while working on that ship Olaudah Equiano learned how to navigate, and he became so valuable that his owner, in order to make sure he kept him, began paying him a small stipend, and he was ultimately able to buy his freedom. When he purchased his freedom he retired in London, and when he arrived in London he wrote this book, *The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano*, okay, which recounted his recollections of life on in the Middle Passage and his life as a slave more generally. Okay. So there are some documents that that we have that document the experiences of early slaves, uh, but they aren’t very there aren’t very many of them.
Now, I will tell you this: Equiano’s narrative, uh, has been challenged by historians, and and it remains challenged to this day. There is evidence to suggest, for example, um, that Equiano was born in the Carolinas; he was not born in Benin, and if that was the case then he would have never experienced the Middle Passage himself; that part of his book would have had to have been based on stories that he heard. Okay. If, um, if he was born in in the New World then his, uh, recounting of his early life was, um, fictitious, but on the other hand it would have been based on stories that he knew, okay, because he actually was, well, he had worked on a slave-trading ship, so he had he had seen these things and he knew what happened, uh, in as part of the slave trade. All right. So Olaudah Equiano’s narrative is is one of the documents that we do have that gives us, um, direct understanding of slavery itself.
Now, once they arrived in the New World, basically, initially they were Africans were probably, um, well, they were placed in indentured contracts; that is, the first Africans were probably indentured servants; almost certainly they were. All right. We don’t know; we don’t have contracts necessarily for them, but what we do know is that there were some Africans that did well, um, and and and were not enslaved. Okay. One of those, uh, was a man by the name of, of Anthony Johnson. Anthony Johnson was a Black man who arrived in Virginia in 1621. Okay. We’ve been able to piece together bits and pieces of Anthony Johnson’s life, and we know, for example, that he, um, he was a laborer, okay, he and he was allowed to marry a woman, but he was held in labor as a contract laborer, as a an indentured servant, which meant that eventually or essentially he would have been bound to work four to seven years. Um, there’s good evidence to suggest that he was actually made to work about 15 years before he actually secured his freedom, but by the mid-1630s he had been able to secure his freedom and actually begin to farm, and he began to farm on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, east of, um, you know, the the the main colony, and ultimately on, um, Pongo T Creek in on the eastern shore of Virginia, he established what became a plantation of 250 acres. All right. So he was a man who, um, was not a slave, and not only was he not a slave, um, financially and in terms of his social status he was able to do very well for himself. So early on there is good evidence to suggest that the Africans who arrived were not slaves, but the demand for labor continued to be great, and slavery as an institution did evolve. Right, in in 1662, um, we know that Virginia by 1662 it had passed a law that defined slavery as a hereditary institution. Okay. The hereditary slavery, um, was was now, um, part of Virginia society. Okay. And you can see the the the, um, the terms of of the the law: “Whereas some doubts have arisen whether children got by an any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or free, be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly that all children born in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother, and that if any Christian shall commit fornication with a negro man or woman, he or she, uh, so offending shall pay double the fines imposed by the former act.” Okay. Well, a couple of things, um, make are very clear in in this law. Okay. First of all, um, what’s clear is that by the 1660s there were many children being born to, um, Black women as a result of white men, the actions of of white men especially. Okay. And so in order to clarify whether those children would be slave or free, they are now going to be defined as free. Okay. So by 1661 and 1662, not only had slavery been defined as a legal institution, but a child born to a slave mother now will be held as a as a slave as well, and who who owns the mother owns the child as well. Okay. And again, it makes very clear that, uh, it was illegal for white men or white women to have, um, sexual relations with Black men and and Black women that, um, had been earlier defined as, uh, illegal, uh, and now this, uh, law is basically doubling the fine, um, for any act, any sexual act between a Black or a Black man, Black woman and a white man and a white woman. Okay. So the point is that by the 1660s then the institution of slavery had very much, uh, been defined and and and it grew exponentially after that.
Now, what then, um, was the alternative for Africans, African Americans who were now being held in bondage? Well, one of the alternatives was to resist bondage, was to resist slavery, and slave rebellions did happen. All right. The fact of the matter is, conflict, violence between slave owners, slave owners and slaves was part of life, especially in the South, but the most notorious instance of of slave rebellion took place on the Stono River, um, south of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1739, and I want to, um, just at the end of this lecture, spend a couple minutes talking about the Stono Rebellion because it’s such good evidence of the degree to which, yes, social, racial conflict was very much a part of life in colonial North America.
The Stono Rebellion started in August of 1739, on a Sunday morning, when a man who was simply identified in the, um, records, the the records of the rebellion as Jemmy—he’s identified as Jemmy and Angolan—Jemmy and 20 other men, um, organized on a Sunday morning when most of the people of Charleston and South Carolina were at church services. It was actually a very common time for slave rebellions to organize because they knew that the population would not be expecting an uprising at that time and would not be prepared to put down an uprising at that time. Well, in this case, these 20 men basically, first of all, they occupied a store; they killed the store owners, and they began seizing firearms. Okay. They then began marching, um, southward, and as they went along they raided and they killed, okay, uh, and and literally then for the next, um, 10, 12 hours they went on a killing spree in South Carolina. Within 10 hours the the mob had grown to 76 men, and they had killed 20, 25 white residents of the Stono River valley south of Charleston. By that time the governor had organized the colonial militia, okay, and late in the afternoon, after about a 10-hour rampage, the militia caught up with the mob and and confronted them, okay, and there was a violent exchange that took place, uh, and there was a great deal of dispersal; some were killed; some were dispersed; a lot of people had to be rounded up, and when they were rounded up they were punished. But when all was said and done, and it took days for all of the, um, out, you know, for for all of the, um, dust to settle, 46 of the original 76 had been killed, and 23 men were dead, okay, and there had been others killed, um, there, you know, there there had also been, um, the 25 who were killed originally. Okay. So the point is there was widespread death and destruction, and a manhunt was underway; 30 other rebels were were tracked down, um, they were later executed; there were people who were executed who, um, were suspected of being involved even if they weren’t involved. Okay. Um, but the Stono Rebellion then became one of the first, um, really well-documented and prominent slave rebellions, uh, in American history. And so the question then becomes one of what were these men, um, trying to accomplish? What was their goal? What was their aspiration? Why did they organize at this particular time? And the answer, of course, is it’s very difficult to know, given that they didn’t leave written records. Okay. We don’t have a record of everything that they had done to organize; we don’t have a record of everything that they hoped to accomplish, but what we do have is a lot of the circumstances, um, in which this rebellion, um, was taking place, and because we understand the circumstances, um, we can kind of piece together and understand what this rebellion was very likely all about. First of all, this rebellion was very much a response to international politics. Okay. Remember that when the English colonized in North America, the Spanish saw the English as intruding upon Spanish territory. Okay. The Spanish got here first; the Spanish claimed all of this territory as Spanish territory; the the, uh, British who came and the French who came were intruding upon Spanish soil, and so the Spanish tried to do all that they could to get rid of the English, and one of the best ways that they could get rid of the English was to quite literally undermine the economic success of the English colonies. And so by 1739, the Spanish in neighboring Florida, or just down the coast in Florida—remember the Spanish had established St. Augustine—the Spanish were in Florida; the Spanish began to circulate word among South Carolina’s slave population that if they fled and came to Florida they would be given their freedom; they would be allowed to farm and support themselves as free men. Okay. And so it’s very likely then that the, uh, men who organized the Stono Rebellion were, um, organizing and and trying to get to, uh, Florida. Okay. We know that because of the direction that they were marching, and according to the record they had even, um, put together a banner that said “Liberty,” which they carried along as they marched. All right. So they were looking for their freedom; they were marching in the direction of Florida. We know that the Spanish had, at least they had at least said, um, they would give, um, the rebels their freedom—no guarantee they would have, because they might have been enslaved in Florida as well—but nevertheless it is very likely that the men who were involved in the Stono Rebellion were trying to rise up and and secure their freedom in Florida. Okay. So that’s very likely what motivated, um, the Stono Rebellion. Okay.
When we get to, um, the American period after independence, we’ll talk more about slave rebellions; we’ll talk more about the slay about the institution of slavery as we go along in this class, but the important thing to remember is that as long as slavery existed, it presented the potential for considerable racial, social conflict, and at any given time that could result in violence. We’ll see that during the American Revolution, and we’ll certainly see it after the American Revolution as well. All right. I’m going to wrap up my discussion here. When we come back, we’re going to start talking about conflict that existed in Virginia and Massachusetts.