Kids in school learn about stuff like the Salem Witch Trials, but how many are taught or learn about slave uprisings or race-based massacres, both of which were more prevalent, more widespread and more recently repeated throughout the USA than the hangings of alleged witches in colonial New England?
Because the past informs the present and the truth will set us free, let's set out to change that.
In time for the 200th anniversary of the German Coast (Côte des Allemands) Uprising (January 8-10, 1811) comes American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt (Harper, 2011) by Daniel Rasmussen. This book provides an account of what happened in context, and pulls the event out of relative obscurity and into the greater historical arc of the Atlantic trade, American history and civil/human rights. It follows through with the American Civil War, freedom and a pertinent sequel set in Monroe, North Carolina in 1957 involving Robert F. Williams, lawyers, guns and money, the NAACP, the KKK, the FBI and Cuba.
Back in 1811, an armed slave uprising of up to 500 men outside of New Orleans, Louisiana, was broken up by US military and Louisiana militia forces. Charles Deslondes, one of the insurgent leaders, after capture had his hands hacked off, thighs broken, and was shot and burned.
What did white plantation owners, vested authorities and their followers do to the other prisoners? "Obsessively, collectively, they chopped off the heads of the slave corpses and put them on display. By the end of January, around 100 dismembered bodies decorated the levee from the Place d'Armes [now Jackson Square] in the center of New Orleans [for] forty miles along the River Road into the heart of the plantation district" (Chapter Twelve: Heads on Poles, pages 147-148).
Also worth finding out more about is the Colfax Massacre (or Colfax Riot) of 1873, another Louisiana tragedy. I'll save it mostly for another post, but a good title on this is LeeAnna Keith's The Colfax Massacre: The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror, & The Death of Reconstruction (Oxford University Press, 2008). After a shootout including artillery as well as rifles and handguns, many black prisoners were executed on the spot. "White men also took liberties with the bodies of dead men . . ." (page 110). The incident was meant to destroy African American men who'd relatively recently gotten the right to vote, intimidate survivors and assert the dominance of white male power in state and regional politics.
Today's Rune: Defense.
9 comments:
Erik, I read "The Peoples History of the United States, 1492 -Present by Howard Zinn and thought it well written and researched. Is there anything like it on India? I have read two books on India and find the country fascinating. The books were "Shantaram" by Gregory David Roberts, and "Imagining India" by Nandan Nilekani a young IT entrepreneur. Your recommendations would be appreciated. MW
P.S. The Kama Sutra has been read many times. No need to recommend that one.
Slave revolts were the constant fear of every plantation owner in the early 19th century. They knew that given an opening the three million slaves would never be contained if they all went into rebellion, hence the brutality.
Took a page out of the Roman play book after the Spartacus slave rebellion when they lined the road to Rome with the crucified.
Funny how the Dutch and English began the slave trade in "the new world" and we are still living the after affects of it more than a century and a half later.
Interesting. I want to read more about the uprisings. The response to them was certainly brutal. Currently reading The Warmth of Other Sons by Isabel Wilkerson about the under-reported black migration from south to north. She makes the point that although school children associate "riots" with black people due to the 1960s, most riots in US history were begun by whites against blacks. Factories during WW II were forced to integrate causing whites to riot in several cities.
the definition of terror in an attempt to maintain control. And certainly that brutality had something to do with the slave owner's fears as well. A horrific chapter in our history.
There were a lot more slave uprisings than mainstream history books report.
There were also a lot of race riots around the time of World War I, as millions of African-Americans moved north. I've been collecting the books about them over the years and hope to start reading through them when I get settled into a nursing job. Just as an overview, though, I've come to realize that the treatment of African-Americans after the civil war is disturbingly similar to early nineties Yugoslavia.
I think I only learned of one slave uprising/riot in school....and I can't remember which one it was.
Erik, how completly horrifying. I just discovered some family that lived in New Orleans around that time. Wild, huh?
Thanks all for the comments! I'll respond more fully asap ~ cheers ~~!
Thanks all for the comments -- much appreciated! MW, chuckle son the Kama Sutra. Mybe check a library section on India books -- we've ordered a bunch that seem mostly to be historical or cultural overviews. Novels may be a good way to expand, too. Mark D -- well put, It really is like Spartacus. Mark K -- yes! The Colfax Massacre is still called a riot by certain powers that be, to make it seem like anything other than what it was. Again, thanks everyone (yes to Johnny, too, ethnic cleansing in its own way).
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