Slave revolt on the German Coast
The slave revolt on the German Coast was a rebellion of 150 to 500 slaves in the parishes of St. Charles and St. John the Baptist in what was then Orleans Territory in the United States . During the actual uprising, which lasted from January 8th to 10th, 1811 and was finally crushed by a planter militia, two whites and 15 to over 60 slaves were killed. Over a hundred other rebels were killed in the following days, and 18 according to a tribunal on the Destréhan plantationexecuted. In response to the slave revolt, which as the largest in American history holds, the militia system in the Territory of Orleans was reorganized and a regular army regiment in New Orleans stationed.
Starting position
On Saint-Domingue , the successful Haitian Revolution had developed from a slave revolt from 1791 . Many white French had therefore fled with their slaves to the Spanish colony of Cuba . In 1809 they were expelled from the country because of the Spanish War of Independence against France and 9,000 of them left Cuba for the Orleans Territory. It is possible that the more than 6,000 slaves and free Afro-Americans among these refugees brought the idea of revolution to the German Coast . There is also evidence that escaped slaves living on the fringes of the plantations influenced the leaders of the later uprising.
The area around New Orleans was the most populous and by far the most economically important of the Louisiana colony when it was bought from Napoleon Bonaparte by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 . At that time, the plantations of the German Coast were particularly prosperous and their owners belonged to the ruling planter aristocracy of the territory. Their economic success was based on the cultivation of sugar cane . The extremely hard work that the planters saw only African Americans capable of, meant that the life expectancy of a slave on the sugar cane plantations was only five to six years. Most of the slaves were abducted from Africa; after the ban on the Atlantic slave trade in 1807 (first in and for Great Britain), they came mainly from Virginia . Between 1790 and 1808, 20,000 Africans reached the port of New Orleans, including many prisoners from African tribal wars who had been sold to white slave traders. Two of the later leaders of the slave rebellion had combat experience. In 1810, 90% of households in and around New Orleans owned slaves, who made up 75% of the total population.
The governor of the Orleans Territory, William CC Claiborne , appointed by President Thomas Jefferson , had the goal of making living conditions as humane as possible for the slaves. He met the resistance of the planter aristocracy of the German Coast, which, as a Protestant Anglo-American who spoke no French, was already with reservations about him. The conflict escalated to the point that a delegation of planters led by Jean Noel Destréhan traveled to Washington, DC and unsuccessfully demanded that President James Madison remove Claiborne. In 1810, the United States annexed the neighboring Spanish colony of West Florida . To secure the territory against a Spanish reaction, Claiborne sent a large part of the army units stationed in New Orleans there in January 1811, which left the German Coast largely defenseless.
procedure
The leaders of the uprising were the foreman Charles Deslondes, the field workers Quamana and Kook, who might have belonged to the Akan people, who had been kidnapped from Africa five years earlier , and the carpenter Harry Kenner from Virginia. All four were slaves. According to most of the testimonies, Deslondes was the inspiration behind the revolt. He worked on the woodland plantation of Manuel Andry, who was considered one of the most brutal slave owners on the German Coast, while his wife was a slave on the plantation of François Trépagnier. In his role as foreman, Deslondes had to carry out punishments against slaves himself, but also had greater freedom of movement and a carriage available. Deslondes took advantage of this from 1810, visited other plantations and was able to encourage other slaves to revolt. It is not known whether there was a specific trigger for Deslondes' actions. Quamana and Kook, who belonged to the planter and later Senator James Brown , likely had experience as warriors and acted as Deslondes' contacts with other African slaves as well as tactical advisers. The 25-year-old expert worked on a plantation near New Orleans and supported Deslondes, Quamana and Kook in establishing communicating resistance cells on a nearly 50-kilometer line on the German Coast. On January 6, Deslondes gave the signal to begin the uprising in two days.
On the night of January 8th, Deslondes and about 25 companions broke into the manor house at Woodlawn Plantation, where Andry and his son Gilbert were already asleep. While they were killing Gilbert, Andry, who had suffered three serious but not fatal wounds in the attack, was able to save himself to the Mississippi River , escape by boat and to the plantation of Charles Perret; from there he rode off to warn the other plantation owners on the German Coast. So it happened that the planters were alerted in the morning and could take countermeasures. The insurgents broke into a storage room on the plantation and stole firearms and ammunition as well as the militia uniforms of Andry and his son. The further plan for the next two days was to march the nearly 40 miles to New Orleans, pillage all plantations on the way and recruit more slaves for the uprising. Overall, however, only a quarter of the slaves joined Deslonde and his men, while many others warned their owners and helped to rescue them.
At the James Brown plantation, Quamana and Kook and half of the local slaves joined them. At the plantation where Deslondes' wife worked, Trépagnier, notorious for his brutality and hated by all slaves on the German Coast, confronted the rebels at dusk on January 9th, after he had sent his family to hiding and sent a messenger had to warn the neighboring planters. From his mansion, he shot the crowd, convinced that it would drive them to flight. However, Kook broke into the property from behind and slew Trépagnier while other insurgents set the mansion on fire. After this success, between 200 and 500 rebellious slaves moved towards New Orleans, with the rumor ahead of them that they intended to take the city and kill all white residents. Territorial Governor Claiborne took this situation seriously, since the whites in New Orleans were already in the minority compared to the Afro-Americans and he was aware of the consequences of the slave revolt of Saint-Domingue. Around the time when the Trépagnier plantation caught fire, Claiborne began to take the first defensive measures. Among other things, he urged the women and children of the city to seek refuge in the fort of Faubourg Marigny and in the evening imposed a curfew on the African-American population of New Orleans. He conferred with Brigadier General Wade Hampton I , who happened to have arrived from West Florida two days ago, and asked him to organize the defense with the 30 regular soldiers and a militia remaining in New Orleans. Together with 40 seafarers sent by Commodore John Shaw from a United States Navy ship in port, Hampton managed to assemble a ranged force of about 100 men with which he left town on the evening of January 9th for the Counter insurgents. In addition to these units, Claiborne also ordered 200 soldiers from Baton Rouge under Major Homer Virgil Milton to the German Coast.
In the meantime, the insurgents had burned down the Meuillion plantation, which belonged to the wealthiest planter on the German Coast, and that of Kenner's owner. Thus, since the beginning of their rebellion, they had moved more than 30 kilometers towards New Orleans before setting up camp for the night on Jacques Fortier's plantation. In the early morning hours of January 10th, Hamptons scouts spotted this camp, but the rebels had escaped before the armed forces could begin their attack just before sunrise. After that, Hampton allowed his exhausted troops to rest, while Deslondes led the rebels to the northwest, for reasons that are still unclear, and thus back on the way they had come. After they had covered almost 22 kilometers and stopped at the plantation of François Bernard Bernoudi, they were discovered by a militia of around 80 planters. This was set up by Andry within 25 hours of the nightly attack on January 8th. The militia was under his and Perret's leadership. At the time of this encounter, the strength of the insurgents was estimated to be at least 200 men, half of whom were mounted. While the planters were clearly outnumbered, they were far better armed than the rebelling slaves.
After the formation of battle lines and an initial exchange of fire, it quickly became apparent that the insurgents armed with machetes and axes, only a few of which had firearms, had no chance against the well-equipped militia. In addition, the slaves were not used to handling muskets and sometimes did not know how reloading worked. For these reasons, the planters quickly broke through the line of the insurgents and the battle soon became more of a massacre. Estimates of slave casualties vary, ranging from 15 to at least 60 dead, and many were injured. The militia, on the other hand, had neither injuries nor deaths to complain about. The planters became enraged, forcing the captured Kook, Quamana, and Kenner to watch as they killed injured slaves, maimed them, and severed their heads. The remains of the slaves around their leader Deslondes had fled to nearby swamps and were hunted by bloodhounds and Indian scouts. Deslondes, one of the first to be discovered, was abducted to the battlefield and brutally tortured there before he was burned alive. This ended the slave revolt on the German Coast, which is considered the largest armed rebellion of its kind in American history.
In the meantime, federal troops from West Florida had arrived in New Orleans and were ordered from Hampton to the German Coast to fight any further uprisings. He and Claiborne were convinced, on the one hand, that the imminent threat of revolution had been averted, and, on the other, they were certain that Spain had incited Deslondes to revolt. In the days that followed, the planters continued to hunt down escaped rebels, most of whom were killed immediately upon discovery. Many were beheaded and their heads and bodies were displayed on stakes as a deterrent. Soon there were over a hundred victims who were presented in this way over a stretch of almost 65 kilometers from the center of New Orleans through the entire German Coast. Twenty-one prisoners from the January 10 battle were chained and taken to the Destréhan plantation , where they were held in a wash house. The planters wanted to avoid a due process in New Orleans because they did not trust Claiborne and the American judicial system and wanted to achieve quick and "fair" sentences. A tribunal made up of four planters and the local judge Pierre Bauchet St. Martin, who himself had taken part in the battle on the Bernoudi plantation and was supposed to give the trial at least the appearance of legality, conducted the interrogations and passed the verdicts.
The tribunal lasted January 13-15. During these two days, the accused were interrogated. According to the historian Marc Cave, no specific reason for the rebellion can be deduced from their statements other than their contempt for the system of plantation management based on their captivity. Some slaves were so frightened about the impending execution that they hoped to avoid this fate by denouncing fellow prisoners or other insurgents. Others admitted their involvement without blaming others. Kenner refused to testify, while Kook and Quamana proudly admitted they were leaders of the rebellion. On January 15, 18 of the 21 accused were sentenced to death. Three of the prisoners were acquitted, probably because they were of particularly high value to their slave owners. The executions were carried out by shooting, with the heads being severed and displayed in several places on the German Coast as a deterrent. Insurgent trials were also held in New Orleans City Hall, leading to seven death sentences. There, too, the executed were mutilated and their bodies were put on public display.
Aftermath
Even during the slave rebellion on the German Coast, the United States Congress continued to debate the admission of the Orleans Territory as a state into the American Union. Claiborne was a big proponent of converting the territory into the state of Louisiana, and therefore downplayed the importance of the uprising. In addition, it should be prevented to encourage further slaves to rebellion. The American press was largely satisfied with Claiborne's crisis management; however, more than 20 newspapers in the northern states criticized the treatment of the rebelling slaves as bloodthirsty and cruel in an article.
As usual after any major slave revolt in the southern states , new and stricter laws and regulations followed in response. The Mayor of New Orleans restricted slaves' freedom of movement in the metropolitan area, banned them from renting rooms and, except for church services, from gathering. Even free blacks were now banned from buying ammunition in New Orleans. As a political reaction at a higher level, Territorial Governor Claiborne sought a stronger militarization of New Orleans, on the one hand as a deterrent against further uprisings, on the other hand as a warning to the Spanish colony of Florida not to incite slaves to flee to freedom. To this end, he successfully asked President Madison to permanently send a regular army regiment to New Orleans. As early as 1806 Clairborne had tried to strengthen the negligent and half-hearted operating local militias through better equipment and training, but until then he had failed due to the resistance of the planter aristocracy. Under the impression of the slave uprising on the German Coast, the latter gave up their stance of refusal, so that the reorganization of the militia in the spirit of Claibornes was decided by the legislative assembly of the Orleans Territory. The plan of the territorial governor to strictly regulate the import of new slaves into the Orleans Territory was blocked by the planters. While the importation of slaves had been banned in the United States since 1808, a black market in the port in New Orleans has since flourished. The planters were dependent on more and more slaves in order to be able to meet the increasing demand on the booming sugar market with their sugar cane.
Rumors of further impending slave riots in and around New Orleans did not ebb until the spring of 1811, while relationships between slaves and their owners quickly returned to conventional patterns. The damaged plantation houses were renovated or rebuilt and work in the sugar cane fields went back to its usual course, which was hardly affected by the uprising. In April of the same year, under pressure from Claiborne, the federal government awarded each planter compensation of US $ 300 for each lost slave, regardless of whether they were killed in the battle or while they were on the run, or convicted and executed.
Commemoration
Since 1995, the African American History Alliance of Louisiana has held an annual memorial march in which descendants of the insurgents also take part and which ends in Norco in an African American cemetery in the Antebellum . There they lay a wreath and read out the names of the executed slaves. The relatively well-known Destréhan Plantation, which is listed as a monument in the National Register of Historic Places and was the location in the film Interview with a Vampire , does not address the slave revolt on the German Coast and the role of this place during tours.
The Whitney Plantation Museum, which opened in December 2014, is dedicated to the life of slaves on the Louisiana plantations and, among other things, the slave revolt on the German Coast.
Web links
- Resistance: The 1811 Slave Revolt on Whitney Plantation website.
literature
- Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2015, ISBN 978-1-61069-659-3 , pp. 67-80.
- Daniel Rasmussen: American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt . Harper, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-06-199521-7 .
- Marc Cave: German Coast Uprising . In Junius P. Rodriguez (Ed.): Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia . Volume 1. ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2007, ISBN 978-1-85109-544-5 , p. 315 f.
Individual evidence
- ^ Marc Cave: German Coast Uprising . In Junius P. Rodriguez (Ed.): Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia . P. 315 f.
- ↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 68 f.
- ↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . Pp. 69-71 .
- ↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 71 f.
- ↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 72 f.
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↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 67 f. , P. 73 f.
Marc Cave: German Coast Uprising . In Junius P. Rodriguez (Ed.): Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia . P. 315 . -
↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 74 f.
Marc Cave: German Coast Uprising . In Junius P. Rodriguez (Ed.): Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia . P. 315 . -
^ Marc Cave: German Coast Uprising . In Junius P. Rodriguez (Ed.): Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia . P. 315 .
Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 75 f. - ^ Daniel Rasmussen: American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt. P. 1 .
- ↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 76 f.
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^ Marc Cave: German Coast Uprising . In Junius P. Rodriguez (Ed.): Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia . P. 315 .
Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 77 f. - ↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 78 .
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^ Marc Cave: German Coast Uprising . In Junius P. Rodriguez (Ed.): Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia . P. 316 .
Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 78 f. - ↑ Kerry S. Walters: American Slave Revolts and Conspiracies: A Reference Guide . P. 79 f.
- ↑ Destrehan Plantation in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed September 11, 2018.
- ↑ James W. Loewen: Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong. New Press, New York 1999, ISBN 1-56584-344-4 , pp. 206-209 .
- ^ David Amsden: Building the First Slavery Museum in America . In: New York Times Magazine. February 26, 2015.
