Slave Reisistance and RebellionAngella Chang

How did slaves resist their masters?

• They seized opportunities to alter their work conditions

• sometimes slacked off when they were not being watched

• Sabotaged equipment• Stole food, livestock, or

crop• Got drunk on stolen liquor• Slaves who were hired

out saved their earnings and fell into uprising

Women slave resistance• One woman put

mercury poison in a roasted apple for her mistress

• Women tried to control their own pregnancy either by avoiding it or by seeking it as a way to improve their physical conditions

• Male and some female slaves violently attacked overseers or even their owners.

Runaways• Many individual

slaves attempted to run away to the North (Underground Railroad)

• Most ran off temporarily to hide in the woods (80% male)

• Only a minority ever made it to freedom in the North or Canada

Fearless Revolutionaries • Gabriel’s Rebellion (1800, Virginia, thousand slaves)• Denmark Vesey (Charleston, 1822) led a conspiracy– Vesey was a free black who bought his own freedom when

he won a lottery of $1500– He became a religious leader in the black community