Maryland Servant-Slave Conspiracy

Maryland authorities uncovered an alleged plot by white indentured servants and enslaved Africans to rise together against their masters. The conspiracy, one of several in this era, alarmed planters who began constructing harsher legal distinctions between white servants and Black enslaved people. Some historians cite such cross-racial alliances as a key motivation behind the hardening of racial slavery in the 1660s–1680s.