Creole Revolt: Enslaved People Seize Ship, Win Freedom in Bahamas

On November 7, 1841, Madison Washington led 128 enslaved people aboard the domestic slave ship Creole in a successful revolt while en route from Hampton Roads, Virginia to New Orleans. Washington and his co-conspirators killed one white man and took control of the ship, then sailed to Nassau in the Bahamas. British authorities there freed 128 of the 135 captives as free persons on free soil, holding only those directly involved in the killing. The U.S. government demanded their return; Britain refused. Secretary of State Daniel Webster's protests were unavailing. The Creole revolt was the most successful slave revolt in American history.