Movement of resistance · 1526–1865
Slave Revolts & Rebellions
Wherever there was slavery, there was revolt — from the first rebellion of 1526 to Gabriel, Vesey, and Nat Turner.
Resistance was constant, and it took many forms: breaking tools, feigning illness, escaping, and — at moments of crisis — open revolt.
The first recorded rebellion on this soil came in 1526, when enslaved Africans at the failed Spanish colony of San Miguel de Gualdape rose up and fled to live among Native peoples. In 1712 enslaved New Yorkers took up arms; in 1739 the Stono Rebellion sent a column of rebels marching toward Spanish Florida; the 1741 New York "conspiracy" ended in mass executions amid white panic.
These uprisings were usually crushed, and each was answered with harsher laws. But they punctured the myth of the contented slave and kept the possibility of freedom alive.
On the timeline
- November 1526· debatedThe first slave rebellion on US soil
The enslaved Africans at Gualdape revolt and flee to nearby Indigenous communities; the Spanish settlement collapses.
- September 1663· debatedGloucester County servant conspiracy
One of the earliest recorded plots by enslaved and indentured laborers in colonial Virginia.
- April 6, 1712New York City slave revolt
Enslaved New Yorkers set fires and fought back; brutal executions followed.
- September 9, 1739The Stono Rebellion
The largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies; dozens march toward Spanish Florida and freedom before being suppressed.
- March 18, 1741· debatedThe New York Conspiracy of 1741
A wave of fires sparks panic and the execution of dozens of enslaved and poor New Yorkers.
- August 30, 1800Gabriel's Rebellion
An enslaved blacksmith plans a large revolt near Richmond; betrayed and executed, it terrifies Virginia.
- May 1803· debatedIgbo Landing
A group of captive Igbo people seize their vessel off the Georgia coast and walk into Dunbar Creek, choosing death over enslavement.
- July 2, 1822· debatedDenmark Vesey's conspiracy
A freedman's alleged plot for a mass uprising in Charleston ends in dozens of executions.
- August 21, 1831Nat Turner's Rebellion
Nat Turner leads the most consequential slave revolt in US history, terrifying the South into harsher repression.
- September 11, 1851The Christiana Resistance
Black residents of Christiana, Pennsylvania take up arms against slave-catchers under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, killing an enslaver.
Resources
The 1811 German Coast uprising — the largest U.S. slave revolt — deliberately buried.
Two hundred years of armed uprisings against the myth of the compliant slave.