
Our group project centers around:
› The earliest African- Americans
› The challenges they faced
› How their actions affected the lives of future
African- Americans
Many theories exist
 Many historians believe that the rebels
were planning the rebellion for a while,
but never had the opportunity
 That opportunity came when the South
Carolina Colonial Assembly passed the
Security Act of 1739
 The slaves were able to revolt because
all white males who carry firearms had
their firearms at church






The Stono Rebellion took place on Sunday,
September 9, 1739
Twenty slaves, lead by an Angolan named Jemmy,
raided a firearms store and killed the two white
shopkeepers
They then headed South toward Florida, because the
Spanish King passed a decree stating that any slave
escaping to Florida would be granted freedom
The rampaging slaves killed all slave-owning whites,
whether they were man, woman, or child, and set fire
to plantations
Twenty-one whites were killed in all, and only one
white, Lieutenant Governor William Bull, was able to
escape the fugitive slaves





By eleven AM, the slave group was fifty strong
Lieutenant Governor Bull managed to call the
militia, and around 100 were dispatched
The weary slaves stopped to rest in a field, and
the militia caught up with them
A short firefight ensued, and by the end, fortyfour slaves were killed
All but one of the escaping slaves were
captured or killed within the next week, the
one exception eluded capture for three years
The South Carolina Colonial Assembly
did not take lightly to this revolt
 They hastily passed a law they had had
in place for a while, but were reluctant
to pass
 Thus, the Negro Act of 1740 was passed
 This act prohibited slaves from growing
their own food, assembling in groups,
earning money that went to them, not
their master, and learning to read

Many murders to make more space and
air
 Many suicides to get away from the
torture
 Many deaths from disease

Introduction



Slavery had caused a deep separation
between North and South
› South: slavery was important
› North: opposed slavery
The conflict got worse over the issue of
fugitive slaves.
Because slaves were treated as property
in the South, slave owners felt it was their
right to seek out and recapture slaves
who had escaped to free Northern states.
The slave act was when the federal
government gave local authorities in
both slave and free states the power to
issue warrants to “remove” any black
they thought to be an escaped slave.
 It also made it a national crime to help
a runaway slave.
 This discouraged African American from
running way because their chances of
being free decreased.

Northerners’ Opinions:
Some people saw this act as providing
an excuse for the Southerners to kidnap
free blacks.
 Others did not like the ability of slave
owners to repossess slaves who might
have escaped many years ago and who
had new lives in the North.
 Northern states’ responded to the act by
passing “personal liberty” laws, which
protected suspected escaped slaves in
various ways


Our topics relate back to the theme of
our presentation because:
› The Stono Rebellion and the New York
Rebellion relate because they and other
rebellions of the 1700’s gave white people
an excuse to control the lives of black
people- whether they were slaves or not.
› The Middle Passage relates because
› The Fugitive Slave Act relates because