Did African-American Slaves Rebel?

[IM2]

It appears that many whites here need to earn the true history of life in America.
Did African-American Slaves Rebel?
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr

One of the most pernicious allegations made against the African-American people was that our slave ancestors were either exceptionally “docile” or “content and loyal,” thus explaining their purported failure to rebel extensively. Some even compare enslaved Americans to their brothers and sisters in Brazil, Cuba, Suriname and Haiti, the last of whom defeated the most powerful army in the world, Napoleon’s army, becoming the first slaves in history to successfully strike a blow for their own freedom.

As the historian Herbert Aptheker informs us in American Negro Slave Revolts, no one put this dishonest, nakedly pro-slavery argument more baldly than the Harvard historian James Schouler in 1882, who attributed this spurious conclusion to ” ‘the innate patience, docility, and child-like simplicity of the negro’ ” who, he felt, was an ” ‘imitator and non-moralist,’ ” learning ” ‘deceit and libertinism with facility,’ ” being ” ‘easily intimidated, incapable of deep plots’ “; in short, Negroes were ” ‘a black servile race, sensuous, stupid, brutish, obedient to the whip, children in imagination.’ ”

Consider how bizarre this was: It wasn’t enough that slaves had been subjugated under a harsh and brutal regime for two and a half centuries; following the collapse of Reconstruction, this school of historians — unapologetically supportive of slavery — kicked the slaves again for not rising up more frequently to kill their oppressive masters. And lest we think that this phenomenon was relegated to 19th- and early 20th-century scholars, as late as 1959, Stanley Elkins drew a picture of the slaves as infantilized “Sambos” in his book Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, reduced to the status of the passive, “perpetual child” by the severely oppressive form of American slavery, and thus unable to rebel. Rarely can I think of a colder, nastier set of claims than these about the lack of courage or “manhood” of the African-American slaves.

So, did African-American slaves rebel? Of course they did. As early as 1934, our old friend Joel A. Rogers identified 33 slave revolts, including Nat Turner’s, in his 100 Amazing Facts. And nine years later, the historian Herbert Aptheker published his pioneering study, American Negro Slave Revolts, to set the record straight. Aptheker defined a slave revolt as an action involving 10 or more slaves, with “freedom as the apparent aim [and] contemporary references labeling the event as an uprising, plot, insurrection, or the equivalent of these.” In all, Aptheker says, he “has found records of approximately two hundred and fifty revolts and conspiracies in the history of American Negro slavery.” Other scholars have found as many as 313.

The Five Greatest Slave Rebellions in the United States | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

 

[USNavyVet]

So what?

 

[Sunni Man]

The vast majority of American black slaves didn't revolt because they knew they had a good deal being owned by benevolent white people.

Back in Africa they lived in filthy grass huts and were usually starving most of the time.

But here in America the black slaves were provided a small house in which to live, given food for themselves and their families, and had a guaranteed job on the plantation where they lived for free. ....

 

[john54]

The vast majority of American slaves didn't revolt because they knew they had a good deal being owned by benovelent white people.

Back in Africa they lived in filthy grass huts and were usually starving most of the time.

But here in America the black slaves were provided a small house in which to live, given food for themselves and their families, and had guaranteed job on the plantation where they lived for free. ....

Was there ever another system of slavery that worked its evil on such a scale and with such efficiency...The sense of claustrophobia in reading those - wherever the revolters go, they're surrounded by an entire nation of people every one of whom see them as less than human and would see them dead. It's hell on earth. "A local white man stumbled upon Turner’s hideout and seized him...Enraged whites took his body, skinned it, distributed parts as souvenirs and rendered his remains into grease."

 

[Meathead]

It appears that many whites here need to earn the true history of life in America.
Did African-American Slaves Rebel?
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr

One of the most pernicious allegations made against the African-American people was that our slave ancestors were either exceptionally “docile” or “content and loyal,” thus explaining their purported failure to rebel extensively. Some even compare enslaved Americans to their brothers and sisters in Brazil, Cuba, Suriname and Haiti, the last of whom defeated the most powerful army in the world, Napoleon’s army, becoming the first slaves in history to successfully strike a blow for their own freedom.

As the historian Herbert Aptheker informs us in American Negro Slave Revolts, no one put this dishonest, nakedly pro-slavery argument more baldly than the Harvard historian James Schouler in 1882, who attributed this spurious conclusion to ” ‘the innate patience, docility, and child-like simplicity of the negro’ ” who, he felt, was an ” ‘imitator and non-moralist,’ ” learning ” ‘deceit and libertinism with facility,’ ” being ” ‘easily intimidated, incapable of deep plots’ “; in short, Negroes were ” ‘a black servile race, sensuous, stupid, brutish, obedient to the whip, children in imagination.’ ”

Consider how bizarre this was: It wasn’t enough that slaves had been subjugated under a harsh and brutal regime for two and a half centuries; following the collapse of Reconstruction, this school of historians — unapologetically supportive of slavery — kicked the slaves again for not rising up more frequently to kill their oppressive masters. And lest we think that this phenomenon was relegated to 19th- and early 20th-century scholars, as late as 1959, Stanley Elkins drew a picture of the slaves as infantilized “Sambos” in his book Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, reduced to the status of the passive, “perpetual child” by the severely oppressive form of American slavery, and thus unable to rebel. Rarely can I think of a colder, nastier set of claims than these about the lack of courage or “manhood” of the African-American slaves.

So, did African-American slaves rebel? Of course they did. As early as 1934, our old friend Joel A. Rogers identified 33 slave revolts, including Nat Turner’s, in his 100 Amazing Facts. And nine years later, the historian Herbert Aptheker published his pioneering study, American Negro Slave Revolts, to set the record straight. Aptheker defined a slave revolt as an action involving 10 or more slaves, with “freedom as the apparent aim [and] contemporary references labeling the event as an uprising, plot, insurrection, or the equivalent of these.” In all, Aptheker says, he “has found records of approximately two hundred and fifty revolts and conspiracies in the history of American Negro slavery.” Other scholars have found as many as 313.

The Five Greatest Slave Rebellions in the United States | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

Yeah, that's right up there with those great xxxxxxxxxx civilizations that no one's ever heard of.

Racial slur deleted. Do not use racial slurs.

Meathead

 

[john54]

It appears that many whites here need to earn the true history of life in America.
Did African-American Slaves Rebel?
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr

One of the most pernicious allegations made against the African-American people was that our slave ancestors were either exceptionally “docile” or “content and loyal,” thus explaining their purported failure to rebel extensively. Some even compare enslaved Americans to their brothers and sisters in Brazil, Cuba, Suriname and Haiti, the last of whom defeated the most powerful army in the world, Napoleon’s army, becoming the first slaves in history to successfully strike a blow for their own freedom.

As the historian Herbert Aptheker informs us in American Negro Slave Revolts, no one put this dishonest, nakedly pro-slavery argument more baldly than the Harvard historian James Schouler in 1882, who attributed this spurious conclusion to ” ‘the innate patience, docility, and child-like simplicity of the negro’ ” who, he felt, was an ” ‘imitator and non-moralist,’ ” learning ” ‘deceit and libertinism with facility,’ ” being ” ‘easily intimidated, incapable of deep plots’ “; in short, Negroes were ” ‘a black servile race, sensuous, stupid, brutish, obedient to the whip, children in imagination.’ ”

Consider how bizarre this was: It wasn’t enough that slaves had been subjugated under a harsh and brutal regime for two and a half centuries; following the collapse of Reconstruction, this school of historians — unapologetically supportive of slavery — kicked the slaves again for not rising up more frequently to kill their oppressive masters. And lest we think that this phenomenon was relegated to 19th- and early 20th-century scholars, as late as 1959, Stanley Elkins drew a picture of the slaves as infantilized “Sambos” in his book Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, reduced to the status of the passive, “perpetual child” by the severely oppressive form of American slavery, and thus unable to rebel. Rarely can I think of a colder, nastier set of claims than these about the lack of courage or “manhood” of the African-American slaves.

So, did African-American slaves rebel? Of course they did. As early as 1934, our old friend Joel A. Rogers identified 33 slave revolts, including Nat Turner’s, in his 100 Amazing Facts. And nine years later, the historian Herbert Aptheker published his pioneering study, American Negro Slave Revolts, to set the record straight. Aptheker defined a slave revolt as an action involving 10 or more slaves, with “freedom as the apparent aim [and] contemporary references labeling the event as an uprising, plot, insurrection, or the equivalent of these.” In all, Aptheker says, he “has found records of approximately two hundred and fifty revolts and conspiracies in the history of American Negro slavery.” Other scholars have found as many as 313.

The Five Greatest Slave Rebellions in the United States | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

Yeah, that's right up there with those great jungle bunny civilizations that no one's ever heard of.

You know it's amazing, the three of you - if this site didn't show how many messages you'd already made I'd think you were just trolls, which I guess you are, but beyond that, do you have even the slightest sense of decency? I get that it's anonymous and everything but how do you type those words? I just don't get it.

 

[OldLady]

It appears that many whites here need to earn the true history of life in America.
Did African-American Slaves Rebel?
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr

One of the most pernicious allegations made against the African-American people was that our slave ancestors were either exceptionally “docile” or “content and loyal,” thus explaining their purported failure to rebel extensively. Some even compare enslaved Americans to their brothers and sisters in Brazil, Cuba, Suriname and Haiti, the last of whom defeated the most powerful army in the world, Napoleon’s army, becoming the first slaves in history to successfully strike a blow for their own freedom.

As the historian Herbert Aptheker informs us in American Negro Slave Revolts, no one put this dishonest, nakedly pro-slavery argument more baldly than the Harvard historian James Schouler in 1882, who attributed this spurious conclusion to ” ‘the innate patience, docility, and child-like simplicity of the negro’ ” who, he felt, was an ” ‘imitator and non-moralist,’ ” learning ” ‘deceit and libertinism with facility,’ ” being ” ‘easily intimidated, incapable of deep plots’ “; in short, Negroes were ” ‘a black servile race, sensuous, stupid, brutish, obedient to the whip, children in imagination.’ ”

Consider how bizarre this was: It wasn’t enough that slaves had been subjugated under a harsh and brutal regime for two and a half centuries; following the collapse of Reconstruction, this school of historians — unapologetically supportive of slavery — kicked the slaves again for not rising up more frequently to kill their oppressive masters. And lest we think that this phenomenon was relegated to 19th- and early 20th-century scholars, as late as 1959, Stanley Elkins drew a picture of the slaves as infantilized “Sambos” in his book Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, reduced to the status of the passive, “perpetual child” by the severely oppressive form of American slavery, and thus unable to rebel. Rarely can I think of a colder, nastier set of claims than these about the lack of courage or “manhood” of the African-American slaves.

So, did African-American slaves rebel? Of course they did. As early as 1934, our old friend Joel A. Rogers identified 33 slave revolts, including Nat Turner’s, in his 100 Amazing Facts. And nine years later, the historian Herbert Aptheker published his pioneering study, American Negro Slave Revolts, to set the record straight. Aptheker defined a slave revolt as an action involving 10 or more slaves, with “freedom as the apparent aim [and] contemporary references labeling the event as an uprising, plot, insurrection, or the equivalent of these.” In all, Aptheker says, he “has found records of approximately two hundred and fifty revolts and conspiracies in the history of American Negro slavery.” Other scholars have found as many as 313.

The Five Greatest Slave Rebellions in the United States | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

Yeah, that's right up there with those great jungle bunny civilizations that no one's ever heard of.

You know it's amazing, the three of you - if this site didn't show how many messages you'd already made I'd think you were just trolls, which I guess you are, but beyond that, do you have even the slightest sense of decency? I get that it's anonymous and everything but how do you type those words? I just don't get it.

You'd best get used to it, John. But keep those arguments coming. They're good ones.

 

[midcan5]

While race is a myth it gives comfort to many groups, tribes or individuals, it gives them a feeling, while imaginary, of superior being. A genuine reading of the history for instance of early America demonstrates a more complicated picture that includes 'class'. Class for some reason is missing in much dialogue today. Americans don't want to face class, the cheering crowds at Trump rallies would have no place in Trump's world but they are swayed by his tribal bigotry. An excellent read on this topic is 'White Trash' by Nancy Isenberg. Whites were treated the same as blacks in much of the country but especially the South. The were even labeled and made less than human. Today because of the notion of race they are convinced they bleed differently than others, and so long as they believe this they are easily managed and controlled. Trump snowflakes cheer a man whose class would deny them a seat at their table. White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg

"Racism is not about how you look, it is about how people assign meaning to how you look." Robin D.G. Kelley

I Know Why Poor Whites Chant Trump, Trump, Trump

White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson

Race is a myth:

The Myth of Race by Jefferson M. Fish
The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea by Robert Wald Sussman
A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama's America by Jacqueline A. Jones

"To lay all of this at Trump’s feet would be to give him too much credit. As I’ve argued before, the misogynist, racist, nativist, anti-LGBT right wing that took over the GOP in 1980—of which Perkins himself is evidence—has much to answer for, not least of all, the rise of Donald Trump as the party’s standard-bearer. Trump may not have been the first choice of right-wing leaders, but they created the conditions that cleared his path to the nomination, and most have lined up behind him since he won it."

The Normalization of Evil in American Politics

 

[Meathead]

It appears that many whites here need to earn the true history of life in America.
Did African-American Slaves Rebel?
by Henry Louis Gates, Jr

One of the most pernicious allegations made against the African-American people was that our slave ancestors were either exceptionally “docile” or “content and loyal,” thus explaining their purported failure to rebel extensively. Some even compare enslaved Americans to their brothers and sisters in Brazil, Cuba, Suriname and Haiti, the last of whom defeated the most powerful army in the world, Napoleon’s army, becoming the first slaves in history to successfully strike a blow for their own freedom.

As the historian Herbert Aptheker informs us in American Negro Slave Revolts, no one put this dishonest, nakedly pro-slavery argument more baldly than the Harvard historian James Schouler in 1882, who attributed this spurious conclusion to ” ‘the innate patience, docility, and child-like simplicity of the negro’ ” who, he felt, was an ” ‘imitator and non-moralist,’ ” learning ” ‘deceit and libertinism with facility,’ ” being ” ‘easily intimidated, incapable of deep plots’ “; in short, Negroes were ” ‘a black servile race, sensuous, stupid, brutish, obedient to the whip, children in imagination.’ ”

Consider how bizarre this was: It wasn’t enough that slaves had been subjugated under a harsh and brutal regime for two and a half centuries; following the collapse of Reconstruction, this school of historians — unapologetically supportive of slavery — kicked the slaves again for not rising up more frequently to kill their oppressive masters. And lest we think that this phenomenon was relegated to 19th- and early 20th-century scholars, as late as 1959, Stanley Elkins drew a picture of the slaves as infantilized “Sambos” in his book Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, reduced to the status of the passive, “perpetual child” by the severely oppressive form of American slavery, and thus unable to rebel. Rarely can I think of a colder, nastier set of claims than these about the lack of courage or “manhood” of the African-American slaves.

So, did African-American slaves rebel? Of course they did. As early as 1934, our old friend Joel A. Rogers identified 33 slave revolts, including Nat Turner’s, in his 100 Amazing Facts. And nine years later, the historian Herbert Aptheker published his pioneering study, American Negro Slave Revolts, to set the record straight. Aptheker defined a slave revolt as an action involving 10 or more slaves, with “freedom as the apparent aim [and] contemporary references labeling the event as an uprising, plot, insurrection, or the equivalent of these.” In all, Aptheker says, he “has found records of approximately two hundred and fifty revolts and conspiracies in the history of American Negro slavery.” Other scholars have found as many as 313.

The Five Greatest Slave Rebellions in the United States | African American History Blog | The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross

Yeah, that's right up there with those great jungle bunny civilizations that no one's ever heard of.

You know it's amazing, the three of you - if this site didn't show how many messages you'd already made I'd think you were just trolls, which I guess you are, but beyond that, do you have even the slightest sense of decency? I get that it's anonymous and everything but how do you type those words? I just don't get it.

You'd best get used to it, John. But keep those arguments coming. They're good ones.

Yup. It's no place for snowflakes and/or pigs.

 

[Penelope]

For a long time, until 1856 (or about) white men who didn't own property couldn't vote, they could but they came out with $1 tax and then literacy tests, and yet blacks were not allowed, or women till 1920.

White rich men, poor white men, poor illiterate men, then white women, now and then some blacks were allowed to vote, then the Civil rights act in 1960 and now the GOP are suppressing blacks, disabled and poor seniors again.

District of Columbia is yet not allowed to vote, yet they pay taxes, funny how their demographics is now largely black.

Anyway, blacks, poor white men, women, Catholics, and Native Americans had to fight for the right to vote, but the blacks and poor have it worst.

Wasps, stands for Weathy, anglo- saxon, protestants. Today it still means what it originally meant.

 

[OldLady]

A lot of "racism" is actually a problem of class. The poor get the short end of the stick and their lives are such that they break laws to survive or get ahead. It has NEVER been any different, regardless of what color they are. It doesn't mean that racism doesn't exist; blacks are more poor for a reason--that's because of racism. But the people here who argue that poor whites suffer the same bullshit aren't kidding, either. The problem of class inequality is always hushed up because the arguments sound too communist. It frightens people.

 

[JakeStarkey]

It's not daylight on the west coast, and we have the strangest post of the day aleady: "The vast majority of American black slaves didn't revolt because they knew they had a good deal being owned by benevolent white people."

 

[Penelope]

It's not daylight on the west coast, and we have the strangest post of the day aleady: "The vast majority of American black slaves didn't revolt because they knew they had a good deal being owned by benevolent white people."

And the wealthy white owners had whips and guns.

 

[OldLady]

It's not daylight on the west coast, and we have the strangest post of the day aleady: "The vast majority of American black slaves didn't revolt because they knew they had a good deal being owned by benevolent white people."

When I was visiting South Carolina, we toured a plantation that still had its slave quarters standing and they were still being used by descendants of freed slaves who remained there to work after the Emancipation. The owners were proud of that. I think what happened was that a lot of freed slaves didn't have anywhere else to go or the wherewithal to make a different life, and for some, yes, it was the devil you know...
And there is the class/poverty thing again--a lack of $ and opportunity leads to a perpetuation of the problem.

 

[Hellbilly]

The vast majority of American black slaves didn't revolt because they knew they had a good deal being owned by benevolent white people.

Back in Africa they lived in filthy grass huts and were usually starving most of the time.

But here in America the black slaves were provided a small house in which to live, given food for themselves and their families, and had a guaranteed job on the plantation where they lived for free. ....

Get therapy.

Sent from my SM-J727VPP using Tapatalk

 

[Sunni Man]

Blacks during the days of slavery became used to having free housing and food provided for them by generous white people in exchange for work on the plantation.

That legacy it still carried on today, with most black people living in rent free section 8 houses and given food stamps to feed themselves. Except now they don't even have to work to receive these generous gifts. ....

 

[OldLady]

Blacks during the days of slavery became used to having free housing and food provided for them by white people.

What legacy it still carried on today, with most black people living in rent free section 8 houses and given food stamps to feed themselves. ....

27% or so live in poverty, so how do you figure that?

 

[Sunni Man]

27% or so live in poverty, so how do you figure that?

Poverty statistics are totally subjective.

Almost half of the would's population lives on $2 dollars or less per day.

And they would consider what we call poverty, to be living in opulent wealth. ....

 

[Wyatt earp]

Yeah they rebelled so bad they continue to vote for the party that kept them in chains...


Isn't their a scientific psychological name for that phenomenon?



.

 

[Sunsettommy]

The vast majority of American black slaves didn't revolt because they knew they had a good deal being owned by benevolent white people.

Back in Africa they lived in filthy grass huts and were usually starving most of the time.

But here in America the black slaves were provided a small house in which to live, given food for themselves and their families, and had a guaranteed job on the plantation where they lived for free. ....

I disagree since being a slave is demeaning. Better to be poor and free without the beatings slaves were getting,

The vast majority couldn't revolt because of the situation they were in.