THE STONO REBELLION
On Sept. 9, 1739, the largest slave insurrection in British North America began along Wallace Creek, an offshoot of the Stono River about 20 miles south of Charles Town.
Led by a free Angolan named Jemmy, a band of about 20 free and enslaved Africans and African American broke into Hutchinson’s store on a Sunday morning while most Whites were at church. Killing the two shopkeepers, they armed themselves with guns and other weapons, and headed south toward Florida, where the Spanish had promised them freedom.
As they marched past plantations along their route, overseers were killed and reluctant slaves forced to join their company. Over the course of the day, the group’s numbers swelled to perhaps 60 (no one knows for sure). They covered about 15 miles, killing at least another 20 Whites, yet sparing others who were said to be kind to or hidden by their enslaved workers.
S.C. Lt. Gen. William Bull, who accidentally stumbled across the group as they marched south and alerted Charles Town authorities. The band reached the Edisto River where Bull's white colonists descended upon them, killing most of the rebels. The survivors were sold off to the West Indies. At least 44 Blacks and at least 21 Whites were killed during the insurrection. Most who escaped were later captured and executed.
The revolt led to the Negro Act of 1740 which outlined how slaves were to be treated, punished, and attired. It forbade Blacks from gathering without white supervision and being taught to read or write - though this last was often ignored. These slave codes remained roughly the same until emancipation in 1865.
Bull later submitted his account of the rebellion to British authorities:
My Lords,
I beg leave to lay before your Lordships an account of our Affairs, . . . . On the 9th of September last at Night a great Number of Negroes Arose in Rebellion, broke open a Store where they got arms, killed twenty one White Persons, and were marching the next morning in a Daring manner out of the Province, killing all they met and burning several Houses as they passed along the Road. I was returning from Granville County with four Gentlemen and met these Rebels at eleven o’clock in the forenoon and fortunately deserned the approaching danger time enough to avoid it, and to give notice to the Militia who on the Occasion behaved with so much expedition and bravery, as by four a’Clock the same day to come up with them and killed and took so many as put a stop to any further mischief at that time, forty four of them have been killed and Executed; some few yet remain concealed in the Woods expecting the same fate, . . . "
