January 8, 1811 – Slave Uprising in Louisiana

In January of 1811, approximately 500 slaves from plantations in the New Orleans area tried to seize power and win freedom for those who labored in the sugar cane fields. It was the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. The aim of the revolt, writes historian Leon A. Waters, was the establishment of an independent republic, a Black republic. Over 500 Africans, from 50 different nations with 50 different languages, would wage a fight against U.S. troops and the territorial militias. Waters writes:

This revolt would get started in St. John the Baptist and St. Charles parishes, about 30 miles upriver from New Orleans. At that time, New Orleans was the capital of what was called the Orleans Territory. The revolt sought to capture the city of New Orleans and make New Orleans the capital of the new republic.”

Author and historian Leon Waters speaking on the 1811 Slave Revolt. He is descended from the rebels. Photo: San Francisco Bay View.

The sugar cane industry was notorious for the intense workload and high death rate among the slaves. During harvest time, slaves worked sixteen hours a day. Yet the profits were so high, planters were unaffected by the fact that less than one-third of slaves survived past the third or fourth year. Louisiana planters claimed that Africans were “uniquely matched to the hot weather and tough work.” But this claim was belied by the high death rate as well as the necessity for whips, spiked iron collars, and face masks used on the slaves. As Daniel Rasmussen observes in his excellent history, American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt:

These colonial plantations were as close to a death camp as one could come in the late eighteenth century.”

Rasmussen recounts the incredible story of how the slave rebellion was organized, carried out, and viciously crushed by the combined forces of the planters and the U.S. Army and Navy.

The revolt was put down by Janurary 11. Rasmussen details the brutal retaliation exacted by the planters, who decapitated some one hundred slaves, putting their heads on spikes all along the levee. As Waters notes, this display of heads placed on spikes stretched over 60 miles.

Rasmussen decries the fact that the names of the brave rebel leaders – Kook, Quamana, Harry Kenner, and Charles Deslondes – have been lost to history, and he tells you exactly how and why the memory of this revolt was suppressed almost immediately.

Official accounts at the time spun the fiction that the revolt was nearly a band of “‘brigands’ out to pillage and plunder.”  This was not true, but the actual nature and scope of the revolt needed to be suppressed lest it destabilize the institution of slavery in Louisiana and elsewhere.

In a fascinating twist, Rasmussen explains how the slave rebellion and its aftermath became a factor in the victory of Andrew Jackson at New Orleans a year later, a victory that ultimately led to his presidency. Jackson, “the nation’s most celebrated killer of Native Americans,” was also one of several presidents dedicated to the hegemony of white Americans over the vast expanse of the American continent. His dedication to white supremacy across the continent won him enough supporters to help carry him to the presidency.

Rasmussen wants us to draw an important lesson from this story:

Above all, this is a story about America: who we are, where we came from, and how our ideals have at times been twisted and cast aside for the sake of greed and power.”