Alexander, Leslie. ‘Enslavement and uprisings.’ Throughlines. www.throughlines.org/suite-content/enslavement-and-uprisings. [Date Accessed].
Enslavement and uprisings
Leslie Alexander demonstrates the costs and consequences of rebellion with three major examples of uprisings in colonial America.
In the years before independence in the United States there were over fifty documented conspiracies, rebellions, and plots by enslaved peoples in resistance to slavery. Unfortunately, this history has been largely overlooked. Many historians have dismissed incidents of slave insurrections as insignificant, or too small to qualify as acts of political resistance. This dismissal devalues the self-awareness enslaved people had for their position in colonial society.
By studying these rebellions and the unique political climate in which they took place, we can better understand the ways in which enslaved people strategically worked against and resisted slavery since its inception. We can also trace how anti-Black racism is deeply embedded into the foundations of U.S. legal code and law enforcement.
Further learning
Recommended
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Black protest tradition in early African American literature
Respectability politics has long circumscribed the Black American experience and the literature produced by Black communities. This course examines some of the earliest examples of that literature to understand where, how, and why protest emerged in African American literature as a strategy to combat American racism and state-sanctioned violence.
