Slave Rebellions--When Freedom Was So Close Quiz

Answer: Creole

The passengers of the Creole managed almost a miracle: a successful slave uprising. They were bound from the area of Richmond, Va. down the coast to New Orleans, being shipped by interstate slave traders. Madison Washington led the rebellion, and once he had a white man who promised to obey, he asked that they be taken across the ocean to Liberia in Africa.

After he learned that was impossible for a coast-bound ship, they agreed on any nearer area under British control. They landed in Nassau, and after much legal arguing, almost all were set free. Similar things had happened before when weather or other trouble had forced American slave ships into British ports, and British courts were grudgingly setting up a system of freeing the people and compensating the owners with money for their value.

The Creole made it to Nassau in good weather under its own sail, and the slaves took advantage of the situation.

Answer: John Brown

No hints, other than listing obscure abolitionists for the alternate choices, as I hope John Brown's name is well known enough. With only a few men armed mainly with pikes, he began a grandiose plan to begin a slave rebellion that would spread far and wide within the south.

The first step was to gain better weapons at the U.S. arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Va., which was filled with brand new guns. He was cornered and soon caught, ironically by Col. Robert E. Lee. He was put on trial and hanged, and was remembered either as a martyr, a crazy person or an example of what abolitionists might do to the south.

The country careened ever closer toward civil war.

Answer: Denmark Vesey

Denmark Vesey, also called Telemaque, bought his freedom after winning a lottery, and worked as a carpenter in Charleston, S.C. He managed to organize hundreds, perhaps thousands, of slaves and free blacks to revolt starting July 14, 1822, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in the French revolution. By some accounts, he planned to kill Charleston slaveowners, free their slaves, and sail to Haiti where he would be safe. With so many people involved, the plan was impossible to keep quiet, and two men in particular, George Wilson and Joe LaRoche, gave specific details, apparently due to their loyalty to their masters.

The potential insurrectionists were tried, and sentenced depending on their degree of involvement and hostile attitude. Sixty-seven were hanged including Vesey, 31 were transported out of state, 27 acquitted, and 38 released.

Other laws were passed limiting slaves' ability to attend churches, and restricting the movement of free blacks. The name Denmark probably comes from where he was born, St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies. I tried to help by giving names of other people who weren't real.

Answer: walked together into the water and deliberately drowned themselves

Igbo Landing, named after the slaves and also called Ebo, Ebos or Ibo Landing, was on Dunbar Creek, St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia. The slaves had survived the trip across the Atlantic and were being taken along the coast on a schooner. Supposedly, they were chained below deck but managed to overpower and drown their captors, take over the ship, and set it aground along Dunbar Creek by St. Simons Island.

The white overseer of the nearby Piece Butler plantation left the only account written at the time. Roswell King, the overseer, said that the slaves committed suicide by walking into the swamp formed by the creek.

He helped recover some of the bodies, and some may have been captured live according to other reports. Supernatural legends have grown around the story, including that the escaped slaves were able to fly back to Africa.

Answer: German Coast uprising

Freeman Charles Deslondes was generally considered the leader of the rebellion, Jan. 8-11, 1811. While many enslaved men joined the march as it continued over 15-20 miles, swelling the numbers to as high as 500 in some reports, or at least a couple hundred in the lower estimates.

Others were afraid to join, knowing how harshly insurrectionists had been treated in the past. The white militia overpowered them before they reached New Orleans. After capture, some of the men were tried and found forced to go and therefore innocent.

Others were found to be willing participants or ring-leaders, and many men were tortured or were displayed after death, to discourage future rebellions.

Answer: Gabriel

Gabriel, sometimes called Gabriel Prossser today, was a blacksmith who planned a widespread uprising of slaves in Richmond, but his plans were given away and the governor called out the militia to quell the plot. Twenty-five men, including Gabriel and his two brothers, were executed.

But more significant, the failed plot frightened white Virginians into passing stiffer laws. Slave owners regulated how slaves and free blacks could gather or travel, and state laws restricted education and training, as well as manumissions and whether newly freed people could remain in the state, all in attempts to prevent another uprising.

Answer: George Boxley

George Boxley was well known as a store keeper and land owner in Spotsylvania, Va., but he was suspected to be too friendly with local blacks. In fact, he helped some enslaved people escape, and planned a general rebellion. An enslaved woman named Lucy told her owner about the plot, and Boxley was arrested.

He escaped from jail, and his wife, who was never charged, sold off their Virginia home and property gradually, then joined him in isolated Adams Township, Hamilton County, Indiana, where he taught school and, legend has it, continued to help with the underground railroad.

Answer: Amistad

The Amistad trial included international laws from several countries, and the spectacle of former President John Quincy Adams as a lawyer telling current President Martin Van Buren that he was handling things wrong. In the end, the Africans were freed, setting not exactly a precedent, because no case would really be exactly so complicated again, but at least an example of American enslaved men freed under foreign law.

There have been a movie, a replica ship and several books written about the event, not to mention murals, memorials and other remembrances of the bravery and difficulty of the Amistad's unwilling passengers' road to freedom.

Answer: Nat Turner

The slave Nat Turner, already a locally respected preacher and generally charismatic guy, planned for his followers to start a path of murder against slave owners in 1831. They were caught, but not before many people of both colors were killed. The state court tried and executed, banished or freed many participants or purported participants, but the worst carnage came during the hysteria of the uprising itself. Around 55 blacks were legally executed, but 200 blacks were killed during the insurrection and its immediate aftermath, compared to around 60 whites.

Answer: freeing slaves, so they'd have no reason to rebel

All the wrong answers were real laws that were passed. The legislature considered many proposals of the right answer after Nat Turner's rebellion, but eventually turned them all down and decided stiffer laws were the answer.