Slave Revolts in the 1600s and the 1700s
The revolt was a slave uprising that took place in almost all societies that practised slavery, or that had in the past practised it. The revolt or the uprising was the scariest time in the history of slave-owners in America. The slaves were not organized in their rebellion, but their efforts succeeded greatly. Besides creating challenges for the slavery system in America, the slaves’ revolt also changed the lives of slave-owners and African American slaves. For instance, the slaves boycotted work because they knew that their owners would suffer great losses and harm. Slave owners were forced to start caring for themselves and to also perform duties which they previously could not do. Slaves that worked in the farms demolished equipment, killed livestock and even burned bales of cotton. Those that worked as domestic workers either strangled their masters and/or their families or they would put things into their meals.
African American slaves were constantly living in fear, and they employed a number of acts to beat the slavery systems: poisoning their masters, poor work, sabotage, feigning illness committing arson. In 1712, for example, some 25 slaves armed themselves with clubs and guns and set ablaze a house in northern sides of New York, and they killed the first nine white men that dared appear at the scene. However, they were outnumbered because there were more white men, and they were later captured and killed by white soldiers. But even after their deaths, their names continued to live on, and they kept alive the hope of freedom among African American slaves. These were the toughest moments for slave owners in America. It is estimated that about 250 slave revolts occurred in America before slavery was banned in 1865.
Question 2: Biography of Fredrick Douglass
Douglas was born to a slave mother and a white slave owner at around 1818 in Maryland’s Talbot County. He initially lived with Betty Bailey his maternal grandmother – before he went to live with Hugh Auld, a plantation owner. Auld’s wife defied law against the teaching of slaves and taught Douglass how to read and write. But when she was forbidden by her husband, the boy continued to learn under the guidance of white children and other people in the neighbourhood. It was during his reading that his position on slavery was shaped, and he began to teach other slaves how to read the bible. In 1838, he married the love of his wife Anna Murray, and they had five children. When Anna passed away, he married Helen Pitts, a New York feminist who was younger than him by 20 years. The marriage raised many eyebrows, and even Douglas’s children were displeased, but the couple remained married.
After he became a free man, Douglass would give anti-slavery lectures at abolitionist meetings. When a story was run about him in the Liberator Journal by William Lloyd Garrison who became impressed by his rhetorical skills, Douglas got an opportunity later to give a speech at an anti-slavery convention in Massachusetts. Not all crowds were hospitable to Douglass; a mob chased and beat him during a lecture in 1843, but he was rescued by some locals. When his autobiography got published in 1845, he fled overseas to avoid being captured. He was in Britain and Ireland for about two years, where he gave anti-slavery lectures to large crowds. His British supporters later gathered some funds to buy his freedom, and he was able to return to the USA in 1847 as a free man.
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