In the very early hours of September 9, 1739, a group of slaves digging a drainage ditch for the Stono River near Charleston, South Carolina, decided to break into a general store for a drink to celebrate their hard (and unpaid) work. The events that followed culminated in the largest and bloodiest slave rebellion in colonial American history.

Sources:

“Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade.” Enslaved Peoples of Historical Slave Trade, 31 May, 2013. https://enslaved.org/fullStory/16-23-92889/. 

Hoffer, Peter Charles. Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Mutti-Burke, Diane. “What the Stono Revolt Can Teach Us About History.” H-South, H-Net Reviews. October, 2006. 

Niven, Steven J. “The Stono Slave Rebellion Was Nearly Erased From US History Books.” The Root, February 22, 2016. https://www.theroot.com/the-stono-slave-rebellion-was-nearly-erased-from-us-his-1790854336. 

“Resource Bank Contents.” Africans in America. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/index.html. 

Smith, Mark M., ed. Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005).

“The Stono Rebellion.” Bill of Rights Institute. https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-stono-rebellion. 

“The Stono Rebellion: Crash Course Black American History #6- YouTube.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pND-9KhM1Xw. 

“Two Views of the Stono Slave Rebellion South Carolina, 1739.” Becoming American: The British Atlantic Colonies, 1690-1763. National Humanities Center. http://www.nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/becomingamer/peoples/text4/stonorebellion.pdf. 

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