On September 9, 1739, a group comprised mostly of new slaves from the Congo marched through South Carolina, killing anyone who tried to stop them, and shouting out a single word in unison: “Liberty!” The Stono Rebellion, also known as Cato’s Conspiracy, was one of the very rare uprisings of African American slavery.
Before the rebellion, white slaveowners were growing concerned by the large number of African slaves in the area. The slaves outnumbered white people in the South, especially close to Charleston, the main trading port of South Carolina, so they passed a Security Act which required all white men to take guns to church every Sunday, a time when it would be easiest for an uprising to take place. The Act would not take effect, however, for a few weeks. That same year, a malaria epidemic had taken over Charleston, which caused much confusion in the colony.
The slaves met on an early Sunday morning, when the white families they worked for would go to church. They were mostly new slaves from the Congo region of Africa, led by a literate man named Jemmy, also known as Cato. This group of around twenty met early in the morning by the Stono bank. As they marched through the streets, they stole arms from a shop and killed the shopkeeper. One white man’s life was spared because he had been kind to slaves. Another white man was protected by his slaves, who eventually joined the protest. In all, twenty-one white people were killed in the Stono Rebellion.
They were heading to St. Augustine, Florida-- the Spanish had promised freedom and land to anyone who came to serve in their army or otherwise. As they marched on, shouting out “Liberty!” in unison and setting fire to houses, the number grew to sixty slaves. Stono, South Carolina was shocked by the uprising. So, when the slaves stopped their bloody march to rest, the militia, who had been warned by Lieutenant William Bull, who saw the rebellion at eleven o’clock, attacked. Forty-four black people were killed.
Slave masters in Stono were angry. However, South Carolina penalized masters who punished their slaves brutally and created a Christian school for the slaves-- the slaves wouldn’t be able to learn themselves and read and write anymore, though. Instead, they would depend solely on what they were taught. In the Black Codes of 1740, South Carolina decided to cut off the slave trade. Instead of bringing in more enslaved Africans which would endanger the white population, they would breed the slaves and enslave their children as well, an idea which had not been tried in previous history (usually slaves were debtors, prisoners of war, and criminals, and not based on race). Slaves were no longer allowed to read and write, grow their own food, assemble into groups, or earn their own money. They were deemed inferior and created for the white people of South Carolina to control. And as it turned out, the slaves of Stono were completely deprived of the freedom they had fought so desperately to achieve.
I strongly recommend this link for primary sources of the Stono Rebellion to make the information clearer:
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