Slavery and Slave Resistance: Revolts, Maroons, and Everyday Defiance

Slavery was a system where people were forced to work without pay and had almost no rights. In the United States and the Americas, enslaved people were treated as property under the law. Their children were born into slavery too, even if their father was free. Slavery was harsh for everyone, and especially cruel for women. As one enslaved woman, Harriet Jacobs, explained, “Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women”. Despite these hardships, enslaved Africans and their descendants found ways to survive, keep their culture alive, and resist their enslavement.

Life as a Slave

Enslaved people lived under strict control. They worked long hours, often from sunrise to sunset, and had very little food, shelter, or comfort. Many worked in the fields on large plantations, planting and picking crops like tobacco, sugar, or cotton. Others worked as skilled craftspeople or in the master’s house cooking and cleaning. Men usually did the hardest labor, while women worked both in the fields and at home. Slave laws meant that enslaved people could not leave the plantation without permission, marry without approval, or learn to read and write. For example, the law declared that “the children of enslaved women were also considered enslaved, regardless of whether their fathers were enslaved or not”. This law kept families apart: a child’s status followed the mother, so even if the father was free or white, the child remained enslaved.

White masters controlled every part of family life. They often sold children away from parents and spouses away from each other to break up family ties. Enslaved families strongly resisted this by forming tight kinship bonds. They treated spouses and parents as inseparable, knowing that masters would find it very difficult to sell husbands away from wives or mothers away from children. In this way, forming families was itself a quiet form of resistance, because it challenged the idea that people could be owned like objects. Enslaved people also kept their culture alive through music, stories, and religion. They used African languages, food, and customs in secret. Even praying in their own way could be defiant, because masters knew it gave hope and courage. As one historian noted, speaking African languages could hide plans of escape, and keeping African religious practices or calling children by African names was a way of surviving the harsh rule of slavery. In all these ways—work, family, and culture—enslaved people tried to make life more bearable and to hold on to their sense of being human.

Everyday Resistance

Enslaved people resisted their masters in small, everyday ways as much as they could. Because open rebellion was very dangerous, much of this resistance was quiet. Common acts of defiance took place right in the fields or houses. For example:

• Work slowdowns and sabotage: If masters worked them too hard or punished them cruelly, many slaves would deliberately slow down or pretend to be sick. They might break tools, ruin crops, or throw away food rations to make work harder for the masters. Even changing the pace of work was a way to push back against unfair labor. Masters rarely arrested slaves for these acts, because if they punished too many, all the crops might fail.

• Theft of food or goods: Slaves often took food, tobacco, or livestock from their masters. This was partly because rations were often too small and slaves were hungry. Many felt it was fair to share the plantation’s abundance since they had created it with their labor. One slave leader, Frederick Douglass, noted that slaves thought of taking food as moving it “from one tub to another,” meaning the food was theirs by right. These acts of taking supplies helped keep families fed and was an everyday form of survival resistance.

• Preserving culture and identity: Enslaved people secretly passed on African traditions in music, dance, and religion. They created strong families and kinships despite the fear of separation. They held secret meetings for worship, sometimes singing spirituals with hidden messages. Even something as simple as planting a certain vegetable in a field, cooking a meal in the African style, or keeping a family Bible could resist the slave system by reminding people of their humanity. Any assertion of their own culture and family life was an act of defiance in a system that said slaves had no identity.

• Learning and education: Some slaves secretly taught themselves or each other to read and write, even though it was illegal. They used stolen books or hidden lessons. Gaining knowledge was a powerful form of resistance, because education could inspire thoughts of freedom and equality.

• Running away: Perhaps the most daring everyday act was escape. Many slaves ran away from plantations, often at great risk. They fled to forests, mountains, or swamps to hide, or tried to reach free states in the North. Escaping meant leaving family behind, but it was a way to claim freedom even for a short time. Those who made it often found safety with others or with anti-slavery allies. Thousands of runaways tried to escape before the Civil War.

These small acts of sabotage, theft, cultural survival, and flight quietly challenged the slave system day by day. They showed that enslaved people were not simply accepting slavery; they resisted and negotiated their own terms even in small ways every day.

Maroon Communities and Escapes

Some enslaved people ran so far that they never tried to return to plantations. They escaped into remote, hidden regions—swamps, mountains, or dense forests—and formed independent communities. These communities of runaway slaves are known as maroon communities. The word maroon (from Spanish cimarrón) means wild or runaway. In maroon communities, formerly enslaved people built their own villages, made new lives, and often elected their own leaders. They grew food, raised livestock, and sometimes even traded with local people. They were beyond the control of white masters.

Maroons existed all over the Americas, especially in the Caribbean and South America, but also in North America. For example, in the Great Dismal Swamp (along the North Carolina–Virginia border), hundreds of fugitives hid and lived free. In Louisiana’s swamps (the Bas-de-Fleuve region), other maroon bands survived by fishing and hunting. The best-known maroon communities were in Florida. Florida was still Spanish territory (and Spain had abolished slavery there), so it became a refuge. There, escaped slaves joined with the Seminole Native Americans. These people became known as “Black Seminoles” or “Seminole Maroons”.

• Florida and the Black Seminoles: In the 1700s and early 1800s, runaway slaves fled to Spanish Florida and teamed up with the Seminole tribe. They created settlements together and fought side by side against American forces. One alliance happened in 1812, when Black Seminoles and Seminole warriors forced a group of Americans (the “Patriot Army”) back out of Florida. Later, during the Seminole Wars (1816–1837), Black Seminoles helped defend their new homeland. They conducted raids on forts and plantations in East Florida, often attacking with their Seminole allies. In these fights, U.S. General Thomas Jesup reportedly said, “This is a negro, not an Indian war,” reflecting how southern slaveholders feared that Black Seminoles might inspire wider slave rebellion.

• Other maroon areas: Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina/Virginia. In these dense swamps, escaped slaves dug hideouts and made camps where they lived off the land. The swamp’s difficult terrain made it hard for hunters to find them.

• Spanish territories: Spain offered freedom to slaves who fled British colonies. For a time, Fort Mose (near St. Augustine, Florida) was a free Black town protected by Spain. Escaped slaves also ran to Mexico and other Spanish lands where slavery was less strict.

• Caribbean examples: In Jamaica, thousands of enslaved people ran away into the mountains. The Maroons there fought a long war with British colonists and won a treaty in 1739 allowing them autonomy. In Surinam (Dutch Guiana), and in parts of Brazil and Cuba, maroon communities also resisted by hiding in jungles and fighting colonial armies.

Maroons aimed to live entirely free, outside the reach of slaveholders. They often had to defend themselves with weapons and guerilla tactics. In some places, European armies could not defeat them; instead, treaties were made, like in Jamaica. These maroon societies are a vivid example of enslaved people escaping and creating free lives on their own terms.

Slave Revolts

From time to time, enslaved people took up arms in large revolts, hoping to overthrow slavery. The Haitian Revolution(1791–1804) is the most famous and successful example in the Atlantic world. In the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), enslaved Africans organized a massive rebellion. Despite brutal fighting and resistance, they defeated the French colonial forces. In 1804, Haiti became the first nation in the Americas to abolish slavery and be governed by former slaves. The success of the Haitian Revolution terrified slaveholders elsewhere. It was the only large-scale revolt that completely overthrew the slave system in a colony.

In what would become the United States, major revolts included:

• Stono Rebellion (1739, South Carolina): About 20 miles from Charleston, slaves gathered at the Stono River and marched south, beating drums and shouting for liberty. They raided a store for weapons and, as they went, killed more than 20 white colonists. Their numbers grew to around 60 as more slaves joined them. They marched toward Florida, where Spanish authorities promised freedom. However, the white militia caught up with them by sunset. Roughly half of the rebels were killed and most of the rest were captured. The Stono Rebellion led South Carolina lawmakers to pass even stricter slave laws, including the Negro Act of 1740, which banned slaves from learning to read and placed tight limits on their rights.

• Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831, Virginia): Nat Turner was an enslaved preacher who believed he was chosen by God to lead his people out of bondage. In August 1831, he and about 50 followers launched a violent uprising in Southampton County, Virginia. Over two nights, they killed roughly 55 to 60 white men, women, and children. They planned to escape to the Great Dismal Swamp to hide after the rebellion, but local militias and a militia from across Virginia quickly suppressed the revolt. Turner hid for six weeks but was eventually caught and executed. In the aftermath, white Virginians were terrified. They killed at least 100 Black people in retaliation (many without any trial) and executed many of Nat Turner’s followers. They also passed new oppressive laws: it became illegal to teach slaves or free Blacks to read, and white authorities increased patrols and surveillance of all Black people.

• Other conspiracies: There were many other planned rebellions and uprisings, though fewer succeeded. Gabriel Prosser organized a revolt near Richmond, VA, in 1800, but it was betrayed before it began. Denmark Vesey planned a revolt in Charleston, SC, in 1822, but was discovered before it happened. In New Orleans in 1811, enslaved men and women marched on the city in the largest uprising on the continent (the German Coast Uprising), but they were defeated by militia. In each case, rebels killed slaveholders or ransacked plantations, but the rebellion was crushed and severe reprisals followed. For example, after Nat Turner’s rebellion, Virginia and other states made laws even harsher against all Black people. After any revolt, white slaveholders tightened control to prevent future uprisings.

Each of these revolts showed the desperate courage of enslaved people. However, none (in the U.S.) successfully ended slavery. The slaveholders always had superior arms and could call on local militias or the army. Nevertheless, these revolts spread fear. White communities viewed them as evidence that slaves might rebel at any moment. In Virginia and South Carolina, lawmakers responded by banning teaching slaves to read and by increasing patrols and punishment for even small misbehaviors.

Alliances with Native Americans

Enslaved Africans sometimes found allies among Native Americans. In some areas, tribes gave sanctuary to escaped slaves or joined forces against common enemies. The most famous example is in Florida with the Seminole people (a Native American group). As noted above, Black Seminoles (escaped slaves living with the Seminole) became a distinct community in the late 1700s and early 1800s. These groups lived together in freedom and resisted U.S. attempts to remove them. During the Seminole Wars (1817–1858), Black Seminoles fought side by side with the Seminoles. They launched raids on plantations and forts in East Florida. For instance, in late 1835, Seminoles and their African allies attacked U.S. Army posts and sugar plantations, freeing many enslaved workers who then joined them. These joint actions led U.S. General Jesup to say, “This is a negro, not an Indian war,”highlighting how runaway slaves were central to the conflict.

Another example involves the Great Dismal Swamp on the Virginia–North Carolina line. Many escaped slaves hid there and lived among Native Americans or independently, using the swamp as a refuge. In other regions, escaped slaves sometimes formed friendships or temporary alliances with tribes like the Creek and Cherokee, though these are less well documented.

In general, any cooperation threatened white slaveholders. They worried that alliances could lead to coordinated resistance. The memory of these alliances influenced events later: for example, during the Civil War, groups like the Creek Freedmen (descendants of slaves held by the Creek Nation) sided with the Union. But in the antebellum period, the strongest symbol of such an alliance was the Black Seminole.

Slaveholders’ Fears and Foreign Policy

Slaveholders in the American South were a powerful political force, and their fears shaped U.S. policy. By the mid-1800s, many key leaders (presidents, generals, diplomats) were themselves slave owners. Historian Matthew Karp describes how these pro-slavery leaders viewed the whole United States as “a vast Southern Empire” dedicated to defending slavery. They were not isolationist; they believed in using the federal government’s power to protect slavery at home and abroad.

For example, when Britain passed a law in 1833 to abolish slavery throughout its empire, American slaveholders saw it as a direct threat. Britain was then the world’s top naval and commercial power. Southern leaders feared that British action would inspire slave revolts in the United States or hurt cotton exports. In response, they launched what Karp calls a “foreign policy of slavery.” Instead of fighting Britain directly, they worked to defend slavery globally in other ways. They pushed to strengthen the U.S. Navy and army (surprising many of their states-rights colleagues) so the U.S. could better control areas where slavery existed, like Cuba, Texas, and Brazil. They also formed alliances with other slaveholding nations in the Americas.

At home, leaders like Thomas Jefferson (himself a Virginia slaveholder) were torn by revolutions abroad. Jefferson supported the American and French Revolutions in principle, but the slave revolt in Haiti alarmed him. He “feared the specter of slave revolt,” since a successful Black republic was born from rebellion. As president, Jefferson cut off U.S. aid to the Haitian revolutionaries and worked to isolate Haiti. He believed if Haiti’s example spread, Southern slavery would be in danger. Even earlier, news of the Haitian slave revolt in 1791 prompted many Southern whites to agree on offering aid to suppress it or on seeking compromises similar to what Jamaican planters did with runaway maroons in 1739.

By the 1840s and 1850s, Karp notes that this “slave power” dominated U.S. foreign policy. Southern politicians annexed Texas (so it would remain a slave state) and eyed the Caribbean and Latin America for expansion. They saw the United States itself as upholding slavery’s future. Thus, fears of slave rebellions and a global anti-slavery movement led Southern leaders to shape national policy: they invested in a strong navy and army to protect slavery, and they aligned diplomatically with other slave states.

Gendered Resistance

Women who were enslaved had special burdens, but they also resisted in unique ways. Enslaved women often endured sexual abuse by masters. Some used the only power they had over their own bodies to resist. For example, Harriet Jacobs (an enslaved woman in North Carolina) narrated how she refused her master’s advances. She “gave herself” to a white free man to become pregnant, deciding, “It seems less degrading to give one’s self, than to submit to compulsion.” This was her way of preventing her master from taking her body by force. Jacobs then hid in a tiny attic space for seven years to keep her children safe until she could escape. Her story shows how enslaved women sometimes made agonizing choices to protect their children and bodies.

Enslaved mothers also resisted by protecting family ties. Women worked to keep families together in any way possible. Some even practiced forms of birth control or resisted having more children under slavery because they knew their children would inherit the mother’s slavery.

Enslaved women also resisted labor differently. In fields, they too would slow work or pretend to be sick. In the master’s house, some women feigned clumsiness or broke household items. Other women, like Harriet Tubman, took leadership roles in resistance movements. Tubman escaped slavery herself and then returned to the South around a dozen times, guiding roughly 70 other enslaved people to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Her courage and organizing helped so many escape that slaveholders feared the Underground Railroad’s power.

Women also used religion and folklore as resistance. They sang spirituals and told stories that held hidden messages of freedom and hope. Slave narratives by women, like Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, spread awareness of the horrors of slavery and built support for abolition. In summary, enslaved women resisted through personal courage, protecting their families, and using any means—from hidden religious meetings to daring escapes—that were available to them.

Legacy and Repression

Slave revolts and resistance had a lasting legacy. Each time there was a serious uprising, slaveholding communities retaliated with harsher laws and punishments. For example, after Nat Turner’s revolt in 1831, Virginia and other Southern states passed “slave codes” to tighten control: they banned educating slaves, restricted movement, and required white supervision of all gatherings of Black people. After the 1739 Stono Rebellion, South Carolina passed the Negro Act of 1740, which further limited slaves’ rights and reinforced that they could not learn to read or earn money. These laws show how enslavers responded to resistance by trying to clamp down even more.

Even attempts at everyday defiance made slaveowners nervous. The Second Seminole War in Florida began when the U.S. tried to force Seminoles and Black Seminoles out of Florida. When Black Seminoles and Seminoles fought back (for example by raiding plantations), the U.S. military launched a brutal campaign. After battles, General Jesup’s comment that it was “a negro, not an Indian war” reflected the fear that the fight was really about keeping slaves down, not just land disputes In short, any sign of organized resistance led to a crackdown.

However, resistance also shaped the future. Many runaways eventually reached free states or Canada, and some escaped slaves joined the Union Army when the Civil War began, seeing it as a chance to be free. The continuous threat of revolt and the moral courage of rebels helped fuel the growing abolition movement in the North. By 1861, Southern fears of slave uprisings were one factor that led the states to secede and form the Confederacy.

In the long term, the legacy of resistance lived on. Stories of revolts like Nat Turner’s and Stono became part of African American folklore and history. The Haitian Revolution remained a powerful example of slaves winning freedom. Scholar Frederick Douglass later recalled how these rebellions, even when crushed, helped show that enslaved people would fight for liberty. Ultimately, while slavery remained brutal and the repressions were severe, the many forms of resistance—everyday acts, maroon communities, and revolts—kept alive the hope and struggle for freedom until slavery was finally ended.

References

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Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2025). Nat Turner. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nat-Turner

Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2025). Stono rebellion. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/event/Stono-rebellion

Karp, M. (2016). This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy. Harvard University Press.

Ortiz, P. (2018). An African American and Latinx History of the United States. Beacon Press.

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Florida Memory. (2013, Feb. 2). Florida’s Underground Railroad: The Black Seminoles. Floridiana. Retrieved from https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/257951