Historiography

• The largest slave uprising in the history of the United States occurred on January 8-10, 1811. Approximately, 500 slaves of St. Charles and St. John the Baptist parishes rose up and marched toward New Orleans, under the leadership of Charles Deslondes, a freed person of color and refugee from Haiti. Deslondes organized other slaves on the Andry plantation, where he worked as a slave driver. Rallying the the support of runaway slaves, who lived in nearby swamps, Deslondes' slave militia wounded Andry and murdered his son. They group acquired weapons found on the plantation. Armed and determined, the insurgents embarked on a journey towards New Orleans. On their way, they were gathering strength as more recruits from neighboring plantations joined them. They chanted slogans such as: “freedom or death”, inspired by the fervor of the earlier and successful Haitian revolution.

• Accounts and historical sources largely deviate in the account of events, and more specifically the interpretation of events. This was a largely successful revolt, as it shed light on the inhumane conditions of those enslaved. It exposed the structural issues and inhumane ethos of the institution of slavery. In other words, it had the potential to serve as a catalyst for actionable change and progress. It was, undoubtedly, an event that shook the core of the ancient regime of the South and Whites residing in the New Orleans territory were very cognizant of the fact that they were outnumbered. Subsequently, historical reports and analysis have been largely skewed and distorted to further a certain agenda – all underpinned by a tone of racism,

“Thus the only information a Boston reader would receive about a slave conspiracy or revolt in Virginia came from a slave owner or the authorities there …… As this information was shared and repeated within the country’s newspapers, it shaped a way of thinking about slaves, slave rebels, and other black people in America. In other words, it formed a discourse. Such discourse concerned the marginalization of slave rebels during the troubles and reflects America’s racist ideology that held blacks inferior, unworthy of freedom despite their struggles in an age when such efforts to obtain liberty should have resonated positively with post–Revolutionary War Americans. In each news account, the black rebel is always an immediate threat to the white-controlled slave system and is transformed into an objectified thing that must be stopped and destroyed" (Gabrial 17).

This passage exposes and illuminates the pervasive nature of institutional racism, and its effect on the press and historical recounts of events, such as this rebellion. It was mostly likely a pragmatic rationale behind distorting the true nature of the rebellion – preservation of the slave trade, the institution of slavery, and to discourage other salves from rising up in protest of their condition, and to further demonize people of color, ““Local newspaper editors published little information about the slave revolt, perhaps because, as one historian surmises, editors feared that negative press accounts would “adversely influence the slave market.”” (Gabrial 26). This further exposes the roots of the controversies surrounding interpretation of the rebellion. It is yet another manifestation of sensationalism and yellow journalism, prevalent in the press of this era, which served to push a certain narrative and agenda. Bauman notes, “Studying those few scholars who have written of the 1811 slave rebellion, one can begin to understand the evolving, historians have used to narrate the revolt and the various analyses and styles of interpretation spanning 150 years of historiography from Charles Gayarre in the 1850s to Adam Rothman's 2005 study of the American frontier during the antebellum period” (Buman 319). The historiographical inaccuracies present in these analysis are partially due to the time that these reports were written, but also due to racial bias, social attitudes, political power, and of course preservation of economic benefits rooted in slavery.

• Examining the earliest sources on the subject matter, one encounters Charles Gayarre, one of the earliest historians of Louisiana, whose analysis was quite biased and sought to further legitimize the institution of slavery,

“Revealing himself as a man of his time, Gayarre suggested that the encounter on the Trepagnier plantation "shows how little that population is to be dreaded, when confronted by the superior race in whose care Providence has entrusted their protection and gradual civilization.” Gayarre declared the rebellion to be nothing more than a "foolish attempt at gaining a position in society, which, for the welfare of their own race, will ever be denied to it in the Southern States of North America." The early historian reported that the slaves suffered sixty-six dead on site and sixteen prisoners taken to New Orleans for trial, but he falsely claimed "most prisoners were hung on the spot”” (Buman 320).

Gayarre and other historical authorities of the period, such as Kendall and Martin, had asserted that the rebellion was largely unorganized, limited in scope, lacked purpose, and was quickly squashed. However, as time passed more modern and objective accounts have suggest otherwise. Contemporary scholarly research shows that this movement was both highly organized, planned to a high degree, and almost unhinged white hegemony in the region. James H. Dorman represents the first breakthrough in the attempt to shed some degree of truth on the events of 1811, confirming certain logistical facts such as the timeline of events, however he demonstrated, “In his analysis, Dormon differed from earlier historians by suggesting that the slaves had calculated their movements carefully. Previously, scholars had failed to grant the enslaved Africans the agency to plan such a grand scheme, instead suggesting that the revolt began as a spontaneous riot that exploded into a full-scale rebellion” (Buman 324). Dorman provided the first unbiased account while providing previously undiscovered court documents of captured slaves, individually showing their part in planning, and executing the revolt.

• Perhaps the most expansive and authoritative work on the subject is by Albert Thrasher’s On to New Orleans! Louisiana’s Heroic 1811 Slave Revolt. The first scholar provides a meta level, big picture, contextual work which sought to explain the roots of the rebellion with regards to how the trans-Atlantic slave trade intimately influenced the movement. The slaves created a mixture of the many different African cultures and traditions, which indirectly is linked to the successful revolution in Saint Domingue, Haiti. Thrasher further asserts that the Haitian rebellion intimately related to the German Coast revolt, due the cultural composition of Louisiana during the period, and the ideological force behind the movement. He provided a solid groundwork and theoretical understanding while exposing previously unknown details such as,

“For the first time in the historiographical record of the Louisiana slave revolt, Thrasher suggests an additional branch in the plot to overtake the entire region. Revealing an entirely undiscovered and unsuccessful part of the initial scheme by the slaves, Thrasher proposes that slaves in New Orleans, hoping to replicate the success of the Saint Domingue revolution, factored heavily into plans to capture the city. While Deslondes led his servile army toward New Orleans, slaves and willing free people of color within the city limits would storm the armory at Fort St. Charles in search of arms and ammunition. Details remain sketchy, but Thrasher uncovered evidence in New Orleans newspapers that suggests an increase in runaways throughout Orleans Parish on the eve of the rebellion” (Buman 332).

Scholars such as Adam Rothman further build upon this conceptual framework, asserting that more was necessary to understand causes of the even as opposed the chronological narrative, as they are informed by the cultural and ideological forces at play during the period. Antebellum Louisiana was a tumultuous period, as manifested by the deep frustrations on the enslaved during the sugar boom, while simultaneously forcing American slave and plantation owners to deal with the brewing insurrection on American Soil, rooted in the ideals of the Haitian revolution.

• Daniel Rasmussen’s, American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt, is the newest work on the subject. He asserts that this brutal struggle was a critical and pivotal step in African American emancipation, for instance during the War of 1812, British forces reinforced a fort with former slaves who they freed, and at the end of the Civil War, black soldiers represented about 10% of Union forces. However other scholars such as Buman, are skeptical of Rasmussen’s evidence, in terms of what new material he brings to the discourse, “A survey of Rasmussen's source material concerning the rebellion shows that he has not uncovered any new material that previous scholars including Dorman, Thrasher, and Paquette had missed. He has simply provided a well-written retelling of the rebellion similar to the most recent accounts, updating his narrative by telling it through a prism of presentism” (Buman 336). Nonetheless, Rasmussen has brought this largely unknown and forgotten event to the center stage, and has further clarified the details, adequately demonstrated its impact on the material condition of enslaved African Americans, and subsequent progress.

Works Cited

Gabrial, Brian. "Haiti in 1791, Gabriel Prosser’s 1800 Conspiracy, and the 1811 German Coast Slave Revolt." In The Press and Slavery in America, 1791-1859: The Melancholy Effect of Popular Excitement, 17-28. Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2016. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv6sj737.8.

Buman, Nathan A. "Historiographical Examinations of the 1811 Slave Insurrection." Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 53, no. 3 (2012): 318-37. www.jstor.org/stable/23266745.

Paquette, Robert L. ""A Horde of Brigands?" The Great Louisiana Slave Revolt of 1811 Reconsidered." Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques 35, no. 1 (2009): 72-96. www.jstor.org/stable/41403653.