After one loyal slave told his master about a plot to seize the city of Charlestown, South Carolina and kill all the whites, local authorities exposed the most comprehensive slave plot in the history of the United States. More than 1,000 free and enslaved blacks intended to be a part of this uprising which was planned for sometime in July 1822. Denmark Vesey, a free black carpenter and Methodist leader, used … Continue reading DENMARK VESEY CONSPIRACY OF 1822
In the 1980s, several racially motivated attacks dominated the headlines of New York City newspapers. Continue reading HOWARD BEACH INCIDENT (1986)
Jordan Hatcher was a seventeen-year-old enslaved tobacco worker in Richmond, Virginia, who in 1852 rose from obscurity to notoriety when charged with assaulting and killing white overseer William Jackson. According to newspaper accounts and trial records, Hatcher was working at the Walker & Harris tobacco factory when Jackson began flogging him with a cowhide for performing poorly. Hatcher initially warded off the blows, but Jackson … Continue reading JORDAN HATCHER CASE (1852)
It is ironic that the 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France was instigated by one of the few successful slave rebellions. Toussaint L’Overture on St. Dominique (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) so bedeviled the French that Napoleon decided to sell the Louisiana Territory to the US. This doubled the size of the infant United States and has been heralded as crucial to the American path to becoming the world superpower. It also had profound … Continue reading LOUISIANA PURCHASE AND AFRICAN AMERICANS (1803)
Black Art Story 