9781422274224

fire to be made of tobacco stems, and smoke them. This he called ‘Virginia play.’” When William complained about the treatment to his owner, “it made no difference. He cared nothing about it, so long as he received the money for my labor.”  RESISTANCE Madison Washington, who led the slave revolt aboard the Creole , had risked his life to avoid the harsh treatment of the plantations, but there was no shortage of reasons to prompt a slave to flee bondage or fight for personal liberty. Likewise, there was no shortage of ways in which slaves resisted their situation in life. Many slaves simply ran away, though their goals might vary depending on their family situations. For example, some slaves might choose to run away for a few days to visit a nearby relative who lived on another plantation. Others, like William Wells Brown, managed to make use of abolitionist networks like the Underground Railroad to find freedom in the northern states or Canada. Still others made their own way north to freedom, like Josiah Henson and his family. Josiah walked hundreds of miles from Kentucky to Canada, carrying his two youngest children in a knapsack on his back. His wife and older two children plodded alongside him as the family escaped the slave system. Much more commonly, slaves resisted in subtle ways that would result in economic loss or hardship for their owners. Because slaves did all the labor, they could reduce a farm’s productivity by claiming to be too sick to work, slowing down their work pace, breaking tools, or pretending to be too stupid to understand orders. Arson was also a common tactic. Large-scale rebellions were the least common form of slave resistance. These required planning and communication, which was hard to arrange when slaves were restricted from traveling and forbidden to learn to read or write. However, slaves did find ways to rebel on a large scale, with varying degrees of success.

16

SLAVE REVOLTS AND REBELLIONS