In what ways did Africans resist enslavement once in North America? Why were slave rebellions less likely to occur in British North America than in the West Indies or South America?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The ideal answer should include:
- Refusal to cooperate with masters: work slowed down; animals were mistreated; tools were broken
- Escape: 80 percent were young unattached males; large numbers of newspaper advertisements for runaway slaves; slaves in Lower South fled to Spanish Florida and created maroon communities with Creeks
- Rebellion: most direct form of resistance; first notable uprising in New York City (1712); second New York City uprising in 1741; Chesapeake Rebellion (1730) was largest slave rebellion; isolated but violent rebellions in the Lower South (early 1700s) culminated in the Stono Rebellion (1739), the most violent slave rebellion of the colonial period; participants in slave rebellions frequently executed, committed suicide, or shipped off to West Indies
- Less frequency of rebellions: smaller African majorities; less brutality with higher survival rates; greater acculturation; less geographical isolation; greater success in establishing families, communities, and a personal culture