9 September 1739
The Stono uprising challenges slavery in South Carolina
Stono River and the road south from Charles Town, South Carolina
Enslaved people seized weapons near the Stono River and marched south, attacking slaveholding settlements and drawing more people into the uprising. Colonial militia suppressed the march and killed or captured participants. A contemporary account connected the route to Spanish Florida’s offer of refuge.
Dates preserve the source’s precision. This entry is part of a selected historical record; its qualifications and sources are retained below.
Context / qualification
The 1739 account is by an unidentified white official who defended the repression. George Cato’s much later family account preserves another perspective but is not eyewitness testimony. Exact participation and death totals differ across sources.
Sources
- Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, chapter 2, p. 36; supplied print pages, edition/year unidentified
- “An Account of the Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina” (1739), Colonial Records of Georgia 22(2):232–236; and George Cato family account (ca. 1937), NHC packet pp. 1–4 ↗