Stono Rebellion (1739): Largest Slave Revolt in British America

The Stono Rebellion was an uprising of enslaved Africans that began on Sunday, 9 September 1739, near the Stono River in the colony of South Carolina. A group of about twenty rebels seized guns, killed planters and their families, and marched south toward Spanish Florida, where Spain had promised freedom. It was the largest slave revolt in Britain’s mainland North American colonies, and the colony’s response shaped slavery in South Carolina for more than a century.

Background: a colony built on enslaved labour

By the 1730s South Carolina was the richest and most heavily enslaved colony on the North American mainland. Its wealth came from rice grown in the swampy lowcountry around Charles Town (modern Charleston), work that was dangerous, exhausting and largely done by Africans brought across the Atlantic through the Middle Passage.

Enslaved Black people had outnumbered white settlers since the early 1700s, and in the lowcountry parishes the ratio was roughly two to one or more. Many had arrived recently from Africa. Historians such as John Thornton have argued that a large share of the Stono rebels came from the Kingdom of Kongo in west-central Africa, where Catholic Christianity, the Portuguese language and military training were common.

Colonial leaders were well aware of the danger. They feared revolt, runaways and, above all, the influence of Spanish Florida to the south.

Causes: Spanish Florida and a tense year

Spain and Britain were bitter rivals in the Southeast. From 1693 the Spanish crown offered freedom to enslaved people from British colonies who reached St. Augustine and accepted the Catholic faith. In 1738 the governor of Florida founded Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, known as Fort Mose, a settlement and fort for these freedom seekers just north of St. Augustine. The founding of Georgia in 1733 had been partly intended to create a buffer against Florida, but escapes continued.

Several other pressures came together in 1739:

• Relations between Britain and Spain were collapsing into what became the War of Jenkins’ Ear, and rumours of war reached Charles Town in the late summer.
• An epidemic, usually identified as yellow fever, struck Charles Town that season and disrupted colonial government.
• A new Security Act, requiring white men to carry firearms to church on Sundays, was due to take effect at the end of September. Before then, Sunday services left plantations lightly guarded.

The rebels may have chosen a Sunday for exactly that reason. Sunday was also the one day when many enslaved people were not forced to work.

What happened on 9 September 1739

Early on the Sunday morning, about twenty enslaved men gathered near the western branch of the Stono River in St. Paul’s Parish, some 20 miles southwest of Charles Town. Contemporary reports name their leader as Jemmy; a later account calls him Cato.

The group broke into Hutchenson’s store at Stono Bridge, which sold firearms and ammunition. They killed the two storekeepers and armed themselves. They then moved south along the main road, burning houses and killing the white people they found. Some households were spared; one tavern keeper was reportedly left alone because he was known to treat enslaved people kindly.

As the column moved, it grew. Witnesses described the rebels marching with drums and a banner, calling out “Liberty”. Estimates of their final number range from about 60 to 100, as enslaved people from plantations along the road joined, willingly or under pressure.

By chance, Lieutenant Governor William Bull and several companions were riding toward Charles Town on the same road. They saw the rebels, turned and escaped, and Bull raised the alarm.

Suppression

In the late afternoon the rebels halted in an open field near the Edisto River, about 10 to 15 miles from where they had started. Accounts differ on why: some suggest they paused to rest, to gather more recruits, or to celebrate. A well-armed militia force of planters caught up with them there around four o’clock.

The fight was brief and one-sided. Many rebels were shot down; others scattered into the woods and swamps. The militia killed or captured most of the main group that day, and contemporary reports say that some of the captured were executed on the spot and their heads placed on posts along the road as a warning.

Over the following days and weeks, militia patrols and allied Native American trackers hunted down those who had escaped. A few remained at large for much longer; one suspected leader is said to have been captured only in 1742.

By the numbers

All figures come from a small number of colonial reports and later accounts, so historians treat them as estimates.

Consequences: the Negro Act of 1740

The colony’s legislature responded with the Negro Act, passed in May 1740. It was one of the harshest slave codes in British America. It banned enslaved people from assembling in groups, travelling without written permission, growing their own food, raising livestock for sale, earning money or learning to write. It also gave white colonists wide powers to stop, question and punish any enslaved person.

The act also tried to limit the ratio of Black to white inhabitants. South Carolina imposed a prohibitive duty on newly imported Africans for several years, and offered incentives to encourage white Protestant settlers. Slave imports resumed in large numbers later in the 1740s.

The Negro Act remained the foundation of slave law in South Carolina, with amendments, until slavery was abolished in 1865. The fear created by Stono also shaped the colony’s reaction to later rumours of conspiracy, and news of the revolt contributed to anxiety in other colonies, including New York during the panic of 1741.

Key people and groups

• Jemmy, the leader named in the main contemporary report, otherwise almost unknown. He is described as an “Angolan”, a term often used by the English for people from the Kongo region.
• William Bull, lieutenant governor of South Carolina, whose escape on the road allowed the militia to be raised quickly.
• The Kongolese rebels, whose possible Catholic faith and military experience have led historians to see the revolt as partly shaped by African traditions as well as by Spanish offers of freedom.

Legacy

For a long time Stono received little attention outside specialist history. That changed from the 1970s, especially after Peter H. Wood’s book Black Majority (1974) placed the revolt at the centre of the history of colonial South Carolina. The site near the Stono River was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1974, and a roadside marker now stands beside U.S. Highway 17.

Historians continue to debate the rebels’ motives and identity: how far they were inspired by Spanish Florida, by African religious and military traditions, or by local grievances. Stono is now widely taught as an example of organised resistance to slavery, alongside later uprisings such as the Haitian Revolution and Nat Turner’s rebellion.

Timeline

• 1693: Spain offers freedom in Florida to enslaved people escaping from the British colonies.
• 1738: Fort Mose is founded near St. Augustine as a settlement for freedom seekers.
• 1739, 9 September: Rebels seize weapons at Stono Bridge and march south toward Florida.
• 1739, 9 September, afternoon: Militia attack the rebels near the Edisto River and break up the main group.
• 1739, late September onward: Patrols hunt down escaped rebels; executions follow.
• 1739, 23 October: Britain declares war on Spain, beginning the War of Jenkins’ Ear.
• 1740, May: South Carolina passes the Negro Act.
• 1974: The Stono River slave rebellion site becomes a National Historic Landmark.

Why it matters

The Stono Rebellion showed that enslaved Africans in colonial America organised armed resistance, often drawing on their own experiences in Africa and on rivalries between European empires. The colony’s response, the Negro Act, tightened control over enslaved people for the next 125 years, making Stono a turning point in the history of slavery in the American South.