Image from Zinn Education Project

Largest uprising of enslaved people in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution in South Carolina, southeast of present-day Charleston.

 Cross-links

Enslaved and Free African Americans in the 18th Century

Slave Life, Resistance, Revolts and the Underground Railroad

Topics on the Page

Event Summary

Jemmy, the leader of the rebellion 

“Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other Slaves in This Province” 

Event Summary 

Crash course video on the Stono Rebellion

The Stono Rebellion (1739), Africans in America

September 9, 1739, Zinn Education Project

How the Stono Slave Rebellion Worked - A podcast by Stuff you Missed in History Class

READ: Two Views of the Stono Slave Rebellion

What was the lead up to the Stono Rebellion and the aftermath?

• During the 1730s, 250 slaves from South Carolina fled to Florida a Spanish colony, for freedom.

• This led to tensions growing between Britain and Spain - led to slave owners living in constant fear that their slaves would revolt and kill them.  

• August 1739, the colonial assembly passed the Security Act, a law requiring planters to go to church armed in case of a slave revolt or an escape.  

• The rebellion happened on a Sunday, specifically September 9th of that year, but we still don’t know what exactly started it; 20 slaves gathered near the Stono River in St. Paul’s Parish.

• Slaves went to a shop where they sold firearms and killed the two shopkeepers; the group then went to the house of Mr. Godgrey and burned the house down, killing him, and his son and daughter; the white inhabitants of the next 6 or so houses were killed.

• By 11 in the morning, the group expanded to 50 slaves; by 4pm, between 20 and 100 whites set out in armed pursuit.

• When they approached the rebels, the slaves fired 2 shots. The whites returned fire and 14 slaves were shot.

• By dusk, around 30 slaves were dead and at least 30 escaped

Jemmy, the leader of the Rebellion:

A  biography of Jemmy

• Most likely born in the Kingdom of Kongo, now part of Angola.
• Brought to the British colony of South Carolina in the 1730s as a slave.
• Jemmy's Kongolese origins linked his abilities as a military leader.
• On September 9, 1730, Jemmy and 20 fellow slaved were working on a road gang near the Stone River Bridge.
• Before dawn, Jemmy led the men to a nearby store where they stole firearms and ammunitions and then killed the two men guarding the store. 

“Act for the Better Ordering and Governing Negroes and Other Slaves in This Province” 

• Following the Stono Rebellion, the South Carolina Legislature passed strict guidelines for the movement and treatment of slaves.
• The act had many effects, including:
• forbidding teaching slaves to read or write
• criminalizing slaves leaving their plantations without an identifying ticket 
• defining the destruction of certain goods or equipment by anyone who wasn't white a felony, which received a penalty of death
• expediting the conviction and execution process for slaves 

Read more about the act 

Slave Revolts in America

The Five Greatest Slave Rebellions according to PBS.

• Stono Rebellion, 1739
• New York City Conspiracy 1741
• Gabriel's Conspiracy, 1800
• German Coast Uprising, 1811
• Nat Turner's Rebellion, 1837

• New York Slave Revolt
• Another pre-revolutionary war slave rebellion. This occurred in 1712 when slaves in New York City, which had just been acquired from the Dutch, conspired and formed a militia that burned several buildings before being captured and executed.
• Nat Turner's Rebellion 
• A slave rebellion in Virginia led by Nat Turner, an enslaved spiritual leader. Turner gathered a militia of enslaved people and went house to house killing slaveholding families and inviting the slaves to join the rebellion as they attempted to move south to Florida. They were eventually routed by a white militia and executed, including Nat Turner.