ABSTRACT

Slave rebellions have been a feature of slavery from its beginnings. This was the case for slavery in Greece and Rome as well for subsequent systems of slavery elsewhere. In the case of the Americas, slave rebellions have characterised slavery from the onset of European settlement in the sixteenth century to the end of slavery nearly four centuries later. While rebellions differed substantially in scale and in scope across the Americas, they often terrified slave owners. In the face of rebellions, many slave masters fled to the safety of towns, where they could be protected by the military authorities. In the most massive of all rebellions, the Haitian Revolution, there was no sanctuary for slave owners even in the island’s towns; thousands of planters therefore fled to other parts of the Caribbean and to the United States. Yet it was not just planters who felt the consequences of the slave rebellion in Haiti. The enslaved across the Americas were aware of the outcome of the slave revolt in Haiti and saw it as an inspiration to rebel against slavery.