ABSTRACT
South Carolina was the only colony in mainland North America in which Blacks outnumbered Whites, which led Peter Wood to title his pioneering work Black Majority (1974). This excerpt, concentrating on the Stono Rebellion of 1739, concerns the resistance of slaves to the plantation system. Naturally resistance was no easy thing in the plantation world, and slaves had every reason to think twice before putting themselves at risk. Indeed the relationship between master and slave, and between White and Black, in South Carolina was complex on every level: political, social, psychological. Wood’s research indicates a wide range of acts of resistance (including remarks on poisoning and arson which we have had to leave out), and provides a glimpse at the inner workings and the social dynamics of slave resistance and slave revolt.
