Fighting Back and Speaking Out: Slave Resistance, Rebellion and Early Abolition (1500–1800)
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Question
What is 'marronage'?
Answer
The act of enslaved people escaping to form independent, often hidden communities, such as maroons in Jamaica or quilombos in Brazil.
Question
Name three forms of everyday (low-risk) resistance to slavery.
Answer
Working slowly, breaking tools, feigning illness (also: sabotage, cultural retention, truancy).
Question
Who led the Stono Rebellion of 1739?
Answer
A man named Jemmy, leading roughly 20 enslaved men initially, growing to 60–100 as they marched.
Question
Why did the Stono rebels march toward Spanish Florida?
Answer
A 1733 Spanish royal decree promised freedom to enslaved people who escaped from British colonies and reached Florida.
Question
What law followed the Stono Rebellion, and what did it do?
Answer
South Carolina's Negro Act (1740) — it banned slave literacy, restricted assembly, and tightened supervision of enslaved people.
Question
Roughly how many people died in the Stono Rebellion's suppression?
Answer
About 20 White colonists and over 40 enslaved rebels were killed the same day the militia responded.
Question
What was the Germantown Quaker Petition (1688)?
Answer
The first known written protest against slavery in British North America, written by Pennsylvania Quakers, arguing slavery violated the Golden Rule.
Question
Name two key early Quaker abolitionists and what they did.
Answer
John Woolman — travelled colonies urging Quakers to free slaves, wrote 'Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes' (1754). Anthony Benezet — founded a school for Black children, wrote widely-read anti-slavery pamphlets.
Question
Why did organized anti-slavery opposition begin specifically among Quakers?
Answer
Quaker theology held every person has an 'inner light' (direct connection to God), making all humans spiritually equal — hard to reconcile with owning slaves.
Question
Compare enslaved people's resistance with early religious opposition to slavery.
Answer
Enslaved resistance was direct, immediate, and risked violent punishment (e.g. Stono Rebellion). Religious opposition was indirect, argued through writing/preaching, and risked social ostracism rather than violence (e.g. Germantown Petition).
Question
What time period must a Paper 3 answer on this section stay within?
Answer
1500–1800 — avoid drifting into 19th-century abolition acts (1807, 1833) or the Haitian Revolution (1791), which belong to later topics.
Question
What historiographical point should you make about enslaved people's agency?
Answer
Treat enslaved people as active historical agents who shaped colonial law and society through resistance, not as passive victims of the slave system.
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Topic 19.5 hub
Slavery and the New World (1500–1800)
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