An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, and Others, Which Have Occurred, or Been A | Page 3

ears of all the
people," that thus the gross mistakes and misapprehensions which
everywhere exist on the subject of slavery and its abolition may be
corrected.
Of these mistakes, no one is more prevalent or more dangerous than the
one just mentioned, that insurrection, rapine and bloodshed are the
necessary consequences of immediate emancipation; and that the only

way to avert the evils and the curse of slavery, is to continue in the sin
for the present, promise future repentance, and in the meantime, whilst
we are preparing to get ready to begin to repent, do every thing that in
us lies to extinguish every good feeling, and cultivate and bring into
action every bad feeling of the human heart. That such is the belief, and
consequent practice, to an alarming extent, throughout our country, and
that such a course is impolitic, because it is wicked and dangerous,
because it is unjust, facts abundantly show.
Since the abolition of slavery in the British dominions, no trouble has
arisen, no danger been feared or apprehended. A thousand John Browns,
each with nineteen white men and five black men, could not cause any
tumult in any part of the British West Indies. Why is it, then, that one
John Brown and company have created so wide-spread an alarm and
consternation throughout the Slave States? The Governor of South
Carolina has sent a dispatch (Nov. 21) to Gov. Wise, tendering any
amount of military aid to the defence of Virginia! Gov. Wise had
several companies of the military present on the day of the execution of
John Brown and others, and assured the Governor of South Carolina
that Virginia is able to defend herself. What causes all this tumult and
apprehension? SLAVERY! And yet, strange as it may seem, the
Virginians, with a stupidity and infatuation which no language can
describe, are seriously discussing the propriety of enslaving the free
negroes of that State. Such a proceeding would resemble a physician
who should order a dose of arsenic to cure a patient who had taken
strychnine, or attempt to extinguish a conflagration by throwing oil on
the flames.
How the consequences of abolishing slavery would be dreadful and
horrible, neither history nor experience informs us. Let us, then, see
what they tell us of the consequences of holding men in bondage. In
every instance which has fallen under my notice, insurrections have
always been projected and carried on by slaves, and never (with the
exception of Denmark Vesey in 1822, in Charleston, S. C.) by the free
blacks.
The contest between truth and falsehood, right and wrong, justice and

injustice, has always continued from the earliest ages to the present
moment. More especially is it true concerning American slavery, that
"sum of all villanies," a crime which involves the continual violation of
every one of the Ten Commandments. I propose, therefore, to give,
with other incidents, an abstract of some of the attempts of the
oppressed to throw off the yoke which held them, or threatened to hold
them, in bondage.
The first instance which has come to my knowledge in this country of
an insurrection on a small scale, occurred on Noddle's Island, now East
Boston, in 1638. In John Josselyn's account of his first voyage to New
England may be found the following. Having previously stated that he
was a guest of "Mr. Samuel Maverick, the only hospitable man (as he
says) in all the country, giving entertainment to all comers gratis," he
thus writes:--
"The second of October about 9 of the clock in the morning Mr.
Maverick's negro came to my chamber window, and in her own
Countrey language and tune sung very loud and shrill. Going out to her
she used a great deal of respect towards me, and willingly would have
expressed her grief in English, but I apprehended it by her countenance
and deportment, whereupon I repaired to my host to learn of him the
cause, and resolved to intreat him on her behalf for that I understood
before that she had been a Queen in her own Countrey, and observed a
very dutiful garb used toward her by another Negro who was her main.
Mr. Maverick was desirous to have a breed of Negroes, and therefore
seeing she would not yield by persuasion to company with a Negro
young man he had in his house, he commanded him, will'd she, nill'd
she, to go to bed with her, but she kickt him out again. This she took in
high disdain beyond her slavery, and this was the cause of her grief."
From this statement it appears that Maverick had at least thee slaves:
but the number held in the Province, no record informs us. In 1641, the
Massachusetts Colony passed the following law:--
"There shall never be