“font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;”>In American Uprising: The Untold Story of America’s Largest Slave Revolt (Harper), the young historian Daniel Rasmussen has performed an important service for American history. At the unimaginable age of 23, he has unearthed from the archives and told an amazing tale that has been buried for more than 100 years.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>American Uprising “font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>challenges much of what we think we know about American slavery, and offers as new freedom fighters – new American heroes – a group of Louisiana slaves who took up arms against slaveholders and nearly turned the city of New Orleans into a 19th century black republic in the American South.
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“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>The American: “font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>Let’s imagine you are pitching your book for a film treatment. Give me your pitch. What happens in this book? What do we see on screen?
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“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>Daniel Rasmussen: “font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>This was the largest slave revolt in American history. It’s been covered up for 100 years, and mine is the only definitive account of the event and hopefully the first of many, so the leaders of this revolt enter history texts and popular consciousness along with John Brown and Nat Turner.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>The story features 11 separate slave leaders, of whom I focus on three. One is Charles Deslondes, the son of a white planter and a black slave who rose to the top of the slave hierarchy. He was a driver. In the eyes of many slaves, someone in the position of Charles Deslondes was the ultimate betrayer of their race. They had relative privileges of food and travel rights, and in exchange they sold out the other slaves, working closely with the master.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>But Charles Deslondes used his relative freedom and privilege, not to push the slave system but to undermine it. He was the ultimate sleeper cell. As he traveled up and down the plantation, he would meet other slave leaders, ostensibly to talk about the sugar crop, but he was not talking about the sugar crop . He was meeting with two other leaders of the revolt, Kook and Quamana, two native Ashanti warriors who had been brought to this country in 1806, just five years earlier. And there were other cells, up and down the coast.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>The revolt took place in January of 1811 – when the bulk of the American military was out fighting the Spanish and the city of New Orleans was basically defenseless, protected by only 68 regular troops – and while the planters were celebrating carnival. I spend some time in the book describing the decadence of these planters. Then there was a huge rainstorm that prevented the American military from moving artillery into the cane fields.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>They launched the revolt the morning of January 8, 1811. The slaves were dressed in military uniforms and marched in formation. They had horses and carried muskets. Others had cane knives and axes. They were shouting, “Freedom or death!” as they marched to New Orleans and nearly established a black republic. In the book I have much to say about this march.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>Eventually, they were defeated in a dramatic battle in a cane field by a planter militia. They beheaded hundreds of rebel slaves, stuck their heads on poles and put the poles on the levee. They found Charles Deslondes, chopped off his limbs, shot him in both sides and burnt him alive. The others went to trial – Kook and Quamana preferred silence over betrayal – and were beheaded.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>The revolt had the effect of bringing together the French population, which had been resistant to American authority, which represented Anglo-America. After the revolt, the French planters proclaimed the American government the ark of safety. The revolt solidified American power in New Orleans and helped to solidify slave-based agriculture in the South in events that ultimately ended up leading to the Civil War.
The
American: This story wasn’t told until now. Why?
“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>Daniel Rasmussen:
was covered up by Governor Claiborne, who was essentially the
channel to the rest of the country. His letter was short and said
it was a trivial event. He called the slave rebels “brigands” and
treated them as mere criminals.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>Claiborne played a crucial part in putting forward the bigger part of the lie, which is that it was insignificant, which it was not. The revolt involved over 500 slaves. It was the largest such act in American history. They marched in military uniform to New Orleans, which was defenseless. It was one of the seminal moments, not only in African-American history but really in the history of the South and the country.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>But New Orleans was on the fringes, and after Claiborne’s letter it was basically ignored. I was really the first to go and dig deep enough into the records and take the time to figure out what really happened. A 24-page essay was the largest account before mine. Some of the previous accounts were by Louisiana historians, most from an extreme white supremacist point of view. One says things like, “This is an example of why we need to keep the chains tight around the blacks.” Essentially it has gone unnoticed due to a lack of documents and lack of research, and that stems from Claiborne’s original cover-up of the event.
The
American: Have you gone before any conservative media to talk
about your book?
“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>Daniel Rasmussen:
anybody who was interested. I don’t know that that’s a conscious
part of our strategy, but we have sent press releases to anybody
and everybody.
The
American: You haven’t been on a Fox News show?
“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>Daniel Rasmussen:
Unfortunately, I have not done any television. I have done a lot of
radio and a lot print. This revolt is relatively unknown, and it’s
been a fight to get the story told. I realize what happened –
hundreds of head on pikes – doesn’t sit well with a lot of
people.
“font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Verdana;” lang= “EN-US” xml:lang=”EN-US”>It’s a complicated history. We need to address a central moment in the past, and we need to change the way we think about the past. Slaves were not just victims of slavery. We should not just feel guilty and ashamed. They really were heroes who fought for freedom and were met with a level of resistance that was extreme. The way they were kept in their place was through extreme violence and military effort. Slaves’ resistance is a contribution that needs to be celebrated and emphasized much more broadly and distributed.
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“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>The American: Holocaust deniers, and slavery apologists. Have you met anyone who says, “This couldn’t be true?”
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“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>Daniel Rasmussen: anybody who said this couldn’t be be true. People have said the slaves were criminals and Claiborne was right, they were brutal savages who don’t deserve a place in history except as a terrorist. And I have heard from residents of New Orleans: “Why are you dredging up slavery? It happened and it’s over and we have moved on; can’t we move on?”
The
American: Here in St. Louis, the National Black Tourism
Network recently staged a reenactment of a slave auction on the
steps of the Old Courthouse, where slaves were once sold. Should we
stage a reenactment of a slave revolt?
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“mso-bidi-font-style: normal;”>Daniel Rasmussen: is reenacted all over the county by people who dress up as Confederate and Union soldiers and go out to celebrate the Civil War. I see no reason why we shouldn’t want to celebrate slave rebels. They had uniforms, they beat the drums and chanted, they were equally aggressive as the U.S. Army. I’d love to see it commemorated. It’s been done in New Orleans, to some extent. I’d love to see more attention paid to it and see it reenacted.
