Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

Slave troubles continued during the early 1730s in South Carolina. Largescale
meetings of groups of slaves were reported in 1733 and a wave of "robberies
and insolence" spread in the colony. A slave rebellion was feared and a
dozen slaves were arrested on suspicion in Charleston. The same year, several
runaway slaves committed robberies and the governor offered the very large
reward of twenty pounds a head for each slave captured. In 1731 and 1732,
some runaway slaves were shot and several other Negroes killed or executed.
Furthermore, the colony fretted over the flight of some slaves to freedom in
the Spanish town of St. Augustine in Florida. Indeed, the war of England
upon Spain led the embittered Spaniards to offer freedom to the slaves of the
English. The official policy of welcome to Negro refugees began in the fall of
1733, when the Spanish Crown announced that all fugitive slaves reaching
Florida would be permitted to remain there as free men. In 1738, a group of
liberated Negroes was established in a town north of St. Augustine, and the
policy of welcome to fugitives was again proclaimed.
The attractiveness of St. Augustine, coupled with a severe famine in
1737, led the Negroes to a series of uprisings. In the latter year, three slaves
were arrested for a "conspiracy against the peace of this government." Complaints
mounted of flight by slaves, individuals and groups, to the haven
of St. Augustine. Indeed, a virtual state of guerrilla warfare erupted, with
much assassination of masters and uncovering of slave conspiracies. In late
1738, a group of South Carolina slaves rebelled and fought their way through
English America to reach freedom in Florida. In early 1739, a great slave plot
was uncovered for massive armed uprising and flight to Florida. But slave
flights continued and one group was joined by two whites. In April, the
South Carolina legislature passed a bill for more effective suppression of slave
revolts, but this did not stop a revolt by about twenty slaves, led by one
Jimmy, at Stono (twenty miles southwest of Charleston) on September 9. The
rebels raided an arsenal, killing two guards, appropriated considerable arms
and ammunition, and made their way south. The embittered slaves burned
several buildings and killed all whites in their path, except an innkeeper
named Wallace, who was known to be "a good man and kind to his slaves."
The Jimmy rebellion ignited a spark among the slaves. Joined by fifty or sixty
more, the band cried out "liberty" and marched around with drums beating
and flags flying. A troop of militia confronted the Negroes. Though the
forces were equal in number, the whites were better trained and better armed
and routed the slaves. The captured Negroes were immediately shot or hanged
by the infuriated whites and the others were hunted down for months.
Twenty of the slaves were beaten in another lengthy skirmish, but ten
Negroes managed to escape to freedom. Negro and Indian slaves who
informed on the refugees were rewarded very handsomely by the government.
In mid-1740 another major slave plot, this time centering in Charleston,
was betrayed in advance by a slave named Peter, so that an uprising of nearly
two hundred virtually unarmed slaves was confronted by an armed troop. The
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