revolutionary action movement (ram) - Michael Schwartz Library

independent black nation . 5
Slave plots were recorded in New York as early
as 1712 and 1741 . An insurrection was recorded in South Carolina in 1720
and again in 1739-1740 . In Georgia a slave plot was discovered in 1739 .
The largest and most notable organized slave plots were the Gabriel
Prosser conspiracy in Virginia in 1800, the Denmark Vesey conspiracy in
South Carolina in
1821 and the Nat Turner insurrection in Virginia in
1836 . 6
Resistance continued and
became more intense during the years preceding
the Civil War . Economically, slaves were being used more as an industrial
labor force for southern industry prior to the outbreak of the Civil
War . 7 The combination of the Unior Army and black slaves destroyed the con
federacy and ended slavery . 8
With the end
of the Civil War, blacks participated in attempting to
reconstruct American society .
During this ten to fifteen year period black
people were elected to various positions
in
the Reconstruction governments
in the South, but the overwhelming issue
of the period which was not re-
solved, was the economic issue .
For the
masses of black people and
for
many black leaders, it was felt that the plantations should be divided into
40 acre lots and given to the freedmen . After much struggle in South
5Herbert Aptheker, Negro Slave Revolts (New York : International
Publishers, 1962), p . 19 .
6Harvey Wish, "American Slave Insurrection Before 1861," The Journal of
Negro H i story , XXII (July 1947), pp . 299-320 . Association -for the Study
of Negro Life and History, Washington, D .C .
7 Robert S . Starobin , Industrial Slavery in the Old South ( New York :
Oxford University Press, 1975 , especially Chapter 5 .
3W .
E . 3 . DuBois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (New
York : Atheneum, 1973), especially Chapter 4 .