How Enslaved People Used Music to Rebel in the American South

Black Resistance during the Antebellum Period

“The Old Plantation” | John Rose, Beaufort County, SC, c. 1790. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

In the early morning hours of September 9th, 1739, a large-scale insurrection broke out in South Carolina.

Led by a man named Jemmy, the group of enslaved men gathered near the bridge spanning the Stono River before capturing a small storehouse, killing its occupants, and collecting…