German Coast Uprising began - January 8, 1811

On this day in 1811, the German Coast Uprising, a slave revolt in modern-day Louisiana, began. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello Again. It's Eaves and you're listening to
This Day in History Class, a podcast that truly believes
no day is boring. Today is January eighth. The day

(00:26):
was January eighth, eighteen eleven. One of the largest slave
revolts in US history, known as the German Coast Uprising,
began in the territory of Orleans for present day Louisiana.
The German Coast was a region in Louisiana named after
the large number of German immigrants who moved there beginning
in the eighteenth century. The land acquired in the Louisiana

(00:50):
Purchase in eighteen o three included the Territory of Orleans,
which itself included much of the present day state of Louisiana.
I shouldn't note here that the Louisiana Purchase was not
simply a purchase of land. The US actually paid France
for the imperial rights to land that was largely still
owned and occupied by Native Americans. Anyway, Sugar cane production

(01:13):
was a major industry on the German Coast. There was
a large number of enslaved Africans and African Americans and
there were also many free people of color in Louisiana.
At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, around one in
six people in New Orleans was a free person of color,
and free people of color in Louisiana were afforded a

(01:34):
relatively high level of acceptance and prosperity compared to the
conditions free black people lived under in other places in
the US. At the same time, the Haitian Revolution, which
ended in eighteen o four with Haitian independence from France,
resulted in an influx of Haitian migrants. Fears of flavor

(01:55):
rebellion were already high among Louisiana's white population, but the
arrival of more free people of color and the spread
revolutionary ideas via the French and Haitian revolutions heightened tention
and maroons, or people who escaped slavery, still lived in
communities around New Orleans and other places in Louisiana. As

(02:16):
it turns out, some people were inspired enough by the
Haitian Revolution to take action. An enslaved man named Charles
de Lawn was a slave driver on a plantation owned
by Manuel Andre near New Orleans. In Saint John, the
Baptist parish around harvest time, when enslaved people were given
more free time, he organized other people enslaved on the

(02:38):
plantation and Maroons to plan and uprising. On January eighteen eleven,
the rebels wounded Andre and killed his son Gilbert. Gathering
muskets and ammunition at the plantation and putting on militia uniforms,
the group marched down river on River Road toward New Orleans.
Along the way, they gathered people for other plantations. They

(03:01):
planned to destroy sugarcane plantations, to free enslaved people in Louisiana,
and to establish a black state along the Mississippi River.
The uprising was growing quickly, with somewhere between two hundred
and five hundred people joining the cause, though the exact
number is unclear. Many plantation owners fled at the conflict,

(03:22):
escaping to New Orleans. Others rounded up their own militia.
The governor of the Territory of Orleans, William C. C claiborne,
sent troops and militia to suppress the uprising, Though the
rebels fought against the local militias with clubs, knives, guns
and other weapons, and some were on horseback. The uprising

(03:43):
was brutally quelled by January ten. Many of the leaders
of the uprising, including the Lawn, were captured and killed.
Childs were soon held for people who have been captured,
resulting in the execution of more enslaved people. The heads
of some of the execute people were displayed on pikes.
Other gruesome public displays of bodies were put up as

(04:06):
an attempt to deter others from attempting and uprising. Nearly
one enslaved people died in the uprising and subsequent executions.
After the rebellion, free people of color in Louisiana faced
more restrictions, like being required to observe curfews and have
their racial status designated in public records. I'm each jeffco

(04:28):
and hopefully you know a little more about history today
than you did it yesterday. If you have any burning
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(04:49):
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