Last Year's Lesson: St. John Slave Insurrection - Nov. 23, 1733

The St. John Slave Insurrection began on this day in 1733.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history fans, here's a rerun for today, brought to
you by Tracy V. Wilson. We hope it makes previous
episodes for this date easier to find in the feed.
Welcome to This Day in History Class from how Stuff
Works dot Com and from the desk of Stuff you
missed in History Class. It's the show where we explore
the past one day at a time with a quick

(00:20):
look at what happened today in history. Hello and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and it's November.
The St. John Slave Insurrection began on this day in
seventeen thirty three, making it one of the first of
many slave insurrections in the Caribbean. Denmark had colonized the

(00:43):
island of St. John in seventeen eighteen. Unlike other European
colonies in the Caribbean, the main purpose was the very
lucrative sugar industry. This industry was also brutal and dangerous
in terms of its working conditions, and it was devastating
both to the enslaved saved African workforce and to the
islands indigenous people's Although by the time the Danish colonized St. John,

(01:07):
there weren't any indigenous people known to be living there
due to earlier activity on the island. By seventeen thirty three,
there were more than a thousand enslaved Africans on the
island of St. John, working on more than a hundred
plantations that grew sugar, cotton, and other crops. The months
leading up to this insurrection had been particularly difficult. The

(01:29):
island had been struck by a drought, and then two
hurricanes had followed during the summer, which destroyed a lot
of the crops that had managed to survive that drought.
There was also an insect plague, and like most of
the other islands where chattel slavery was being practiced, St
John had an enslaved population that vastly outnumbered the white population,

(01:52):
and it also had an increasing population of people known
as maroons. These were enslaved people who escaped into uncultivated
parts of the island and made their homes there. A
slave code was passed in seventeen thirty three that was
extremely strict, and it was meant to cut down on
how many people were able to do this. There were
severe punishments for escaping or even thinking about escaping, as

(02:17):
was usually the case. The people enslaved on St. John
were from a number of different African tribes and nations,
all of them with their own histories and languages and cultures.
The people who launched this insurrection were Aquamus from what's
now Ghana, and all of the people who participated in
the insurrection were all part of this particular group. Their

(02:39):
goal wasn't to liberate the entire island, though, it was
to take power from the Danish, so on the night
of November twenty three, they gained access to the fort
at Coral Bay by delivering firewood, but concealed in these
bundles of wood were cane knives. They used these knives
to kill most of the soldiers on duty, many of
whom were asleep, and they fired a cannon as a

(03:02):
signal for the wider insurrection to begin. They also used
drum signals to communicate during this as well. Over the
next six months, about a quarter of the island's entire
population was killed, including many other enslaved people who resisted
The Aquamuse primarily fought with knives, and they also damaged
and destroyed the island's plantations. Denmark sought help from other

(03:26):
nations to try to put down this insurrection, including Britain
and France, who also had colonies and forces nearby. After
a major defeat of the Aquamu force in May of
the following year, the Danish force regained control of the island.
In August, the European forces slaughtered the rebelling Africans, some

(03:46):
of whom took their own lives rather than being captured
or killed. Although the damage was extensive, the plantations were
very quickly rebuilt, and within a few years Saint John
had an even larger enslaved population than it had had
before or Denmark abolished slavery in its Caribbean colonies in
eighteen forty eight, and St. John is now United States territory,

(04:07):
having been sold to the United States along with the
islands of St. Croyan St. Thomas in nineteen seventeen. Today
they are the US Virgin Islands, although the islands residents
do not have the right to vote for president or
members of Congress. Thanks to Christopher Hasciotis for his research
work on today's episode, Anti Casey Pigraham and Chandler Maze
for their audio work on the show. You can subscribe

(04:29):
to the Stay in history class. On Apple podcasts, Google podcasts,
and wherever else you get your podcast, you can tune
in tomorrow for a famous disappearance with a lot of money.