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118 PERIOD 2 Colonial America amid Global Change: 1607–1754

In New York City in 1712, several dozen enslaved Africans and American Indians
AP EXAM TIP set fire to a building. When white people rushed to the scene, the insurgents attacked
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These sample pages are distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
The AP Course and Exam them with clubs, pistols, axes, and staves, killing eight and injuring many more. The
Description calls for you
to be able to explain how rebels were soon defeated by the militia. Authorities executed eighteen insurgents,
enslaved people reacted to burning several at the stake as a warning to others, while six of those imprisoned com-
enslavement. These reactions mitted suicide.
Copyright (c) 2024 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers.
ranged from resisting In 1741, a series of suspicious fires in the city led to accusations against a white
enslavement through overt couple who owned an alehouse where Black people gathered to drink. To protect her-
and covert means to creating self from prosecution, an Irish indentured servant testified that she had overheard
Strictly for use with its products. NOT FOR REDISTRIBUTION.
new cultures and negotiating
the terms of their labor. Be discussions of an elaborate plot involving Black and white conspirators. Frightened of
able to create explanations any hint that the poor might band together regardless of race, authorities immediately
for each of these reactions arrested suspects and eventually executed thirty-four people, including four white peo-
and try to add more specific ple. They also banished seventy-two Black people from the city.
information in your response. The most serious slave revolt, however, erupted in South Carolina, where a group of

Stono Rebellion enslaved Africans led the Stono Rebellion in 1739. On Sunday, September 9, a group
A 1739 uprising by enslaved of enslaved men who had recently arrived stole weapons from a country store and
Africans and African killed the owners. They then marched south, along the Stono River, beating drums and
Americans in South Carolina, recruiting others to join them. Torching plantations and killing whites along the route,
which intensified white fear they had gathered more than fifty insurgents when armed whites overtook them. In the
of slave revolts.
ensuing battle, dozens of rebels died. The militia, along with American Indians hired to
assist them, killed another twenty over the next two days and then captured a group of
forty, who were executed without trial.

AP ® WORKING with EVIDENCE

Source: George Cato, great-great-grandson of Stono Rebellion leader Cato, Account of
the Stono Rebellion, 1739, recording, 1937

“How it all start? Dat what I ask but nobody ever tell me how 100 slaves
between de Combahee and Edisto rivers come to meet in de woods not far
from de Stono River on September 9, 1739. And how they elect a leader, my
kinsman, Cato, and late dat day march to Stono town, break in a warehouse,
kill two white men in charge, and take all de guns and ammunition they wants.
But they do it. Wid dis start, they turn south and march on.
They work fast, coverin’ 15 miles, passin’ many fine plantations, and in
every single case, stop, and break in de house and kill men, women, and
children. Then they take what they want, ’cludin’ arms, clothes, liquor and food.
Governor Bull and some planters . . . ride fast and spread de alarm and it
wasn’t long ’til de militiamen was on de trail in pursuit of de slave army. When
found, many of de slaves was singin’ and dancin’ and Cap. Cato and some of
de other leaders was cussin’ at them sumpin awful. From dat day to dis, no
Cato has tasted whiskey, ’less he go ’gainst his daddy’s warnin’. Dis war last
less than two days but it sho’ was pow’ful hot while it last.
I reckons it was hot, ’cause in less than two days, 21 white men, women,
and chillun, and 44 Negroes, was slain. My granddaddy say dat in de woods
and at Stono, where de war start, dere was more than 100 Negroes in line.
When de militia come in sight of them at Combahee swamp, de drinkin’ dancin’
Negroes scatter in de brush and only 44 stand deir ground.
Commander Cato speak for de crowd. He say: “We don’t lak slavery.
We start to [join] de Spanish in Florida. We surrender but we not whipped
yet and we ‘is not converted.’” De other 43 say: “Amen.” They was taken,

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