Samba rebellion

Slave revolt in Louisiana

Part of a series on

North American slave revolts

Attack and capture of the Crête-à-Pierrot (Combat et prise de la Crête-à-Pierrot, March 1802) in the Haitian Revolution by Auguste Raffet, engraving by Ernest Hébert

Context

* Atlantic slave trade
* Maroons
* Slavery among indigenous peoples
* Slavery in Canada
* Cuba
* Haiti
* Latin America
* Bahamas
* New France
* New Spain
* British and French Caribbean
* British Virgin Islands
* United States
* colonial US

Before 1700

* 1521 Santo Domingo Slave Revolt

(Santo Domingo)

* 1526 San Miguel de Gualdape

(Spanish Florida, victorious)

* 1548–1558, 1579–1582 Bayano Wars

(Real Audiencia of Panama, New Spain, suppressed)

* c. 1570 Gaspar Yanga's Revolt

(Veracruz, New Spain, victorious)

* 1601 Acaxee Rebellion

(New Spain, suppressed)

* 1616 Tepehuán Revolt

(New Spain, suppressed)

* 1680 Pueblo Revolt

(Santa Fe de Nuevo México, New Spain, victorious)

18th century

* 1712 New York Slave Revolt

(British Province of New York, suppressed)

* 1730 First Maroon War

(British Jamaica, victorious)

* 1730 Chesapeake rebellion

(British Chesapeake Colonies, suppressed)

* 1731 Samba rebellion

(Louisiana, New France, suppressed)

* 1733 St. John Slave Revolt

(Danish Saint John, suppressed)

* 1739 Stono Rebellion

(British Province of South Carolina, suppressed)

* 1741 New York Conspiracy

(British Province of New York, suppressed)

* 1760–61 Tacky's Revolt

(British Jamaica, suppressed)

* 1768 Montserrat slave rebellion

(British Montserrat, suppressed)

* 1787 Abaco Slave Revolt

(British Bahamas, suppressed)

* 1791 Mina Conspiracy

(Louisiana, New Spain, suppressed)

* 1795 Pointe Coupée Conspiracy

(Louisiana, New Spain, suppressed)

* 1795 Curaçao Slave Revolt of 1795

(Dutch Curaçao, suppressed)

* 1791–1804 Haitian Revolution

(French Saint-Domingue, victorious)

19th century

* 1800 Gabriel's Rebellion

(Virginia, suppressed)

* 1803 Igbo Landing

(St. Simons Island, Georgia, victorious)

* 1805 Chatham Manor

(Virginia, suppressed)

* 1811 German Coast Uprising

(Territory of Orleans, suppressed)

* 1811 Aponte conspiracy

(Spanish Cuba, suppressed)

* 1815 George Boxley

(Virginia, suppressed)

* 1816 Bussa's Rebellion

(British Barbados, suppressed)

* 1822 Vesey Plot

(South Carolina, suppressed)

* 1825 Great African Slave Revolt

(Cuba, suppressed)

* 1831 Nat Turner's rebellion

(Virginia, suppressed)

* 1831–32 Baptist War

(British Jamaica, suppressed)

* 1839 Amistad, ship rebellion

(off the Cuban coast, victorious)

* 1841 Creole case, ship rebellion

(off the Southern U.S. coast, victorious)

* 1842 slave revolt in the Cherokee Nation

(Indian Territory, suppressed)

* 1843–44 Ladder Conspiracy

(Spanish Cuba, suppressed)

* 1849 Charleston Workhouse Slave Rebellion

(South Carolina, suppressed)

* 1859 John Brown's raid

(Virginia, suppressed)

Notable leaders

* Carolta
* Charles Deslondes
* Denmark Vesey
* François Mackandal
* Gabriel Prosser
* Gaspar Yanga
* Jean Saint Malo
* Jean-Jacques Dessalines
* John Brown
* Joseph Cinqué
* Madison Washington
* Marcos Xiorro
* Maria
* Nanny of the Maroons
* Nat Turner
* Toussaint Louverture
* Tula

* v
* t
* e

The Samba rebellion was a purported slave rebellion, described by the French historian Antoine-Simon Le Page du Pratz in his Histoire de la Louisiane. The revolt is said to have taken place in 1731, in what was then French Louisiana. Contemporary with the Natchez revolt, it was personified to its alleged leader, an enslaved man called "Samba Bambara" (a member of the Bambara people from West Africa).[1] While Le Page du Pratz gives a brief recollection of the events, which was more a conspiracy to revolt rather than an actual revolt, his information is not verified by any existent official documents.[2]

The African-born[3] Samba is reported to have participated in a number of revolts after being enslaved in Africa and during transit to Louisiana. He is also presented by Le Page du Pratz as having served the French as an interpreter and a slave overseer. The insurrection was due to take place in June 1731, but is said to have been revealed to the colonial authorities after an argument between an enslaved woman and a drunken French marine. Le Page du Pratz claimed to have participated in arresting the conspirators. While Samba refused to reveal any information even under torture, eight other slaves did confess to the conspiracy. The accused were publicly executed on the Place d'Armes, Jackson Square in New Orleans, on the orders of Gov. Étienne Perier. The sole woman involved was hanged, while the men were killed by use of a breaking wheel.[2][4]

In 1936, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's magazine The Crisis published an article claiming that the Samba planned to kill all the whites and to keep enslaved non-Bambara Africans.[5] Later scholarship has questioned the details about the revolt, including whether Samba had participated in prior uprisings and if the Bambara were as homogenous of a group as the contemporary reports implied.[6]

## See also

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* History of slavery
* Atlantic slave trade
* 1733 slave insurrection on St. John

## References

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1. ^ Wood, Peter H. (2003). Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 96\. ISBN 019-515-823-7.
2. ^ a b Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. (2007). Encyclopedia of Slave Resistance and Rebellion. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 442–443. ISBN 978-031-333-273-9.
3. ^ Kelley, Robin D. G.; Lewis, Earl, eds. (2000). To Make Our World Anew: A History of African Americans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 616. ISBN 019-513-945-3.
4. ^ Finkelman, Paul, ed. (2006). Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 397\. ISBN 019-516-777-5.
5. ^ Rappeport, Stanley (September 1936). "Slaves Struggles for Freedom". The Crisis. New York City.
6. ^ Caron, Peter (1997). "'Of a nation which the others do not understand': Bambara slaves and African ethnicity in colonial Louisiana, 1718–60". Slavery & Abolition. 18 (1): 98–121. doi:10.1080/01440399708575205. ISSN 0144-039X.

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