Rebels and Runaways
Slaveholders could never break enslaved African Americans’ longing to be free. In the South and especially in the West Indies, some enslaved African Americans rebelled. On the mainland, the largest uprising erupted in 1739 at Stono in South Carolina, where about 100 slaves killed 20 whites before suffering defeat and execution.
Running away was more common. In the West Indies and the Carolinas, enslaved African Americans became maroons, a name for those who hid in forests or swamps. Other runaways fled to remote Native American villages or to Florida, where the Spanish welcomed them with food, land and freedom. The Spanish sought to weaken the British colonies and to strengthen their own frontier militia with freed African Americans. In the Chesapeake and northern colonies, runaways tried to fit into the small free black communities.
Many more of the enslaved, however opted for a more subtle form of rebellion. They stayed on the plantations, but they resisted by working slowly, feigning illness, pretending ignorance, or breaking tools