illustrating "A negro hung by his ribs from a gallows", from Captain
John Stedman's
Narrative of a Five Years Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, 1792
1690 rebellion Several rebellions in the 1700s were attributed to Coromantees. According to enslaver and colonial administrator
Edward Long, the first rebellion occurred in 1690 between three or four hundred enslaved people in
Clarendon Parish, Jamaica, who, after killing a white owner, seized firearms and provisions and killed an overseer at the neighbouring
plantation. In 1739, the leader of the Western Maroons,
Cudjoe (Prince Kojo), signed a treaty with the British, ensuring the Maroons would be left alone, provided they did not help other slave rebellions.
1712 New York Slave Revolt On the night of 6 April 1712, a group of more than twenty black enslaved people, the majority of whom were believed to be Coromantee, set fire to a building on Maiden Lane near Broadway. While the white traffickers tried to put out the fire, the enslaved blacks, armed with guns, hatchets, and swords, defended themselves from the whites and then ran off. Eight whites died, and seven were wounded. Over the next few days, colonial forces arrested seventy black people and jailed them. Twenty-seven were put on trial, 21 of whom were convicted and sentenced to death.
1731 First Maroon War Led by
Cudjoe and
Queen Nanny (Kojo and Nana), the First Maroon War was a conflict between Maroons in Jamaica and the colonial British authorities that reached a climax in 1731. In 1739–40, the British government in Jamaica recognized that it could not defeat the Maroons, so they agreed with them instead. The Maroons were to remain in their five main towns:
Accompong,
Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town),
Moore Town (formerly New Nanny Town),
Scott's Hall (Jamaica) and
Charles Town, Jamaica, living under their own rulers and a British supervisor.
1733 Slave Insurrection The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in the
Danish West Indies (now
St. John, United States Virgin Islands) started on 23 November 1733, when 150
enslaved Africans from (present-day
Ghana) revolted against the owners and managers of the island's
plantations. Lasting several months into August 1734, the
slave rebellion was one of the earliest and longest slave revolts in the
Americas. The Akwamu enslaved people captured the fort in
Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. They intended to resume crop production under their own authority and use Africans of other tribes as slave labor. Planters regained control by the end of May 1734, after the Akwamu were defeated by several hundred better-armed French and Swiss troops sent in April from
Martinique, a French colony. The colonial militia continued to hunt down
maroons and finally declared the rebellion at an end in late August 1734.
1736 Antigua slave rebellion In 1736, on the island of
Antigua, an enslaved African known as
Prince Klaas (whose real name was thought to be Court or Kwaku Takyi) planned an uprising in which whites would be massacred. Court was crowned "King of the Coromantees" in a pasture outside the capital of
St. John's, in what white observers thought was a colourful spectacle, but was for the Africans a ritual declaration of war on the white enslavers. Due to information obtained from other enslaved people, colonists discovered and suppressed the plot. Prince Klaas and four accomplices were caught and executed by the
breaking wheel. They hung and starved six Africans and burnt another 58 at the stake. The site of these executions is now the
Antigua Recreation Ground.
1741 New York Conspiracy In 1741, a supposed plot of arson in the
Province of New York was allegedly conducted by three enslaved men, Cuffee, Prince, and Caesar. These three men were alleged to have burned several buildings, including the home of
Lieutenant Governor George Clarke. The leaders, Cuffee and Quack (Kwaku), were tried for arson, found guilty, and burned at the stake. In total, they burnt 13 black men at the stake and hung 17, along with four whites. Among those arrested when the plot was discovered were 12 men and women of Akan origin. Seventy people were deported from New York. There is considerable historical debate as to how these fires were started.
1760 Tacky’s War In 1760, another conspiracy known as
Tacky's War was hatched. Long claims that almost all enslaved Coromantin on the island were involved without any suspicion from the whites. They planned to overthrow British rule and establish an African kingdom in Jamaica. Tacky and his forces were able to take over several
plantations and kill the white plantation owners. However, they were ultimately betrayed by an enslaved man named Yankee, whom Long describes as wanting to defend his master's house and "assist the white men". Yankee ran to the neighbouring estate and, with the help of another enslaved man, alerted the rest of the plantation owners. The British enlisted the help of
Jamaican Maroons, who were themselves descendants of the Akan ethnic group, to defeat the Coromantins. Long describes a British man and a
Mulatto man as each having killed three Coromantins. Eventually, Tacky was killed by a sharpshooter named
Davy the Maroon, who was a Maroon officer in Scott's Hall.
1763 Berbice Slave Uprising In 1763, a slave rebellion in
Berbice, in present-day
Guyana, was led by a Coromantin man named
Cuffy or Kofi and his deputy Akra or Akara. The slave rebellion lasted from February 1763 into 1764. Cuffy, like Tacky, was born in West Africa before being trafficked and enslaved. He led a revolt of more than 2,500 against the colony's regime. After acquiring firearms, the rebels attacked plantations. They gained an advantage after taking the house of Peerboom. They told the whites inside that they could leave, but the rebels killed many as they did and took several prisoners, including the wife of a plantation owner, whom Cuffy kept as his wife. After several months, a dispute between Cuffy and Akra led to a war. On 2 April 1763, Cuffy wrote to Governor
van Hoogenheim saying that he did not want a war against the whites and proposed a partition of Berbice with the whites occupying the coastal areas and the blacks the interior. Akara's faction won, and Cuffy killed himself. The anniversary of Cuffy's slave rebellion, 23 February, is Republic Day in Guyana, and Cuffy is a national hero commemorated in a large monument in the capital,
Georgetown.
1765 Conspiracy Coromantee enslaved people were also behind a conspiracy in 1765 to revolt. The leaders of the rebellion sealed their pact with an oath. Coromantee leaders Blackwell and Quamin (Kwame) ambushed and killed a group of colonial militiamen at a fort near
Port Maria, Jamaica, as well as other whites in the area. They intended to ally with the Maroons to split up the island. The Coromantins were to give the Maroons the forests while the Coromantins would control the cultivated land. The Maroons did not agree because of their treaty and existing agreement with
colonial government.
Anti-Coromantee measures In 1765, a bill was proposed to prevent the importation of Coromantees but was not passed. Edward Long, an anti-Coromantee writer, states: Such a bill, if passed into law would have struck at very root of evil. No more Coromantins would have been brought to infest this country, but instead of their savage race, the island would have been supplied with Blacks of a more docile tractable disposition and better inclined to peace and agriculture.
1766 Rebellion Thirty-three newly arrived Coromantins killed at least 19 whites in
Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica. It was discovered when a young enslaved girl gave up their plans. All of the conspirators were either executed or sold.
1795 Second Maroon War The Second Maroon War of 1795–1796 was an eight-month conflict between the Maroons of Trelawney Town, a maroon settlement created at the end of the First Maroon War, located in the parish of St James, but named after governor
Edward Trelawny, and the British colonials who controlled the island. The other Jamaican Maroon communities did not participate in this rebellion, and their treaty with the British remained in place.
1816 Bussa's Rebellion in Barbados Barbados was also a central commercial point to which enslaved people from the Gold Coast were imported before further dispersal to other British colonies such as Jamaica and British Guiana. Enslaved people were imported from the Gold Coast to Barbados from the 17th century onward to about the early 19th century. The slave revolt on 14 April 1816 in Barbados, also known as the
Bussa's Rebellion, was led by an enslaved man named Bussa. Not much is known about his life before the revolt; scholars today are currently debating his possible origins. Bussa was likely a Coromantee, yet there is also reasonable speculation that he may have descended from the
Igbo peoples of modern-day south-eastern Nigeria. It is also possible that Bussa had both ancestries since enslaved peoples trafficked before the rebellion (mid- to late 16th-century shift in colonial demand for enslaved Africans from the
Slave Coast) were kidnapped primarily from the Gold Coast and underwent subsequent
creolization of the island's enslaved African population. The Bussa's Rebellion, along with other persistent slave rebellions throughout the Caribbean, had given the British Colonial government a further incentive to pass and enact the
Slavery Abolition Act 1833, officially abolishing slavery as an institution in all of its Caribbean territories.
1822 Denmark Vesey conspiracy In 1822, an alleged conspiracy by enslaved Africans in the United States brought from the Caribbean was organized by an enslaved man named
Denmark Vesey or Telemaque. Historian Douglas Egerton suggested that Vesey could be of Coromantee (an
Akan-speaking people) origin, based on remembrance by a free black carpenter who knew Vesey toward the end of his life. Inspired by the revolutionary spirit and actions of enslaved Africans during the 1791
Haitian Revolution and furious at the closing of the African Church, Vesey began to plan a slave rebellion. His insurrection, which was to take place on
Bastille Day, 14 July 1822, became known to thousands of blacks throughout
Charleston, South Carolina, and along the Carolina coast. The plot called for Vesey and his group of enslaved people and
free blacks to execute their enslavers and temporarily liberate the city of Charleston. Vesey and his followers planned to sail to Haiti to escape retaliation. Two enslaved men opposed to Vesey's scheme leaked the plot. Charleston authorities charged 131 men with conspiracy. In total, 67 men were convicted and 35 hanged, including Denmark Vesey.
1823 Demerara Rebellion Quamina (Kwamina) Gladstone, a Coromantee enslaved man in British Guiana (now Guyana), and his son
Jack Gladstone led the Demerara rebellion of 1823, one of the most significant slave revolts in the British colonies before slavery was abolished. He was a carpenter by trade and worked on an estate owned by
Sir John Gladstone. He was implicated in the revolt by the colonial authorities, apprehended, and executed on 16 September 1823. He is considered a national hero in Guyana, and there are streets named after him in Georgetown and the village of
Beterverwagting on the East Coast Demerara. On Monday, 18 August 1823, Quamina and Jack Gladstone, both enslaved on Success plantation – who had adopted the surname of their master by convention – led their peers to revolt against the harsh conditions and maltreatment. Those on Le Resouvenir, where Smith's chapel was situated, also rebelled. Quamina Gladstone was a member of Smith's church, and the population there included: 2,500 whites, 2,500
freed blacks, and 77,000 enslaved people; Quamina had been one of five chosen to become deacons by the congregation soon after Smith's arrival. Following the arrival of news from Britain that measures aimed at improving the treatment of enslaved people in the colonies had been passed, Jack had heard a rumour that their masters had received instructions to set them free but were refusing to do so. Jack wrote a letter (signing his father's name) to the members of the chapel informing them of the "new law". and heeding the advice of Rev. Smith, he urged him to tell the other enslaved people, particularly the Christians, not to rebel. He sent Manuel and Seaton on this mission. When he knew the rebellion was imminent, he urged restraint and made his fellow slaves promise a peaceful strike. Jack led tens of thousands of enslaved people to rise against their enslavers. After the enslaved people's defeat in a major battle at Bachelor's Adventure, Jack fled into the woods. A "handsome reward" of one thousand guilders was offered for the capture of Jack, Quamina, and about twenty other "fugitives". Jack and his wife were captured by Capt. McTurk at Chateau Margo on 6 September after a three-hour standoff. Quamina remained at large until he was captured on 16 September in the fields of Chateau Margo. He was executed, and his body was hung up in chains by the side of a public road in front of Success. ==Culture==