Impeding Insurrections: The Climate of Slavery in South Carolina following Tacky’s War

By Elizabeth Boyle

South Carolina, often remembered in American history as the defender of slavery and the

continuation of the transatlantic slave trade was, in fact, the very colony that proposed an act

limiting the further importation of slaves in 1760. Prior to the independence of the American

colonies, South Carolina encouraged this seemingly progressive act that was later rejected by the

British Royal Council. In the context of South Carolina’s greater relationship with the slave

trade, this act initially seems to be an anomaly. However, this act was not an outlier in South

Carolina’s history but rather the culmination of the anxieties surrounding the institution of

slavery in the colony.

In the Convention of 1787, South Carolina representatives Charles Pinckney and John

Rutledge both adamantly opposed the prohibition of the slave trade. Pinckney defended the slave

trade by emphasizing the benefits of the slave trade for the entire Union. Rutledge, on the other

hand, discussed how “he was not apprehensive of insurrection.”1 This mention of apprehension

illustrates the remnants of the previous issue of slave rebellions that had occurred twenty years

prior. With this insistence of the economic importance of the slave trade less than twenty years

after South Carolina attempted to ban importation completely, concerns of public safety must

have been high during 1760. In fact, anxieties surrounding the safety and security of the colony

seemed to be almost all-encompassing to the people living in South Carolina.

The role of slave rebellions, both domestic and abroad, encouraged the creation of this

proposal. While the economic necessity of slavery may have encouraged expansion of

importations, slave rebellions undermined the safety of colonists and thus encouraged the

drafting of prohibitive legislation. Though Tacky’s War (1760) occurred on the Caribbean island

of Jamaica, it is just as important as the homegrown Stono Rebellion (1739) in intensifying the
 2

underlying fears of colonists in South Carolina.2 While Tacky’s War may not have occurred on

the North American mainland, the Spanish influence and the prominence of slave labor allowed

South Carolinian leaders to see parallels between the island and its own colony. By making the

Atlantic world visible, the Caribbean emerges from the background of early American history.

While Tacky’s War is often considered a separate entity, the conflict illustrates the influence the

Caribbean had in conceptions of slavery in the Carolina lowcountry.

Though the concept of the “American colonies” or the “mainland colonies” has been used

to describe the colonies that eventually gained independence following the Revolutionary War

(1776), these colonies were not a single and distinctive entity prior. They were not a unified

subculture within the British colonial system but rather a diverse set of colonies located on the

mainland of North America. Historians such as Robert Weir have discussed how “much of

colonial South Carolina resembled the West Indies more than most of the other mainland

colonies, none of which – including Georgia – ever had such a heavy preponderance of blacks.”3

Matthew Mulcahy later develops this concept in Hubs of Empire in which he considers “the

British plantation colonies in the Caribbean … and the Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry … as a

distinct region, the British Caribbean.”4 Therefore, this notion of unity in the American colonies

is inherently flawed as it only accounts for the geographic location of the colonies. A more

dynamic grouping would not only focus on geography but also on the economic and social

principles that governed society. This conception of the British Caribbean helps illustrate this

understanding of the relationship between places like South Carolina and Jamaica. The parallels

show that slave rebellions were not isolated incidents but rather a part of a complex network of

rebellions which spread across Britain’s colonial empire.

 3

Before the Stono Rebellion (1739), slaveholders in southern colonies had followed the

advances of the African rebellions, which had occurred in Jamaica, in what came to be known as

the First Maroon War. As early as May 1734, The South Carolina Gazette published letters from

a white Jamaican in which he discussed how the “rebellious Negroes are so numerous that they

attack us everywhere, and are not afraid of our greatest force.”5 This theme persisted in various

letters published in The South Carolina Gazette discussing how “it is as bad there with the

rebellious Negroes as ever.”6 These letters not only discussed the actions of the maroons but the

dangerous perception of the colonists’ lack of control. Peter Wood discusses in Black Majority

how slaveholders “followed these dispatches on the Maroon War through the final treaty in

1738.”7 Therefore, slaveholders likely heard accounts of rebellion in Jamaica in the years leading

up to the Stono Rebellion in September of 1739. Through the First Maroon War, South

Carolinians realized the danger inherent in allowing communities of runaway slaves.

Homegrown Rebellion: South Carolina’s Stono Rebellion

The Stono Rebellion was “one of the largest and costliest in the history of the United

States.”8 Various accounts of the “Negroe Insurrection in South Carolina” discuss how Colonel

William Bull, Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina, “was pursued, and with much difficulty

escaped and raised the country.”9 In an attempt to discredit the rebellion, one anonymous author

attempts to conclude his account with the idea that “the very Spirit of Revolution” was over.10

This commentary attempted to reassure the colonists of their safety despite the violence of the

rebellion. To maintain the notion of a well-ordered colony, many prominent colonists, including

Colonel Bull himself, perpetuated the idea that the rebellion was settled quickly by local militia.

The reality was that there was a significant struggle and the slaves involved in the rebellion

refused to give up without a fight.

 4

While Colonel Bull publicly suggested the rebellion fell with ease, he privately expressed

concerns related to future insurrections. In a letter to the Royal Council, Bull displays his

misgivings, asking “if such an attempt was made in a time of Peace and Tranquility” then what

would occur during a time of war or invasion?11 He then articulated his worries concerning the

Proclamation published by the King of Spain’s Order at St. Augustine. The nearby Spanish

colony promised freedom to fugitive English slaves who arrived in Florida. Though stipulations

like Catholic conversion or militia service applied, these were a small price for one’s life and

freedom. Therefore, Bull pointed to Spain as a catalyst for encouraging slaves to escape the

British colonies by rising in rebellion.12 The Spanish presence threatened Carolinians not only

because of perceived economic and social threats but also notions of security, as slaves were said

to have risen “in a daring manner out of the Province killing all they met.”13 Though Bull tried to

convey stable leadership, he was also aware of the instability inherent in governing a colony that

was surrounded by foreign enemies and also home to a suppressed majority of enslaved

Africans. Bull emphasized this imperial struggle in his requests for assistance from the

metropole.14

Native Nuisances & Foreign Foes

In addition to the threat of the Spanish, South Carolina also had to worry about the

neighboring Native American tribes and the security threats they posed. The tension of the

tenuous relationship with the Cherokee is evident during the Yamasee War (1715-1717) in which

the previously-allied Cherokee switched sides multiple times. More recently, the two powers had

agreed to the Anglo-Cherokee Alliance (1730-1735). However, the start of the Seven Years’ War

in 1756 allowed the Cherokees a unique position in which “South Carolina, Virginia, and the
 5

French all contended for Cherokee affections.”15 Though the Cherokees initially favored South

Carolina, this did not remain a consistent alliance.

In the Anglo-Cherokee War, which occurred from 1758 to 1761, “Cherokees went from

British allies to enemies to neglected nuisances.”16 During the Cherokee offensive of 1760, this

indigenous threat helped illustrate how “South Carolinian elites constituted a frightened yet

dominant minority surrounded by two exploited colored majorities.”17 The racial tensions were

high in the colony, allowing domestic and foreign threats to exacerbate preexisting tensions.

Though the presence of the Spanish symbolized a significant threat, that threat originated in their

ability to utilize Native American and African American threats and rebellions.

Money or Mutiny? The Economy of Slavery

The Stono Rebellion increased the worries that the majority enslaved population was a

constant threat to the colony’s well-being. By 1734, importation reached large proportions, and

colonists noted “the great number of negroes that are among us, who amount at least to twenty-

two thousand persons, and are three to one of all your Majesty’s white subjects.”18 The Stono

Rebellion solidified this danger, resulting in legislative action. In “An Act for the Better

Ordering and Growing Negroes and Other Slaves in this Province (1740),” explicit laws were put

in place to respond to “any slave who shall raide or attempt to raide an insurrection in this

Province…shall upon conviction as aforesaid, suffer death.”19 The Stono Rebellion inspired

financial desire to suppress African slaves further, continuing the subjection they currently

endured with benefits to the economic system currently in place. South Carolina is represented as

the “early modern version of the British-American dream,” due to the financial success white

plantation owners experienced through purchasing greater numbers of slaves.20 As a result, the
 6

volume of the colony’s rice exports more than doubled.21 The colonists were becoming rich in

finances and poor in security.

Additional corrective legislation passed in 1741 in the form of a duty that was “imposed

upon new slaves in an effort to curtail further growth of the black majority.”22 Although South

Carolina did attempt to control the slave population continuously during this pre-Revolutionary

era, the economic livelihood of the colony depended on slave labor. These laws demonstrated

“the tension between economic needs of the colony and its safety needs.”23 South Carolina’s

concern for safety ultimately pushed for implementation of various duties. Additionally,

colonists also supported an increase in the immigration of white servants to discourage reliance

on black slaves. However, these efforts proved fruitless, and the economy of South Carolina

remained heavily slave-dependent.

New York Conspiracy: Growing Racial Tensions

With anxieties already high, the stories of the New York Conspiracy (1741) so recently

after the Stono Rebellion (1739) could have caused mass hysteria. The New York Conspiracy

(1741) served to illustrate the danger inherent in slave conspiracies and rebellions as well as

confirm any fears that preexisted in the hearts of colonists. Though the conspiracy was rumored

to stem from a Catholic agenda, the people of New York also believed Catholics had allowed for

the inclusion of Negro slaves in the uprising. This inclusion “aggravated the horrors of a

domestic plot.”24 The Stono Rebellion was all-too-present in the mind of New Yorkers “and

everyone in New York had heard about what had happened in Jamaica, where in the 1720s and

1730s, large bands of runaway slaves…established rebel towns and fought off repeated efforts to

conquer them.”25 Many New Yorkers believed the conspiracy’s purpose was to replace the
 7

colonial governor with an enslaved African.26 The increased scale of this supposed rebellion

caused great trepidation.

However, the accurate accounts of this conspiracy are lost to history, leaving history to

wonder whether or not slaves acted in the supposed burnings in New York. In fact, an

anonymous letter from a New-Englander in 1741 spoke of how the handling of the conspiracy

“puts me in the mind of our New England Witchcraft in the year 1692...which if I don’t mistake

New York justly reproached us for, & mockt at our Credulity about.”27 Much like the Salem

witch trials, the New York Conspiracy (1741) and the executions that followed were influenced

by an irrational fear. Since New York colonists already exhibited anxieties concerning slave

rebellions, this perceived threat posed by Catholics and slaves alike served to construct the

popular belief that these two groups were responsible for the series of burnings in New York.

Due to the exponential growth in the enslaved population between 1739 and 1741,

combined with the tension between slaves and slaveholders in the British colonies in North

America, it is likely that any efforts to fully prohibit the importation of slaves would have

occurred immediately following the Stono Rebellion (1739) and the New York Conspiracy

(1741).28 However, South Carolina did not fully ban the importation of slaves until nearly twenty

years later in 1760. The question that remains is why this extreme preventative measure would

have emerged in the legislative record at this time. The role of previous homegrown rebellions

may have increased the racial anxieties felt by white colonists. However, the immediate catalyst

for the proposal can be found only in the greater British Caribbean. With the understanding that

South Carolinians followed the progression of the First Maroon War, it is not surprising that

Tacky’s War (1760) would have a significant influence on the legislation of South Carolina.
 8

Tacky’s War: The Caribbean Catalyst

As the “largest slave rebellion in British America during the colonial period,” Tacky’s

War played a critical role in the development and understanding of slave rebellions.29 The

significance of Tacky’s War to slavery as an institution in British North America is

historiographically underdeveloped, but some historians, such as Thomas Day, discuss how “in

Tacky’s rebellion the British public saw not only a threat to its overseas economic engine but

also a violent reaction against the economic and social order itself.”30 Where slavery was

previously an investment in industry, it was now was a harbinger of revolution. Tacky’s War

(1760) not only warned the slaveholders in Jamaica but those across the world.

Additionally, the sheer duration of the six-month conflict showed that the institution of

slavery was fragile. Tacky’s War was a near-success in Jamaica since the opposition was not

only strong but also unified across the island. This reality shook the economic foundation of the

British slave trade investments, causing alarm in both the mainland and the colonies. The

rebellion itself was an omen to the people of South Carolina. In February of 1759, Richard

Clarke, the rector of St. Phillip’s Church in Charles Town, predicted that in September “some

great calamity would befall and that the world soon be at an end.”31 A year later, Jamaica faced

its worst slave rebellion on Easter Day 1760. The prophetic warning given to the people of South

Carolina by the preacher seemed to be confirmed. Slave rebellions only became more unified,

and the possibility of Tacky’s War occurring in South Carolina seemed inevitable.

Plantations Paralleled: Comparing the Climates of Jamaica and South Carolina

With a similar geographic and cultural climate to Jamaica, South Carolina was vulnerable

to similar revolts to those that plagued the Caribbean island. The conditions in Jamaica favored

revolt for a variety of reasons.32 These conditions included that the “slave group came to
 9

outnumber the ruling class by nearly ten to one.”33 The sheer number of slaves allowed for

rebellions to gain greater traction than if they had been a minority of the population. Similarly,

South Carolina had seven or eight slaves to every white person in several lowcountry parishes.34

In addition to the number of slaves, the origin of slaves was vital to creating a culture susceptible

to rebellion. Many masters “regarded ‘country born’ slaves as less alien, and therefore less

threatening than enslaved Africans.” 35 The idea was that locally born slaves would not only

become compliant but that they would also have more to lose in rebelling. On the other hand,

they believed foreign-born slaves had already lost all personal and cultural ties, so they had less

to lose in rebelling against their enslavement. Since at least four-fifths of Jamaican slaves were

of African origin, the spirit of vengeance and rebellion was still in the hearts of these slaves.36 In

the South Carolina lowcountry, more than half of the slave population was less than ten years

removed from Africa with “a much larger proportion being born in Africa.” 37 The social

dynamic in South Carolina mirrored that of Jamaica was perceived as increasing the likelihood

of rebellion in addition to showing how the social dynamic in South Carolina mirrored that of

Jamaica.

In addition to the similarity in slave populations, both Jamaica and South Carolina had

prominent connections to Spain. Since both England and Spain were colonizing North America

and the Caribbean, the two powers were constantly at odds with each other. This created a

strategic game in which Spain could manipulate slaves under British control. By enticing slaves

to escape to Spanish colonies, the nation was ultimately emphasizing their own power

internationally over the British Empire. Though the timing of the Stono Rebellion is debatable,

one theory argues that “the rebels had just heard news about an increase in hostilities between

Britain and Spain.”38 In Jamaica, the First Maroon War began after the English had expelled
 10

Spain from the island. In both instances, the presence of Spain served as a threat. As Spain was

still present in Florida until 1763, it is likely that this presence only added to the anxieties

growing in South Carolina.

Additionally, the presence of Spain was a constant reminder that British slaves could

receive emancipation if they reached Florida. Therefore, the threat of runaway slaves was

emphasized, much like they were in Jamaica during the First Maroon War and Tacky’s War.

Throughout these wars, maroon communities had considerable power and influence. Lieutenant

Governor Bull wrote in a 1760 letter that “those fertile Vallies, surrounded by Mountains

afforded a secure and plentiful Refuge to the run away from this Province and Virginia, who

might be more troublesome and more difficult to be reduced than the Negroes in the Mountains

of Jamaica.”39 The presence of these runaway slave communities in Jamaica concerned

prominent South Carolinian officials. Therefore, Colonel Bull attempted to create better relations

with nearby Cherokees to surround the colony with allies. However, stories told of Tacky’s War

continued to worry prominent South Carolinians and a fragile alliance with the Cherokees would

not quell emerging fears. As a result, The South Carolina Gazette then “omitted ‘any Accounts

of Insurrections’ from Jamaica.”40 As this threat had already infiltrated South Carolina soil,

censorship came too late to have any substantial effects.

Uncontrollable and Indestructible: The Role of Obeah

In addition to the presence of Spain and runaway slave communities, the religious and

medical practices of obeah played a critical role in Tacky’s War. By understanding how obeah

related to African spiritual power, the influence of the practice takes on greater social and

religious implications. Not only did Jamaican slaves believe in the power of obeah but colonists

also feared it as witchcraft.41 The tales of Tacky’s War often mentioned these practices which
 11

included the idea that obeah men were supplying rebels with a powder. Applied to their bodies,

this powder was said to make the rebels invulnerable to bullets.42 Belief in obeah and its abilities

allows for a more complex understanding of the rebellion as it adds to both the slaves’ motives

and colonists’ fears. Jamaican slaves gave General Tacky this “notion of his invulnerability,

[which] still prevailed over the minds of others, as that hero had escaped hitherto in every

conflict without a wound.”43 Due to this legendary quality given to the leader of the rebellion, the

revolts continued even after the initial rebellions were crushed since “the condition of his party

was artfully misinterpreted to the Coromantins [Akan slaves from the Gold Coast] in the distant

parishes; they were told that everything went on prosperously, that victory attended them…

animated with these reports, the Coromantins on Captain Forrest’s estate in Westmoreland, broke

into rebellion.”44 The rumors that spread concerning the invincible leader of this rebellion helped

it gain traction and support. With South Carolina already plagued with various threats, this blind

belief that slaves could not be injured or killed was incredibly troubling. If the slaves in South

Carolina were to acquire this confidence and solidarity, the colony would surely have been in

chaos. In fact, some may argue that the slaves could dismantle the institution of slavery by

shaking its very foundation. If the oppressed were able to inherit this invincibility, the efforts of

white slave owners to instill fear and promote notions of white superiority would be futile.

By proposing an act to stop the further importation of slaves, South Carolinian elites

attempted to protect themselves and provide a sense of security. Slave rebellions filled the years

preceding 1760, creating a climate of violence and fear. Though the colonists attempted to

project steady leadership, the reality was that the foundation of their lives rested on the backs of

slaves. If these slaves were to unify their slave rebellions, then white South Carolinian colonists

would be incapable of maintaining their current lifestyles. While the Stono Rebellion was cause
 12

for initial worry, Tacky’s War illustrated how slave rebellions had evolved over the years. In

Jamaica, slaves had developed methods for increasing support through the use of both

superstition and rumor. If South Carolinian slaves were to revolt following Tacky’s War, they

would be able to improve on the near-success of their Jamaican counterparts. Additionally, they

would have the added benefit of a Native American and Spanish presence which would

complicate the British response following the incident. With all this in mind, Tacky’s War was

the primary cause for the drafting of the 1760 proposal banning the importation of foreign-born

slaves. While the colonists refused to release their own slaves, they supported the restriction as it

would limit the violent Caribbean slaves’ transport to South Carolina.

 13

Bibliography
Primary Sources
Bull, William, Governor of South Carolina, to the Royal Council, 5 October 1739. South
Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina.

Extract of a Letter from a Gentleman at St. Mary, April 14, 1760,” The Pennsylvania Gazette,
June 5, 1760.

Governor Henry Lyttleton, Charles Town, to the Board of Trade, 1 September 1759, British
Public Record Office records, microfilm, South Carolina Department of Archives and
History, Columbia, SC, CO5/376, D 438, 107-8, from Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves,
and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740-1790,
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 136.

Grimke, John Fauchereaud. The public laws of the state of South-Carolina, from its first
establishment as a British province down to the year 1790, inclusive, in which is
comprehended such of the statutes of Great Britain as were made of force by the act of
assembly of 1712, with an appendix containing such other statutes as have been enacted
or declared to be of force in this state, either virtually or expressly, to which is added the
titles of all the laws (with their respective dates) which have been passed in South-
Carolina down to the present time, also the Constitution of the United States with the
amendments thereto, and likewise the newly adopted constitution of the state of South-
Carolina, together with a copious index to the whole. Philadelphia, Aitken & Son, 1790.

Horsmanden, Daniel. The Trial of John Ury; “for being an ecclesiastical person, made by
authority pretended from the see of Rome, and coming into and abiding in the province
of New York,” and with the being one of the Conspirators in the Negro Plot to burn the
city of New York, 1741.Philadelphia: Martin I. J. Griffin, 1899.

Long, Edward. The history of Jamaica, or General survey of the antient and modern state of that
island: with reflections on its situation, settlements, inhabitants, climate, products,
commerce, laws, and government. London, 1774.

Madison, James. "The Debate in the Convention of 1787 on the Prohibition of the Slave-Trade."
New York Times, November 24, 1860.

“The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia,” ed. Allen D. Candler, et al. (Atlanta: Byrd,
1913), vol. 22, pt. 2.

Secondary Sources
Berson, Joel S. “How the Stono Rebels Learned of Britain’s War with Spain.” The South
Carolina Historical Magazine 110, no. ½ (January- April 2009),
http://www.jstor.org/stable/40646897.

Day, Thomas R. Jamaican Revolts in British Press and Politics, 1760-1865. Virginia
 14

Commonwealth University. Scholars Compass. May 2016.

http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4089.

Dubois, W. E. B. The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America,
1638-1870. New York:Lonhgmanns, Green, and Co., 1904.

Lepore, Jill. New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and the Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century
Manhattan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.

Mulcahy, Matthew. Hubs of Empire: The Southeastern Lowcountry and British Caribbean.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.

Olwell, Robert. Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low
Country 1740-1790. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Paton, Diane. The Cultural Politics of Obeah: Religion, Colonialism, and Modernity in the
Caribbean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.

Price, Richard. Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Thornton, John K. “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion.” The American Historical
Review 96, no. 4. (October 1991):1101-1113. doi:10.2307/2164997.

Tortora, Daniel J. Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists and Slaves in the American
Southeast, 1756-1763.Chapel Hill: The University North Carolina Press 2015.

Weir, Robert M. Colonial South Carolina: A History. Milwood, NY: KTO Press, 1983.

Wood, Peter. Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono
Rebellion. New York: Norton Library, 1975.

Wisecup, Kelly. "Knowing obeah." Atlantic Studies 10, no. 3 (2013): 406-25. June 21, 2013.
doi:10.1080//14788810.2013.809228.
 1
Notes
James Madison. "The Debate in the Convention of 1787 on the Prohibition of the Slave-Trade." New York Times,
November 24, 1860 From James Madison, Madison Papers, Vol. III, 1388.
2
In this paper, the Jamaican rebellion that lasted from May to July 1760 will be referenced as
Tacky’s War. However, historically, it has also been referred to as Tackey’s War or Tacky’s Rebellion.
3
Robert M. Weir, Colonial South Carolina: A History (Milwood, NY: KTO Press, 1983), 175.
4
Matthew Mulcahy, Hubs of Empire: The Southeastern Lowcountry and British Caribbean
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), 2.
5
South Carolina Gazette, May 18, 1734. From Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in
Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: Norton Library, 1975),
223.
6
South Carolina Gazette, January 18, 1735. From Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in
Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: Norton Library, 1975),
223.
7
Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the
Stono Rebellion (New York: Norton Library, 1975), 223. The dates concerning the First Maroon War
have been debated since rebellions occurred since the English occupation of the island of Jamaica.
Other historians cite the treaty being finalized as late as 1740. In Maroon Societies: Rebel Slaves
Communities in the Americas, the dates of the conflict are listed as 1655-1740 though “it is customary
to regard only these last fifteen climactic years as the First Maroon War.”
8
John K. Thornton, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion,” The American Historical
Review 96, no. 4. (October 1991):1101-1113. doi:10.2307/2164997.
9
“The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia,” ed. Allen D. Candler, et al. (Atlanta: Byrd,
1913), 232-236.
10
Ibid.
11
William Bull, Governor of South Carolina, to the Royal Council, 5 October 1739. South
Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, South Carolina.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
Daniel J. Tortora, Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists and Slaves in the American
Southeast, 1756-1763. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 124.
16
Tortora, Carolina in Crisis, 1.
17
Ibid., 4.
18
W. E. B. DuBois, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of
America, 1638-1870 (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1904), 10.
19
John Fauchereaud Grimke, The public laws of the state of South-Carolina, from its first
establishment as a British province down to the year 1790, inclusive, in which is comprehended such of
the statutes of Great Britain as were made of force by the act of assembly of 1712, with an appendix
containing such other statutes as have been enacted or declared to be of force in this state, either
virtually or expressly, to which is added the titles of all the laws (with their respective dates) which
have been passed in South-Carolina down to the present time, also the Constitution of the United
States with the amendments thereto, and likewise the newly adopted constitution of the state of South-
Carolina, together with a copious index to the whole (Philadelphia: Aitken & Son, 1790), 167.
20
Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The Culture of Power in the South Carolina
Low Country, 1740-1790, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 33.
21
Ibid.
22
Wood, Black Majority, 131.
 23
A. Leon Higginbottom, Jr. In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process:
The Colonial Period (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 215.
24
Daniel Horsmanden, The Trial of John Ury; “for being an ecclesiastical person, made by
authority pretended from the see of Rome, and coming into and abiding in the province of New York,”
and with the being one of the Conspirators in the Negro Plot to burn the city of New York, 1741
(Philadelphia: Martin I. J. Griffin, 1899), 4.
25
Jill Lepore, New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and the Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century
Manhattan (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 53.
26
Ibid., XVI.
27
Anonymous to CC, [July 23?], 1741, Letters and Papers of Cadwallader Colden, in New-
York Historical Society Collections, 8:270-71. From Jill Lepore, New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery,
and the Conspiracy in Eighteenth-Century Manhattan (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), xvi-xvii.
28
In this paper, the conspiracy will be referenced as the New York Conspiracy though
historically it is has also been referenced as the Negro Plot of 1741.
29
Mulcahy, Hubs of Empire, 6.
30
Thomas R. Day, “Jamaican Revolts in British Press and Politics, 1760-1865,” Scholars Compass (May 2016):
15, http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/4089.
31
Governor Henry Lyttleton, Charles Town, to the Board of Trade, 1 September 1759, British
Public Record Office records, microfilm, South Carolina Department of Archives and History,
Columbia, SC, CO5/376, D 438, 107-8, from Robert Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects: The
Culture of Power in the South Carolina Low Country, 1740-1790, (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1998), 136.
32
Richard Price, Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1996), 280.
33
Ibid., 280.
34
Weir, Colonial South Carolina, 174.
35
Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects, 47.
36
Price, Maroon Societies, 282.
37
Olwell, Masters, Slaves, and Subjects, 127.
38
Joel S. Berson, “How the Stono Rebels Learned of Britain’s War with Spain,” The South
Carolina Historical Magazine 110, no. ½ (January- April 2009), http://www.jstor.org/stable/40646897.
39
William Bull to Archibald Montgomery, May 23, 1760, Grant Paters, DLAR reel 31, frame
32, From Daniel J. Tortora, Carolina in Crisis: Cherokees, Colonists and Slaves in the American
Southeast, 1756-1763. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 124.
40
Tortora, Carolina in Crisis, 124.
41
Diane Paton, The Cultural Politics of Obeah: Religion, Colonialism, and Modernity in the
Caribbean World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 27.
42
Kelly Wisecup, “Knowing obeah,” Atlantic Studies 10, no. 3 (June 2013):406-25,
doi:10.1080//14788810.2013.809228.
43
Edward Long, The history of Jamaica, or General survey of the antient and modern state of
that island: with reflections on its situation, settlements, inhabitants, climate, products, commerce,
laes, and government.. (London: T. Lownudes 1774), 452.
44
Long, The history of Jamaica, or General survey of the antient and modern state of that
island, 452.