We Are Not Our Ancestors, and That’s No Compliment

When we say we are not our ancestors, do we do so with a knowledge of who they were, or with a fear of who we’re not?

On Sunday, Sept. 9, 1739, under the leadership of a man renamed “Jemmy”, 20 Angolan slaves would congregate at the bank of the Stone River, from there inciting a series of events that would later be known as the Stono Rebellion. After raiding a warehouse and propping the severed heads of its’ white shop owners at the entrance, the men marched through the small British Colony of South Carolina, beating their drums, yelling “Liberty”, killing slave owners and burning down plantations along the way. Historians estimate up to 100 slaves would ultimately join the uprising, attempting the 293 mile walk to St. Augustine, Fl. where Spanish Law declared them free.

Not everybody willingly joined the protest. Some slaves were said to have stayed behind to help fight beside and bunker the plantation owners. Others were forced to join. Ultimately, the rebellion would reach the Edisto River, where a white civilian gang would descend onto the marchers, killing the majority, selling off the survivors to plantation owners in the West Indies. This very intentional sacrifice of life would be the catalyst for a categorical series of events, one of which would be Nat Turner‘s rebellion some century later.