Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt

This series of essays by various scholars, including the author, summarizes several dimensions of this historic event in colonial history. Most interesting to me was the inclusion of the "Act for the better ordering and governing of Negroes and other slaves" passed by the South Carolina General Assembly in 1740. It defines slaves as "personal chattel" and is a remarkably enlightening piece that reveals how the wealthy, Low Country plantation owners and political elite of the time regarded their slaves.

The book is excellent. I am pairing documents from it with a segment from the PBS documentary African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross for my 8th grade American history students.

Mark M. Smith has given us a splendid account of the 1739 Slave Revolt in the Charleston, South Carolina area. Rather than simply giving us his interpretation of this important, yet not widely studied event, Smith gives us the opportunity to look at some of the key documents relating to the uprising and then provides the reader with four separate essays to show different interpretations of the documents.The essays Smith presents are written by well recognized historians, including one by Smith himself, and vary in analysis - we see such concepts forwarded as the idea that the rebelling slaves were mainly ex-military, that these male slaves revolted because they were pushed into agricultural work that they saw as "women's work", and that the slaves revolved on September 9, 1739 because of the religious significance of the date.All told, this book will make an exceptionally useful case study of this revolt, and the presentation of the material makes it a most valuable addition to the field of historiography and training of future historians in how documents may be interpreted differently to come up with the "real" picture of what happened in the past.

Needed the book for class, found at a decent price

Good History

Given as a gift.

I bought several and use them in class. To analyze any issue from the multiple perspectives is very valuable.

Great historical account of one of the many slave revolts in North America, a must read!