Slave uprising of 1733 | |||||||
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Part of the Slave Revolts in North America | |||||||
Later illustration of a plantation in the Danish West Indies | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Rebel slaves (Akwamu natives) | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Phillip Gardelin Johannes Sødtmann John Jansen Lieven Jansen Øttingen |
June Kanta Bolombo Aquashie Breffu | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Hundreds | 150 |
History of the United States Virgin Islands |
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United States Portal |
The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John (Danish: Slaveoprøret på Sankt Jan) or the Slave Uprising of 1733, was a slave insurrection started on Sankt Jan in the Danish West Indies (now St. John, United States Virgin Islands) on November 23, 1733, when 150 African slaves from Akwamu, in present-day Ghana, revolted against the owners and managers of the island's plantations. Led by Breffu, an enslaved woman from Ghana, and lasting several months into August 1734, the slave rebellion was one of the earliest and longest slave revolts in the Americas. The Akwamu slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. They intended to resume crop production under their control.[1]
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.[2]