Why is it so hard to find examples in history of successful slave rebellions? Sparticus, English and Russian serf revolts, Nat Turner. They all failed. The only success I can think of is the rebellion that led to independence in Haiti, and that was only because Napoleon was occupied elsewhere.
Sparticus and Nat Turner staged their revolts in societies where a huge portion of the population were slaves. If either of them had had the full support of the slave population, I have no doubt they would have succeeded.
Is the “yearning to be free” of the average human overrated? Is P. Henry’s “liberty or death” not shared by most of mankind? Is freedom a modern concept?
Most of the slave rebellions in history are not only unsuccessful, but are absolutely forgotten. One poor bastard tried to show his fellows that only by refusing to be slaves could they ever be free. He was overheard, or betrayed, and beaten to death slowly in front of everyone who loved him. Everyone was promised a far worse punishment than that if they ever mentioned his name again.
If you were a slave who was smart enough to perceive a path to freedom, and your owners realized it, you were immediately separated from the other slaves, and given a position where you could be carefully watched, and tested for your commitment to your own comfort. If you were even mildly intransigent, you were easily replaced. A slave who endangers the system is a liability that can easily be limited. A dead slave is only a small financial loss, if the live slave was a problem to its owner.
Slaves lack social infrastructure, economic wherewithal, military training, weapons, transportation, and the emotional support of self-image as free beings. Slave owning societies are very careful to suppress the development of any solidarity among slave peoples. Examples are made, clearly, and harshly, to make abundantly clear the message that slaves are property. Not people, but cattle. Quislings are encouraged, and traitors rewarded lavishly, and publicly. One breeds his cattle to obtain the desired traits.
<P ALIGN=“CENTER”>Tris</P>
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
–Abbie Hoffman
I suspect that slavery imparts a fear in people that is hard to overcome. In order to enslave someone, you must, ultimately, convince them that they cannot survive if free.
This conforms well (provided I’m right, of course) with the concept that a revolution can only occur in a milieu of rising expectations. No serf society has truly rebelled. (The Russian Revolution occurred after a number of attempts at reform and the slightly-better-off-than-their-parents people joined their we’re-sick-of-fighting-under-incompetent-generals-who-send-us-to-die military.)
Spartacus and Nat Turner also present special cases. (Not that we can’t discuss general principles, anyway.)
Spartacus led a revolt that should have succeeded to a certain extent. He was able to attract almost 90,000 followers after beginning with only about 70 at a time when most of the Roman legions were off having a nifty civil war in Spain. I am not sure why his group refused to leave Italy (as he intended), but that pretty much doomed them. The Romans simply kept raising armies until they found an army and a general that could defeat Spartacus. I suspect that many slaves (particularly the “business class” slaves of clerks and accountants) felt that they were better off in their homes with their families than wandering Italy fighting armies. 90,000 is not a small number to have rallied to Spartacus, but it certainly was not the overwhelming number of slaves in Italy at the time. I would guess that the reason more did not join are the reasons I speculated, above. On the other hand, the revolt of Spartacus is well known, thanks to Kirk Douglas, but Rome did, indeed, suffer periodic slave revolts, some lasting as long as or longer than Spartacus’s 2 1/2 years.
Turner just blew it, tactically. He fostered the revolt first, which became a simple riot, instead of organizing a rebellion. With no organized plan and no control (Turner is reported to have followed his men after the second plantation they attacked, making no attempt to lead them), his rebellion got far drunker on whisky than on power and were rather easily suppressed.
One simple answer in modern times at least…
Guns…kill.
“Give me liberty or give me death” was spoken by a slave owner, not a slave.
As ironic as it sounds, many slaves sought to live as slaves rather than live as martyrs. They also hoped to prevent their children and wives’ torture and rape.
If you read slave narratives, you’ll see a universal desire for freedom, and an incredible lack of the means to acheive it.
Throw in suppression of the truth and pretty soon it looks like they didn’t mind it too much. (As a matter of fact F. Douglas addresses this in his narrative quite succinctly.)
Don’t be fooled - in contrast to that idea look at the incredible persistence of ethnic uprisings today when access to weapons seems to be a little more “democratic”. We will probably have a few hundred years of these types of conflicts - which are spurred by less inhumane oppression even than slavery, but an increased availablity of weapons - until we realize you really can’t oppress for too long without people deciding to revolt.
I think a good analog would be how a handfull of police manage to supress unruly crowds.
The individuals have a deep seated fear of prosecution. Any “crazies” who press the limits are dealt with swiftly. The mob has next to no organization.
The cops on the other hand move with the confidence of their authority. They are trained proffesionals with a definite chain of command. They manuver with proven tactics and superior weapons. This all conveys a unity to the mob that makes them realise they are individuals wheras the police are a unit.
Because a successful slave rebellion was one of the most feared things in a slave-holding society, and therefore one of the things most closely guarded against.
The Romans lived in a general constant state of anxiety over whether the slaves would rise up and slaughter them all. Southern states passed hardship law after hardship law- refusing to allow slaves to learn to read, or congregate, wtc.- in order to keep the slaves from having the chance to organize a successful rebellion.
JMCJ
“John C., it looks like you have blended in very nicely.”
-UncleBeer
One of the major reasons is that, despite the romantic notion of a passle of slaves, serfs, proletarians, etc., suddenly grabbing up rustic weapons and overrunning their oppressors by sheer force of numbers and righteous wrath, putting a sword (or other weapon appropriate to the local tech levels) in someone’s hands does not make him a soldier. Slave revolts have generally been put down by armies in which, whilst the training and experience of the soldiers in them may not have been particularly good by our standards, was much better than that possessed by the average revolutionary.
Another reason is the fear of death or other serious injury possessed by most. If I am facing a mob, and I have a standard revolver, I can only shoot six people, at most, before I am overwhelmed. But which six will they be? Everyone in that mob will be thinking, “Suppose I’m one of the six?” This tends to discourage them.
We should note that a good deal of military training is not oriented towards technical matters such as how to aim a rifle, sharpen a bayonet, etc.; it’s to get the recruits to overcome that fear, and actually do something besides huddle on the ground or run away. In terms of absolute percentages, it’s not very effective, but it’s a good deal more effective than sending an armed mob out and hoping that they’ll prevail.
SFAIK, in the history of human warfare, exactly one man has managed to get his troops to go up to the battle line and fight without significant armor to give them the illusion of safety.
“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”
And who would that be Akatasumi? My first guess was Travis at the Alamo, but your reference seemed to be a bit more reverential.
Anyway, this wasn’t a slave revolution, but there was a slave dynasty called the Mamluks in the Islamic world (don’t know the dates, sorry).
The way that they came to power was that the previous dynasty had used foreign slave/mercenary armies. As the military power grew, so did the political, eventually making the caliph a mere figurehead.
The interesting thing is that the Mamluks continued to import foreign slave/mercenaries, who after discharging their servitude then became the new Mamluk rulers.
Not exactly a revolt, but the slaves gained power and kept it for a long time.
I was thinking of Shaka; I daresay that I should have qualified my statement by saying: “among non-gunpowder armies”.
The Mamluks present an, umm, interesting phenomenon. The best-known (to us Westerners, anyway) group of Mamluks were the rulers of Egypt, 1250-1517, but there were plenty of others (including the Slave Kingdom of Delhi, and most post-Ottoman rulers of North Africa). Mamluk slavery, of course, was not slavery as we think of it in the classical or Christian worlds (equally, of course, none of those were identical to each other, either); its origins seem to go back to the Islamic doctrine that the brothers of the umma ought not to fight each other. This, of course, conflicts with the reality that not everyone will obey the caliph’s commands. The thing to do, then, is to import pagan warriors to make up one’s army (I think that it was the Abbasid al-Mutawakkil who formalized the practice).
Why Mamluks didn’t abolish the institution when they took power, I frankly don’t know. I suspect that it was partly that same Islamic doctrine, partly a feeling of “by the beard of the Prophet, we suffered through it before we got power, and now they’re going to suffer through it, too”, and partly a reluctance to change anything lest it upset the applecart (which had them on top at the time). I don’t consider that a definitive answer, though.
“Kings die, and leave their crowns to their sons. Shmuel HaKatan took all the treasures in the world, and went away.”
Spartacus’s initial success was due to the fact that, at first, the Romans didn’t take him too seriously and sent in what amounted to green troops and militia to finish him off. It wasn’t until after he had wiped out a few of those second and third rate armies that the powers that be sent Crassus with some real troops (and a potful of Crassus’ money) to fight him.
Pompey (the self proclaimed Great) was off in Spain putting down Sertorius’ rebellion but there was a fear that Sparticus’ band would run into him coming back along the coast if they tried to leave from the North of Italy (as ultimately happened to the last survivors).
Sparticus marched his people down to the toe of the Italian boot and cut a deal with the local pirates to ship them all over to Sicily which was full of disaffected grain slaves. The pirates took his money and blew town laughing, leaving him stranded.
Marcus Crassus barricaded him in and thoroughly massacreed him when the slaves tried to break out. Spartacus was a pretty fair amateur general but out of his league running an army of almost 100,000 troops and no match for real professionals.
That’s the problem with slave uprisings in general. They never have the military skills, equipment and leadership that they need to overthrow the power structure.