# Was there ever meaningful armed resistance to slavery & Jim Crow in the south **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 29, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998 "2016-05-29T15:40:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/1 "2016-05-29T15:40:54Z")
I know the goal of the south with large black populations was state sponsored terrorism to keep black people in line and obedient. There were multiple ways this was accomplished (preventing blacks from getting educated or owning guns, paramilitary death squads like the KKK, biased courts, prohibition of freedom of movement and assembly, etc) but was there ever any meaningful, organized armed resistance? Did people form paramilitary groups to engage in any bombings, shootings, stabbings, etc. against the state or were they mostly isolated incidents of resistance? Was the north beating them in the civil war the only time the south really faced any armed resistance for their behavior and treatment of people? I know about the Nat Turner rebellion, but that was localized and ineffective. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/2 "2016-05-29T15:52:01Z")
Nat Turner wasn’t the only slave rebellion; they were common enough to be a fear of most slaveholders. They were all ineffective, of course, since the slaves were outnumbered and it was hard for them to access weapons. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/3 "2016-05-29T15:58:27Z")
The National Guard was sent in at times to facilitate school integration. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/4 "2016-05-29T16:32:37Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I know about the Nat Turner rebellion Do you know about [John Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist))? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/5 "2016-05-29T16:43:41Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Do you know about [John Brown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist))? The Kansas-Nebraska wars that Brown played a tiny part in were much more important than Brown’s later raid against Harper’s Ferry, which was the definition of an isolated incidence and one that the vast majority of the North abominated. It’s also an example of why armed resistance stayed so small. The South used it as propaganda to justify any amount of power to crush any attempt, however small, with overwhelming retaliation, then and for a century after. I hate to Godwinize the thread, but the historic parallels to the Nazis destroying whole villages for a single act of resistance are remarkable. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/6 "2016-05-29T16:51:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The Kansas-Nebraska wars that Brown played a tiny part in were much more important than Brown’s later raid against Harper’s Ferry, which was the definition of an isolated incidence and one that the vast majority of the North abominated. I should hope that decent people will always deplore the kind of religious-zealot vigilante/terrorist violence that John Brown and others perpetrated in Kansas, too. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/7 "2016-05-29T18:16:50Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > I should hope that decent people will always deplore the kind of religious-zealot vigilante/terrorist violence that John Brown and others perpetrated in Kansas, too. I should hope that you would condemn the pro-slavery side’s violence as well. I wonder why you didn’t mention it. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/8 "2016-05-29T18:34:58Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I should hope that you would condemn the pro-slavery side’s violence as well. I wonder why you didn’t mention it. I do; “and others” includes the madmen and murderers of innocents on both sides. But John Brown is typically the only such who is named, these days, as having played some kind of quasi-heroic role. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/9 "2016-05-29T18:46:42Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > I should hope that decent people will always deplore the kind of religious-zealot vigilante/terrorist violence that John Brown and others perpetrated in Kansas, too. The killing of non-combatants is unethical but anti-slavery forces 150+ years ago murdering paramilitary terror organizations, police, politicians, judges, slave owners, overseers, etc. would be a perfectly ethical use of force since they were part of the establishment that promoted unethical treatment. The more trouble slaves caused (in theory) the less incentive there would be to have them. Of course the opposite would also happen, more oppression and fear by the establishment. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/10 "2016-05-29T18:56:47Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > The killing of non-combatants is unethical but anti-slavery forces 150+ years ago murdering paramilitary terror organizations, police, politicians, judges, slave owners, overseers, etc. would be a perfectly ethical use of force since they were part of the establishment that promoted unethical treatment. This sounds something like the logic that modern religious zealots would use to justify murdering abortion doctors. But even if we were to accept that… John Brown’s gangs, both in Kansas and in Virginia, killed some people who were none of the above–merely suspected of sympathies on the wrong side. Or, like Heyward Shepherd, who were just in the way. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/11 "2016-05-29T19:49:49Z")
I don’t think it was directly related to slavery so much as secession, but the state of Virginia faced a very sizable amount of resistance from people living in the western portion of the state early in the Civil War. It resulted in a second secession movement as the citizens of that part of Virginia sought to secede from Virginia and the Confederacy. The Confederates sent troops to put down the rebels, and the Union sent troops to support them. The end result was the admission of the new state of West Virginia into the United States. Somewhere in between there was the election of a whole batch of new senators from the western region to represent the state of Virginia in the US, and the temporary movement of the state capital from Richmond to Wheeling. Politics can be crazy, man. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/12 "2016-05-29T22:57:22Z")
The split between West Virginia and Virginia began before the Civil War; the Virginia legislature nearly ended slavery in the 1850s. Ultimately, the eastern planters had more power and the vote – though close – was not to abolish. ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/13 "2016-05-29T23:01:00Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Nat Turner wasn’t the only slave rebellion; they were common enough to be a fear of most slaveholders. They were all ineffective, of course, since the slaves were outnumbered and it was hard for them to access weapons. Depending on the community – Charleston, for instance – slaves were not a minority. One of the reasons for the extremely oppressive laws discriminating against blacks was that whites were terrified of an organized rebellion by slaves. That’s why laws against literacy, curfews, meeting sizes, etc. were enforced. They didn’t want blacks merely enslaved, they wanted them crushed and powerless. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2016, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/14 "2016-05-29T23:19:12Z")
> [@Arrendajo](#): > > Depending on the community – Charleston, for instance – slaves were not a minority. One of the reasons for the extremely oppressive laws discriminating against blacks was that whites were terrified of an organized rebellion by slaves. That’s why laws against literacy, curfews, meeting sizes, etc. were enforced. They didn’t want blacks merely enslaved, they wanted them crushed and powerless. Yup, which is probably a reason there never was any true rebellion. Southern whites wanted blacks to be illiterate, uneducated, unable to move around freely, unable to congregate, unable to have access to information criticizing their treatment, no access to weapons, etc. I’m sure the greatest fear of southern whites was educated, organized, fearless armed blacks who knew they were getting screwed and were tired of it. Which led to my question, was that ever a real risk? I get the impression, other than a few localized revolts, no it wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/15 "2016-05-30T00:30:22Z")
There was [a long history of uprisings](http://slaverebellion.org/index.php?page=united-states-insurrections), and arguably some of the increasingly harsh laws in the South were in response to those uprisings. The [Stono Rebellion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stono_Rebellion) in 1739 started in South Carolina and ended with the deaths of about 44 whites and 44 blacks as it spread to near St Augustine Florida. It was one of the deadiest slave rebellions in the South, though far from the largest by numbers of participants. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/16 "2016-05-30T00:58:39Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Yup, which is probably a reason there never was any true rebellion. Southern whites wanted blacks to be illiterate, uneducated, unable to move around freely, unable to congregate, unable to have access to information criticizing their treatment, no access to weapons, etc. I’m sure the greatest fear of southern whites was educated, organized, fearless armed blacks who knew they were getting screwed and were tired of it. Which led to my question, was that ever a real risk? I get the impression, other than a few localized revolts, no it wasn’t. That’s circular, isn’t it? If the oppression works, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a vital tool to maintain the slavery system. Had African Americans had the opportunity to organize, there may well have been organized rebellions. I don’t think the lack of such implies that the fears of slave-holders were unfounded. That said, I do think the bogeyman of the savage black man raping and murdering his way across the country was used to keep the non-slave holding white population involved in helping to sustain the system. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/17 "2016-05-30T01:24:01Z")
I know the question concerns the US, but the Haitian Revolution in the 1790s represented a very real and very tangible example of a successful slave revolt, so the Southerners weren’t just dealing with hypotheticals. [QUOTE=Exapno Mapcase] The Kansas-Nebraska wars that Brown played a tiny part in were much more important than Brown’s later raid against Harper’s Ferry, which was the definition of an isolated incidence and one that the vast majority of the North abominated. [/QUOTE] I’m not so sure that the vast majority of the North were opposed to Brown’s actions. Henry David Thoreau gave a speech defending him as a martyr, and it was reported that church bells across the north tolled upon his death. A popular battle hymn among the Northern soldiers was “John Brown’s Body.” I don’t know how the percentages played out, but he was not shunned in the North. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/18 "2016-05-30T02:10:49Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > That’s circular, isn’t it? If the oppression works, that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a vital tool to maintain the slavery system. Had African Americans had the opportunity to organize, there may well have been organized rebellions. I don’t think the lack of such implies that the fears of slave-holders were unfounded. That said, I do think the bogeyman of the savage black man raping and murdering his way across the country was used to keep the non-slave holding white population involved in helping to sustain the system. I’m not sure what your argument is. In any oppressive and unfair system, the elite try to keep the masses as disorganized, terrorized, disarmed, ignorant and oppressed as possible. Slavery was no different than any other dictatorship in that regards. The point is that in the entire history of slavery in the US, I do not think there were any meaningful violent revolts other than a few minor and local ones. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/19 "2016-05-30T02:45:39Z")
You said > [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Which led to my question, was that ever a real risk? I get the impression, other than a few localized revolts, no it wasn’t. Just because it never happened doesn’t mean that the risk wasn’t real. There are lots of real risks that almost never come to pass because the prevention measures in place are effective. But the risk is still a real one. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2016, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998/20 "2016-05-30T02:59:29Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I’m not so sure that the vast majority of the North were opposed to Brown’s actions. Henry David Thoreau gave a speech defending him as a martyr, and it was reported that church bells across the north tolled upon his death. A popular battle hymn among the Northern soldiers was “John Brown’s Body.” I don’t know how the percentages played out, but he was not shunned in the North. Certainly there existed a loud abolitionist movement, whose every utterance has been cherrypicked in popular memory. That doesn’t mean that the vast majority joined in approval. They didn’t. However, they don’t get much press. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-there-ever-meaningful-armed-resistance-to-slavery-jim-crow-in-the-south/755998.md?page=2)