Slave Revolts, Royal Justice, and a Ubiquitous Rumor in the Age of Revolutions

Slave revolts in the Americas during the age of revolutions are commonly viewed as the product of the politicization of the enslaved. Evidence from uprisings in very different settings—cities, mines, and plantations; Portuguese, Spanish, British, French, and Dutch colonies—suggests, however, that slaves were frequently motivated by a rumor that was remarkably stable across time and space. What sparked their rebellions was not a generic desire to be free but rather two specific and connected notions: the king—usually a European, but sometimes an African monarch—had decreed the slaves' freedom, and local officials and slaveholders were preventing the new law from being introduced. The idea of a thwarted royal emancipation decree was not confined to the age of revolutions. It can be detected in slave communities as far back as the 1660s. Yet in the period after 1789, the combination of antislavery, abolitionist activity, reformist measures, and revolutionary turmoil created fertile ground for the rumor to be born and reborn. Inspired by events that often occurred an ocean away, the rumor was usually forged or reawakened locally. Pursuing liberty without flight, rebelling slaves felt they were free and did all they could to obtain what was legitimately theirs.