I'm talking about the Africans owned as slaves by rich white folks in USA or maybe pre-USA in North America. How many of them tried to fight back and why didn't they succeed seeing as they were probably more powerful physically and greater in numbers at least locally? They could travel around forming a little army which would grow and grow…

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yeah, but sadly as soon as there was one that was slightly bright enough to think that, he was killed before he did anything. :/

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Not! Read the book "Break Those Chains". Some pretty awesome accounts of how slaves stuck it back to their masters, sometimes even violently!

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In pre-united states I would suppose the language barriers prevented organization, considering it was rare for one slave owner to buy slaves who spoke the same language. After learning English they may have been able to communicate and organize, but considering that they didn't have access to guns nor raw materials to make blades on the plantations, they might be able to fight back against their masters, but beyond the plantations they didn't stand much chance. You also assume that they outnumbered whites locally, when in reality the plantations had white owners, white work hands, white customers and merchants, and a town full of white people just beyond the plantation.

After all that you have to remember that any slave to actually escape would be a fugitive with no place to go, nobody willing to hide him (even free blacks would get a substantial monetary reward for his capture). Then you have to wonder how many of them actually felt like escaping: the conditions they lived in probably made them a pretty emo bunch. And then the idea of a bunch of slaves escaping and creating a small army is essentially like asking anybody in america today to create their own army and revolt against local government. Truth is, most accounts of slaves escaping involves them buying their freedom (raising funds by doing work for non-slave owners over several years without their master finding out) or escaping into native american lands or toward the northern states just outside the jurisdiction of anyone trying to catch them. Open warfare against an armed and organized government versus just becoming a refugee would (I think) make a lot more sense to someone born and raised on a plantation with no knowledge of the outside world.

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@19,212

You're making many interesting and enlightening points. However, there is one thing about what you said that really confuses me: "free blacks". Were there really non-slave Africans in America at that time?

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@19,213

Not nearly as many as slaves, but there were some if I recall. They would have been freed by their masters (don't know why, but I've heard it happened), purchased their own freedom, or come to America not as slaves (perhaps as paid servants). Prior to the slave trade various Africans (usually the ones that had organized into kingdoms, serfdoms, or anything larger than a tribe really) were actually politically active and would send diplomats and merchants to places like Portugal and Spain. I suppose they could have done the same with the America. There would also be the slave catchers who were blacks that captured other blacks to sell to America, I guess they would oversee shipments sometimes. And then their were the pirates/smugglers. A pirate ship that needs a crew probably would care to much if you were a nigger and would just bring you aboard anyway. Mind you this is at least half speculation on my part, I really only remember hearing that there were free blacks but not how that came to be.

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