American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt

by Daniel Rasmussen

“Breathtaking. [Rasmussen’s] scholarly detective work reveals a fascinating narrative of slavery and resistance, but it also tells us something about history itself—about how fiction can become fact, and how ‘history’ is sometimes nothing more than erasure.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr. “Deeply researched, vividly written, and highly original.” —Eric Foner Historian Daniel Rasmussen reveals the long-forgotten history of America’s largest slave uprising, the New Orleans slave revolt of 1811. No North American slave uprising—not Gabriel Prosser, not Denmark Vesey, not Nat Turner—has rivaled the scale of this rebellion either in terms of the number of the slaves involved or in terms of the number who were killed. Over 100 slaves were slaughtered by federal troops and French planters, who then sought to write the event out of history and prevent the spread of the slaves’ revolutionary philosophy. With the Haitian Revolution a recent memory and the War of 1812 looming on the horizon, the revolt had epic consequences for America.  In an epic, illuminating narrative, Rasmussen offers new insight into American expansionism, the path to Civil War, and the earliest grassroots push to overcome slavery.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History, African American, Race, 19th Century, American

276 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2010

About the author

Dan Rasmussen was born and raised in Washington, DC, where he attended St. Albans School. He graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2009, where he studied History and Literature with a focus on American slavery and the 19th century American South. He wrote his senior thesis, Violent Visions, on the 1811 German Coast Uprising - the largest slave revolt in American history. Rasmussen's thesis won the Kathryn Ann Huggins Prize, the Perry Miller Prize and the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize, Harvard's top undergraduate academic honor. The thesis is the basis for Rasmussen's first book, American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt. www.danrasmussen.net

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 1 out of 5]

Props to Rasmussen for researching and publicizing this incident of slave revolt. But that's about the only good thing I have to say about this stiflingly simplistic retelling of what should have been a riveting and important story.

Strike 1: Rasmussen's mantra
"We will never really know..." He uses this line about every 10 pages before filling in whatever gap he's identified with a clumsily executed piece of parallel history. Wondering what the leaders of the New Orleans revolt might have felt? Well, they were slaves, so they probably felt the same exact feelings that Olaudah Equiano felt a generation earlier in very different (and partially fictionalized) circumstances. After all, they were both black slaves. Check.

Strike 2: Rasumussen's writing
The tone ranges from cloying to earnest naivete, with the worst offences coming when Rasmussen decides (all too often) to embellish the bare bones historical account with his own little flourishes, like "the rippling muscles of the slave men" or "haughty gaze" of the plantation owners. These little cliches quickly erode the credibility of the narrative and, coupled with the fallacious comparisons described above, adulterate an original story with borrowed, hackneyed truisms.

Strike 3: Superficiality
Overall, this book reads like a promising undergraduate thesis that was rushed into production in the guise of a groundbreaking historical treatise. Good history looks past the easy sources of newspapers and similar, better documented events and gets creative. Time and again, Rasmussen gives the distinct impression that, because he couldn't find a certain type of source in his local library, it didn't exist. Great historians keep looking, and they don't publish accounts until they have something of substance to tell. American Uprising is the quintessential example of a good idea rushed into premature publication. A waste of Rasmussen's time and mine.

[Eilonwy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this because a friend foisted it upon me, so my enthusiasm was not high. It's to the book's credit that I zoomed through it and found it pretty gripping.

The story of the short-lived and unsuccessful uprising of New Orleans slaves in 1811, this was interesting and vividly-written (although it started out as a senior thesis project, and quite a lot of it reads like a college paper). I found the historical parts about the settling of Louisiana informative. However, too much of the reporting about the slave revolt consists of speculation by the author, since, as he keeps pointing out, "little is known" about the individuals, their thought processes, etc. The revolt itself is actually a pretty small part of the book, which I found disappointing.

It's all left me somewhat depressed, as far too many of the attitudes held towards black people 200 years ago are still hanging around the US today, not as changed or erased as one would hope.

[Johnny D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now, uh, let's see.

*checks notes*

Alright, ahem, so I finished this book a week ago and uh . . .

*mumbles incoherently while adjusting shirt collar*

So, yeah, I finished it. I thought the writing was good.

*peers up at the class nervously as the teacher gestures to continue*

So the writing was good, but I forgot most of what I read.

*face reddens as the class titters and the teacher motions everyone to be quiet*

I wrote down, uh, some of the thoughts that I have a week after finishing this book.

1) The author fills a lot of gaps in the historical record with his own embellishments. So you get a lot of embellished history. Ahem. Embellishment.

2) Uh, the link between this insurrection and later instances of resistance might be tangential, but it is good that the, uh, author gives slaves agency in their own story . . . unlike other narratives.

3) I was kind of hoping for a larger slave revolt, given the title of the book. In terms of participants it might be considered the largest in American history, but I think in terms of overall cultural impact and success Nat Turner's revolt had much more impact while the revolts of the Maroons and the Haitians had a stronger impact on the American psyche. Yep.

4) Uh, I forget.

5) The author's examination of the way the history has been covered up and, for lack of a better word "whitewashed" is, in my opinion, one of the more interesting aspects of the book.

6) The writing is good.

7) Uuuuuh, the end

*sits down quickly, hands covering the sides of face*

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is so little information about what happened during that revolt - it has been lost to history -- that the author could really only put together a few chapters around the uprising itself. He couldn't give details about the people who led the revolt, why they did it, how they made it work, what it was like. He could only report on how the white planters responded to it. So to market the book as a insiders story of the revolt is misleading. However, it is a heartbreaking look at the cruelty of the slave trade in this country, especially in New Orleans. It gave insight and heartbreaking detail into the scope of man's cruelty to Africans during that time. As a history book about the slave trade in Louisiana, it's worth reading. But it's not the book they're selling it to be.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could not have been happier to finish this book. I bought this book with the anticipation that it would be a well written historical narrative that lead me through the events of an uprising that has not been widely told in most of our history books. What I found was an author who not only was inexperienced in writing quality historical narratives, but also felt the need to quite forcefully inject his opinion and viewpoint on topics that were much larger than the purported focus of this book. That alone could have been tolerable if it were not for the fact that his implied opinions border on the level of conspiracy and are certainly well situated among the most extreme viewpoints.

According to the author, this uprising was responsible not only for shaping a significant part of New Orlean's history (a very believable argument), but was highly responsible for the U.S. winning the war of 1812, America's acquisition of land from Mexico, and ultimately the victory of the North in the Civil War. The author made no real attempt to hide his disdain for any prominent white male in U.S. History even going so far as to imply that Lincoln was not really in favor of emancipation, but rather was forced into emancipating the slaves. The epilogue only made things worse as there seemed to be an insinuation that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a pandering politician who was too cowardly to stand up to the injustices of that day.

The only redeeming value of this book is that it covers a period of history most people are unaware of. I remain interested in learning more about the uprising and some of the political formations that occurred within slave culture, but this book simply doesn't get the job done.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Acclaimed historian of colonial America, Jack P. Green, has called the South “a negative example of what America had to overcome before it could finally realize its true self.” For two centuries, the struggle to 'integrate' the South into a more 'progressive' and 'mainstream' American narrative has flummoxed scholars, politicians, and cultural theorists of all shades. The South still tends to confound those who are not a part of it. Dan Rasmussen’s new book American Uprising perhaps adds another strut to Greene’s argument by providing a glimpse into the complex, and problematic, relationships among slaves, landholders, merchants, politicians, soldiers, privateers, and rogues of every shade and political allegiance in the steamy swamplands of Louisiana during the early years of the American Republic. The story Dan tells is ostensibly about a little-known, but substantial slave revolt in 1811 that occurred on the Andry Plantation located on Louisiana's German Coast forty miles north of New Orleans. The insurrection that marched on New Orleans that year may have included up to five hundred slaves (actual numbers are disputed), but broke up fifteen miles from the city when it came up against a smaller, but better armed, force of planter militia. While the enduring impact of this particular uprising remains debatable, Rasmussen’s narrative provides the fodder for a much deeper story about the ‘Americanization’ of the Deep South.

Rasmussen possesses a knack for conjuring up the sights, sounds, colors, and flavors of early 19th-century New Orleans and placing his readers at the side of his protagonists, both planter and slave. The slave experience takes center stage here as Rasmussen attempts to piece together the world inhabited by the West Africans Kook and Quamana, the primary organizers of the uprising. From their arrival in the port of New Orleans in 1806 with some 1500 other slaves to their executions following the failed uprising, Kook and Quamana are contextualized into the history of the region. Dan displays real skill and art in making sense of a complex story. While the actions of Kook and Quamana and the slave perspective generally remain central to the story -- the rich broth that is essential to any good gumbo to use an apt analogy -- Rasmussen transcends the narrative event of 1811 by analyzing the big picture as much as the actions of a few men.

Indeed, Dan is at his best when his focus widens and he places the events surrounding the Andry Plantation in the wider context of American-Caribbean history. He writes convincingly of a new nation flexing its muscle for the first time, eschewing established channels of European diplomacy, and successfully flaunting international law, using God’s law instead to justify its self-serving actions in Florida and Louisiana. One example is Fulwar Skipwith’s cunning and illegal seizure of Baton Rouge and the killing of the Spanish garrison, an action that cleared the path for the United States to assume control, by presidential proclamation, of West Florida. Rasmussen is supremely aware of the multiplicity of historical ingredients in his narrative of the 1811 uprising. He writes of French, Spanish, Haitian, Creek, Miccosukee, Akan, and Asante -- all bound in complex economic interdependency, all rubbing shoulders with the newly dubbed Americans in the cosmopolitan port of New Orleans, all providing meaty chunks to the spicy broth carefully laid down with the stories of Kook, Quamana, and Andry.






Rasmussen ultimately raises the thorny question of what is ‘authentic history’ when he attempts to make something of the fact that no one has made much of the slave revolt on the Andy Plantation. "Why," asks Rasmussen, "has no one ever bothered to tell the story of the enslaved men who lost their lives fighting for their own freedom?" A pertinent question, though not entirely accurate (Howard Zinn is notably absent in Rasmussen's bibliography). In his discussion of the limited historiography on the 1811 uprising, Rasmussen uses some emotionally-packed words to malign (rightly so) not only prior scholarship, but to cast aspersions upon the 'uglier' side of the American story, that problematic part of our narrative that, pace Green, we had to overcome in order to realize our true self: Communist, Marxist, academia, White, Jewish, Nazi, racist, rebel and Confederate are all dredged up here. Such words, however, serve various masters in the broader narrative of America and form a political minefield that often inhibits serious historical dialogue.

"The South proxies for a variety of national pathologies," insists Thomas Schaller, professor of political science and author of Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South (Simon Schuster, 2008), and Southern history and modern politics rarely disengage easily. Dan Rasmussen deftly weaves a tale of something that is not so much the historical ‘winning’ of the Deep South as it is the absorption of it into the debate about who we are as a nation. "This is a story about American expansion and the foundations of American authority," states Rasmussen, as he rightly challenges us to "reckon with the politics of the enslaved." However, it appears uncertain at best that, as Rasmussen asserts, a cover up of the Andry uprising has been perpetuated for two centuries by bigoted, white, Southern elites for political ends, or that racist historians "conflated the idea of law with the idea of white supremacy." It is perhaps convenient to use the event to help exorcise those uncomfortable demons in the American psyche, but we would do well to avoid mixing contemporary polemics with history (if such a thing is possible). There persists an enduring perception in this country that the South is defined more by culture than geography, that Alabama or Louisiana (both voted for McCain in 2008), for example, are somehow more southern than Virginia (voted for O'Bama), that what is southern will forever be tied to its lard and greens cookery, to an attachment to evangelical religion, to an anti-scientific outlook, to militant and xenophobic patriotism, and ultimately to the 'peculiar institution' of slavery. As a nation, we are still trying to come to terms collectively with the issues of slavery, race, and immigration and what it ultimately means to be an American. Rasmussen gets it right: The events surrounding Andry Plantation in 1811 constitute something more than merely a Southern story, they make up rather an American one.

In the end, Dan tells a darn good story and is especially deft at showing the complex interplay of ethnicity, economics and politics in the Deep South in the early 19th century. Rasmussen succeeds in making his reader think twice about received traditions and historical identity, the mark of a good book and good historian indeed. Jacob Levenson of Columbia University has observed that for many Americans outside the region, the South will remain forever frozen in time as scenes from Birmingham and Selma are constantly re-hashed on PBS. Northerners, Levenson believes, seem "to treasure those black-and-white memories because they serve as symbols for what we'd like to think we're not." Rasmussen's new book adds to the debate about what we are. By bringing men such as Kook and Quamana to the forefront of his narrative, Dan ultimately reinforces the motto E pulribus unum!

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why bother reading about a slave revolt from 200 years ago? I grew up with the fable that American expansionism (i.e. Manifest Destiny) was motivated by a god-given duty to spread our nonviolent democratic institutions from sea to shining sea. Daniel Rasmussen's book makes a convincing connection between American expansionism and preserving the "Southern way of life," otherwise known as slavery-based agriculture. Rasmussen details the atrocities a priviliged class will go through to keep a lower class under control to their benefit. The New Orleans planters put down the rebellion violently, and they wrote the rebels into history as petty criminals for centuries. Meanwhile, violence was a necessary recourse for slaves whose freedom was supressed by violence, though the vision of the 1811 rebels was not fully realized until blacks' role in the Union's Civil War effort. These themes touched on by Rasmussen are eternally relevant.

Rasmussen pieces together a rich tale of the rebellion's mechanics despite sparse historical sources. We learn of the challenges faced by American diplomats trying to bring French aristocrats and Spanish Florida into the Union, and how a blind eye was turned to the potential for revolt. We learn about the cultural diversity of the slaves, including the origins of African military tactics that proved successful against American forces. We understand how the successful slave rebellion of Haiti influenced both the slaves and planters. We discover the heroic leader Charles Deslondes, a half-white who rebelled despite rising high within the hierarchy of slaves. His story reminds me of Andy Dufresne from The Shawshank Redemption.

The book's only weak paragraph comes when Rasmussen speculates why Deslondes rebelled despite his privilige. He hypothesizes about his mother's rape, his lovers' rape, slavedriver guilt, and jealousy. But he leaves out the simplest explanation: how agonizing is it to be so close to freedom yet not really free? There's no need for any further motive. Deslondes organized the rebellion because he could.

Harvard professor John Stauffer, in the Jan. 6 WSJ, has mischaracterized his student here as overreaching to make the 1811 Rebellion central to American history. Stauffer is correct in that American history wouldn't be much different had this rebellion never occurred. However, Rasmussen convincingly argues that the challenge of subjugating such powerful slaves was central to American history. His retelling of the 1811 rebellion is vivid evidence of what atrocities planters had to undertake to achieve this end.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

The untold history of a slave revolt decades before the Civil War. Kook, Quomana, and Charles Desmondes’ story is finally told. As I read this, I knew they were doomed and couldn’t help but think of the song lyrics, “When you see a documentary and you know the ending is f***ed, you still hope that Hitler will blow up and that Kennedy will duck.” I knew they were doomed (I think Howard Zinn first alerted me to this story) but I didn’t know how their legend lived on among the slaves even until the day they were able to join the Union army against their oppressors. The story, which was suppressed during it's day to ensure other slaves wouldn't hear about it and also revolt, includes background history, from the successful slave revolt in Haiti in which slaves defeated Napoleon's army and led him to sell Louisiana to the USA, is sad history of true freedom fighters.

[Linus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The insights covered into life at the time of an early enslaved people revolt and the consequences of the revolt in the South in particular and American history generally are enlightening.

[VJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Currently reading this book for descriptions of the culture more than for the history of the revolt. I plan to follow this with a reading of Russel Jacoby's Bloodlust because I want to see how much of the roots of violence are attributed to Spanish, Portuguese, German and British brutality.

What a telling. The telling of the German Coast revolt was inspirational in that it put the lie to all those depictions of early slaves as unable to put together a coherent response to the brutality under which they labored. If only they hadn't let that first planter escape, the ending of the revolt might have been much different. The rule in this sort of fight is leave no survivors.

The planters' response and the subsequent spin put on the events of January 1811 say much more about those with power than they do about the failings of the slave plotters. Beheading the rebels and placing their heads and bodies on pikes to rot before the eyes of all who passed, inciting more brutality, fear, and disgust; demon-strations of power after the fact and ministrations designed to cover up the truth.

That it has taken 200 years for a fuller picture of this particular slave revolt to take shape stuns me and leads me to ask scads of what if questions. What if more young people knew this story? Would it make them more interested in the racial politics of the day? Would it make them more aware of the necessity to be politically aware and activist? What if this story instead of those of smaller revolts had been told and retold? Would we have less infighting? Would some groups be less divided?

My blood's boiling. This book of non-fiction reads like fiction, but is academically supplemented by chapter notes and an index, enabling me to easily access the information on the Comte de Rochambeau. Have you heard that name on South Park? Cartman used it to name a cruel fighting game he liked to play where one player kicks the other in his jewels. Well, and this is the only spoiler I'm giving up, Comte de Rochambeau was responsible for bringing Cuban-trained man-eating dogs into the struggled to get Haiti under control. Problem was the dogs didn't care which men they ate and consumed some of the French troops as well as the Haitian rebels.

Read this book! It is full of interesting historical gems.

[Tom Emory Jr. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tom Emory, Jr. Review -- "American Uprising" is disappointing. As history, it's subject to the "Noble Negro/White Savage" bias of the author, who, I believe, willfully lacks an understanding of the plantation south and its centuries of development. The story is of the 1811 German Coast Slave Revolt just north of New Orleans, Louisiana, and its very short life and expected finish with the slaves being defeated quickly and executed rapidly.

Slavery, in whatever form, is heinous. But the author's failure to understand and develop the history of plantation south isn't very pretty either. There is a lack of depth here, both intellectually and historically.

Author Daniel Rasmussen writes that upwards of 500 slaves joined in the three-day revolt against their owners and local population. Multiple other sources give the number of slaves as topping out at maybe 125.

Additionally, the author's stretch of tying this action as a direct initiator of the American Civil War 50 years later felt like something from a freshman history composition -- and I don't mean a college freshman.

This book is not worth a long, detailed review. Perhaps the most disturbing factor regarding "American Uprising," is how many Websites are using this book as a primary source of information and history about these events.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well-written, exciting history of the 1811 forgotten slave uprising in ante-bellum Louisiana, which also sheds light on the context of the US victory over the 1815 British in New Orleans, which occurred at the end of the War of 1812. In addition, the reader learns how the drive to expand the area of the US by means of the Louisiana Purchase and a number of subsequent US military and diplomatic actions in the Southwest led to the expansion of the US, including the number of slave states. The severe depredations against refugee ex-slaves and the Indians tribes that had escaped the US to the then-Spanish territory of Florida are outlined in the narrative about the Andrew Jackson-led US invasion of Florida. By the time the reader has finished reading this book, they will be well-informed about a key period in the foundation of the US. I recommend this book to anyone interested in American history, specifically slavery and the Civil War period, the antecedents of the Civil War, as well as race relations following the Civil War up to the era of the 1960s.

[Jerry Landry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well done and insightful examination of an intentionally downplayed but key event in American history of the early republic. Considering that I was born and raised not far from the area of the 1811 German Coast uprising but had only heard scattered brief references to it in my life to date proves that Rasmussen's work was a much needed addition to the annals of historical scholarship.

[Whassan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some history books try to tell a story. Others try to turn history upside down, challenging preconceived notions about winners and losers. American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt does the latter.

Some history books try to tell a story. Others try to turn those stories on their heads, breaking apart what has been accepted as truth in the process. Daniel Rasmussen's American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt (Harper) tries to do the latter.

Through his account of the little-known 1811 Louisiana slave rebellion, the 24-year-old recent Harvard grad challenges popular narratives of docile and simple slaves who seldom engaged in subversive activity to gain freedom. He does this by repositioning slave struggles in larger intellectual and political movements of the era. He also wreaks havoc on that well-worn archetype of the tragic mulatto.

About the Louisiana rebellion, American historians generally have agreed on a few things: In the middle of the night on Jan. 8, 1811, a small group of slaves entered the bedroom of plantation owner Manuel Andry in his German Coast, La., home. After slaves slung a few axes and other domestic weapons, a wounded Andry managed to escape, but his son did not. The slaves then quickly seized arms and marched to New Orleans, picking up fighters along the way as whites fled in fear. The revolt, however, was quickly put down by a local militia.

That's where the story splits. The official storyline that then-Louisiana Gov. William C.C. Claiborne pushed and that most historians have accepted was that the slaves were a simple band of "brigands" out to pillage and plunder. The quick suppression and subsequent un-due process in the courts proved a testament to the power of American legality in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase.

But Rasmussen digs into the scant historical evidence that remains and builds a different account. The author situates the events in larger, international political and intellectual currents, revealing the sophistication of his subjects that many histories of slave rebels fail to portray. By the author's account, the 1804 Haitian revolution victory inspired slaves around the colonies to rebel. The timing of the revolt -- when there was little work and the white elites were preparing for Carnival celebrations, paired with the absence of a significant force of order because of American expansionism in Spanish West Florida -- speaks to the slaves' political and organizational acumen.

A cosmopolitan black republicanism seems to have been ripe in the region at the time of the revolt. Maroon colonies in the bayou operated as effective bases from which rebels attacked in the years leading up to the German Coast uprising. Copies of the French Declaration of the Rights of Man were found in slave quarters. Battle-hardened warriors from Ghana and Angola also make an appearance in Rasmussen's version, in which the rebels march in formation and in uniform with cavalry support, not simply to "give us us free," as Cinqué asked, but to take control of New Orleans and establish a black state.

Rasmussen's history does shift the focus from the "big house" in traditional slave-rebellion narratives, but still struggles to find those hidden voices of the washhouse in those histories. Nevertheless, he does introduce new names to the historical account.

One such name is Charles Deslondes, with whom Rasmussen quite successfully transforms the tragic mulatto trope -- a tormented figure torn between two worlds -- into the heroic mulatto, a race savior who uses the image of and access available to the oppressor to liberate the oppressed. Deslondes, who emerges as one of the main leaders of the rebellion, is high-yella and green-eyed. Instead of enjoying the privilege that his mixed heritage affords him, working as a slave driver in Creole Louisiana, Deslondes raises arms to fight for freedom.

The bedroom scene in the book, when Andry is attacked, echoes the actions of another heroic mulatto, Georges, who, despite meeting a tragic end in The Mulatto by Victor Séjour (the first work of short black American fiction), presents a symbol of heroic African-American armed struggle. Somewhat jarringly, though, Rasmussen inserts contemporary vocabulary into historical discourse with terms like "sleeper cell" and "guerilla," almost leaving the impression that slave rebellion was terrorist activity with a sympathetic objective.

In that vein, the 1811 slave rebellion was a 9/11-like event that enabled the American politicians to consolidate power in a French-dominated region that had until then questioned American control. Rasmussen asserts that the following reign of white terror and militarization not only made New Orleans American but also prepared the city to take victory during the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812 against the British.

When thinking about American Uprising and its place challenging the standard story of this rebellion, I can't help thinking of what author Edward Said wrote: "Facts do not at all speak for themselves, but require a socially acceptable narrative to absorb, sustain, and circulate them ... as Hayden White has noted in a seminal article, 'narrative in general, from the folk tale to the novel, from annals to the fully realized "history," has to do with the topics of law, legality, legitimacy, or, more generally, authority.' "

By all accounts, Rasmussen's writing style is smooth; the story sustains interest throughout. The academic language left over from when the book was still his senior thesis might pique at points, but its meta-level punches on the study of history are robust flourishes. Let's just hope that wines of historical truth telling to come -- like Rasmussen's -- will be received with open palates by the public, as well.

[Alana · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is no question that Dan Rasmussen must be commended for bringing to light the hidden history of this incredible and inspiring uprising of Louisiana maroons in 1811. There were times when I felt he made too great an effort to be even-handed (i.e., sympathetic to the plantation owners and slaveholders), and it was frustrating for me to hear how dismissive and condescending he was towards Marxists and Communists who shared his goal of raising the rebel slaves up as heroes (saying things like, "Tossed from white supremacists to Marxist activists, the actual history of the 1811 uprising fell by the wayside among ideological battles over race and politics.") -- but the fact that this book exists and brings to life such an essential part of American history is no small thing.

The strongest aspect of Rasmussen's work as a critical historian in this book is when he presents the argument that these events have been purposefully minimized and erased through very particular tactics that still have repercussions today -- that is, the treatment of slave activity as "criminal" rather than political or revolutionary in character. The systematic use of legal language and the attempt to minimize the political implications of the slaves' organized revolutionary action contributes to the erasure of this history from our collective memory while also serving to cement Black resistance and criminality together in the American imagination. This analysis was the sharpest and brightest point that Rasmussen had to offer -- until the Epilogue, which itself was almost worth the price of the book.

In the Epilogue, Rasmussen comes across as a bit more radical and daring than he does throughout the rest of the book, contrasting Robert F. William's militant stand against the KKK with Martin Luther King's nonviolence, coming out on the side of Williams and speaking out against the watered-down Black history that students learn in school.

Overall, it was a quick read, told in dramatic storytelling style that was very engaging. Everyone should know about the events described in this book, and Rasmussen's account is sure to be the most detailed literary history available to a wide audience.

[norman · Rating 4 out of 5]

American Uprising changed the way I look at the world. The measure of a book to me is that it teaches me something about something I am interested in and changes my mental image of this subject. In the case of American Uprising that subject was slavery. I never understood the relationship between the sugar islands and the Louisiana Purchase. I knew there were sugar plantations in Louisiana but not to the extent that they existed. Sugar Slavery was different from Slavery in the rest of American states and territories and this book illuminates that difference clearly.

The book's problem is that it lacks the usual historical method of verifying of its conclusions about how the Uprising occurred. The nitty gritty of the uprising is not what is important about this book. The real value of the book is its illumination of slavery in the new American territory. This may not have been what Rasmussen set out to do, but it is what he accomplished brilliantly.

[Dan Petegorsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Given how this has been promoted, I had higher expectations than it delivered. While the actual number of slaves participating in the short-lived revolt might give some merit to the "largest slave revolt" moniker, Rasmussen doesn't make an especially strong case for the overall impact of the revolt, and his treatment of the revolt itself is actually pretty thin.

That's not necessarily his fault: there simply does not seem to be very much primary material to draw on from the standpoint of the slaves themselves - so Rasmussen is forced into many suppositions. Nor does he really show that the revolt had much influence on slaves across the South, as opposed to on the white planters. While the book does elucidate a little know part of the resistance to slavery, I doubt we'll see the German Coast uprising reach anything like the stature of Nat Turner's rebellion.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had a single, unshakeable impression throughout the entire reading of this book. Another Goodreads reviewer felt the same way:

Overall, this book reads like a promising undergraduate thesis that was rushed into production in the guise of a groundbreaking historical treatise.

I thought about that on every page. The author’s sometimes bizarre choice of (or misuse of) words is one example. There are others, but the best place to see them is this well-written review: Dave's review

[Sbussey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this. It was an easy read (Rasmussen writes like a journalist rather than a historian) and I found the closing chapters considering the way history has hidden this and other slave revolts especially thought-provoking. I am pretty educated about American history and slave history by most standards, but I am significantly more informed (about something I thought I knew) after reading this.

[Joshua Mingo · Rating 2 out of 5]

How he makes an interesting topic like this boring is beyond me...

[Jim Carleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

"History is written by the victors." This quote, often attributed to Winston Churchill, is, like most such literary and historical titbits, an oversimplification of reality. In the case of this book's topic, however, it would seem to be more apt than not. Several earlier reviews of, and commentaries on, this book have complained that the author has overstated his case as to the scope and extent of the slave uprising in New Orleans in 1811. In my view, this is the very heart of the book: those who beat down the slaves were the very ones to write about it to Washington, D.C. and to the world, and to criminalize the actions of the slaves rather than accept the political nature and goal of the uprising.

This book is short enough that I need not go into details; I encourage anyone who comes across this review to read it for themselves, as it won't take long. The narrative runs for 162 pages out of the 211 in my e-version. The rest is Acknowledgements, Notes and Bibliography, which, by the by, puts paid to the notion that there is very little information available, and that what there is agrees in all or most of the salient details. Daniel Rasmussen does a very good job of explaining the French plantation owners' position, the social milieu of southern Louisiana Territory at the time, the ways in which slaves were used as well as the limited freedoms which they had, and the various interpretations of this and other slave revolts between 1700 and 1863. I was impressed by his even-handedness in weighing the many sides that influenced events. His style is clear and unencumbered by the side-discussions of which most historians love to avail themselves.

As interesting as his narrative is, the most important parts are at the end of it, where he recounts the efforts to cover up the intentions of those who rebelled, as well as the Political state-of-mind of the American government as the country grew over the next 50 years. The more I read about men such as Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson and James Knox Polk, and the times in which they lived, I am amazed that they did not realize that Civil War was as inevitable as the sun rising each morning. And we are still reaping the crops that have been growing from the bitter seeds that they and others planted two-and-more centuries ago.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am surprised that since Rasmussen's book was originally a senior thesis and he has so many acknowledgements at the end, that his mentors and editors didn't call him on some of his obvious faults. His characterization of two of the slave rebellion leaders as "Akan warriors" is purely speculative, his motivation for the rebellion romanticized and his supporting evidence for the scope of the rebellion non-existant. Too bad, as it could have been a great contribution to the history of slave America. I think his thesis is interesting: that the 1811 Lousiana rebellion boosted the acquisition of the southwestern territories and cemented the further expansion of slavery, ultimately leading to the Civil War.

[David R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

The wealth of detail on a fundamentally unknown slave uprising in pre-statehood Louisiana is spoiled by excessive doses of hyperbole and shrillness, especially in the later chapters. Rasmussen is at his best dissecting the impetus to horrifying violence by both the slave-rebels and the slaveocrat establishment. He disappoints whenever drawing conclusions, some to modern times that are weakly rendered. I was also expecting --but did not find-- comparisons and contrasts with other, better-known uprisings, such as that of Nat Turner (1831), Denmark Vesey (1822) and John Brown (1859.) A good start, should Rasmussen continue into successor analyses.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched description of a virtually unknown slave uprising in 1811 New Orleans. History is written by the victor. In this case, the victor was a US military anxious to exert it's influence over Louisiana and by nervous slave holders who wanted to erase this revolt from the record. Always difficult to read about our nation's treatment of African Americans. This book just adds to that shame.

[Roger Haskins]

The book was segmented so that only a part actually talked about the uprising. It was a good account of the revolt though based on the fact that the largest resource prior was a 24 page paper. It is unfortunate this story is not more well known. Over all the book was a decent read, though the part covering the uprising was the main point of interest for me.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 4 out of 5]

After Louisiana became a US territory and there was a successful slave revolt in Haiti, the area around New Orleans abounded with sugar plantations. Conditions were harsh for the slaves on these plantations and slaves lasted only a few years. In 1811 slightly over 200 slaves revolted, killing several white planters. This is the story of that revolt and the results.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting part of history I hadn't heard about before. However, I did not care for the writing. The book felt padded, and there was a lot of conjecture about how people might have felt or thought. In the epilogue the author notes this was originally his senior thesis. It reads like it.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decided to read this after I heard an interview with the author on NPR.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed learning more history.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid retelling of a forgotten story. It's really hard to read how inhuman the whites treated the slaves. How they could blind themselves to a fellow human being's suffering is just inconceivable.