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Cry Liberty: The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739
The story of slavery in the colonial New World is, in part, one of rebellion. In Jamaica, Hispaniola, Dutch Surinam and elsewhere, massive uprisings threatened European rule. But not in British North America. Between the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and the start of the American Revolution in
1775, the colonies experienced only one notable revolt, on South Carolina's Stono River in 1739, and it lasted a single day. Yet, writes Peter Charles Hoffer, as brief as this event was, historians have misunderstood it--and have thus overlooked its deeper significance.
In Cry Liberty , Hoffer provides a deeply researched and finely nuanced narrative of the Stono River conflict, offering uncomfortable insights into American slavery. In particular, he draws on new sources to reexamine this one dramatic day. According to conventional wisdom, recently imported African
slaves-warriors in spirit and training-learned of an impending war between England and Spain. Seeking freedom from Spanish authorities, the argument runs, they launched a well-planned uprising in order to escape to Florida. But Hoffer has mined legislative and legal records, land surveys, and
first-hand accounts to identify precisely where the fighting began, trace the paths taken by rebels and militia, and offer a new explanation of its causes. Far from a noble, well-crafted revolt, he reveals, the slaves were simply breaking into a store to take what they thought was their due, and
chance events put them on a path no participant had originally intended. The truth is a far less heroic, but far more of a human tragedy.
Richly researched, crisply told, and unflinchingly honest, this book uncovers the grim truth about the violent wages of slavery and sheds light on why North America had so few slave rebellions.
1775, the colonies experienced only one notable revolt, on South Carolina's Stono River in 1739, and it lasted a single day. Yet, writes Peter Charles Hoffer, as brief as this event was, historians have misunderstood it--and have thus overlooked its deeper significance.
In Cry Liberty , Hoffer provides a deeply researched and finely nuanced narrative of the Stono River conflict, offering uncomfortable insights into American slavery. In particular, he draws on new sources to reexamine this one dramatic day. According to conventional wisdom, recently imported African
slaves-warriors in spirit and training-learned of an impending war between England and Spain. Seeking freedom from Spanish authorities, the argument runs, they launched a well-planned uprising in order to escape to Florida. But Hoffer has mined legislative and legal records, land surveys, and
first-hand accounts to identify precisely where the fighting began, trace the paths taken by rebels and militia, and offer a new explanation of its causes. Far from a noble, well-crafted revolt, he reveals, the slaves were simply breaking into a store to take what they thought was their due, and
chance events put them on a path no participant had originally intended. The truth is a far less heroic, but far more of a human tragedy.
Richly researched, crisply told, and unflinchingly honest, this book uncovers the grim truth about the violent wages of slavery and sheds light on why North America had so few slave rebellions.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published November 2, 2010
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 5, 2016
Though very well-written, much of this book is pure speculation being passed off as historical scholarship. The first few chapters are very informative and fascinating, but when the author gets to the part where he tries to piece together his own theory on just how the events of the Stono Slave Rebellion of 1739 took place, that's where things get into murky territory. Sure, the author's account is extremely plausible, and not at all unreasonable. But it's pure speculation, with nothing but circumstantial evidence and conjecture to support any of it. Which would be fine if it was treated as such, and the author does remind the reader at times that this is the case. But his discussion of the events of the Rebellion is conducted in a tone that suggests his version of the unfolding events is the only one that makes any rational sense, even though historians before him have not taken his view. That part of the book annoyed me. Even so, there is a lot of good material in this book, particularly the early chapters, which shed light on local conditions in the eighteenth century in what is, to me, a familiar landscape: the marshside roads and longleaf pine forests west of the Charleston peninsula.
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August 21, 2022The Stono River rebellion is certainly an event in American history that deserves attention and its own volume. But!
Hoffer's theory here is that the Stono River rebellion was not a pre-planned act of defiance. He acknowledges that it's a poorly documented event, smothered by a white conspiracy of silence to keep from encouraging other rebellions. That means there's plenty of room for theorizing. But it's odd to me that he seems to give more weight to white record keeping than black oral history, when it's clear throughout the narrative that white testimony is unreliable at best when it came to reasons to kill and imprison black people. Perhaps both should be treated as equally subjective in this case?
I know it's hard to say anything is "fact" when there's so little documentation to support it. What I find so jarring and strange, though, is the moral lessons that the author attempts to impose. He ends the book with quote from a slaveholder about how violence is never the answer to anything, which seems like the epitome of privilege, as though the institution of slavery was not itself prolonged violence. Can anyone really reach back into history and say it was wrong for enslaved people to resist their enslavement, even if that resistance was born of opportunity and desperation instead of, say, writing a specific document and mailing it to a king across the Atlantic?
Hoffer's theory here is that the Stono River rebellion was not a pre-planned act of defiance. He acknowledges that it's a poorly documented event, smothered by a white conspiracy of silence to keep from encouraging other rebellions. That means there's plenty of room for theorizing. But it's odd to me that he seems to give more weight to white record keeping than black oral history, when it's clear throughout the narrative that white testimony is unreliable at best when it came to reasons to kill and imprison black people. Perhaps both should be treated as equally subjective in this case?
I know it's hard to say anything is "fact" when there's so little documentation to support it. What I find so jarring and strange, though, is the moral lessons that the author attempts to impose. He ends the book with quote from a slaveholder about how violence is never the answer to anything, which seems like the epitome of privilege, as though the institution of slavery was not itself prolonged violence. Can anyone really reach back into history and say it was wrong for enslaved people to resist their enslavement, even if that resistance was born of opportunity and desperation instead of, say, writing a specific document and mailing it to a king across the Atlantic?
September 11, 2015
"Historians are artists,"
begins Hoffer in the last chapter of Cry Liberty. What he means is historians must take the raw material of primary sources and try to make sense of them, using logic, social studies, and other sources to fill in blanks, and after loads of research and devotion, gaps still exist, and the historian returns to the struggles of filling them in.
I myself am obviously not a historian, but Hoffer certainly put me in the shoes of one by revealing just how speculative much of the work is. In Cry Liberty he demonstrates this by using an event truly tucked under the radar by documentation. He worked only with some biased personal accounts and general knowledge of the time to create a fairly reasonable thesis. None of the facts are solid, and so everything from the first page to the last could be nothing but natter, but Hoffer wrote rationally, logically, keeping in mind the humanity of the figures, and wrote probably the most believable account of the Stono rebellion.
In the beginning Hoffer uses space to set the scene, lay out some needed knowledge, but then pretty quickly goes on with the rebellion. With every event in the rebellion he considered every factor, and always pieces together an acceptable scene.
Cry Liberty also really shines in readability. Unlike most history authors, Hoffer writes personally. In many instances he even directly speaks to the reader. And as he writes about the events it all means way more to him than just history. This probably would be unusable as a history textbook, just because it focuses on Hoffer's reception to the events and the things they taught him just as much as it focuses on the history.
Now, Cry Liberty does not really present anything too new to the table. It delves into an uncommonly discussed event, but still reflects on the same issues as most books on slavery: oppression, rebellion, human life... But the style in which Hoffer writes and its insight into the job of a historian make it a fascinating read.
February 20, 2021
I loved Cry Liberty. I think it’s greatest strength relied in how transparent it was about the lack of sources. While other readers found it speculative, I felt it was a great look into how historical narratives are constructed. Hoffer’s inclusion of competing narratives was especially effective.
The inclusions of black folk narratives and their impact on collective memory of Stono were wonderful, and I wish that there had been more discussion of these themes. I suspect there wasn’t sufficient evidence to build this out further.
In addition, some of the moralizing in the afterword may have been well received when the book was published, but doesn’t feel very well connected to the subject or work of the book.
The inclusions of black folk narratives and their impact on collective memory of Stono were wonderful, and I wish that there had been more discussion of these themes. I suspect there wasn’t sufficient evidence to build this out further.
In addition, some of the moralizing in the afterword may have been well received when the book was published, but doesn’t feel very well connected to the subject or work of the book.
September 5, 2018
I had to read this for a college history class, while I found parts of this monotonous and boring, there were some interesting ideas tangled within. It is not something that I would have picked up and decided to read myself. And given the length, had this been a book I was more interested in I would have finished it much faster. I found myself struggling to get through. But for those interested in history, and the slave rebellion and the ideas of what could have happened versus as to how the events were told the comparison is interesting and very plausible.
September 21, 2021
This was really just deeply mediocre. I really didn't enjoy myself at all while reading this, and the fact that I had to do so for school didn't really help. I don't really have much to say if I'm being honest. I don't suggest reading this. I didn't enjoy it. If I didn't have to write a paper on it I wouldn't have touched this.
August 5, 2011
New book obsession: short bites of history. Like the Lincoln mini-biography, I found this browsing the aisles of my neighborhood library. Pretty good account.
August 5, 2012
Interesting account of an early - and successful - slave rebellion that is hardly ever covered in textbooks.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews