Justin Iverson - Rebels in Arms: Black Resistance and the Fight for Freedom in the Anglo-Atlantic

Rebels in Arms

ADVISORY BOARD

Vincent Brown, Harvard University

Cornelia Hughes Dayton, University of Connecticut

Nicole Eustace, New York University

Amy S. Greenberg, Pennsylvania State University

Ramn A. Gutirrez, University of Chicago

Peter Charles Hoffer, University of Georgia

Karen Ordahl Kupperman, New York University

Mark M. Smith, University of South Carolina

Rosemarie Zagarri, George Mason University

Black Resistance and the Fight for Freedom in the Anglo-Atlantic

JUSTIN IVERSON

The University of Georgia Press

ATHENS

2022 by the University of Georgia Press

Athens, Georgia 30602

www.ugapress.org

All rights reserved

Designed by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus

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by Kaelin Chappell Broaddus

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Iverson, Justin, 1987 author.

Title: Rebels in arms : Black resistance and the fight for freedom in the Anglo-Atlantic / Justin Iverson.

Description: Athens, Georgia : The University of Georgia Press, [2022] | Series: Early American places | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022013679 | ISBN 9780820362793 (hardback) | ISBN 9780820362809 (paperback) | ISBN 9780820362786 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: SlaveryAmericaHistory. | SlaveryAtlantic Ocean RegionHistory. | Slave soldiersAmericaCase studies. | Slave soldiersAtlantic Ocean RegionCase studies. | Slave insurrectionsAmericaCase studies. | Slave insurrectionsAtlantic Ocean RegionCase studies.

Classification: LCC HT1048 .I94 2022 | DDC 306.3/62097dc23/eng/20220610

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022013679

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This book is the culmination of hard work and great assistance from so many people over several years that I am extremely grateful to have received. First and foremost, I am thankful to my doctoral advisor, Aaron Fogleman, who was amazing to study with in graduate school, where this project first developed. He has provided keen vision and plentiful feedback and has always been available for support. His guidance is a model to follow. I am also deeply appreciative to members on my dissertation committee who supported my ideas from the very beginning. Jim Schmidts unique talent to reframe thoughts and ask difficult questions has sparked even more curiosity. Ismael Montana has also always been available to help, and his great insight has consistently pushed me to dig deeper. I have enjoyed Doug Egertons intellectual enthusiasm from the moment I met him, and his vision and passion for my thoughts and for the field has been incredibly helpful and infectious. I have also benefited from the support of other scholars during this process who have provided critical feedback in early iterations of chapters and who have so generously given me their time and expertise to strengthen my research, my teaching, and my writing, as well as to prepare me for life as a historian. I am thankful to John Shy, Andrea Smalley, Brian Sandberg, Sean Farrell, Beatrix Hoffman, Andy Bruno, Emma Kuby, Nancy Wingfield, Eric Jones, Taylor Atkins, Valerie Garver, Kristin Huffine, Stan Arnold, Eric Hall, and Ann Hanley. Nathaniel Holly at the University of Georgia Press has also been extremely helpful and supportive since the moment I met him. Meanwhile, my frequent conversations with friends B. J. Marach and Nicole Dressler have also spurred more meaning, and I am grateful to have learned so much with them over the years.

I have also benefited from financial support for this project and the expertise of library and archive personnel throughout the world. I am deeply thankful to the Northern Illinois University History Department and Graduate School, as well as the Newberry Library Center for Renaissance Studies, for this support. I am indebted to Lia Markey and Christopher Fletcher at the Newberry Library, as well as Michele Willbanks and James Cusick at the P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History and David Grabarek at the Library of Virginia, for all their help navigating the extensive collections that each library holds.

Finally, I am also extremely thankful to my wonderful family for their love and support along the way. My mother, Lisa Nelson, has especially fostered my interest in history since as long as I could read, and her continued support for these interests has been unwavering. For that I am forever grateful.

I have taken care to use the adjectival phrase enslaved instead of slave to refer to the unfree people of the African diaspora featured in this work. Conversely, I have tried to refer to people who owned enslaved people as slave owners or slaveholders instead of the term master. I believe it is important to highlight this power dynamic and restore agency and humanity to people kept in bondage in the Atlantic world. However, out of sheer preference for greater lexical diversity and style, I do use the terms slave and occasionally master throughout this work. Additionally, while the term rebel typically refers to enslaved people who were resisting their own enslavement featured in this work, in chapter 1 I occasionally use this term to refer to Nathaniel Bacons forces more broadly, which contemporaries and historians since have often employed. Likewise, I sometimes refer to Confederate forces in chapter 6 as rebels. Finally, the soldiers and slave rebels in this work were both African-and American-born. Some were also biracial (see especially this discussion of the Gulf Coast borderlands Maroons in chapter 5). In cases where it is probable that some slave soldiers were born in Africa, the Caribbean, or mainland North America, I therefore use African and African American to denote their origin. I do not, however, use these terms to signify acculturation or creolization among these people. More broadly, I also use the terms Blacks or Black people interchangeably with African and African American. The term Whites is also used generally to refer to European colonists and American-born people of European descent. For consistency, I also capitalize all racial and ethnic groups as proper nouns. Finally, I use the terms uprising, rebellion, revolt, and insurrection interchangeably.