Black Militants

Somewhat amazingly, even twentieth-century historians failed to grasp the significance of the Black Seminoles as black militants. To this day most scholars of African American history misunderstand their rebellion, if they are aware of it at all.

Throughout the twentieth century, historians debunked myths about American slavery as they sought a more accurate vision of the South's peculiar institution. Beginning in the 1920s, scholars analyzed myriad forms of black resistance to slavery—sabotage, laziness, escape, even murder and suicide were held up as examples. And yet curiously historians have not been able to find any examples of successful armed revolts against American slavery. According to conventional scholarly wisdom, in fact, all of the rebellions involving armed slaves, from the New York City revolt in 1712 to John Brown’s raid in 1859, were military failures. Conventional wisdom further contends that slaves instigated no major insurrections in the U.S. after 1831, when Nat Turner led his rebellion in Virginia. The absence of armed revolts after 1831 has even been a scholarly riddle, along with the general absence of successful armed revolts taking place at any time on U.S. soil.*

And yet a successful, armed slave rebellion tool place after 1831—and it happened to have been the largest in U.S. history. This was, of course, the rebellion led by the Black Seminoles in Florida from late 1835 through 1838.