Sites of Black Resistance

Emancipation was not the product of a single action, but the efforts of many people, both enslaved and free that chipped away at slavery and oppression, through daily acts of resistance, organized rebellions and political pressure.  

Some were small steps and others were organized actions that took advantage of national debates to fracture and destroy the peculiar institution.  

The following historical sites were places where significant resistance efforts in African American history occurred.

In 1831, Nat Turner believed he was called by God to deliver his people from slavery. Turner, an intellectual and articulate man, used preaching to convince people to join his revolt. At 2 a.m. on Aug. 21, 1831, Turner and his followers started at his enslaver’s house, killing the whole family.  

They marched throughout Southampton County, Virginia, killing at least 55 people until white authorities crushed the revolt. Turner avoided capture for nearly two months before he was caught. He was tried in the Southampton County Court and sentenced to be hanged on Nov. 11, 1831. 

Turner’s revolt shocked the South and white southerners began to tighten slave codes. Almost 200 enslaved people were killed in retaliation to the insurrection. 

Lawmakers passed harsher laws and penalties on the assembly, education and movement of enslaved people. More restrictions were also imposed on the activities of free African Americans and stiffer anti-abolitionist convictions.

One of the most important battles of the American Revolution War, the Battle of Bunker Hill, was fought on June 17, 1775. Among the Continental Army – the army representing the united 13 colonies – was Peter Salem, an African American man from Framingham, Massachusetts.

Salem was born enslaved, but at the start of the war, he was temporarily released by his enslavers so that he could serve in the army. Several participants identified him as the soldier that fired the shot that killed British Maj. John Pitcairn at Bunker Hill.   

Salem’s experience became popular when artist John Trumbull included a Black soldier, thought to be Salem, in his famous 1786 painting, “The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, 17 June, 1775,” depicting the death of physician and major general Joseph Warren who advanced the revolutionary movement in Boston. 

In June 1839, Spanish planters, Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montes, purchased 53 Africans and placed them aboard “La Amistad” in Puerto Principe or modern Camagüey, Cuba.  

A few days after they set sail, one of the captives, a Mende from Sierra Leone named Joseph Cinque, led one of the most successful slave rebellions in history.

The captives freed themselves from their shackles and killed the ship’s captain and cook; they spared Ruiz and Montes and ordered them to sail back to Africa.

The ship arrived in New York on Aug. 25, 1839. The planters were set free, while the Africans were taken to Connecticut to await their trial for murder. The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in May 1840. Even though most justices were Southerners, the court ruled in favor of the Africans.  

John Quincy Adams defended the men. The justices concluded that since the slave trade was abolished, the Africans were illegally enslaved and that the murders were acts of self-defense. 

On Nov. 17, 1841, 35 Africans left New York to return to Sierra Leone. 

The Underground Railroad is inarguably one of the most well-known aspects of the antislavery movement in the 19th century. Before the Civil War, the system was primarily run, maintained and funded by African Americans. 

Wealthier and educated Blacks such as Robert Purvis and William Whipper offered leadership and legal assistance. Black working-class men and women collected money, food, clothing and provided shelter.  

By one estimate, nearly 9,000 fugitive slaves passed through Philadelphia alone, between 1830 and 1860. Abolitionist movement leader and writer William Still, a Black man from Philadelphia, helped finance the famous trips of Harriet Tubman. Between 1850 and 1860, Tubman made over a dozen journeys across the Mason-Dixon line, guiding family and friends from slavery to freedom.  

Throughout its history, Missouri has been a bellwether for racial tensions, violence and legislation in America. In 1820, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state and banned slavery in certain new territories.  

By 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the law was unconstitutional in the landmark Dred Scott v. Sandford case. In this ruling, the court stated that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not sue in federal court.  

The court also ruled that the federal government could not ban slavery in U.S. territories. In the early 20th century, some of the most violent race riots took place in East St. Louis, just miles from Ferguson.  

A century later, the shooting of unarmed Black teenager, Michael Brown, by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted protests around the world. Brown’s death was the catalyst for the broader #BlackLivesMatter movement. 

Make your voice heard this Black History Month with our museum. 
Join us in sharing key stories of Black resistance throughout February organized around five weekly focus areas that demonstrate how African Americans have practiced resistance from arriving in the Americas to today.