1811 German Coast Uprising

European-Americans in the Louisiana area worry about slave uprisings fueled by the spread of ideas of freedom from the French and Haitian revolutions.

The German Coast—in St. Charles and St. James Parishes, Louisiana—is an area of sugar plantations, with a dense population of enslaved people.

Blacks outnumber whites by nearly five to one according to some accounts.

More than half of those enslaved may have been born outside Louisiana, many in Africa.

The free black population in the overall Territory of Orleans has nearly tripled from 1803 to 1811 to five thousand, with three thousand arriving in 1809–1810 as migrants from Haiti (via Cuba), where in Saint-Domingue they had enjoyed certain rights as gens de couleur.

Territorial Governor William C.C. Claiborne has struggled with the diverse population since the U.S. negotiated the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

Not only are there numerous French and Spanish-speaking people, but there is a much greater proportion of native Africans among the enslaved than in more northern U.S. states.

In addition, the mixed-race Creole and French-speaking population has grown markedly with refugees from Haiti following the successful slave revolution.

The American Claiborne is not used to a society with the number of free people of color that Louisiana has—but he works to continue their role in the militia that had been established under Spanish rule.

He has to deal with the competition for power between long-term French Creole residents and new U.S. settlers in the territory.

Lastly, Claiborne is suspicious that the Spanish might encourage an insurrection.

He struggles to establish and maintain his authority.

The waterways and bayous around New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain make transportation and trade possible, but also provide easy escapes and nearly impenetrable hiding places for runaway slaves.

Some maroon colonies have continued for years within several miles of New Orleans.

The largest slave revolt in American history, the 1811 German Coast Uprising, takes place just outside of New Orleans.

Between sixty-four and five hundred enslaved people rise up on the German Coast forty miles outside of New Orleans, and march to within twenty miles (thirty-two kilometers) of the city gates.

The revolt takes the entire military might of the Orleans Territory to suppress and is the greatest threat to American sovereignty in New Orleans.

A group of Africans who had been forcefully enslaved meets on January 6, 1811.

It is a period when work has relaxed on the plantations after the fierce weeks of the sugar harvest and processing.

As planter James Brown will testify weeks later, "The black Quamana [Kwamena, meaning "born on Saturday"], owned by Mr. Brown, and the mulatto Harry, owned by Messrs. Kenner & Henderson, were at the home of Manuel Andry on the night of Saturday–Sunday of the current month in order to deliberate with the mulatto Charles Deslondes, chief of the brigands."

Slaves had spread word of the planned uprising among the slaves at plantations up and down the "German Coast" along the Mississippi River.

The insurgent slaves reach Cannes-Brulées, about fifteen miles (twenty-four kilometers) northwest of New Orleans, after nightfall.

The men have traveled between fourteen and twenty-two miles (twenty-three and thirty-five kilometers), a march that has probably taken them seven to ten hours.

By some accounts, they number "some two hundred slaves," although other accounts estimate up to five hundred.

As typical of revolts of most classes, free or slave, the  slaves are mostly young men between the ages of twenty and thirty.

They represent primarily lower-skilled occupations on the sugar plantations, where slaves labor in difficult conditions.

The revolt begins on January 8 at the Andry plantation.

The slaves strike and badly wound Manuel Andry, then kill his son Gilbert.

The rebellion gains momentum quickly.

The fifteen or so slaves at Andry's plantation, about thirty miles (fifty kilometers) upriver from New Orleans, join another eight slaves from the next-door plantation of the widows of Jacques and Georges Deslondes.

This is the home plantation of Charles Deslondes, a field laborer later described by one of the captured slaves as the "principal chief of the brigands."

Small groups of slaves join from every plantation the rebels passed.

Witnesses remark on their organized march.

Although they carry mostly pikes, hoes, axes, and few firearms, they march to drums while some carry flags.

From ten to twenty-five percent of any given plantation's slave population joins with them.

At the plantation of James Brown, Kook, one of the most active participants and key figures in the story of the uprising, joins the insurrection.

At the next plantation down, Kook attacks and kills François Trépagnier with an axe.

He is the second and last planter killed in the rebellion.

After the band of slaves passes the LaBranche plantation, they stop at the home of the local doctor.

Finding the doctor gone, Kook sets his house on fire.

Some planters will testify at the trials in parish courts that they had been warned by their slaves of the uprising.

Others regularly stay in New Orleans, where many have town houses, and trust their plantations to overseers to run.

Planters quickly cross the Mississippi River to escape the insurrection and to raise a militia.

As the slave party moves downriver, they pass larger plantations, from which many slaves join them.

Numerous slaves join the insurrection from the Meuillion plantation, the largest and wealthiest plantation on the German Coast.

The rebels lay waste to Meuillion's house.

They try to set it on fire, but a slave named Bazile fights the fire and saves the house.

Colonel Andry, after being injured, had gone to the other side of the river to round up a militia organized by planters, who have begun pursuing the rebel slaves.

The residents of New Orleans have heard of the insurrection on the German Coast by noon on January 9.

Over the next six hours, General Wade Hampton I, Commodore John Shaw, and Governor William C.C. Claiborne send two companies of volunteer militia, thirty regular troops, and a detachment of forty seamen to fight the insurgents.

The battle is brief. Forty to forty-five slaves are killed within a half-hour of the attack and the remainder slip away into the woods.

Perret and Andry's militia try to pursue slaves into the woods and swamps, but it is difficult territory.

The planters and government officials, having suppressed the insurrection, continue to search for slaves who had escaped.

Those captured are interrogated.

Officials conducted three tribunals, one at Destrehan Plantation owned by Jean Noel Destréhan (St. Charles Parish), one in St. John the Baptist Parish, and the third in New Orleans (Orleans Parish).

The Destrehan trial, overseen by Judge Pierre Bauchet St. Martin, results in the execution of at least eighteen slaves by firing squad, whose heads are put on pikes.

The plantation displays the bodies of the dead rebels to intimidate other slaves.

The trials in New Orleans, also in the local court, result in the conviction and summary executions of eleven more slaves.

Three of these men are publicly hanged in the Place d'Armes, now Jackson Square.

U.S. territorial law provides no appeal from a parish court's ruling, even in cases involving imposition of a death sentence on an enslaved individual.

Governor Claiborne, recognizing that fact, writes to the judges of each court that he is willing to extend executive clemency (“in all cases where circumstances suggest the exercise of mercy a recommendation to that effect from the Court and Jury, will induce the Governor to extend to the convict a pardon.”)

In fact, Governor Claiborne does commute two death sentences, those of Henry, and of Theodore, each referred by the Orleans Parish court.

No record has been found of any referral from the court in St. Charles Parish, or of any refusal by the Governor of any application for clemency.

Militias kill about ninety-five slaves at the time of the insurrection, as well as by execution after trials.

From the trial records, most of the leaders appear  to have been mixed-race Creoles or mulattoes, although numerous slaves in the group are native-born Africans.

Fifty-six of the slaves captured on the 10th and involved in the revolt are returned to their masters, who may have punished them but wanted their valuable laborers back to work.

Thirty more slaves are captured, but the whites determine they had been forced to join the revolt by Charles Deslondes and his men, and return  them to their masters.

The heirs of Meuillon petitioned the legislature for permission to free the mulatto slave Bazile, who had worked to preserve his master's plantation.

Not all the slaves support insurrection, knowing the trouble it can bring and not wanting to see their homes and communities destroyed.

As is typical of American slave insurrections, the uprising is short-lived and quickly crushed by local authorities.

It lasts only a couple of days and does not overcome the local Government.

Showing planter influence, the legislature of the Territory of Orleans approves compensation of three hundred dollars to planters for each slave killed or executed.

The Territory accepts the continued presence of US military troops after the revolt, as they are grateful for their presence.

The insurrection is covered by national press, with Northerners seeing it arising out of the wrongs suffered under slavery.