Cry Liberty

CIV 201 Kaiyu Zhu

Sec 02 04/05/13

Opinion of Cry Liberty

The Great Stono River Slave Rebellion of 1739 is the only slave rebellion in the North American colonies. It happened on September 9, 1793, a single day from very early in the morning to late afternoon. The book “Cry Liberty” explains it in detail.

The market of homeland is the economic motivation of the British North American Colonies. Rice is one of the products that the Colonies would produce and ship back to Europe. “The rice trade made south Carolina a jewel of the British Empire. Crop production zoomed between 1720 and 1740 exports increasing from 8.2 million pounds a year 35 million.” By the end of the colonial period, rice had become the third important export from the mainland United States. The more rice produced the more labor needed. White people themselves cannot afford the increasing production. They needed more slave labor forces. Slaves harvested rice plants, tied rice into sheaves and carry them to the threshing yard. All of the field work was slave labor.

The lives of slaves were inhuman. Slave was at the bottom of the social class. Their inferior social level was settled by law. Slaves were property in law. “In spite of the internal contradiction in the institution of slavery and the danger of slave resistance, the planter rulers of Carolina wedded themselves to bound labor from the founding of the colony.”

Hutchenson’s store is the specific place where the rebellion began. The “store” at that time was kind of warehouse. But no one knows what exactly the warehouse stocked. According to the similar “store” like that, Hutchenson’s store might have tools clothing and alcoholic beverage. Robert Bathurst and John Gibbs were the two white man happened in the store at that night. A bunch of slave came to store and killed them. Probably, slaves wanted just slake thirsty and stole some...