| Abstract | This paper highlights an incredibly understudied yet vitally important event in Louisiana’s history—the 1811 German Coast Uprising. Before January 1811, slave rebellion weighed heavily on the minds of Louisiana citizens. The diverse and complex social environment led to racial and ethnic divisions. Louisianans avoided major slave uprisings for quite some time, but racialized tensions heightened significantly after 1791 with the success of the Haitian Revolution. The territory finally succumbed to slave revolution when Charles Deslondes, a slave on the Manuel Andre´ plantation, called upon his fellow enslaved Africans to overthrow their masters and demand their freedom. This paper analyzes the environment in present-day Louisiana and beyond in the years preceding 1811, the factors that contributed to the outbreak of rebellion, the suppression of the rebellion in popular history and memory, and the overall ramifications of the slaves’ efforts to obtain autonomy and basic human rights. |
