Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion: From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond by Mark Ames
Authors: Mark Ames
Tags: United States, General, Social Science, True Crime, Political Science, Murder, Criminology, Violent crimes, Violence in Society, Civics & Citizenship
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below. But the black militiamen, though incredibly brave and determined, lacked real military training. Their shot missed the American warship in the river below, falling wide of its mark. The rebels cheered, believing that they had just put the fear of Africa into the white devils’ hearts. Justice, God, and history were on their side. The battle had begun!
Now it was the Americans’ turn. They fired one cannon from the warship. As luck would have it, that first shot was a direct bull’s-eye: they nailed Negro Fort’s powder magazine, which Garson’s inexperienced men had carelessly left open. What luck! It was as if divine intervention had interceded on the slaveholders’ behalf, as if Jesus appeared as a spotter, guiding the cannonball straight into the slaves’ weakest point, thus incinerating Garson’s entire force in a hellish explosion.
Those who have will get more. From those without, even what they do have will be taken.
— Jesus Christ, Mark 4:25
The Battle of Negro Fort was over as soon as it had started. The resulting explosion in the powder magazine was so powerful that it was felt all the way in Pensacola, some sixty miles away. Fewer than forty of the fort’s defenders survived the awesome detonation. Many of them were so badly burned and mutilated that there was little hope for their survival.
Remarkably, Garson and the Choctaw chief survived the carnage. The Americans handed Garson and the Choctaw chief over to their Creek allies, who summarily shot Garson and scalped the chief. Other survivors were returned to their owners or auctioned off, while an American fort, Fort Gadsden, was eventually built over the ruins of Negro Fort.
What followed in Florida was cruelty on such a large scale that it rendered the tragic story of Negro Fort a mere footnote. In the 1820s and 1830s, Jackson initiated a campaign to exterminate the native Seminoles by forcing them out in mass population transfers, slaughtering the rest, and then replacing them with thousands of shareholders and slaves. By 1845, when Florida was admitted as the twenty second state, half of the population was slaves. By the end of the 1850s, there were only three hundred Seminoles left alive in Florida.
8
A Talent for Concerted Action
A chief source of danger, the colonists sometimes felt, was the Negro who was not a slave.
— Winthrop Jordan , White Over Black
The slave rebellion plotted by Denmark Vesey in 1822 is cited by many as an example of the indestructible spirit of slave resistance and courage. As Sterling Stuckey wrote, “Vesey’s example must be regarded as one of the most courageous ever to threaten the racist foundation of America. In him the anguish of Negro people welled up in nearly perfect measure. He stands today, as he stood yesterday … as an awesome projection of the possibilities for militant action on the part of a people who have—for centuries—been made to bow down in fear.” But the dismal truth is that even among the few celebrated slave rebellions that we know about, such as Vesey’s, it seems increasingly likely to scholars today that at least a portion of these “insurrections” were little more than outbreaks of white paranoia. That is, of these dozen or so slave rebellions, at least a few probably never existed except in the minds of fearful white slaveholders.
What made Vesey unusual was that he was a freed slave who had prospered as a carpenter in Charleston, South Carolina. We often forget this, but there was a significant population of freed slaves even in the South, muddying and complicating the facile picture of cultural evil we have in our heads. In Charleston in 1822, there were 3,615 freed slaves living among 10,653 whites and 12,652 slaves. James Stirling, a British traveler during the late slave period, observed, “I was struck with the appearance of the slaves in the streets of Charleston on a Sunday afternoon. A large proportion of them
Now it was the Americans’ turn. They fired one cannon from the warship. As luck would have it, that first shot was a direct bull’s-eye: they nailed Negro Fort’s powder magazine, which Garson’s inexperienced men had carelessly left open. What luck! It was as if divine intervention had interceded on the slaveholders’ behalf, as if Jesus appeared as a spotter, guiding the cannonball straight into the slaves’ weakest point, thus incinerating Garson’s entire force in a hellish explosion.
Those who have will get more. From those without, even what they do have will be taken.
— Jesus Christ, Mark 4:25
The Battle of Negro Fort was over as soon as it had started. The resulting explosion in the powder magazine was so powerful that it was felt all the way in Pensacola, some sixty miles away. Fewer than forty of the fort’s defenders survived the awesome detonation. Many of them were so badly burned and mutilated that there was little hope for their survival.
Remarkably, Garson and the Choctaw chief survived the carnage. The Americans handed Garson and the Choctaw chief over to their Creek allies, who summarily shot Garson and scalped the chief. Other survivors were returned to their owners or auctioned off, while an American fort, Fort Gadsden, was eventually built over the ruins of Negro Fort.
What followed in Florida was cruelty on such a large scale that it rendered the tragic story of Negro Fort a mere footnote. In the 1820s and 1830s, Jackson initiated a campaign to exterminate the native Seminoles by forcing them out in mass population transfers, slaughtering the rest, and then replacing them with thousands of shareholders and slaves. By 1845, when Florida was admitted as the twenty second state, half of the population was slaves. By the end of the 1850s, there were only three hundred Seminoles left alive in Florida.
8
A Talent for Concerted Action
A chief source of danger, the colonists sometimes felt, was the Negro who was not a slave.
— Winthrop Jordan , White Over Black
The slave rebellion plotted by Denmark Vesey in 1822 is cited by many as an example of the indestructible spirit of slave resistance and courage. As Sterling Stuckey wrote, “Vesey’s example must be regarded as one of the most courageous ever to threaten the racist foundation of America. In him the anguish of Negro people welled up in nearly perfect measure. He stands today, as he stood yesterday … as an awesome projection of the possibilities for militant action on the part of a people who have—for centuries—been made to bow down in fear.” But the dismal truth is that even among the few celebrated slave rebellions that we know about, such as Vesey’s, it seems increasingly likely to scholars today that at least a portion of these “insurrections” were little more than outbreaks of white paranoia. That is, of these dozen or so slave rebellions, at least a few probably never existed except in the minds of fearful white slaveholders.
What made Vesey unusual was that he was a freed slave who had prospered as a carpenter in Charleston, South Carolina. We often forget this, but there was a significant population of freed slaves even in the South, muddying and complicating the facile picture of cultural evil we have in our heads. In Charleston in 1822, there were 3,615 freed slaves living among 10,653 whites and 12,652 slaves. James Stirling, a British traveler during the late slave period, observed, “I was struck with the appearance of the slaves in the streets of Charleston on a Sunday afternoon. A large proportion of them
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