contact
Maison des Esclaves
P.O. Box 29
Île de Gorée
Senegal
Tel: 221-33-821-7438
Fax: 221-33-821-7438
African Sites of Conscience Network
Slave Uprisings
Rebellion on Gorée was severely punished yet the captives did not all accept their appalling plight with resignation; several times, their intolerable position prompted desperate attempts at uprisings. The instigators were most often Wolof, Fulani, or Serere; for them, in particular, servitude was the supreme debasement, and they refused to bear the dishonor attached to slavery.
One such attempt occurred in October, 1724; a serious uprising by fifty-five slaves. They took the guard Gaspard by surprise, stabbing him several times. His cries brought company agents rushing to his assistance.
The captives were armed with sticks, knives and two axes. The agents fired at them point blank, killing two and wounding twelve. The others took refuge in the detention quarters. The next day, they were given the order: surrender, or be burned alive where they were. They surrendered, and two of the suspected leaders were shot; the third, drawn and quartered in front of the remaining captives.
Such cruelty didn’t snuff out rebellion; later uprisings were few and far between, but reflected the revulsion slavery inspired in its victims - death was preferable to being enslaved.
The struggle for freedom, begun on the African continent, continued in America, where runaway slaves made an active contribution to the abolition of the slave trade in the early 19th century.
