History & Celebrations Today – September 9

Celebrations Today – September 9

Holidays and observances

Celebrations Today – USA: September 9

National Teddy Bear Day
Care Bears Share Your Care Day
National Wiener Schnitzel Day
National Hug Your Boss Day – Changes Annually
National Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Awareness Day
International Sudoku Day
National Steak au Poivre Day
National Tester’s Day
National Wonderful Weirdos Day

Today in US History: September 9

The Stono Rebellion

"Contrabands" at Foller's House, Cumberland Landing, Virginia
Group of “Contrabands” at Foller’s House
Cumberland Landing, Virginia,
James F. Gibson, photographer,
May 14, 1862.
Selected Civil War Photographs

Early on the morning of Sunday, September 9, 1739, twenty black Carolinians met near the Stono River, approximately twenty miles southwest of Charleston. At Stono’s bridge, they took guns and powder from Hutcheson’s store and killed the two storekeepers they found there. “With cries of ‘Liberty’ and beating of drums,” historian Peter H. Wood writes in the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, “the rebels raised a standard and headed south toward Spanish St. Augustine…Along the road they gathered black recruits, burned houses, and killed white opponents, sparing one innkeeper who was ‘kind to his slaves.'” Thus commenced the Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution. Late that afternoon, planters riding on horseback caught up with the band of sixty to one hundred slaves. More than twenty white Carolinians and nearly twice as many black Carolinians were killed before the rebellion was suppressed. As a consequence of the uprising, white lawmakers imposed a moratorium on slave imports and enacted a harsher slave code.

Slaves frequently resorted to insurrection, first in the British colonies and later in the southern United States. At least 250 insurrections have been documented; between 1780 and 1864, ninety-one African Americans were convicted of insurrection in Virginia alone. The first revolt in what became the United States took place in 1526 at a Spanish settlement near the mouth of the Pee Dee River in South Carolina.

Image: Caption follows
The Confessions of Nat Turner
Richmond
Thomas R. Gray, publisher, 1832.
Slavery — the Peculiar Institution in The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship

Between 1800 and 1831, African Americans instigated several ambitious rebellions in the American South. Among these were Gabriel’s Revolt, which began north of Richmond, Virginia, on August 30, 1800, and Vesey’s Rebellion, an 1822 conspiracy to incite as many 9,000 plantation and urban slaves in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina. Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the most effective slave revolt, erupted in Southampton County, Virginia, on the night of August 21, 1831. Nat Turner and his followers killed nearly sixty white people as they moved toward an armory at Jerusalem, Virginia. Halted mere miles from their goal, the approximately seventy-five insurgents were soon killed or captured by the militia. Turner’s November execution failed to assuage fears of continued insurrection. Across the South, renewed legislative efforts to forbid education and greatly restrict movement and assembly further constrained the lives of enslaved people.

Today in History – September 9-External Links

Today’s Weather in History
Today in Earthquake History
This Day in Naval History
Today’s Document from the National Archives
Today’s Events, Births & Deaths –Wikipedia
Today in History by AP
On this Day -1950 to 2005 – Today’s Story–BBC
On This Day: The New York Times
This Day in History –History.com
Today in Canadian History – Canada Channel
History of Britain that took place On This Day
Russia in History –Russiapedia