Call for Submissions: Slave Revolts in Early America

Black Perspectives, the award-winning blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), invites blog posts for an online forum on the topic of Slave Revolts in Early America. There is a robust scholarship on slave revolts and rebellions in the American South and throughout the Atlantic World. Early scholarship from Herbert Aptheker, John Hope Franklin, and others focused primarily on revolts led by male leaders. This earlier work shared the common goal of presenting enslaved Africans as powerful agents rather than mere victims of their European masters and overseers. Recent scholarship has expanded the historiography of slave resistance in new and exciting ways. While maintaining the core themes of agency and resistance, these new studies make critical interventions. For example, Rebecca Hall’s work focuses on women as leaders of revolts. Vanessa Holden’s community history of Southampton, Virginia, before, during, and after Nat Turner’s rebellion, recovers the stories of women and children who resisted slavery in that area. In addition, Vincent Brown has explored the use of West African military tactics in slave rebellions in Jamaica. Finally, Jason Sharples has examined how enslavers responded to the threat of slave revolts in their communities. Black Perspectives invites writers to contribute short essays that continue this trend of exploring how enslaved men and women creatively resisted their profound oppression throughout the Atlantic World.

We encourage potential contributors to submit guest blog posts that explore topics that include, but are not limited, to the following:

• Women-led revolt leaders (including Nanny of the Maroons and Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba)
• Women and the Haitian Revolution
• Women’s involvement in specific revolts, including Nat Turner’s revolt
• The role of religion in slave rebellions
• The social and political implications of specific revolts (including Gabriel Prosser’s revolt, the 1811 German Coast Uprising, the Stono Rebellion, and Bussa’s rebellion)
• Slave revolts and the history of policing in the United States

The submissions should be between 1,000 to 1,500 words. They must be submitted to the senior editors (editors@blackperspectives.org) no later than Thursday, January 15, 2023 by 11:59 p.m Eastern. With your submission, please include your bio (250-300 words) and headshot (for use in promotion if your essay is accepted).

All submissions will undergo a peer review process before they are accepted. Please click here for more details on the blog’s submission guidelines as well as information regarding format and citations.