The Truth About Slavery
It is important for all of us to understand the nature of slavery in this country and the horrors it caused and the rebellions that took place by enslaved Black People. In 1841, one such incident that took place was the “Creole Mutiny.” The was a successful slave insurrection against the slave owners that hoped to carry their slave “property” from Richmond, Virginia to New Orleans. Be carried to New Orleans was perhaps one of the worst nightmares for enslaved Blacks which was referred to as being “sold down river.” The worst forms of torture were carried out there by sick sadistic slave owners and traders. Anytime you see the word property used these insane white racist men were not referring to chairs, but to human property. One can see these words used in documents by William Travis of Alamo fame as he tried to get runaway slaves returned by filing law suits against Mexico.
The horrors on a slave ship were perhaps the worst crimes of white supremacy carried out in history. Slaves were stuffed in ships where they had to sleep in urine and feces. Those that got sick were thrown overboard. Enslaved Black women were routinely raped and some white sailors would remove certain ones to their quarters to become “wives,” which was a standard joke. They were repeatedly raped by several men . Children as young as eight years old were also raped. Men were raped often with the captain’s approval. Because these sailors visited houses of prostitution, they infected enslaved people with diseases. If a slave had diarrhea the anus would be stopped up with oakum, to deceive the buyer, if a sale could be made quickly. Oakum rope was used for sealing purposes in various industries including ships. Some slave ship captains often sold slaves on the side in order to make extra money without the owner of the human cargo knowing about it.
Enslaved women were forced to watch men being hanged by strangulation on the ships and anyone turning away would be whipped severely. Most of the white sailors on these ships were criminals, sadists, pirates, and of the worst kind. Interestingly, the brother of “Joe the Slave, “ wrote about the Creole Mutiny. Joe’s brother was William Wells Brown. He had accepted the last name of “Well Brown” because of some friendly white Quakers that helped him. “Joe the slave” of William Barret Travis, was never given a last name and researchers often still disrespect him by simply calling him “Joe the slave.” Reasonably, his last name should be Joe Boone for his mother was the result of a Daniel Boone rape, or in the least Joe Brown.
The Creole Mutiny was successful. The leader was a kidnapped free black man by the name of Madison Washington, who left his freedom in Canada to look for his wife. They had been separated by the cruel system of American slavery. He led the revolt for freedom of 135 enslaved people. The savage white racists on the Creole were forced to take the ship to the Bahamas, which was under British control and where slavery was outlawed. When the ship arrived in Nassau the slaves were eventually freed despite the protests of their American owners. This story was immortalized by Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, and in the 20th Century by Theodore “Ted” Ward. Although Madison Washington’s real story and his whereabouts were lost to history these writers kept the importance of the rebellion alive. We need to continue the telling of this revolt.
