The Santo Domingo Slave Revolt of 1521 and the Slave Laws of 1522: Black Slavery and Black Resistance in the Early Colonial Americas PDF
Preview The Santo Domingo Slave Revolt of 1521 and the Slave Laws of 1522: Black Slavery and Black Resistance in the Early Colonial Americas
During the Christmas of 1521, enslaved African Black workers started a rebellion at the sugar-making plantation owned by Diego Colón. At the time, Diego Colón was also the governor of La Española and viceroy of Las Indias. Diego Colón was one of Christopher Columbus’ sons. The rebels marched westwards from the banks of the Nigua River toward the village of Azua, located about 62 miles away from the site where the historic uprising began, seeking to reach other enslaved Blacks working in other sugar-making plantations found along the way.
The rebellion, which some colonists saw as an attempt to take over the control of the colony of La Española, provoked an immediate mobilization on the part of the Spaniards: a military cavalry with superior weapons went after the Black rebels. The military men had to stop the rebels at all costs; their lives and the existence of La Española and the rest of the Spanish colonization project were at stake.
The life and death confrontation between the Spanish cavalry and the Black rebels did not last long. Equipped with superior weapons, the Spaniards crushed the Black rebels who had managed to arm themselves with objects that they had converted into impromptu weapons as they waited and planned the right moment to launch the attack and break free. The death of the rebels strengthened the reign of a social order in La Española based on inequality, on the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few at the expense of the majority. That social order still remains in place today.
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