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In September 1826, dozens of enslaved people being forcibly transported down the Ohio River rose up against the men who claimed ownership over them. Around 75 captives were aboard a flatboat headed from Kentucky toward the slave markets and plantations of the South.
Their captor was Edward “Ned” Stone, a Kentucky slave trader. Like thousands of others caught in the expanding domestic slave trade, the prisoners were separated from their families and shipped to the South, where plantation slavery was rapidly expanding.
On September 17, several of the captives seized weapons and attacked their guards. Stone and four other white men were killed, and the rebels took control of the boat. Their goal was to reach Indiana, across the Ohio River, where slavery was illegal.
Slave owners immediately formed armed posses to hunt down the rebels. Most were eventually captured, and five men identified as leaders of the revolt were later executed, while other survivors were returned to bondage and sold south. However, at least 19 managed to escape and achieve their freedom.
The revolt was one of countless acts of resistance that challenge the old myth of enslaved people as passive victims. Slavery was maintained through violence and repression—and confronted, again and again, by people determined to liberate themselves.
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Text: Ricardo Vaz. Illustration: Pablo Kalaka.