Full scale slave rebellions as those planned by Nat Turner, Denmark Vessey, and Gabriel Prosser were not common among the African American community in the United States in the nineteenth century. This was due to a lack of hope among the slaves in the South, slave patrols, the fact that less than five percent of the slaves could read, fear of brutality by white masters, and lack of equality for blacks in the legal system. The underlying theme for lack of black resistance was southern paternalism!

Many slaves had a lack of hope for freedom. Most slaves were located in the south where slavery was accepted. To reach freedom they needed to head north where blacks could live freely. Also most slaves were born into slavery and were raised to accept it. But the north was hundreds of miles away. So most slaves just accepted their lives, with little or no hope of every being freed or revolting. As Angelina Grimke explains "I have seen it! I have seen it! I know its horrors that can never be described. I was brought up under its wing. I witnessed for many years its demoralizing influences and its destructiveness to human happiness. I have never seen a happy slave.

Fear also kept southern blacks in the United States from revolting. Harsh beatings and in some occurrences, death, was the penalty for disobeying your master. "Most large slave owners believed that constant discipline and coercion were necessary to make slaves work hard. Slave owners used their slaves with great brutality. Owners who killed their slaves were occasionally brought to trail, but no legal action was taken in much more frequent cases of excessive punishment, general abuse, and rape"(Out of Many pp. 317) So, the fact that most-white slave owners could murder their slaves without being punished instilled a great fear into their hearts.

Another was Denmark Vassey, a free, literate, seaman. He wanted to steal weapons from the Charleston arsenal and try to free all the black house slaves in Charleston, who would then murder their owners. However, whites found out about the plan before it could commence and hung Denmark Vassey and thirty-four of his co-conspirators. This again instilled fear into the minds of whites. That their slaves could be so intelligent, this shocked him.

There were three very big revolts that occurred in the United States by Black resistance. One was Gabriel Posser, who was literate and a blacksmith. He rallied over one thousand blacks with hopes of assaulting Richmond, VA. However, he was hung at the last minute. His group's slogan was "Death of Liberty" which put fear into white slave owners across the United States.

Also, lack of equality in the legal system of slavery made it nearly impossible for African-Americans to revolt. Blacks could not own property, which could not own property, which gave them no power. Also blacks could not file lawsuits so they had little to no rights in the legal system. Another big part of white supremacy was that African-Americans could not own or purchase or posses firearms which put a damper in ever pulling off a truly successful revolt in the black community.

Southern Paternalism was kept slavery so strong. Paternalism wa

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1368
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)