The Home Front
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Welcome to Black Resistance Level 1, Lesson 3: The Home Front
In this lesson, you will learn about:
Resistance to slavery within Africa
Resistance techniques
Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you will understand:
How Africans resisted slavery within Africa
How many written accounts from Europeans there are about African resistance
The most important reason for the ending of slavery
Resistance to slavery actually began back in Africa, as men, women and even children were all employed to defend their communities from slavers.
Entire villages would be coordinated to defend themselves as people were organised into militias, employing guerrilla techniques. These techniques consisted of small groups attacking European slave forts and ships in a hit-and-run fashion. Before the Europeans could retaliate, the Africans would be gone, using the knowledge of their environment to aid their escape. Guerrilla warfare was also employed on the plantations of the Americas by the Maroons, who were often skilled warriors or soldiers with fighting experience.
Kingdoms and empires would also fight against slavery, and wars often broke out between African kingdoms and the nations of Europe. Soldiers would dive into battle, ready to fight this atrocious practice. Africans would also combat slavers even if they were not directly affected, fighting the injustices that were taking place on their coasts.
There are at least 483 written accounts from Europeans about facing African warriors and militias who would risk their lives to save captured Black people. One in ten slave ships were attacked either from land or while at sea, and on the coast of Benin, people built entire towns on stilts to see when slavers were approaching. They would then get ready to take action and defend themselves and others against the Europeans.
Black resistance is barely mentioned when the topic of slavery is brought up, whether it be in schools, universities, on television or online. But Black resistance was the biggest reason why slavery ended. Without millions of people shedding their blood for freedom, it is quite possible slavery would still be ongoing today! The greatest act of Black resistance occurred in 1791 on the Caribbean island of Haiti.