Harvard Prof. Vincent Brown discuss Interactive Revolt Map

Dr. Vincent Brown, Creator of Brilliant Interactive Slave Revolt Map

Join The Gist of Freedom Sunday at 8pm ET  ~  as iLyasah Shabzz welcomes Vincent Brown, a professor of African and African-American History at Harvard.

"Dr. Brown, has made study of the Transatlantic Slave Trade accessible in a new way. He has created a brilliant interactive map of Jamaican uprisings in the 18th century called, “Slave Revolt in Jamaica, 1760-1761, A Cartographic Narrative.” 

"Brown teamed up with Axis Maps to do the project. “An emerging alliance between historians and mapmakers promises to enlighten public perceptions of black insurrection… debated whether the  insurrections were spontaneous eruptions or a carefully planned affair,”Cartographic evidence developed in collaboration with Axis Maps shows that the rebellion was in fact a well-planned affair that posed a genuine strategic threat, not an indiscriminate outburst.”

Deacon Samuel Sharpe THE OUTSTANDING leader of the 1831 Christmas slave revolt!

On the last night of the holidays December 27, the St James militia marched on the estate to ensure slaves returned to work. The black revolters  reacted to the militia's presence by setting fire to Kensington estate. By midnight, 16 other estates were burning, and a rebellion was on the way, led by some of Sharpe's most trusted lieutenants.

The rebels routed the first militia that confronted them, and roamed over the countryside, destroying plantations. The slavers and their families fled, leaving 50,000 enslaved blacks suddenly free. Sharpe moved among the estates, counselling and praying, but matters were now beyond his control.