Madison's MilitiaMadison's Militia

"A nightmare had been haunting Carolinians. In the fall of 1734, readers of the South Carolina Gazette learned of three separate revolts on sailing ships transporting Africans to bondage in the New World. In all three incidents, the Africans killed the ship's captain, and in two of the incidents the Africans took full control of the ship and its cargo. A few months later, the paper reported that black slaves had revolted on St. John in the Virgin Islands and "entirely massacred all of the white people on that island, consisting of about two hundred families, and were very inhuman in the executions and murders." These incidents were more than concerning - they were downright frightening - in a colony (or province as South Carolina was then formally known) in which nearly two-thirds of the residents were enslaved Blacks"--