Two hundred years ago this month, hundreds of slaves along the Mississippi River set out to conquer New Orleans. They were willing to die rather than continue the grueling labor on their masters’ sugar cane plantations. This makeshift army was ethnically diverse, politically savvy, and highly organized. And for two days they staged the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. But unlike the uprisings of Nat Turner and John Brown, most people have never heard of the slave revolt of 1811. That fact prompted an undergraduate student at Harvard to find out why. The story of America’s largest slave revolt…and the reasons it has been largely forgotten.
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