All for Liberty: The Charleston Workhouse Slave Rebellion of 1849 by Jeff Strickland (review)

Abstract

Nearly eighty years ago, Herbert Aptheker published American Negro Slave Revolts, a seminal work that effectively demolished the once prevailing interpretation among white scholars that slaves in the United States were mostly docile and content. He cata logued hundreds of plots and conspiracies before confiding to the reader, “it is highly probable that all plots, and quite possibly even all actual outbreaks, that did occur, and that are, somewhere, on rec ord, have not been uncovered.”1 Since its publication, Aptheker’s book has led to hundreds of excavations into the vari ous insurrections and conspiracies in British North Amer i ca and the United States. It is a testament to the difficulty of resurrecting stories of enslaved people’s re sis tance that historians are still recovering them. Jeff Strickland’s recent book All for Liberty is among the most recent. By stitching together fragments from local newspapers, court rec ords, published travel accounts, abolitionist periodicals, and a handful of manuscript collections, he reconstructs the story of Nicholas, an enslaved carpenter, who led a fullscale insurrection while incarcerated in the Charleston work house in 1849. The first three numbered chapters primarily serve as context, alternating between broad themes of Atlantic history and the specific mechanisms of slave discipline in Charleston. His first and third chapters— “Slave Insurrections in the Age of Revolutions” and “Urban Slavery,” respectively— will be especially helpful for readers new to the subjects or for teachers introducing the topic to undergraduate students. Strickland does well to highlight the barbarity of urban enslavement, particularly in Charleston. Chapter 2 chronicles the development and operations of the Charleston work house, a novel technology in ven ted and implemented to punish and discipline the local slave workforce. Chapters 4–6 provide backstory for the rebellion’s ringleader and recount the events of the day in which the rebellion occurred. Nicholas, a supremely skilled and welltraveled enslaved carpenter, became increasingly radicalized during and after his trip to New Orleans. His skill, his