Judy Creekmore: Louisiana River Parishes slave rebellion was the largest in U.S. history

For months during the cane grinding season, slaves and their masters alike worked long, hard shifts to bring in the crop and produce sugar.

When the season was over, resentment of forced labor, chattel status, and other indignities suffered by those held captive was more likely pronounced, more vividly on their minds at harvest time than at any other, historian and author Gwendolyn Midlo Hall of New Orleans said. When Charles, a mulatto owned by the widow Deslondes, and others who had been planning an insurrection, sent word that it was time to overthrow their owners and capture New Orleans, many slaves were ready to follow.

The Slave Rebellion of 1811 began on the east bank of the German Coast and would become the largest slave revolt in the history of the United States.

The accepted leader, Charles, an overseer whose last name is unknown, was hired out to Col. Manuel Andry, who owned property in present day LaPlace, Norco and other areas. On the evening of Jan. 8, 1811, Charles and others on Andry's LaPlace plantation attacked the planter and his son, killing the son. Though wounded, Andry fled and began rallying the local militia and sent word of the violence to Gov. Claiborne.

Those held captive on adjoining plantations, and some from as far away as St. James Parish, rallied to the call of"On to New Orleans," Hall said. They joined maroons, as those who had escaped slavery and lived in the swamps as fugitives were called, and Charles' group, which swelled the number to nearly 500. The rebel army worked its way down the River Road towards New Orleans, brandishing farm tools, like cane knives and hoes, along with a few small firearms, attacking and burning plantations as it traveled.

Many plantation owners had been warned about the uprising by their captives....

The militia and 300 military troops from New Orleans surrounded the rebels late on Jan. 10. By the time additional troops arrived from Baton Rouge on Jan. 11, the uprising was over. Sixty-six of the rebels had been killed or executed, 17 were missing and 16 had been taken captive, Hall said....

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