What matters to you.
0:00
0:00
NEXT UP:
 
Top

Forum Network

Free online lectures: Explore a world of ideas

Funding provided by:

American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt

In partnership with:
Date and time
Thursday, February 10, 2011

Historian Daniel Rasmussen discusses his first book, *American Uprising: The Untold Story of America's Largest Slave Revolt*. In January 1811, five hundred slaves, dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives, and axes, rose up from the plantations around New Orleans and set out to conquer the city. Ethnically diverse, politically astute, and highly organized, this self-made army challenged not only the economic system of plantation agriculture but also American expansion. Their march represented the largest act of armed resistance against slavery in the history of the United States. *American Uprising* tells the long-neglected story of this elaborate plot, the rebel army's dramatic march on the city, and its shocking conclusion. With the Haitian revolution a recent memory and the War of 1812 looming on the horizon, the revolt had epic consequences for America.

Daniel Rasmussen graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University in 2009, winning the Kathryn Ann Huggins Prize, the Perry Miller Prize, and the Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize.
Explore: