25 December 1801 About 120 slaves on two Tobago plantations, Bacolet and Belvedere, planned to launch a surprise uprising on Christmas Day evening 1801. They would set fires among the sugar cane, kill those whites who came to extinguish them and then seize any remaining arms they found in the planters’ houses. A false attack…
12 October 1823 On 12 October 1823, the English newspaper John Bull, disparaged the concern expressed in a letter from the British colony of Trinidad over a slave called Moses, who had broken his leg while being punished on a treadmill. The treadmill or tread-wheel was a giant paddle wheel cylinder of twenty four steps, which…
10 March 1774 On 10 March 1774, two hundred slaves staged a rebellion on a plantation at Queen’s Bay, Tobago, owned by two wealthy planters, Sir William Young and Robert Stewart. Led by a slave named Sampson, they killed three white overseers, smashed up equipment and stores of alcohol and seized arms and ammunition. As…
