Security· Civil Aid and Humanitarian Operations
1811 German Coast Uprising
The largest slave revolt in American history, and the first occasion on which federal troops were used to put one down.
On 8 January 1811, enslaved men led by Charles Deslondes rose on the German Coast above New Orleans and marched downriver toward the city, gathering several hundred followers and burning plantations as they went. The territorial governor called out the militia, and General Wade Hampton took command of a hastily assembled force of regulars, militia, and seamen, which included a detachment of Marines that Major Daniel Carmick led out from the New Orleans naval station. The rebels, short of firearms, were broken on 10 January by planter militia and dispersed, then hunted down over the following days; Deslondes was captured and killed, and dozens more were executed after summary trials, their heads displayed on pikes along the river road. The suppression cost the Marines no casualties. The revolt was brutally crushed and long omitted from the histories.
Record no. 202