16. The largest slave insurrection in American history, the German Coast Uprising of 1811 saw a group of enslaved African-Americans revolt in the Louisiana Territory before being brutally repressed by the local militia
Possessing a long history of slave revolts, including multiple colonies of runaways hidden within the swamps beneath New Orleans, the Louisiana Territory became the center of a sugar boom during the early 1800s. Presenting slaves with punishingly hard conditions, by 1810 the black population outnumbered the white by five to one in an effort to exploit the profitable circumstances. Buoyed by the ideologies of the French and Haitian Revolutions, on January 6, 1811, a group of slaves met to plan their own bid for freedom. Striking two days later, Manuel Andry was badly wounded at his plantation and his son, Gilbert, murdered by the escaping group.
Gathering momentum, the slaves traveled from plantation to plantation rallying support. By nightfall, having traveled approximately twenty miles, the group had swelled in number from fifteen to between two to five hundred. Continuing their march towards New Orleans, burning plantation houses along the route, on January 10 local militia engaged the rebellious slaves. Killing forty to fifty in battle, the remainders fled to be hunted down. Interrogating and subsequently executing those captured, affixing their heads to pikes in medieval fashion, a total of almost one hundred slaves were murdered compared to just two whites.