The Role Of African Spirituality In Slave Rebellions

“Go, go!” the leader yelled as they ambushed those who fell into their fiery trap. Armed with swords, knives, and guns, enslaved people of New York City’s 1712 rebellion mustered up the courage to destroy the enslavers who tried to ruin them. 

The rebellion was risky, but the magical powder dusted on their clothing gave them an undying faith to fight.

Peter the Doctor was a free conjure man from West Africa who used ancestral wisdom to help our people free themselves. The powder he concocted was known as ‘aduru pa,’ a benevolent medicine used to protect against evil and support revolutionary movements.

Anti-Blackness tries to diminish our spirituality as merely “superstition.” But this sort of Black magic, a radical belief in liberation that uses spirituality as a tool, helped us win freedom across the diaspora. 

Peter wasn’t the only conjurer helping our people rebel.

In South Carolina, Gullah Jack armed rebels with crab claws, which they held in their mouths during an uprising. Boukman Dutty, a Vodun high priest, spoke spells over his people in the mountains of Haiti just before the revolution. 

Frederick Douglass was facing brutal beatings when rootworker Sandy Jenkins prescribed a magical herb to keep him from being harmed again.

Like our ancestors, we must know the power we possess to control our future, whether we’re conjuring, praying, or politicking.