Stono Rebellion reprisals displayed decapitated heads along every Charleston milepost.

Evidence

The Stono Rebellion offers a dramatic example. On September 9, 1739, in South Carolina, twenty enslaved Africans gathered near the Stono River some ten miles southwest of Charleston, where they plotted their revolt. Led by a man named Jemmy, they raided a local store, grabbing weapons and ammunition, and then marched from plantation to plantation, killing nearly thirty enslavers as they burned and raided their properties. Using drums and other musical instruments, the rebels attracted supporters, and soon the uprising blossomed to more than a hundred persons. When the local militia caught wind of the attacks, they hunted down the rebels and successfully quelled the revolt; dozens of enslaved people lay dead. Heads were displayed on massive wooden poles at every milepost leading to Charleston as a ghoulish warning that the cost of resistance would be death. Over the next few months, South Carolina officials arrested more than 150 Black people, publicly hanging ten per day. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 359

Categorization

• CANDY: The ghoulish detail of heads on poles every milepost to Charleston is a striking, self-contained historical horror worth sharing.