The 1521 Santo Domingo Slave Revolt in the Spanish

colony of Santo Domingo In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

on the island of

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...

took place around the time of

Christmas Christmas is an annual festival commemorating Nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25 as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people Observance of Christmas by country, around t ...

festivities in 1521. It is the earliest recorded

slave rebellion A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by enslaved people, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of enslaved people have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freedo ...

in the Americas. Just days after the rebellion, the colonial authorities introduced a set of laws to prevent another uprising. These are thought to be the earliest surviving laws created to control

enslaved Africans The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

in the

New World The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 3 ...

. There is some disagreement by historians on the precise date of the rebellion. Some historical sources state the rebellion took place on the first or second day of Christmas. Contemporary historians generally mark the anniversary of the rebellion as December 25th or 26th, other sources mistakenly call it the "1522 slave rebellion". The rebellion started on the Nueva Isabela

sugar plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

(located today in the northwestern outskirts of

Santo Domingo , total_type = Total , population_density_km2 = auto , timezone = AST (UTC −4) , area_code_type = Area codes , area_code = 809, 829, 849 , postal_code_type = Postal codes , postal_code = 10100–10699 (Distrito Nacional) , websi ...

city) owned by the colony's governor

Diego Colón Diego Columbus ( pt, Diogo Colombo; es, Diego Colón; it, Diego Colombo; 1479/1480 – February 23, 1526) was a navigator and explorer under the Kings of Castile and Aragón. He served as the 2nd Admiral of the Indies, 2nd Viceroy of the Indie ...

, a descendant of Chistopher Columbus. The text of 1522 slave laws describe that a "certain number" of slaves "agreed to rebel and rebelled with intention and purpose to kill all the Christians they could and to free themselves and take over the land." The historical documents present the uprising as well-planned and coordinated action. Local

oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (1985 ...

says that the rebellion was led by Maria Olofa (Wolofa) and Gonzalo Mandinga, a romantic couple, both

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...

from the Wolof nation. On January 6 of 1522 (Day of the

Three Kings The biblical Magi from Middle Persian ''moɣ''(''mard'') from Old Persian ''magu-'' 'Zoroastrian clergyman' ( or ; singular: ), also referred to as the (Three) Wise Men or (Three) Kings, also the Three Magi were distinguished foreigners in the G ...

also known as Ephiphany), just days after the uprising, the governor of Santo Domingo, introduced strict laws designed to prevent the "Black and slaves" from uprising again. These are thought to be some of the earliest laws created to control enslaved Africans in the New World. The 1522 laws restricted the physical movements of the enslaved, prohibited the enslaved from bearing arms and accessing weapons, required enslavers to keep strict slave registers, and introduced harsh punishment in the form of physical torture and execution.

References

Slave rebellions in North America History of Santo Domingo 1521 in the Spanish Empire Slavery in the Caribbean {{DominicanRepublic-hist-stub