1811 German Coast Uprising The 1811 German Coast Uprising was a revolt of black slaves in parts of the Territory of Orleans on January 8 – 10 , 1811 . The uprising occurred on the east bank of the Mississippi River in what are now St . John the Baptist and St . Charles parishes , Louisiana . While the slave insurgency was the largest in US history , the rebels killed only two white men . Confrontations with militia and executions after trial killed ninety - five black people . Between 64 and 125 enslaved men marched from sugar plantations near present - day LaPlace on the German Coast toward the city of New Orleans . They collected more men along the way . Some accounts claimed a total of 200 - 500 slaves participated . During their two - day , twenty - mile march , the men burned five plantation houses ( three completely ) , several sugarhouses , and crops . They were armed mostly with hand tools . White men led by officials of the territory formed militia companies to hunt down and kill the insurgents . Over the next two weeks , white planters and officials interrogated , tried and executed an additional 44 insurgents who had been captured . Executions were by hanging or decapitation . Whites displayed the bodies as a warning to intimidate slaves . The heads of some were put on pike s and displayed at plantations . Since 1995 the African American History Alliance of Louisiana has led an annual commemoration in January of the uprising , in which they have been joined by some descendants of participants in the revolt . Background . The German Coast was an area of sugar plantations , with a dense population of slaves . According to some accounts , blacks outnumbered whites by nearly five to one . More than half of those enslaved may have been born outside Louisiana , many in Africa . Fernin F . Eaton believes these figures are too high , noting that the 1810 census recorded slaves in a less than 3 : 1 ratio to whites in St . Charles Parish , and about 1 : 1 ratio in St . John Parish . Sugar cane plantations west of New Orleans may have had higher numbers of slaves . Slaveholders fleeing the Haitian Revolution had brought slaves to the region directly from Saint - Domingue , or in 1809 when forced by Spain from Cuba . In addition , until 1808 , the US had continued to import enslaved people from Africa and the Caribbean . In the overall Orleans Territory , from 1803 - 1811 , the free black population nearly tripled , to 5 , 000 , with 3 , 000 arriving as migrants from Haiti ( via Cuba ) in 1809 - 1810 . In Saint - Domingue they had enjoyed certain rights as free people of color . After the US acquired the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 , Gov . William C . C . Claiborne of the Territory of Orleans struggled for balance with his diverse population . Not only were there numerous French - and Spanish - speaking people , but a much greater proportion of native Africans among the slaves than in more northern American states . In addition , the mixed - race Creole and French - speaking population grew markedly with refugees from Haiti following its successful slave revolution . The American Claiborne was not used to a society with the number of free people of color which Louisiana had , especially in New Orleans . But he worked to continue their role in the militia , which had been established under Spanish rule . He had to deal with the competition for power between long - term French Creole residents and new American settlers in the territory . Lastly , Claiborne was suspicious that the Spanish might encourage an insurrection . He struggled to establish and maintain his authority . The waterways and bayous around New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain made transportation and trade possible , but also provided easy escapes and nearly impenetrable hiding places for slaves who escaped . Some maroon colonies continued for years within several miles of New Orleans . With the spread of ideas from the French and Haitian revolutions , Americans worried about slave uprisings in the Louisiana area . According to a paper by Nathan A . Buman , The rebellion . A group of conspirators met on January 6 , 1811 . It was a period when work had relaxed on the plantations after the fierce weeks of the sugar harvest and processing . As planter James Brown testified weeks later , " the black Quamana , owned by Mr . Brown , and the mulatto Harry , owned by Messrs . Kenner & Henderson , were at the home of Manuel André ( Andry in some accounts ) on the night of Saturday – Sunday of the current month in order to deliberate with the mulatto Charles Deslondes , chief of the brigands . " Slaves had spread word of the planned uprising among the slaves at plantations up and down the German Coast . The revolt began on January 8 at the André plantation . After striking and badly wounding Manuel André , the slaves killed his son Gilbert . " An attempt was made to assassinate me by the stroke of an axe , " Manuel André wrote . " My poor son has been ferociously murdered by a horde of brigands who from my plantation to that of Mr . Fortier have committed every kind of mischief and excesses , which can be expected from a gang of atrocious bandittis of that nature . " The rebellion gained momentum quickly . The 15 or so slaves at the André plantation , approximately 30 miles upriver from New Orleans , joined another eight slaves from the next - door plantation of the widows of Jacques and George Deslondes . This was the home plantation of Charles Deslondes , a field laborer later described by one of the captured slaves as the " principal chief of the brigands . " Small groups of slaves joined from every plantation which the rebels passed . Witnesses remarked on their organized march . Although they carried mostly pikes , hoes and axes but few firearms , they marched to drums while some carried flags . From 10 - 25 % of any given plantation ' s slave population joined with them . At the plantation of James Brown , Kook , one of the most active participants and key figures in the story of the uprising , joined the insurrection . At the next plantation down , Kook attacked and killed François Trépagnier with an axe . He was the second and last planter killed in the rebellion . After the band of slaves passed the LaBranche plantation , they stopped at the home of the local doctor . Finding the doctor gone , Kook set his house on fire . Some planters testified at the trials in parish courts , run according to French rules and without appeal , that they were warned by their slaves of the uprising . Others regularly stayed in New Orleans , where many had townhouses , and trusted their plantations to be run by overseers . Planters quickly crossed the Mississippi River to escape the insurrection and raise a militia . As the slave party moved downriver , they passed larger plantations , from which many slaves joined them . Numerous slaves joined the insurrection from the Meuillion plantation , the largest and wealthiest plantation on the German Coast . The rebels laid waste to Meuillion ' s house . They tried to set it on fire , but a slave named Bazile fought the fire and saved the house . After nightfall the slaves reached Cannes - Brulées , about 15 miles northwest of New Orleans . The men had traveled between 14 and 22 miles , a march that probably took them seven to ten hours . By some accounts , they numbered " some 200 slaves " , although other accounts estimated up to 500 . As typical of revolts of most classes , free or slave , the insurgent slaves were mostly young men between the ages of 20 and 30 . They represented primarily lower - skilled occupations on the sugar plantations , where slaves labored in difficult conditions . The suppression . After being injured , Col . André went to the other side of the river to round up a militia organized by planters , who began pursuing the slave rebels . By noon on January 9 , the residents of New Orleans had heard of the insurrection on the German Coast . Over the next six hours , General Wade Hampton I , Commodore John Shaw , and Governor William C . C . Claiborne sent two companies of volunteer militia , 30 regular troops , and a detachment of 40 seamen to fight the slaves . By about 4 a . m . , the troops reached the plantation of Jacques Fortier , where Hampton thought the insurgents had encamped for the night . The insurgents had left hours before Hampton ' s arrival and started back upriver . Over the next few hours , they traveled about 15 miles back up the coast and neared the plantation of Bernard Bernoudy . There , planter Charles Perret , under the command of the badly injured André and in cooperation with Judge Saint Martin , had assembled a militia of about 80 men from the opposite side of the river . At about 9 o ' clock , this second militia discovered the slaves moving toward high ground on the Bernoudy estate . Perret ordered the militia to attack the slaves . Perret later wrote that there were about 200 slaves , about half on horseback . ( Most accounts said only the leaders were mounted , and historians believe it unlikely the slaves could have gathered so many mounts . ) The battle was brief . Within a half hour of the attack , 40 to 45 slaves had been killed and the remainder slipped away into the woods . Perret and Andrée ' s militia tried to pursue slaves into the woods and swamps , but it was difficult territory . On January 11 , the militia captured Charles Deslondes , whom André considered " the principal leader of the bandits . " The militia did not hold him for trial or interrogation . Samuel Hambleton described Deslonde ' s fate : " Charles [ Deslondes ] had his Hands chopped off then shot in one thigh & then the other , until they were both broken — then shot in the Body and before he had expired was put into a bundle of straw and roasted ! " The trials . Having suppressed the insurrection , the planters and government officials continued to search for slaves who had escaped . Those captured were interrogated . Officials conducted two sets of trials , one on the Jean N . Destréhan plantation and one in New Orleans . The Destréhan trial , run by the parish court under French law without appeal , resulted in the execution of 18 slaves , whose heads were put on pikes . The plantation displayed the bodies of the dead rebels to intimidate other slaves . One observer wrote , " Their Heads . . . decorate our Levée , all the way up the coast , I am told they look like crows sitting on long poles . " The trials in New Orleans , also in the parish court , resulted in the conviction and summary executions of 11 more slaves . Three of these were publicly hanged in the Place d ' Armes , now Jackson Square , and their heads were put up to decorate the city ' s gates . Outcome . Whites killed about a total of 95 slaves at the time of the insurrection , and by execution after trials as a result of this revolt . From the trial records , most of the leaders appeared to have been mixed - race Creoles or mulattoes , although numerous slaves in the group were native - born Africans . Fifty - six of the slaves captured on the 10th and involved in the revolt were returned to their masters , who may have punished them but wanted their valuable laborers back to work . Thirty more slaves were captured , but the whites determined they had been forced to join the revolt by Charles Deslondes and his men , and returned them to their masters . The heirs of Meuillon petitioned the legislature for permission to free the mulatto slave Bazile , who had worked to preserve his master ' s plantation . Not all the slaves supported insurrection , knowing the trouble it could bring . As was typical of American slave insurrections , the uprising was short - lived and quickly crushed by local white forces ; it lasted only a couple of days and did not overcome local authorities . Showing planter influence , the legislature of the Orleans Territory approved compensation of $ 300 to planters for each slave killed or executed . The Orleans Territory accepted the continued presence of US military troops after the revolt , as they were grateful for their presence . The insurrection was covered by national press , with Northerners seeing it arising out of the wrongs suffered under slavery . No state or federal historical marker commemorates the insurrection , though it is mentioned on the marker for the Woodland Plantation ( formerly Andre Plantation ) : " Major 1811 slave uprising organized here . " Despite its size and connection to the French and Haitian revolutions , the rebellion is not thoroughly covered in history books . As late as 1923 , however , older black men " still relate [ d ] the story of the slave insurrection of 1811 as they heard it from their grandfathers . " Since 1995 , the African American History Alliance of Louisiana has led an annual commemoration at Norco in January , where they have been joined by some descendants of members of the revolt . Controversy . In a 2011 lecture , the independent historian Fernin F . Eaton suggests that evidence is insufficient to support either the premise that the slaves engaged in any uprising , or the claims as to the extent of involvement . Eaton notes evidentiary shortfalls , such as the planter Manuel André ( or , Andry ) reporting his son , Gilbert , was killed by the slaves . The records of the Archdiocese show that Gilbert had died January 2 and been buried January 3 , five days before the uprising . Eaton considers the reported events in the context of planter and white unrest . They followed by a few weeks a violent uprising by planters and other elites upriver against Spanish rule , and a short - lived challenge to American domination as well . Historians frequently connect that revolt , referred to as the 1810 West Florida Rebellion , to secret initiatives and possible financial underwriting by the federal government under President James Madison . This maneuvering continued into the 1812 East Florida Rebellion , a / k / a " The Patriots ' War " . Eaton suggests further research is needed to put these reported 1811 German Coast events into the context of the ambivalent loyalties of the planters . Several planters on the German Coast were still pensioners of the Spanish government at that time . The planters and other elite had already been in a state of high alert , not against the slaves , but against the abolitionist sentiment of the American Congress , which had restricted " the African trade " in 1808 and the importation of slaves into Louisiana . In these conditions , they could have panicked at rumors of a rebellion and rounded up " likely " slaves . It had happened before in Louisiana and other southern states .