The Resistance They Tried To Hide

Women-Led Slave Revolts and the Fight to Remember

I was struck by the overwhelming number of direct messages I received after sharing how the horrific deaths of kidnapped Africans along the transatlantic slave trade altered the migratory patterns of sharks for centuries. (Read here)

For many, it was a revelation left out of their sanitized education. And now, as MAGA politicians seek to eliminate our nation's full history, people are increasingly aware of how much history already has been censored or whitewashed.

The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts

I promised a follow-up focused on another missing chapter of history: the story of women-led rebellions on enslaver ships and the remarkable researcher who uncovered this hidden past. This is that story.

Dr. Rebecca Hall is a scholar, activist, and educator who has spent years uncovering the role of enslaved women in revolts, both on land and at sea. Her groundbreaking book, Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts, brings this history to life. But her journey to bring these stories to the world was not straightforward.

Unearthing the Truth

Dr. Hall didn’t set out to write a graphic novel. She turned her academic research into an accessible narrative in between teaching positions. Frustrated that her work was buried in scholarly texts that few would read, she sought a format that would bring these hidden histories to the public. That decision led her to Kickstarter, where the project gained momentum, eventually securing an agent and international publication in multiple languages.

Her research uncovered a stark reality: historians had long insisted that only men participated in slave revolts. Yet, as she pored over primary sources, including court records and colonial governors’ letters, she found women everywhere. The first revolt she studied was the 1712 uprising in New York City. While previous accounts framed it as a male-led rebellion, her investigation into court documents told a different story—women were deeply involved, yet erased from historical narratives.

The Revolts on Slave Ships

One of Dr. Hall’s most astonishing discoveries came from an analysis of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database. Researchers had found that one in ten slave ships recorded a revolt. When they compared the characteristics of these ships, they found something surprising—ships with more women on board were far more likely to experience uprisings.

“They tried to compare the difference between the ships. Like, well, what is the difference between the ships that had more revolts and the ships that didn't? And the only difference was that there were more women on the ships that had revolts. And then they dismissed their own findings. They said, well, but we know that women didn't participate in this type of activity,” said Dr. Hall describing the sexist reluctant of historians to accept that women would engage in combat.

Rather than investigating further, historians dismissed the finding, assuming women weren’t responsible. But Dr. Hall took a different approach. As she combed through hundreds of ship logs and captains’ reports, she found repeated accounts of women seizing weapons and leading attacks.

The reason? Women were often unchained and brought on deck during the voyage—not because they were seen as potential threats, but because they were viewed as sexual property. European captors underestimated the warriors among them. That miscalculation cost them dearly.

Resistance as a Constant

Lloyd’s of London, the insurance giant that once underwrote countless slave ships, actively worked to shield its archives from scrutiny. Researchers like Dr. Hall have been denied access to crucial insurance reports that detail the true scale of revolts, ship losses, and the economic repercussions of resistance. These documents contain vital records of shipboard rebellions—proof of how frequently captives fought back. But Lloyd’s, whose foundations were built on the slave trade, has refused to grant entry to scholars seeking to expose this hidden history, reinforcing the broader effort to erase or downplay the agency of enslaved people in their own liberation.

Dr. Hall’s work shatters the myth that enslaved people were passive victims. She challenges the widespread belief that revolts were rare or unsuccessful.

“Every revolt was successful,” she insists. “They increased the costs of the trade, forced adjustments in strategy, and ultimately helped to end slavery.”

Enslaved people didn’t wait for Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation—they resisted in every way possible, from shipboard uprisings to massive walkouts during the Civil War. The largest slave revolt in history was the general strike of enslaved people, who left plantations en masse to aid the Union Army, effectively crippling the Confederacy from within.

The Fight Over History

Dr. Hall’s book has been translated into multiple languages, turned into an award-nominated audio drama, and incorporated into educational curricula. Yet, her work faces opposition from the same forces seeking to erase Black history today.

In Florida, AP African American Studies has been banned. Books are being stripped from shelves. A new curriculum backed by the state reframes slavery as a system that supposedly benefited the enslaved, casting revolts as “violence on both sides.” This isn’t just historical revisionism—it’s an attempt to pacify and disarm the present by erasing the resistance of the past.

History is a weapon. And Dr. Hall is determined to make sure people arm themselves with the truth.

Honoring the Past, Fighting for the Future

The fight for historical truth is ongoing. When young people today say, I am not my ancestors, they often don’t realize the immense bravery, strategic brilliance, and relentless defiance of those who came before them. Dr. Hall’s research reclaims these stories, showing that Black resistance has always been at the heart of the struggle for freedom.

As Dr. Hall puts it: Freedom is a constant struggle. We fought. We are fighting. We will always fight.

And that is history worth remembering as we fight to rebuild a true democracy that works for us all.