[57] Matters
were then quiet again until 1739 when on a September Sunday a score of
Angola blacks with one Jonny as their leader broke open a store, supplied
themselves with arms, and laid their course at once for Florida where they
had been told by Spanish emissaries welcome and liberty awaited them.
Marching to the beat of drums, slaughtering with ease the whites they came
upon, and drawing black recruits to several times their initial number, on
the Pon Pon road that day the rebels covered ten prosperous miles. But
when at evening they halted to celebrate their exploits with dancing and
plundered rum they were set upon by the whites whom couriers had collected.
Several were killed in the onslaught, and a few more were captured on the
spot. Most of the rest fled back to their cabins, but a squad of ten made
their way thirty miles farther on the route to Florida and sold their
lives in battle when overtaken. Of those captured on the field or in their
quarters some were shot but none were tortured. The toll of lives lost
numbered twenty-one whites and forty-four[58] blacks.
[Footnote 57: Letter of June 24, 1720, among the MS. transcripts in the
state capitol at Columbia of documents in the British Public Record
Office.
Pages:
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846