“Destiny Buck, of the Wanapum tribe, rides her mare, Daisy, in the yearly Indian princess competition in Pendleton, Oregon. Embraced first for war, hunting, and transport, horses became partners in pageantry and a way to show tribal pride.”
Photographed by Erika Larsen
On this day, 18 October 1526, a chain of events were set in motion which would soon lead to the first rebellion of enslaved people in what is now the continental United States. Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón, a wealthy Spaniard from Santo Domingo (now in the Dominican Republic) earlier that year headed to the North American mainland with around 500 Spanish men and women, 100 enslaved Africans and numerous horses, doctors and priests. After some sailing mishaps, he eventually landed and established a settlement by a river – probably the Sapelo Sound in modern day Georgia – which they called San Miguel de Gualdape. The enslaved Africans were then ordered to build homes. The settlers had missed planting season, and so were very short on food, and were also being ravaged by various diseases. On 18 October, Ayllón died from an unknown illness. His designated successor was in Puerto Rico, and so a struggle for power broke out between two rival aristocrats. In November, with the colonists in chaos, the enslaved people rebelled, set fire to homes and fled to Native American villages and lived among them. One group of settlers attempted to move into a nearby Native American village as well and take their food. But the Indigenous people apparently soon ran out of patience, and after feasting with the settlers for several days, eventually killed them all one night. The surviving 150 Spaniards fled later that month. But the formerly enslaved Africans, living with the local Indigenous people who, as historian William Loren Katz put it, “welcomed them in as sisters, brothers and family”.
Learn more about slavery and rebellions against it in the Americas in this book: http://shop.workingclasshistory.com/products/the-american-crucible-slavery-emancipation-and-human-rights-robin-blackburn
Pictured: painting of Spanish colonisers encountering Native Americans in Georgia https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1558433804341764/?type=3
