Introduction: South Carolina Lieutenant Governor William Bull wrote the following firsthand account of the Stono Rebellion. Bull addressed his account to the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, the British officials responsible for overseeing the empire’s colonies in North America and the West Indies.

My Lords,

I beg leave to lay before your Lordships an Account of our Affairs; first in regard to the Desertion of Our Negroes…. [O]n the 9th of September last at Night a great number of Negroes Arose in Rebellion, broke open a Store where they got Arms, killed twenty one White Persons, and were marching the next morning in a Daring manner out of the Province, killing all they met, and burning Several Houses as they passed along the Road. I was returning from Granville County with four Gentlemen and met these rebels at Eleven a Clock in the forenoon, and fortunately discerned the approaching Danger time enough to avoid it, and to give notice to the Militia who on that Occasion behaved with so much expedition and bravery, as by four a Clock the Same day to come up with them and killed and took so many as put a stop to any further mischief at that time, forty four of them have been killed and Executed some few yet remain concealed in the Woods expecting the same Fate, seem desperate. If Such an attempt is made in a time of peace what might be expected if an Enemy Should appear upon our Frontier with a design to Invade us? which we have great reason to expect upon the first Notice of a Rupture, being fully informed by Several hands of the great Preparations made Sometime ago [by Spanish officials] at the Havana, [Cuba,] which according to late accounts lie ready waiting only for Orders to put that Design in Execution.

It was the Opinion of His Majesty’s Council with several other Gentlemen that

one of the most Effectual means that could be used at present to prevent such desertion

of our Negroes, is to encourage some Indians by a suitable Reward to pursue and if possible to bring back the Deserters, and while the Indians are thus Employed they would be in the way ready to intercept others that might attempt to follow, and I have sent for the Chiefs of the Chickasaws living at New Windsor and the Catawbaw Indians for that purpose….

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Source: Bull, William. “Lieutenant Governor Bull’s Eyewitness Account.” Stono: Documenting and Interpreting a Southern Slave Revolt. Ed. Mark M. Smith. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. 16-17. Original: Lt. Gov. Sir William Bull to the Board of Trade, Charleston, October 5, 1739, (Received December 10, 1739), Sainsbury Transcripts, Records in the British Public Record Office Relating to South Carolina, 1711-1782, vol. 20, pp. 179-80, in the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Columbia, S.C. (C.O. Papers, S.C. Original Correspondence, Secretary of State, 1730-1746, no. 5/388).