now charles deslondes was a slave driver.slave drivers were very aware of organizing large and complex groups of people. sugar planting is a very difficult thing to do. it requires immense technical skill and involves a lot of sophistication. the process of granular sing sugar is one of those -- available the time. a man like charles who had the sophistication to run a plantation was very good at organizing large groups of people so than the question becomes if we know these men were good leaders and could organize and execute various large-scale movements and activities, where would they develop any sort of military perspective? how did they learn military tactics? now, there has been an excellent body of scholarship on the influence of west african military tactics on new world slaves. 70% of the slaves here in new orleans have been brought over from africa, either directly or from shipment points like jamaica or charleston and many of those have been captured in war, so they were very familiar with especially the congolese

charles deslondes you see with the ultimate sleeper cells. sing his privilege vision not to aid the planters but to subvert them. on january 6, it was the final meeting between charles the three, harry kenner who was the son of the white a white planter and born in virginia and then kook and quamana and they met together on january 6. what did the slaves discuss? what were their motives and how did they organize? these are questions which no historian can answer definitively. slaves did not write anything down and they kept their actions completely secret from the planters. but let me tell you what the slaves would have known, what they would have been familiar with. i have not sure how many of you know about the revolution that occurred in haiti in 1791 to the 1800's. today i think when we think of haiti we think of those devastating scenes we see on television. in 1811, haiti was a beacon of hope to all slaves across the american atlantic because haiti was the site of the first successful slave revolt in the history of the new world. not onl

it was pouring rain when charles deslondes gather 25 black slaves from the president woodlawn plantation. everyman assembled knew his participation in the revolt would mean a certain death sentence -- near certain death sentence. there's a world in louisiana had ever been but successful and arson direction was clear. the planters are distracted by mardi gras, the american military distracted by fighting a proxy war against the spanish come in the rain preventing heavy artillery from being moved out into the coast. the slaves believed they just might have a chance. no records are right to tell us what charros i outside of encouragement in those final hours before they launched the revolt, but i want to reach of a passage from another revolt that has been a year later that leader said to his name in the final moments. i think it gives us an idea of what might've been said. this later took a plan team in a sharpened machete comest not supplanting with a machete and said this as i will try it for the stomachs of the way. in the wake of the uprising, planters only asked one slave wife he deci