January 1811, Charles Deslondes, a mixed-race slave driver, led this massive armed rebellion. Composed of hundreds of people, Deslondes’s army advanced along the serpentine path of southern Louisiana’s River Road to New Orleans with a military discipline that surprised many of their adversaries. It is remarkable to consider that hundreds of enslaved people, who came from different countries, with different native languages and different tribal affiliations, were able to organize themselves as effectively as they did.
