Saint Domingue, Gabriel’s Rebellion, and the 1811 slave revolt, as well as Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner, affirmed and reified the foundational fear of Black people. That fear required white safety above all else, and the solution was to continue to whittle away at whatever concept of rights and access to weaponry that Black people—enslaved or free—had. A series of laws and actions thus established that Black people did not have the right to bear arms, the right to a well-regulated militia, or the right to self-defense.
