1716: Maria of Curacao, slave rebel
November 9th, 2019 Headsman
On this date in 1716, a woman named Maria was burned for leading a slave rebellion on the West Indies island of Curacao.
Maria was a cook owned by the Dutch West India Company itself who apparently instigated the slaves on her plantation to rise up and slaughter the white staff in September of 1716.
Whether Maria herself was Curacao-born or a recently captured import is not known, but her plantation of St. Maria held many of the latter category; Curacao was a major shipping nexus for the Dutch slave trade. It’s possible that this meant Maria’s newly-arriving peers were more liable to harbor that cocktail of hope and desperation needed to wager their lives on rebellion.
Whatever the case, the rising was quickly put down. Another slave named Tromp, Maria’s lover, told his torturers that she had sought revenge on a white overseer named Muller for killing her husband.
On this day..
- 1773: Eva Faschaunerin, the last tortured in Austria - 2018
- 1641: Maren Splids, Jutland witch - 2017
- 1940: Julian Zugazagoitia, Minister of the Interior to republican Spain - 2016
- 1945: Charles Ford Silliman, suicide pact? - 2015
- 2011: Luo Yaping, "land granny" - 2014
- 1942: Eddie Leonski, the Brownout Strangler - 2013
- 1848: Robert Blum, German democrat - 2012
- 1842: Stephen Brennan, desperate bushranger - 2011
- Themed Set: Bushrangers - 2011
- 1610: Blessed George Napier - 2010
- 1944: Georges Suarez, collaborationist editor - 2009
- 2008: The Bali Bombers - 2008
- 1911: Charles Justice - 2007
Entry Filed under: 18th Century,Burned,Capital Punishment,Death Penalty,Execution,History,Murder,Netherlands,Netherlands Antilles,Power,Public Executions,Revolutionaries,Slaves,Torture,Women
Tags: 1710s, 1716, maria of curacao, november 9, slavery
