Vigilante Violence

Both official militia troops and white citizens acting as free agents reportedly killed an unknown number of slaves and free blacks after word of the rebellion got out to the larger white community. Estimates of precisely how many lives these atrocities claimed have ranged widely—from the single digits to several thousand.

Sources suggest, however, that anger and fear drove some white southerners in and beyond Southampton County to wage indiscriminate attacks against African Americans in the days following the revolt.