The start of the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John in what was then the Danish West Indies.
The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John (Sankt Jan) in the Danish West Indies (now St. John, United States Virgin Islands) started on November 23, 1733, when 150 African slaves from Akwamu, in present-day Ghana, revolted against the owners and managers of the island's plantations. Lasting several months into August 1734, the slave rebellion was one of the earliest and longest slave revolts in the Americas. The Akwamu slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of the island. They intended to resume crop production under their own control and use Africans of other tribes as slave labor.Planters regained control by the end of May 1734, after the Akwamu were defeated by several hundred better-armed French and Swiss troops sent in April from Martinique, a French colony. Colonial militia continued to hunt down maroons and finally declared the rebellion at an end in late August 1734.