Obliteration of the Peculiar Institution

There were two forms of disorderly conduct: Sambo, and insurrection. 8 Sambo was the lesser, more passive of the resistances. This could range from acting dumb and being lazy to passive forms of rebellion.
<Tab/>Religion was a form of slave resistance as well. In churches, priests spoke "a language defiant enough to hold the high-spirited among their flock."9 Slaves often reiterated the sermons priests gave, and dreamt of a day they would be saved and go to Canaan (freedom in the North).10 "Christian images, and biblical injunctions, were central to Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, Nat Turner, 11 John Brown, and others who planned or engaged in open resistance to slavery."12
<Tab/>On a day-to-day ritual, "slaves [were] generally expected to sing as well as work." In front of their white masters, they sang. Songs sent as a powerful message as religion. Slave songs' seemingly shallow lyrics took on a deeper meaning of representing of their freedom.13 An abolitionist who visited a slave farm would hear the reverberating of wailing notes. Frederick Douglass recounted that "those songs... deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with a sense of the soul-killing power of slavery, let him, ... in silence, thoughtfully analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus not impressed, it will only be because 'there is no flesh in his obdurate [hard] heart.'"14
<Tab/>Among the more open and effective actions against slavery by both free blacks and slaves were the rebellions (or attempted rebellions). They occurred within rapid succession of each other. The first was organized by Gabriel Prosser in 1800. …