To understand this place you must go back in time. Not a few decades …rather a few hundred years. To a time in St. Jan’s history when the plantation era was waining. The daily struggles of island life made even more challenging because of recent hurricanes and an extended crop-withering draught.

In 1718 the Danish claimed the island of St Jan. European demand for sugar meant high prices and the promise of profitable plantations on the slopes of their newly colonized island. With established trading partners in Africa it wasn’t long before slaves were being brought to St Jan as plantation laborers. By 1733 there were 109 plantations that relied on over 1,087 African slaves. Conditions, as you might imagine, were brutal. The backbreaking work of clearing dense tropical forests, constructing stone and coral-rubble plantation buildings, planting, watering and harvesting sugarcane and cotton, under a blazing hot sun with limited food, water and medical care. Many succumbed to illness. Others sought freedom by escaping, called marooning, to neighboring islands.

In the predawn hours of November 23, 1733, a quiet delivery of firewood to the Danish West India Company’s fort in Coral Bay, St. John, masked the beginning of one of the most consequential uprisings in Caribbean history.

A handful of enslaved people, posing as laborers, slipped into the fort carrying bundles of wood. Hidden inside were cane knives. Within moments, the group overwhelmed the garrison, killing all but one of the soldiers stationed there. Once the fort was secured, the rebels fired its cannon—a prearranged signal to enslaved communities across the island that the insurrection had begun.

But the origins of the revolt reached back far beyond that November morning.

Akwamu Resistance in Exile

Until around 1730, the Akwamu people were a dominant power along Africa’s Guinea Coast, controlling trade routes and selling prisoners of war to European traders. Their political order collapsed when their leader died, and rival nations seized control. In the following years, large numbers of Akwamu captives were shipped to the Caribbean, including St. John.

Akwamu men and women did not accept their enslavement quietly. Known for their disciplined social structure and cohesion, they routinely resisted Danish authority.

Crisis on St. John

Life on St. John was harsh even by the standards of Caribbean plantation society. Planters provided few supplies, leaving enslaved residents to grow food on small plots of their own. That fragile system collapsed when the island was hit by a prolonged drought, a devastating hurricane, and a wave of crop-destroying insects. Starvation threatened the population, prompting many enslaved people to flee the plantations and live in the forests—a practice the Danes called “marronage.”

Alarmed by the rising number of escapees, Governor General Philip Gardelin issued the 1733 Slave Code, imposing brutal punishments—including mutilation and execution—for even minor acts of defiance. The crackdown deepened resentment and convinced many that rebellion was the only path forward.

Planning the Revolt

At the time, Danish authority on St. John was tenuous. The island’s Civil Guard consisted of only six disorganized members, while the enslaved population vastly outnumbered Europeans. Against this backdrop, a group of Akwamu men and women began plotting to seize control of the island’s plantations for themselves.

The movement’s leaders—King Claes, King Juni, and Kanta—had been influential figures in Akwamu society before their capture. Their status commanded respect among Akwamu descendants on St. John, who followed their plan to take Coral Bay’s fort and trigger a wider uprising with cannon fire.

But the enslaved community was not unified. People from the Accra nation, historically subjugated by the Akwamu in Africa, feared that supporting the revolt would lead to renewed domination. Many chose not to participate—a division that would ultimately spare some European lives.

The Uprising Spreads

After capturing the fort, the rebels split into three units. Kanta held Coral Bay, while King Juni led fighters east along the coast. King Claes pushed west through the island’s interior. Both mobile forces moved from plantation to plantation, killing nearly every European they encountered.

When settlers heard the cannon fire, many initially believed it signaled a muster at the fort. A group of planters traveling inland instead encountered Claes’s fighters and suffered casualties before retreating to Pieter Durloo’s fortified plantation on the island’s east end.

Durloo’s estate became the central refuge for Europeans and for enslaved people who refused to join the rebellion. The Akwamu laid siege to the property, attacking repeatedly and at one point igniting the munitions magazine. Despite coming close to breaking through, they never managed to capture the estate.

International Intervention

Danish officials struggled to respond. Each time they attempted to retake the island, the Akwamu drove them back. The British, worried the uprising might inspire revolt in the nearby British Virgin Islands, dispatched 60 troops from Tortola. The reinforcements barely set foot on St. John before an Akwamu ambush forced a hasty retreat.

The conflict stretched on for six months. Eventually, the Danes turned to their new allies in France, who sent about 400 soldiers from Martinique. French detachments landed across St. John, pushing the remaining rebels toward the island’s east end. Facing inevitable defeat and fearing torture at Danish hands, many Akwamu fighters chose suicide over surrender.

A Revolutionary Legacy

The 1733 Slave Insurrection on St. John stands as the first recorded instance of enslaved people seizing control of an entire colony. Though the rebellion was ultimately crushed, it sent powerful shockwaves through the Caribbean and influenced later uprisings, including the Haitian Revolution.

Nearly three centuries later, the uprising remains a testament to the resolve and courage of the Akwamu freedom fighters—men and women who risked everything in pursuit of liberation.

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