Take to Google, type in “US Virgin Islands” and you’ll be met with photos of turquoise waters and smiling faces sipping on drinks atop sparkling white sand. This destination is among the most popular in the Caribbean for vacationers, but it was once at the core of the transatlantic slave trade. Today we discuss what has gone down in history as the 1733 Akwamu Insurrection, an event in which thousands of enslaved Africans took fate into their own hands as they rose up against their oppressors - an event which was among the first, longest running and bloodiest rebellions in North American history.

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Sources NPS, Libcom, NPS History, VINOW, Caribbean Beat, Virgin Islands History, NPCA, NPS 2, The Guardian, Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade, US Department of State, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, WTJX, Virgin Islands Daily News

236: On Our Signal. Virgin Islands National Park.