In June of 1730, African captives aboard the Slave Ship Little George, freed themselves from their shackles, overpowered the captors, seized control of the ship & successfully sailed it back to Africa. Thread.....

On June 1st 1730, Captain George Scott of Rhode Island & his crew embarked from Banana Island in present day Lagos, Nigeria, setting sail for America, with 96 captured Africans shackled in the hull of the ship, 35 & 61 women.

6 days into the journey across the Atlantic, one African captive managed to free himself of his shackles & unchained several other captives. Around 4am on June 7th, while most the crew was asleep, a group of Africans broke through hull & stormed the ship's deck.

They were confronted by 3 men keeping watch. The Africans swiftly overpowered the watchmen, killed them, tossed their bodies overboard & grabbed their weapons. The rest of the crew, now alerted to the breakout, grabbed their weapons & rushed to the deck to put down the mutiny.

A brief fight ensued, the Africans killed several of the British crew, the rest surrendered, except for Captain George Scott, 3 crewmembers & a young boy, who all fled into the Captain's cabin & barred the door. The Africans then proceeded to unchained the rest of the captives

With the Africans now in control of the ship, one of the British crewmembers attempted to thwart mutiny by tossing a bottle filled with gunpowder into a group of Africans, the bottle were deflected & landed on keg of gunpowder, causing it to explode & severely damaging the ship.

The explosion also blew open the doors to the Captain's cabin & gravely injured Captain George Scott. During the chaos of the explosion, several of the British crewmembers broke lose, grabbed their weapons & attacked the Africans. A brief firefight ensued, but no one was killed

All the Africans retreated to the deck, while the free British crewmembers stayed at the bottom. The Africans then attempted to sail the ship back to Nigeria. They wondered the Atlantic for several days, during which they engaged in daily gun fights with the crew below deck.

After unsuccessfully trying to reach Nigeria, the ship ran aground on the Coast Sierra Leone. All the Africans the abandoned the ship & fled inland into Sierra Leone. Amazingly, all 96 of them survived the ordeal.

The following day, several of the Africans returned to the Coast, with some of the natives of Sierra Leone, they then engaged in another gun fight with the British on the ship, killing several of them. The captain & a few survivors abandoned the ship, jumped boats & sailed away

After several days adrift at sea, Captain George Scott & the surviving crew were rescued by another Slave ship, & returned to Rhode Island, where he recounted his ordeal on the West Coast of Africa. Below, is a version published in the 1700s.

You can find more information about the Little George mutiny in the book "If We Must Die" by Eric Robert Taylor

Here is Captain George Scott's written testimony of the mutiny