Today, December 26, is a noteworthy day, because it is the 500th Anniversary of the first black slave revolt in the Americas.

The first black slaves arrived in Hispaniola in 1501, today a territory shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti, when Governor Nicolás de Ovando requested permission for his entourage to bring their domestic slaves with them.
Already in 1520 more than 2,000 slaves arrived and were distributed to work the land, between 150 and 400 men per farm, according to historians.

The reasons for the revolt are as you might imagine: physical punishment, forced labor, and the lack of food were leading causes.

“the idea was to exterminate the Spanish,” according to Andújar. The insurgents, of the Gelofe ethnic group, “sought to reproduce as a movement” and moved “to conquer other mills and raid the houses of the masters.”

As you can imagine, they failed. In response slaves were forbidden to meet in groups in the future. However, that didn't solve the slave revolt problem.
In fact, the 1521 slave revolt wasn't even the first slave revolt of the colony.
Just two years earlier a native Taíno named Enriquillo started a slave revolt that lasted at least 14 years.

Enriquillo's father, his aunt Anacaona, and eighty other regional chieftains were killed by Nicolás de Ovando while attending supposed "peace talks" with the Spanish in Jaragua.[citation needed] During the talks, Spanish soldiers ambushed the chieftains, also known as caciques, set the meeting house on fire, and then proceeded to kill anyone who fled the flames (causing his father's death).

Enriquillo organized a small guerilla army in the mountains of Hispaniola, which were soon bolstered in numbers by former black slaves that fled the 1521 revolt.
After 14 years Enriquillo decided to cut a deal with the Spanish rulers, but he didn't sell out.

In the pact, he negotiated the freedom of the Taíno people, eliminating the encomienda, exemption from taxes to the Crown and granting of territory to the original inhabitants of the lands.

Unfortunately the Taíno people had been mostly wiped out at that point. Nevertheless, it is notable as the first partially successful slave revolt in the New World.

I want to stop to tell you that the most interesting and colorful character of this tale has not been introduced yet - Sebastián Lemba.

They waged guerrilla warfare from the mountains and were feared like a proto-blitzkrieg. Legendary names like Diego Guzmán, Juan Criollo y Diego del Campo were counted among his ranks.
They would strike with precision, taking supplies and freeing slaves, much like Geronimo and his brave Apaches with their lightening fast raids. The Spaniards had a lot of difficulties with the Taínos and Africans who resisted and fought back against oppression in the new world.

Lemba had fought alongside of Enriquillo, but he was much more militant. His group targeted sugar plantations, and at one point he'd shut down a majority of them on the island. Lemba had as many as 400 escaped slaves fighting alongside him
For 15 years Lemba caused havoc on the island, until he was captured in 1547 and executed. However, his revolt carried on for several more years before finally collapsing.

Hispaniola then experienced roughly 150 years without another major slave revolt. But that one, the Haitian Revolution, would rock the world.
Easily overlooked was a much smaller slave revolt that happened on the other half of the island at the same time.

on 30 October 1796, 200 enslaved Africans led one of the island’s largest rebellions at the Ingenio Boca de Nigua mill.
“Boca De Nigua was the most significant expression of the African resistance to slavery in the Spanish part of the island,” said Dario Solano, an Afro-Dominican history expert and native of Nigua, who sits on the Unesco Slavery Route’s Dominican Republic Committee. “[It was] the first rebellion that had a political dimension, with the aim of abolishing slavery and creating a government representing the ethnic diversity that existed on the island.”

Part of the strategic attack involved seizing the property’s ammunitions and burning the sugarcane fields and the plantation owner’s house. Nuñez revealed that the uprising’s leaders included a woman: Ana María, who was crowned “queen of the freed slaves” during the rebellion.

Unfortunately, this slave revolt ended as many before had. The leaders were hanged, drawn and quartered. The ones that weren't killed didn't have it much better.

Other participants in the rebellion were sentenced to 20, 15 and 10 years imprisonment. Their feet were chained to their necks and they were beaten daily in the pillory.

The sugar mill still stands today.