Caribbean History From
Colonialism to Independence
AM217
David Lambert
Lecture: Resisting slavery
Tuesday 1st December,
11am-12pm
Resisting slavery
1. Types, typologies and sources
2. The spectrum of resistance
i. Slave revolts
ii. Day-to-day resistance
3. African cultural forms
4. Resistance and its others
Types of resistance
Types of resistance
Types of resistance
Types of resistance
Typologies of resistance
1. Stanley Engerman’s tripartite division
based on the extent of the threat to the
plantation system
2. Michael Craton’s chronological division:
Maroon resistance; African resistance;
Afro-Creole resistance
Sources
Account of ‘Sampson’
in Thomas St. Clair, A
residence in the West
Indies and America
(London, 1834), p. 214
Sources
Advert for runaway
slave in a Caribbean
newspaper, 1783
Sources
‘List of slaves
belonging to
Westerhall, 18 July
1798’
Sources
‘most of the Canes on Westerhall that were uncut had been
burnt, together with the Dwelling House and Out Houses at
the Point, and I have since learnt that the Works on that
Estate, as well as on almost every other Estate in the Island,
were also burnt. All the Mules and Cattle either killed or in
possession of the Insurgents, and most of the Negro Men in
arms against us, many of whom, I am convinced were
compelled to join the Brigands, who had threatened them
with instant death if they made any resistance…’
(Robert Keith to Mr Otto, 26 July 1795)
Sources
Memorial to those killed in Fédon’s Rebellion, Grenada, 1795-97
Engerman’s spectrum of resistance
1. Attempts to destroy and replace the slave
plantation system.
2. Attempts to reject the plantation-slavery system
without necessarily destroying it.
3. Recognizing the impossibility or counterproductivity
of either of the foregoing, to attempt to disrupt,
change and perhaps eventually destroy the
systems from within.
Engerman’s spectrum of resistance
1. Attempts to destroy and replace the slave
plantation system.
e.g. rebellion, burning crops
Enslaved insurrections
- Caribbean revolts more common than those in the
USA
- Nevertheless, they were still rare
Revolts during the Middle Passage
Enslaved insurrections
- Caribbean revolts more common than those in the
USA
- Nevertheless, they were still rare
- Factors contributing to slave revolts:
- Whites significantly outnumbered
- Institutional controls on slaves underdeveloped
- Periods of internal disruption/external threat (e.g.
imperial war) and stress on the plantation system
- Times of the year when normal relations were
suspended
- Geography: places for enslaved rebels to flee to and
regroup
Tacky’s War, 1760
St. Domingue Slave Revolt, 1791
Population of St. Domingue, 1789
White, 40,000
(8%)
Free people of
colour, 28,000
(5%)
Enslaved blacks,
452,000 (87%)
Enslaved insurrections
- Caribbean revolts more common than those in the
USA
- Nevertheless, they were still rare
- Factors contributing to slave revolts:
- Whites significantly outnumbered
- Institutional controls on slaves underdeveloped
- Periods of internal disruption/external threat (e.g.
imperial war) and stress on the plantation system
- Times of the year when normal relations were
suspended
- Geography: places for enslaved rebels to flee to and
regroup
- Increasing estrangement between colony and metropole
Abolitionism and slave rebellions
Freedom’s imminence in the early nineteenth
century in the Caribbean inspired enslaved blacks
to resist slavery with an even greater intensity than
they had before, and their resistance, in turn,
helped in no small way to pressure European
powerholders to bring the institution to an end.
Bonham C. Richardson, The Caribbean
in the wider world (1992), p. 165.
Counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
Counter-insurgency
Engerman’s spectrum of resistance
1. Attempts to destroy and replace the slave
plantation system.
2. Attempts to reject the plantation-slavery system
without necessarily destroying it.
e.g. mass running away, individual flight, abortion
and infanticide, suicide
Caribbean Maroons
Trelawney, Jamaica: A maroon town
Individual flight
Urban flight
Preventing marronage
Advert for runaway
slave in a Caribbean
newspaper, 1783
Preventing marronage
Engerman’s spectrum of resistance
1. Attempts to destroy and replace the slave
plantation system.
2. Attempts to reject the plantation-slavery system
without necessarily destroying it.
3. Recognizing the impossibility or counterproductivity
of either of the foregoing, to attempt to disrupt,
change and perhaps eventually destroy the
systems from within.
e.g. feigned laziness and stupidity, industrial
sabotage, mockery, poisoning
Engerman’s spectrum of resistance
1. Attempts to destroy and replace the slave
plantation system.
2. Attempts to reject the plantation-slavery system
without necessarily destroying it.
3. Recognizing the impossibility or counterproductivity
of either of the foregoing, to attempt to disrupt,
change and perhaps eventually destroy the
systems from within.
4. Maintaining and re-making African cultural forms.
Maintaining and re-making
African cultural forms
At the same time that the masters were vigorously
attempting to acculturate their slaves as part of the
process of subordination, the slaves themselves
resisted the dislocation of the Middle Passage by
the retention of African languages, beliefs, folklore,
music, customs and crafts…
Michael Craton, ‘Forms of resistance to slavery’
(1997), p. 233.
Maintaining and re-making
African cultural forms
Maintaining and re-making
African cultural forms
• Vodou refers to the branches of a
West African ancestor-based
religious tradition.
• Brought by enslaved Africans to
St. Domingue (Haiti) from the
Guinea Coast of West Africa.
• Vodou survived the brutal
‘modernisation’ of the plantation
system, although the traditions
have changed with time.
• One of the largest differences,
however, between African and
Haitian Vodou is that the
transplanted Africans of Haiti were
obliged to disguise their loa or
spirits, as Roman Catholic saints,
a process called creolisation.
Vodou ceremony, Bois Caiman,
August 1791
Post-emancipation resistance
While the former masters sought new forms
of coercion, the former slaves sought new
forms of freedom. The change in legal status
changed the terms of, but did not abolish,
their struggle.
O. N. Bolland, ‘Systems of domination after
slavery’ (1981) pp 107-8.
Resistance and its others
1. Resistance
2. Collaboration
3. Resilience