Colonial rulers relied on African ethnic divisions to prevent slave rebellion.
Evidence
The mightiest guarantee for the security of large Brazilian towns is the incompatibility of various African nations for if they ever overlook the enmity which naturally disunites them, those of Agomes will become brothers with the Nagos, the Geges with the Aussas, the Tapas with Sentys, and in this way the great and inevitable peril will darken and devastate Brazil. And, there is no doubt that misfortune can bring about the brotherhood of the unfortunate. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 771
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- DEEPTHINKING: A colonial-era governor articulates with chilling precision that divide-and-rule is the explicit security doctrine against slaves, and that only shared suffering could overcome it — the passage condenses the entire logic of colonial ethnic engineering.
- XREF: Directly parallels the divide-and-conquer tactics Ach in Things Fall Apart observes the colonial administration deploying among Ibo clans.
Related
- Slaveholders relied on ethnic divisions among Africans to secure their rule (similarity 0.91)
- Colonial administrators promoted racial division to secure white loyalty and preserve slavery (similarity 0.81)
- African resistance movements slowly built the cross-ethnic integration the slave trade had achieved instantly (similarity 0.80)
- Brazilian slave-trade nationalization reorganized ethnic slave disposition patterns (similarity 0.79)
- Diaspora Africans held potential for grand racial combination against Africa’s colonization (similarity 0.79)
- Spanish authorities feared African-Indian alliances would prove impossible to subdue (similarity 0.78)
- An integrated national economy fused ruling class interests against two domestic enemies. (similarity 0.78)