Haitian rebels weaponized metaphysical belief, treating hatred and Africa-rebirth as material forces.

Evidence

It was the mind, metaphysics, ideology, consciousness that was Mackandel’s tool in mid-eighteenth-century Haiti. He persuaded the Blacks and their masters to sense the hatred of the slaves in palpable terms. Ordinary precautions were irrelevant, what the slaves could be physically obstructed from accomplishing was unimportant. Their hatred was a material force, capable of snuffing the lives from masters who had gone so far as to import their foods from France and had unloaded the precious cargo with their own hands. It was the same with Hyacinth. His army could rush the cannon of the French forces “without fear or care for the volleys,” shoving their arms into the cannons’ mouths. They knew, they believed that “if they were killed they would wake again in Africa.” On that final day of March 1792, 2,000 of them “died,” to a mere 100 of their opponents, but they were doubly blessed: they won the battle and even their dead were free. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 836

Categorization

• XREF: Hyacinth’s army rushing cannons while believing death returns them to Africa echoes the suicidal-bravery logic of sacrificial warfare in the ‘On Sacrifice’ article — dying as freedom rather than defeat.
• SHARE: The story of 2,000 rebels dying to 100 enemy in March 1792, who ‘won the battle and even their dead were free,’ is a striking historical vignette a history-enthusiast friend would appreciate.