Hausa slaves led nearly every major Bahian uprising between 1720 and 1838.

Evidence

The “Hausa revolts” between 1808 and 1835, Kent maintains, were a construct of part fact, part attempted manipulation by local planters and merchants of state authorities, and part prejudicial renderings of evidence of Muslim involvement. Hausa slaves were, no doubt, quite active as insurrectionists. Jose Rodrigues has written quite recently: “The least submissive Negroes in Brazil were the Hausas; they headed all uprisings in Bahia and in Brazil, being especially prominent in those of 1720, 1806, 1809, 1813, 1814, 1822, 1826, 1835, and 1838.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 763

Categorization

• QUESTION: Kent’s claim that the ‘Hausa revolts’ were partly a planter/merchant construct vs. Jose Rodrigues’s flat assertion they genuinely led everything — worth untangling who manipulated what narrative.