James’s Trinidad birthplace was a village founded by ex-slaves with fighting-band traditions

Evidence

The peons [backwoodsmen of mixed Spanish-Amerindian-African descent from Venezuela], the African immigrants, and the black ex-soldiers, and their descendants, were important groups in the island’s peasantry in the nineteenth century. But the peasantry in Trinidad originated with the withdrawal of ex-slaves from the sugar plantations after 1838. Perhaps around 7,000 ex-slaves left the estates to become stallholders. Of these, about five-sixths became owners of between one and ten acres of land, growing chiefly provisions and cocoa, and often giving casual labour to the estates during crop. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2312 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Trinidad’s Black peasantry formed when ex-slaves quit sugar plantations after 1838 — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2312; Trinidad’s African Creoles preserved the slave radical tradition through culture

Related

• Trinidad’s Black peasantry formed when ex-slaves quit sugar plantations after 1838 (similarity 0.91)
• Trinidad’s peasantry was founded on ex-slaves withdrawing from sugar estates (similarity 0.88)
• Trinidad’s African Creoles preserved the slave radical tradition through culture (similarity 0.80)
• Black labourers resisted plantation dependence by pursuing peasant and artisan autonomy (similarity 0.79)
• Nineteenth-century Trinidad’s leading Black intellectual came from slave-adjacent rural roots (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Trinidad’s Black peasantry formed when ex-slaves quit sugar plantations after 1838 #corroborates (0.60) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2312
• Trinidad’s African Creoles preserved the slave radical tradition through culture #expands (0.55)