Many native middle classes formed as state functionaries and capital agents

Evidence

Another basis of the petit bourgeoisie was property. Some Blacks, but certainly with less frequency than occurred with what French colonialists termed the petit blancs, had translated particular skills, traditional positions and knowledge into property (including slaves during the slave era). With slavery abolished, some of this Black-controlled capital was reconverted into professional skills in succeeding generations. Frequently, however, the native middle classes had been directly formed as functionaries of the state—civil servants, minor as well as middling—and as agents of landed, mercantile, or manufacturing capital (often absentee). And for sure, there were other paths leading to the privileges of this stratum, some less “legitimate” or conventional. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 853

Categorization

• XREF: The state-functionary origin of the Black middle class speaks directly to the reader’s question about the origins of the Black radical tradition’s intelligentsia. — connects to: State and capital interdefine through shared mediating logics, not one dominating the other — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1672