Slavery’s planners never anticipated the resistance it would generate

Evidence

The first forms of struggle in the Black radical tradition, however, were not structured by a critique of Western society but from a rejection of European slavery and a revulsion of racism in its totality. Even then, the more fundamental impulse of Black resistance was the preservation of a particular social and historical consciousness rather than the revolutionary transformation of feudal or merchant capitalist Europe. Why the pathology of race was so dominant a part of Western consciousness or what might be done to change that character was of less concern than how Black peoples might survive the encounter. This perhaps is part of the explanation of why, so often, Black slave resistance naturally evolved to marronage as the manifestation of the African’s determination to disengage, to retreat from contact. To reconstitute the community, Black radicals took to the bush, to the mountains, to the interior. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1431 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Black resistance aimed at preserving consciousness, not transforming Europe (similarity 0.89)
• Black radicalism’s earliest impulse was preservation of consciousness, not revolutionary transformation (similarity 0.88)
• Black revolt has historically focused on structures of the mind, not material conditions (similarity 0.87)
• Early Black resistance sought survival and consciousness-preservation, not revolution (similarity 0.85)
• Marronage declined as plantation slavery rationalized and slave communities formed (similarity 0.84)
• Slave resistance through flight seeded lasting Black maroon communities (similarity 0.84)
• Slaves capitalized on every crisis among their exploiters to rebel. (similarity 0.83)
• Slave resistance evolved from communal shipboard revolts seeking return to marronage and egalitarian societies. (similarity 0.83)
• Black mass culture evolved from resistance to slavery and a racial social order (similarity 0.83)
• Blocked maroon escape routes pushed slaves toward systemic revolt (similarity 0.82)
• Marronage gave way to community-based resistance as plantation capitalism expanded (similarity 0.82)
• Blocked maroon refuges forced slaves to attack the plantation system directly (similarity 0.82)
• Post-emancipation forced labor pushed Black resistance toward new ideologies (similarity 0.81)
• Indian resistance provided the example African slaves followed into Florida (similarity 0.81)
• African resistance movements slowly built the cross-ethnic integration the slave trade had achieved instantly (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Early Black resistance sought survival and consciousness-preservation, not revolution #complicates (0.60) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1431
• United slave resistance disabled whites’ power to discipline plantations #exemplifies (0.60)
• Recorded slave runaways and revolts massively understate actual resistance #corroborates (0.60)
• Blocked maroon escape routes pushed slaves toward systemic revolt #expands (0.55)