Slaves formed their own consciousness independent of planter ideology.

Evidence

To the second point, the precondition of bourgeois society, Du Bois maintained that no bourgeois society was the setting of this revolution. The dominant ideology of the society was that of the plantocracy, a dictatorship of labor and land with no democratic pretensions. But of more significance, the ideology of the plantocracy had not been the ideology of the slaves. The slaves had produced their own culture and their own consciousness by adapting the forms of the non-Black society to the conceptualizations derived from their own historical roots and social conditions. In some instances, indeed, elements produced by the slave culture had become the dominant ones in white southern culture. The process had spanned generations: “[T]he rolling periods of Hebrew prophecy and biblical legend furnished inaccurate but splendid words. The subtle folk-lore of Africa, with whimsy and parable, veiled wish and wisdom; and above all fell the anointed chrism of the slave music, the only gift of pure art in America” (p. 14). This was the human experience from which the rebellion rose. Torn from it were the principles of “right and wrong, vengeance and love … sweet Beauty and Truth” that would serve as guideposts to the ex-slaves. It was the tradition critical to the framing of the survival of these new people. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1127

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core claim of the Black radical tradition: an autonomous slave culture and consciousness derived from African roots plus biblical forms.
• XREF: Slaves producing their own autonomous culture ‘by adapting the forms of the non-Black society’ parallels the syncretism described in James Scott-style studies of subaltern appropriation.