Spiritual traditions prepared enslaved people for future revolutionary action

Evidence

Manifest expressions of Black radicalism such as marronage, arson, the destruction of work tools, and even open rebellion were complemented by less overt forms. When separation was not possible, open revolts might fester; where rebellion was immediately impractical, the people prepared themselves through obeah, voodoo, Islam, and Black Christianity. Through these they induced charismatic expectations, socializing and hardening themselves and their young with beliefs, myths, and messianic visions that would allow them, someday, to attempt the impossible. Their history confirmed these processes; their fruition could be seen in the papaloi of the Haitian Revolution; the obeah men and women who crowd the trial records of slave rebellions in the Caribbean and elsewhere; the Muslim revolts in Brazil; the rebel preachers who appear at the center of resistance in Jamaica, Suriname, and North America. Through it all, of course, the perturbations of the world system constituted the parameters, the conditions of being of Black resistance. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1432

Categorization

• XREF: Obeah, voodoo, and messianic religion as resistance infrastructure connects to Robinson’s argument elsewhere but also to broader scholarship on religio-political resistance (e.g., Haitian Vodou’s role in revolt).