The Baptist War began as mass passive resistance, not armed revolt.
Evidence
Sharpe, according to the account he gave the Wesleyan missionary, Henry Bleby, who had several conversations with him when he was in jail, did not plan armed rebellion, but mass passive resistance. After the Christmas holidays when the cane harvest was due to begin, the slaves were to sit down and refuse to work until their masters acknowledged that they were free men and agreed to pay them wages. Sharpe expected that the whites would try to intimidate the strikers by shooting hostages as examples; but the slaves were not expected to fight back, simply to continue passive resistance. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 806
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- XREF: The Sharpe-led Baptist War passive resistance model parallels Gandhi’s later satyagraha strategy and the civil rights movement, suggesting a wider tradition of nonviolent mass action.