Trial and police records overattributed Bahian revolts to Islamic leadership.

Evidence

Ramos and Nina Rodrigues, Kent suggests, erred in relying too much on the trial records of the defeated slaves and the personal papers and reports of Bahia’s police chief, Goncalves Martins. Both sources were biased by the presumption that “every Muslim was a rebel and every rebel a Muslim.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 769

Categorization

• QUESTION: The historians’ debate over reading trial records reflects a broader methodological question about whether rebellion archives themselves are colonial artifacts.