Trinidad’s Black peasantry formed when ex-slaves quit sugar plantations after 1838

Evidence

The peons [backwoodsmen of mixed Spanish-Amerindian-African descent from Venezuela], the African immigrants, and the black ex-soldiers, and their descendants, were important groups in the island’s peasantry in the nineteenth century. But the peasantry in Trinidad originated with the withdrawal of ex-slaves from the sugar plantations after 1838. Perhaps around 7,000 ex-slaves left the estates to become stallholders. Of these, about five-sixths became owners of between one and ten acres of land, growing chiefly provisions and cocoa, and often giving casual labour to the estates during crop. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2312

Categorization

• XREF: Illustrates how ex-slaves built autonomous economic lifeworlds outside the plantation, echoing the theme of Black self-organization central to Robinson’s account of the radical tradition. — connects to: Trinidad’s African Creoles preserved the slave radical tradition through culture; Black labourers resisted plantation dependence by pursuing peasant and artisan autonomy; James’s Trinidad birthplace was a village founded by ex-slaves with fighting-band traditions (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2312

Broader Connections

• Former slaves sought land independence by buying small plots and leaving plantations #expands (0.80)
• Ex-slaves built a subsistence-based rural economy on former plantations #corroborates (0.70)