Trinidadian Black laborers sought limited freedom by escaping plantation dependence rather than open revolt

Evidence

Black labourers in Trinidad, during this period, reacted to the oppressive society they lived in by attempting to reduce their dependence on the plantation, by seeking to create an area of freedom for themselves, however limited. They tried to become peasants or artisans; if they failed, they drifted to the towns. In the towns, constant urban unrest reflected an awareness of oppression. The bands fought each other because they were unable to attack the real sources of their misery or powerlessness, not because they were unaware of them. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1151

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that inter-communal urban violence reflects thwarted resistance, not ignorance of oppression, connects to James’s dialectics and to the book’s broader thesis on how radical consciousness forms under constraint.