West African imperial breakdowns shaped Bahia’s slave demographics and revolt character.

Evidence

Kent argues that in West Africa, the breakdown of the Old Oyo Empire of the Yorubas and the long succession of Yoruba Wars that followed in the early nineteenth century gave Bahia ready access to Yoruba craftsmen, and Kent reasons that this may have also been the cause for “a greater number of Hausa slaves [going] to the engen-hos in the Reconcavo.” Two consequences, Kent believes, of the more complex slave demography that resulted were that first, contemporary local authorities and subsequently such scholars as Nina Rodrigues and Ramos had difficulty reconstructing the character that could be ascribed to the particular slave movements that emerged during the period. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 762

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in the Black radical tradition’s origins — African political dynamics directly feeding New World slave rebellion.
• QUESTION: Might be worth tracing how Oyo’s collapse specifically funneled skilled Yoruba into Bahia.