RESISTANCE AND REVOLT:

FORMS OF RESISTANCE
Form 5.3 CSEC HISTORY
MS. MODESTE
 WHY RESIST?

“Im a slave from a land so far, I was brought here from Africa, Im dying,
Im crying.”
You are frustrated given increased workloads and meagre rations.

You would never see your family leaving behind your native land Africa

You are punished daily on the plantation.

You have no rights and treated as chattel

Your master has rights over your body

Your family is separated on another plantation

You are forced to forget all your roots, practices of your mother country.

Your owner is withholding YOUR FREEDOM!!!!

 SLAVE RESISTANCE
• Resistance is the act of defying the established
order and status quo in insurrectionary (violent)
and non- insurrectionary (non insurrectionary)
ways:
A) Insurrectionary
B) Non-insurrectionary
• Slaves resisted from the time they left the shores
of Africa through the Middle Passage. Every
single day of their lives until emancipation.
• Historian Franklin Knight: “Slaves ‘naturally’
resisted their enslavement because slavery was
fundamentally unnatural.”
• DO you know that you resist daily?
L OOK AT PICS. WH AT
WAYS DID T HE
ENSL AVE D R ESIST?
 WAY S I N W H I C H T H E
RUNNING AWAY E N S L AV E D R E S I S T E D :
(MAROONAGE & BUSH
NEGROES)

•Enslaved persons who ran away escaped to the

Maroon communities in the hills of Jamaica where
they go undetected.
•Ultimate form of resistance Why?

•Leader: Cudjoe and Nanny

•Accompong, Nanny Town, Cockpit Country

•Fought two Maroon Wars with the Europeans

1732, 1795
•Significant treaty 1739: Europeans recognized the
Maroon community, given lands 600 hectares with
a promise not to attack whites/raid plantations for
food, they agreed to return any slave runaways
who fled to Maroon hills.
•Bush Negroes: -Suriname. Dutch made truce:
granted right to occupy interior once whites not
attacked, stir slave revolts or raid plantations.
 CAN YOU GUESS HOW
FEMALES RESISTED?
Female resistance was often referred to a “petticoat
rebellion.: Most of their resistance was non insurrectionary:
 Back-chatting masters/quarrelling-numerous court
 Feigning illness admitting themselves to estate hospital.
to avoid work : Malingering.
 Prolonged lactation increased stay at home time
 Infanticide .
 Culturally-deliberately passed on traditions, obeah,
religious practices.
 Sang satirical songs about master.
 Strike, lay down tools to lodge complaints in court.
 Legal complaints about their master-knew their rights.
 Gynecological resistance: abortions, herbal birth control
 WOMEN AND RESISTANCE-LUCILLE MAIR
• Made an important contribution to both routine non- cooperation with the labour regime and organised slave
resistance.
• Nuisance value –established by refusing to accept slavery like dumb animals, by regularly raising their voices,
women in their own way allowed their presence to be felt and chipped away at slavery===emancipation.
• Present everywhere-Formed backbone of field slaves, domestics were ideally placed to frustrate their masters in
numerous ways from everyday acts of non -cooperation, malingering, sabotage to more serious acts such as
running away, poison, revolting.
• Determined=Harsh conditions stimulated rather than squashed their resolve.
• Quiet woman stereotype- they were in a better place than men to coordinate subversive activities. Europeans
didn’t know to keep an eye on them which made them least suspect especially in the last years of slavery.
• Don’t be fooled-slave owners, nor slave communities didn’t consider women to be the less rebellious sex. Slave
owners were fearful, suspicious, distrustful of their potential activities as men and so gave them equal punishment.
• Ah put so-Resistance ingrained in women since accustom to resisting certain forms of oppression in traditional
societies and acts of insurrection and defiance part of their social behaviour patterns.
• Plantation resistance should not be studied as though it started on the plantation. No! It was a culmination of a long
process of antislavery struggle which began in Africa.
A LOOK
INTO
THEIR
LIVES
 I N S U R R E C T I O N A RY V S N O N - I N S U R R E C T I O N A RY
Insurrectionary (violent) Non-insurrectionary (non violent)
Burning down the plantation/Arson Suicide
Maroonage Pretending ignorance
Armed attack Sabotage of plantation and equipment
Killing the master or his family members Malingering/Go slow
Rebellions Petticoat rebellion (women’s strategies):
Revolution Cultural resistance-passing on African traditions
Refusing to do certain tasks/quarrelling with master
Feigning illness to avoid work-malingering
Prolonged lactation
Gynecological resistance: voluntary abortion,
repressing reproductive system by drinking herbal
concoctions.
Living up to lazy stereotype
Backchatting/Singing satirical songs
Every type of resistance should not be undervalued. All chipped away at dismantling slavery and led to
CLARIFYING REVOLT VS REVOLUTION
• A revolt is usually seen as an unsuccessful revolution.
• A revolt/rebellion was a one in which the slaves tried to get their freedom by
destroying planter property, killing masters. There were as many as 23 plus
revolts.
• Three significant rebellions occurred in the Caribbean:
• 1763 Berbice FAILURE …should
• 1823-Demerara Guyana we really call
rebellions failures?
• 1816 Barbados
• 1831 Jamaica
The only successful black slave revolution was the HAITIAN REVOLUTION
1791
QUESTIONS

1. Why did the enslaved engage in resistance?

2. List the two categories of resistance. Name 3 of each.
3. HOW/ What strategies were used by the enslaved to resist?
4. What was women’s resistance called?
5. How did women demonstrate resistance?
6. “Women contributed little to the slave resistance on the plantation.”
Comment on statement.
M O N D AY – A S Y N C H R O N O U S C L A S S - 2 0 / 9 / 2 1

Read Chapter 20: The Emancipation Revolts and the Moodle info I will
place on History page.
Organise rebellions Barbados 1816, Demerara 1823, Jamaica 1831:
• Date (Month)/Country
• Leader:
• Objective: Freedom-what OTHER particular incident sparked rebellion
• Actions/Fighting/Outcome
• Reasons for Failure