It is important to note that slavery was the most abhorrent practice in both American and world history. It violated every connotation and notion of human decency, right, freedom, liberty, and justice. The main reason is the fact that slaves were able to exert a significant form of resistance through a wide range of methods. Although the balance of power was heavily tilted in favor of slaveholders, the vital dependence of work on input from slaves provided a lever for opposing the practice.
It should be noted that three main actions constitute slave resistance. These include rebellion, escaping, and sabotage of work, and each of these methods has its advantages and disadvantages. Sabotaging work is a passive form of resistance, where slaves attempt to work slowly, damage equipment and instruments, and produce low-quality output. Escaping is an active form of resistance, where the goal is to relocate from the slaveholders to another safer location with no risk of being enslaved or returned back. The given form of resistance is much riskier than sabotage with severe punishments, and not many can engage in it.
The last form of resistance is rebellion, which means that slaves need to fight against slaveholders actively to overthrow their authority and power. The latter was the method of resistance, for which Henry Highland Garnet advocated in his famous speech, the National Negro Convention of 1843 (Garnet, 1843). He stated that “to such degradation, it is sinful in the extreme for you to make voluntary submission” (Garnet, 1843, p. 3). In other words, he wanted slaves to understand that they were lied to and forced to come to this foreign land with being offered liberty and justice with the sole purpose of exploitation and subjugation. He called for action in the form of rebellion, where he noted the sinfulness of inaction. He also stated that “therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical that promises success” (Garnet, 1843, p. 4). It is every slaves’ responsibility to resist with any means necessary to resist slaveholders, which means that he promoted all forms of resistance alongside the primary rebellion.
Enslaved people were able to exert a significant type of control over slaveholders. The statement is even more truthful under the contextual paradigm of Henry Highland Garnet. He famously stated, “rather die freemen, than live to be slaves” (Garnet, 1843, p. 1). In other words, he advocated a complete intolerance for inaction, which meant it was either about death or freedom from slavery. Considering the fact that slaveholders depended on slaves, all three forms of resistance were functional. However, the most effective form of resistance would arise from the combination of three.
Moreover, one should be aware that pleasure itself was a form of resistance, which involved generations characteristics of adaptation. It is stated that “in the context of enslavement, such exhilarating pleasure gotten by illicit use of the body must be understood as important and meaningful enjoyment, as expression, and as oppositional engagement of the body” (Camp, 2002, p. 7). In other words, bodily pleasure was a tool through which women were able to resist slaveholders.
Marronage was a form of escape resistance, where slaves ran away from their slaveholders to uninhabitable locations to form communities. There were two main forms of marronage, which included petit and grand categories. Petit marronage involved slaves escaping for some periods of time with the eventual return, whereas grand marronage meant permanent stay at the refuge location. Marronage severely disrupted slaveholders’ operations and made it impossible for them to find escapees since the communities were in highly remote and uninhabitable areas. Establishing maroon communities resulted in new commercial interests with these slaves since they were superior in navigating the inaccessible regions. Many business interests wanted to trade with maroons since the latter had access to natural resources unavailable to white people. Therefore, marronage allowed to creation of small independent communities with no masters to control them, which was a form of powerful and effective resistance. In the case of petit marronage, some slaves returned for various reasons since uninhabitable regions were hostile to endure. In addition, some of the maroons needed to return to offer new trade deals.
It should be noted that marronage posed a major threat to slavery and slaveholders because slaves were breaking free to establish their own independent communities with valuable services and products to offer. Marronage showed that slaves were capable of resisting the practice of slavery and being self-sufficient, which can be considered as a generations characteristic. Garnet stated, “let your motto be resistance! resistance! resistance! No oppressed people have ever secured their liberty without resistance” (Garnet, 1843, p. 7). They also undermined slaveholders’ authority over their slaves since they could not chase and locate the slaves in these uninhabitable regions.
In conclusion, slavery was an abhorrent practice that was fought against by slaves. Three main methods were used such as rebellion, escaping, and sabotage. The former two constitute active resistance, and escape was utilized effectively in the form of marronage. The pleasure was also a form of resistance, which utilized bodily pleasures, alcohol, and escaping to remote regions. Therefore, even in the depths of such human depravity, valuable historical lessons can be learned about fighting tyranny and oppressors.
References
Camp, S. M. H. (2002). The pleasures of resistance: Enslaved women and body politics in the plantation South, 1830-1861. The Journal of Southern History, 68(3), 1-19. Web.
Garnet, H. H. (1843). Call to rebellion [PDF document]. Web.