Vincent L. Wimbush
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199873579
- eISBN:
- 9780199949595
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199873579.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest ...
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This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest and remains to this day one of the best-known English language “slave” narratives. This now famous work was not really meant to be in any simple respects autobiographical; and it does not unproblematically register the several interests and motivations of a slave, spiritual, or travel narrative. Notwithstanding the inclusion of some formal elements of all these genres, it is best read as something else altogether—as a reflexive social-political commentary and criticism disclosed by a simple narratological framework. What Equiano wrote was not so much his life story as it was his creative effort to describe, critique, and reshape dominant society through his mimetics of what he, as strategically positioned “stranger,” understood to be—and named as—the “magic” that was the (British-inflected) practice of scripture reading, reflected within the structure of discourse and power relations that the author calls “scripturalization”. The book uses Equiano’s narrative to think with; it is a site for historical and contemporary social-critical excavation, using scriptures as social-cultural phenomenon and dynamics as analytical wedge. This scripturalizing mimetics open an analytical window onto the dynamics and structuring of British (and by extension Euro-American) civilization as a kind of ideological-discursive and social-psychological slavery, the representations of which are the deeper interest of this book. The form of enslavement identified as scripturalization in turn poignantly raises the possibility—with Equiano the ex-slave as model—of a particular type of negotiation or escape: ideological-psychological marronage, if not freedom in absolute terms. In Equiano’s reflexive thinking and discursive are the elements for the construction of “the African,” or “the Ethiopian,” the complex self within a reconceptualized modern, pluralistic society.Less
This book is a transdisciplinary analysis of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, first published in England in 1789. It was one of the earliest and remains to this day one of the best-known English language “slave” narratives. This now famous work was not really meant to be in any simple respects autobiographical; and it does not unproblematically register the several interests and motivations of a slave, spiritual, or travel narrative. Notwithstanding the inclusion of some formal elements of all these genres, it is best read as something else altogether—as a reflexive social-political commentary and criticism disclosed by a simple narratological framework. What Equiano wrote was not so much his life story as it was his creative effort to describe, critique, and reshape dominant society through his mimetics of what he, as strategically positioned “stranger,” understood to be—and named as—the “magic” that was the (British-inflected) practice of scripture reading, reflected within the structure of discourse and power relations that the author calls “scripturalization”. The book uses Equiano’s narrative to think with; it is a site for historical and contemporary social-critical excavation, using scriptures as social-cultural phenomenon and dynamics as analytical wedge. This scripturalizing mimetics open an analytical window onto the dynamics and structuring of British (and by extension Euro-American) civilization as a kind of ideological-discursive and social-psychological slavery, the representations of which are the deeper interest of this book. The form of enslavement identified as scripturalization in turn poignantly raises the possibility—with Equiano the ex-slave as model—of a particular type of negotiation or escape: ideological-psychological marronage, if not freedom in absolute terms. In Equiano’s reflexive thinking and discursive are the elements for the construction of “the African,” or “the Ethiopian,” the complex self within a reconceptualized modern, pluralistic society.
Vincent L. Wimbush
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199873579
- eISBN:
- 9780199949595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199873579.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The Epilogue revisits the implications of tying together in critical analysis Equiano’s story and that of Wimbush, including their mutual interest in escaping slavery and finding a place for the safe ...
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The Epilogue revisits the implications of tying together in critical analysis Equiano’s story and that of Wimbush, including their mutual interest in escaping slavery and finding a place for the safe cultivation of radical agency through “reading” white men’s magic or scripturalization(s).Less
The Epilogue revisits the implications of tying together in critical analysis Equiano’s story and that of Wimbush, including their mutual interest in escaping slavery and finding a place for the safe cultivation of radical agency through “reading” white men’s magic or scripturalization(s).
Neil Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226127460
- eISBN:
- 9780226201184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226201184.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This is the first of two chapters exploring the Haitian Revolution, the only known successful human slave revolution. Both chapters highlight the value of marronage for our modern political ...
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This is the first of two chapters exploring the Haitian Revolution, the only known successful human slave revolution. Both chapters highlight the value of marronage for our modern political vocabulary by redefining its conventional usage so as to delineate freedom’s meaning in the revolution and to present freedom as marronage as a heuristic device useful to political theorists working in multiple geopolitical contexts. Chapter three examines two central Francophone documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: 1) Code Noir, 2) French Declaration. Examination of their articles uncovers a juridical paradox unresolved by the revolution’s beginning. The chapter outlines thereafter three types of marronage (petit, grand, sovereign) that serve as a response to questions left unanswered hitherto in the book. Its crux is inquiry into the benefits and limitations of sovereign marronage and sovereign marronage’s manifestation in the figure of Toussaint L’Ouverture. It challenges enduring rhetoric in the popular imagination that collapses into one Toussaint’s freedom and all the principles forged during the Haitian revolution. The last section posits that Toussaint’s vision of the future is not the only notion of flight operative in the Saint-Domingue uprising.Less
This is the first of two chapters exploring the Haitian Revolution, the only known successful human slave revolution. Both chapters highlight the value of marronage for our modern political vocabulary by redefining its conventional usage so as to delineate freedom’s meaning in the revolution and to present freedom as marronage as a heuristic device useful to political theorists working in multiple geopolitical contexts. Chapter three examines two central Francophone documents of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: 1) Code Noir, 2) French Declaration. Examination of their articles uncovers a juridical paradox unresolved by the revolution’s beginning. The chapter outlines thereafter three types of marronage (petit, grand, sovereign) that serve as a response to questions left unanswered hitherto in the book. Its crux is inquiry into the benefits and limitations of sovereign marronage and sovereign marronage’s manifestation in the figure of Toussaint L’Ouverture. It challenges enduring rhetoric in the popular imagination that collapses into one Toussaint’s freedom and all the principles forged during the Haitian revolution. The last section posits that Toussaint’s vision of the future is not the only notion of flight operative in the Saint-Domingue uprising.
Oscar de la Torre
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469643243
- eISBN:
- 9781469643267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469643243.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This chapter takes the story of the Big Snake, a famous oral tradition among maroon descendants in the Trombetas river (called mocambeiros in the region), as a symbol of their relocation to new ...
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This chapter takes the story of the Big Snake, a famous oral tradition among maroon descendants in the Trombetas river (called mocambeiros in the region), as a symbol of their relocation to new residential spaces below the waterfalls, where they would fully enjoy their hard-won freedom right after abolition. The chapter places the narrative in conversation with “outside sources that can be checked and certified as independent,” such as police and governmental reports, travel accounts, genealogical trees, and interviews with the mocambeiros. With this I seek to generate a dialogue between narrative and written sources and to dig as deep as possible into its key natural and topological symbols. I considered the tradition of the Big Snake a “hypothesis,” a source that could enter into dialogue with, and even correct, “other perspectives just as much as other perspectives [could] correct” it. The story of the Big Snake also uses the river’s natural geography to sustain an interpretation of the maroons’ origins that emphasized autonomy and community. Finally, it bears witness to the sheer centrality of the natural landscape for the viability of maroon communities in Amazonia.Less
This chapter takes the story of the Big Snake, a famous oral tradition among maroon descendants in the Trombetas river (called mocambeiros in the region), as a symbol of their relocation to new residential spaces below the waterfalls, where they would fully enjoy their hard-won freedom right after abolition. The chapter places the narrative in conversation with “outside sources that can be checked and certified as independent,” such as police and governmental reports, travel accounts, genealogical trees, and interviews with the mocambeiros. With this I seek to generate a dialogue between narrative and written sources and to dig as deep as possible into its key natural and topological symbols. I considered the tradition of the Big Snake a “hypothesis,” a source that could enter into dialogue with, and even correct, “other perspectives just as much as other perspectives [could] correct” it. The story of the Big Snake also uses the river’s natural geography to sustain an interpretation of the maroons’ origins that emphasized autonomy and community. Finally, it bears witness to the sheer centrality of the natural landscape for the viability of maroon communities in Amazonia.
Kenneth M. Bilby
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813032788
- eISBN:
- 9780813039138
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813032788.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Latin American Studies
This chapter examines the Jamaican Maroons' recollection of their captivity and marronage. It suggests that the Maroons never needed any help in recalling the ordeal of slavery because their very ...
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This chapter examines the Jamaican Maroons' recollection of their captivity and marronage. It suggests that the Maroons never needed any help in recalling the ordeal of slavery because their very identity was predicated on a history of resistance to enslavement. Their struggles for liberation had actually helped them emerged as a people and their distinctive culture and ethnic label served as a constant reminder of the long and successful war their ancestors had waged against their British captors. This chapter illustrates its arguments with Maroon oral history narratives and the text of sacred songs related to their recollection of their captivity and marronage.Less
This chapter examines the Jamaican Maroons' recollection of their captivity and marronage. It suggests that the Maroons never needed any help in recalling the ordeal of slavery because their very identity was predicated on a history of resistance to enslavement. Their struggles for liberation had actually helped them emerged as a people and their distinctive culture and ethnic label served as a constant reminder of the long and successful war their ancestors had waged against their British captors. This chapter illustrates its arguments with Maroon oral history narratives and the text of sacred songs related to their recollection of their captivity and marronage.
Jarrett H. Brown
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781846319389
- eISBN:
- 9781781380901
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846319389.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This essay examines the persuasive fit between the biographical evidence of Claude McKay’s life, his characterization of Bita Plant as a maroon figure returning to “the point of entanglement” ...
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This essay examines the persuasive fit between the biographical evidence of Claude McKay’s life, his characterization of Bita Plant as a maroon figure returning to “the point of entanglement” (Glissant, Caribbean Discourse 26), and the continuum of masculine subjectivity in McKay’s work, from Jake/ Ray to Banjo/Ray to Bita. The author posits the idea of Bita as McKay’s maroon self returned in drag on two bases: one, that the life of a vagabond troubadour, and the habit of literary self-portrait had so become second nature to McKay, that he was unable to inhabit a less ambiguous, less tricksterish persona; two, that McKay’s unresolved issues with his mother and father play out as impersonation or ventriloquism, reconciliation, exorcism, and homage in the figure of Bita. The essay argues also that McKay’s lifelong and haunting need to return to the country of his birth played out in this literary disguise in which, if we also see Bita as Jamaica developing a decolonized subjectivity, her move is from (feminized) colonial territory to an authoritative republic of the self. Less
This essay examines the persuasive fit between the biographical evidence of Claude McKay’s life, his characterization of Bita Plant as a maroon figure returning to “the point of entanglement” (Glissant, Caribbean Discourse 26), and the continuum of masculine subjectivity in McKay’s work, from Jake/ Ray to Banjo/Ray to Bita. The author posits the idea of Bita as McKay’s maroon self returned in drag on two bases: one, that the life of a vagabond troubadour, and the habit of literary self-portrait had so become second nature to McKay, that he was unable to inhabit a less ambiguous, less tricksterish persona; two, that McKay’s unresolved issues with his mother and father play out as impersonation or ventriloquism, reconciliation, exorcism, and homage in the figure of Bita. The essay argues also that McKay’s lifelong and haunting need to return to the country of his birth played out in this literary disguise in which, if we also see Bita as Jamaica developing a decolonized subjectivity, her move is from (feminized) colonial territory to an authoritative republic of the self.
Ashon T. Crawley
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823274543
- eISBN:
- 9780823274598
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823274543.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Sociology of Religion
This chapter is about the resistance to becoming an object for theological-philosophical reflection. Attention is given to the ways choreography and sonicity work together, how there is a choreosonic ...
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This chapter is about the resistance to becoming an object for theological-philosophical reflection. Attention is given to the ways choreography and sonicity work together, how there is a choreosonic ethical demand that is germane to Blackpentecostal performance. This word, choreosonic, indexes the ways vibration is foundational to both sound and dance, how each is about vibration in and against worlds. The chapter elaborates indeterminacy at the heart of Blackpentecostal performance and celebrates such indeterminacy.Less
This chapter is about the resistance to becoming an object for theological-philosophical reflection. Attention is given to the ways choreography and sonicity work together, how there is a choreosonic ethical demand that is germane to Blackpentecostal performance. This word, choreosonic, indexes the ways vibration is foundational to both sound and dance, how each is about vibration in and against worlds. The chapter elaborates indeterminacy at the heart of Blackpentecostal performance and celebrates such indeterminacy.
Neil Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226127460
- eISBN:
- 9780226201184
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226201184.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This book explores the meaning of freedom through its fundamental relationship to the experience of slavery. It makes transparent a central insight on the human condition often ignored or disavowed ...
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This book explores the meaning of freedom through its fundamental relationship to the experience of slavery. It makes transparent a central insight on the human condition often ignored or disavowed by philosophers and political theorists by examining a specific, highly overlooked form of flight from slavery, marronage, that was fundamental to Caribbean and Latin American slave systems and has widespread application to European, New World, and black diasporic societies. The theory derived from such flight is freedom as marronage. The text deepens our understanding of freedom not only by situating slavery as freedom’s opposite condition, but also by investigating the significance of the equally important liminal and transitional social space between slavery and freedom. It argues that we must pay more attention to the experience of the process by which people emerge from slavery to freedom. The study investigates ideas in Hannah Arendt, Philip Pettit, W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Y. Davis, Frederick Douglass, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Haitian Revolution, Édouard Glissant, and Rastafari to develop a theory of freedom that offers a compelling interpretive lens to decipher the quandaries of slavery, political language, and the experience of freedom still confronting us. Its contributions to freedom’s meaning, and by extension unfreedom, include a cautionary tale on the limitations of disavowing slavery and slave agency in conversations about flight. This work is significant for scholars in black studies, Caribbean thought, interdisciplinary philosophy, American studies, critical theory, contemporary political theory, and all those interested in the idea of freedom between past and future.Less
This book explores the meaning of freedom through its fundamental relationship to the experience of slavery. It makes transparent a central insight on the human condition often ignored or disavowed by philosophers and political theorists by examining a specific, highly overlooked form of flight from slavery, marronage, that was fundamental to Caribbean and Latin American slave systems and has widespread application to European, New World, and black diasporic societies. The theory derived from such flight is freedom as marronage. The text deepens our understanding of freedom not only by situating slavery as freedom’s opposite condition, but also by investigating the significance of the equally important liminal and transitional social space between slavery and freedom. It argues that we must pay more attention to the experience of the process by which people emerge from slavery to freedom. The study investigates ideas in Hannah Arendt, Philip Pettit, W.E.B. Du Bois, Angela Y. Davis, Frederick Douglass, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Haitian Revolution, Édouard Glissant, and Rastafari to develop a theory of freedom that offers a compelling interpretive lens to decipher the quandaries of slavery, political language, and the experience of freedom still confronting us. Its contributions to freedom’s meaning, and by extension unfreedom, include a cautionary tale on the limitations of disavowing slavery and slave agency in conversations about flight. This work is significant for scholars in black studies, Caribbean thought, interdisciplinary philosophy, American studies, critical theory, contemporary political theory, and all those interested in the idea of freedom between past and future.
Wim Klooster and Gert Oostindie
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781501705267
- eISBN:
- 9781501719592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501705267.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
The Dutch started to develop parts of the Guianas mainly because they had not succeeded in conquering, defending and exploiting Caribbean islands suitable for profitable plantation agriculture. The ...
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The Dutch started to develop parts of the Guianas mainly because they had not succeeded in conquering, defending and exploiting Caribbean islands suitable for profitable plantation agriculture. The colonial economies remained fragile and growth would increasingly depend on credits extended from the Republic. The one unique and lasting Dutch contribution to the technology of sugar production was the adaptation of the Dutch polder system to plantation agriculture. The population of the colonies was overwhelmingly of African birth and descent, and almost entirely enslaved. While manumission was rare, in Suriname the major route out of slavery was marronage, and Berbice saw a major slave revolt, which almost ended Dutch rule.Less
The Dutch started to develop parts of the Guianas mainly because they had not succeeded in conquering, defending and exploiting Caribbean islands suitable for profitable plantation agriculture. The colonial economies remained fragile and growth would increasingly depend on credits extended from the Republic. The one unique and lasting Dutch contribution to the technology of sugar production was the adaptation of the Dutch polder system to plantation agriculture. The population of the colonies was overwhelmingly of African birth and descent, and almost entirely enslaved. While manumission was rare, in Suriname the major route out of slavery was marronage, and Berbice saw a major slave revolt, which almost ended Dutch rule.
Wim Klooster and Gert Oostindie
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781501705267
- eISBN:
- 9781501719592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501705267.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Although plantation agriculture did exist, what made the Dutch islands special, in particular Curacao and Statia, was their functioning as regional entrepôts. Demographically, the large number of ...
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Although plantation agriculture did exist, what made the Dutch islands special, in particular Curacao and Statia, was their functioning as regional entrepôts. Demographically, the large number of Jewish settlers and German soldiers is striking on Curaçao, as is the early development of a considerable community of free people of African and Eurafrican origins. The merchant community of Statia was amongst the most cosmopolitan in the Americas, with Protestant Dutch settlers a minority group and English as the prevailing language. Marronage may have functioned as a safety valve for the slave system, but outright revolts also occurred on Curaçao, at least on four occasions. Metropolitan Dutch cultural influence was limited and did not block the emergence of a relatively stable Creole culture nurtured more by the island’s regional connections than by its links to a faraway metropolis.Less
Although plantation agriculture did exist, what made the Dutch islands special, in particular Curacao and Statia, was their functioning as regional entrepôts. Demographically, the large number of Jewish settlers and German soldiers is striking on Curaçao, as is the early development of a considerable community of free people of African and Eurafrican origins. The merchant community of Statia was amongst the most cosmopolitan in the Americas, with Protestant Dutch settlers a minority group and English as the prevailing language. Marronage may have functioned as a safety valve for the slave system, but outright revolts also occurred on Curaçao, at least on four occasions. Metropolitan Dutch cultural influence was limited and did not block the emergence of a relatively stable Creole culture nurtured more by the island’s regional connections than by its links to a faraway metropolis.
Neil Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226127460
- eISBN:
- 9780226201184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226201184.003.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter frames the context for the main interrelated questions the book answers: 1) what are some distinct concepts of freedom emerging out of the experience of slavery? 2) What important ...
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This chapter frames the context for the main interrelated questions the book answers: 1) what are some distinct concepts of freedom emerging out of the experience of slavery? 2) What important insights does analyzing the relationship between slavery and freedom provide to political theorists that they do not know, have ignored, or have not sufficiently investigated? The introduction defines the concept of marronage, first by explaining its historical and conventional usages; and second, by delineating novel forms of marronage employed subsequently in the book. It utilizes the work Aimé Césaire and James C. Scott to accomplish. Furthermore, it outlines key dimensions of flight absent from contemporary fugitive theory and provides a rationalization for why marronage is an essential heuristic device. The chapter turns to demarcation of two alternative traditions of freedom theorizing in Western thought (negative and positive), thereby demonstrating a void left by their static notions of freedom. It suggests the idea of marronage fills the conceptual chasm. The remainder of the chapter examines the advantages and shortcomings of Orlando Patterson’s thought, outlines recent developments in intellectual traditions rethinking political theory from modernity’s underside, and concludes with the book prospectus.Less
This chapter frames the context for the main interrelated questions the book answers: 1) what are some distinct concepts of freedom emerging out of the experience of slavery? 2) What important insights does analyzing the relationship between slavery and freedom provide to political theorists that they do not know, have ignored, or have not sufficiently investigated? The introduction defines the concept of marronage, first by explaining its historical and conventional usages; and second, by delineating novel forms of marronage employed subsequently in the book. It utilizes the work Aimé Césaire and James C. Scott to accomplish. Furthermore, it outlines key dimensions of flight absent from contemporary fugitive theory and provides a rationalization for why marronage is an essential heuristic device. The chapter turns to demarcation of two alternative traditions of freedom theorizing in Western thought (negative and positive), thereby demonstrating a void left by their static notions of freedom. It suggests the idea of marronage fills the conceptual chasm. The remainder of the chapter examines the advantages and shortcomings of Orlando Patterson’s thought, outlines recent developments in intellectual traditions rethinking political theory from modernity’s underside, and concludes with the book prospectus.
Neil Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226127460
- eISBN:
- 9780226201184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226201184.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter deciphers principles developed during the Haitian Revolution by slave masses in flight. Its twofold objectives are a refutation of scholarship reducing the notions of freedom in the ...
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This chapter deciphers principles developed during the Haitian Revolution by slave masses in flight. Its twofold objectives are a refutation of scholarship reducing the notions of freedom in the revolution to Toussaint’s vision; and explanation of the transhistorical, macropolitical, sociogenic conception of flight. Prior interpretations of marronage and the revolution describe flight while reifying a long-standing false binary in studies of slave societies: flight or structural reordering, whereby acts of flight are separated from investigations into revolutionary politics. The chapter argues sociogenic marronage allows us finally to discern how revolutions are themselves moments of flight ushering in new orders. Frantz Fanon’s philosophy illuminates facets of the sociogenic and reaffirms the importance of the psychological to the lived experience of freedom. Sociogenic marronage has four core principles: 1) naming, 2) imagined blueprints of freedom [vèvè architectonics], 3) the state of society, and 4) constitutionalism. Examination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s Declaration of Independence, the activities of slaves, Haiti’s 1805 Constitution, and an Edwidge Danticat short story vis-à-vis these principles underscore revolution’s relation to flight. It also highlights an adage of marronage philosophy: the ability of individuals to become free and to exit from that condition is fundamental to the human condition.Less
This chapter deciphers principles developed during the Haitian Revolution by slave masses in flight. Its twofold objectives are a refutation of scholarship reducing the notions of freedom in the revolution to Toussaint’s vision; and explanation of the transhistorical, macropolitical, sociogenic conception of flight. Prior interpretations of marronage and the revolution describe flight while reifying a long-standing false binary in studies of slave societies: flight or structural reordering, whereby acts of flight are separated from investigations into revolutionary politics. The chapter argues sociogenic marronage allows us finally to discern how revolutions are themselves moments of flight ushering in new orders. Frantz Fanon’s philosophy illuminates facets of the sociogenic and reaffirms the importance of the psychological to the lived experience of freedom. Sociogenic marronage has four core principles: 1) naming, 2) imagined blueprints of freedom [vèvè architectonics], 3) the state of society, and 4) constitutionalism. Examination of Jean-Jacques Dessalines’s Declaration of Independence, the activities of slaves, Haiti’s 1805 Constitution, and an Edwidge Danticat short story vis-à-vis these principles underscore revolution’s relation to flight. It also highlights an adage of marronage philosophy: the ability of individuals to become free and to exit from that condition is fundamental to the human condition.
Neil Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226127460
- eISBN:
- 9780226201184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226201184.003.0006
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter examines Édouard Glissant’s thought within the wider discourses on creolization and creolizing political theory. It also marks a shift in the book to describing marronage’s relevance for ...
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This chapter examines Édouard Glissant’s thought within the wider discourses on creolization and creolizing political theory. It also marks a shift in the book to describing marronage’s relevance for late modernity. The chapter provides a philosophical reading of two Glissant texts (one novel, one essay collection) from his early and middle period that engage historical and imaginative forms of marronage. By exploring types of marronage in these works Glissant develops original concepts framing what the chapter contends is Glissant’s four-stage blueprint for sociogenic marronage: 1) rearticulating a philosophy of history, 2) retour (reversion/return) and détour (diversion/detour), 3) resistance, and 4) Antillanité (Caribbeanness). The chapter subsequently explores Glissant’s use of the rhizome idea and how lines of flight explain modes of marronage as an economy of survival, state of being, and condition of becoming, whether through fleeting fugitive acts, attempts at liberation, or the constitution of freedom. The implications of Glissant’s conception of marronage for contemporary debates over France’s commemoration of abolition, the Arab Spring, and relation between mainland France and French overseas départements including Martinique are addressed. The ending briefly discusses immigration politics and the figure of the refugee-immigrant as a late modern maroon.Less
This chapter examines Édouard Glissant’s thought within the wider discourses on creolization and creolizing political theory. It also marks a shift in the book to describing marronage’s relevance for late modernity. The chapter provides a philosophical reading of two Glissant texts (one novel, one essay collection) from his early and middle period that engage historical and imaginative forms of marronage. By exploring types of marronage in these works Glissant develops original concepts framing what the chapter contends is Glissant’s four-stage blueprint for sociogenic marronage: 1) rearticulating a philosophy of history, 2) retour (reversion/return) and détour (diversion/detour), 3) resistance, and 4) Antillanité (Caribbeanness). The chapter subsequently explores Glissant’s use of the rhizome idea and how lines of flight explain modes of marronage as an economy of survival, state of being, and condition of becoming, whether through fleeting fugitive acts, attempts at liberation, or the constitution of freedom. The implications of Glissant’s conception of marronage for contemporary debates over France’s commemoration of abolition, the Arab Spring, and relation between mainland France and French overseas départements including Martinique are addressed. The ending briefly discusses immigration politics and the figure of the refugee-immigrant as a late modern maroon.
Neil Roberts
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780226127460
- eISBN:
- 9780226201184
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226201184.003.0007
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Political Philosophy
This chapter broadens discourse on marronage through exploration into a late modern maroon movement: Rastafari. Rastafari speech acts inform its interpretation of freedom and the evolving disposition ...
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This chapter broadens discourse on marronage through exploration into a late modern maroon movement: Rastafari. Rastafari speech acts inform its interpretation of freedom and the evolving disposition of its members towards the state. The chapter begins with reflection on Peter Tosh’s lyrical commentary on flight, temporality, and revolution. Elucidation of Tosh’s lament on the inability of masses globally to understand marronage and acknowledge a singular philosophical worldview shaping orders of unfreedom precedes the brief overview of core Rastafari tenets. The description of Rastafari livity (way of life) includes explanation of its unique political language and preoccupations: Babylon, Zion, dread, love, reasoning reparations, repatriation, unfreedom, and freedom. The chapter argues globalization and doctrinal transformations among branches of Rastafari in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and across the world have led to shifts in Rastafari beliefs on the nature of flight (physical and spiritual), itself representation of debates on flight addressed throughout the book. For these reasons, it asserts that the ongoing benefits and challenges of Rastafari present us with a rubric to appreciate freedom’s meaning and why marronage still matters.Less
This chapter broadens discourse on marronage through exploration into a late modern maroon movement: Rastafari. Rastafari speech acts inform its interpretation of freedom and the evolving disposition of its members towards the state. The chapter begins with reflection on Peter Tosh’s lyrical commentary on flight, temporality, and revolution. Elucidation of Tosh’s lament on the inability of masses globally to understand marronage and acknowledge a singular philosophical worldview shaping orders of unfreedom precedes the brief overview of core Rastafari tenets. The description of Rastafari livity (way of life) includes explanation of its unique political language and preoccupations: Babylon, Zion, dread, love, reasoning reparations, repatriation, unfreedom, and freedom. The chapter argues globalization and doctrinal transformations among branches of Rastafari in Jamaica, the Caribbean, and across the world have led to shifts in Rastafari beliefs on the nature of flight (physical and spiritual), itself representation of debates on flight addressed throughout the book. For these reasons, it asserts that the ongoing benefits and challenges of Rastafari present us with a rubric to appreciate freedom’s meaning and why marronage still matters.
Johnhenry Gonzalez
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526105646
- eISBN:
- 9781526128140
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526105646.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
This chapter focuses on the Haitian Revolution and its brief moment of impact in France’s National Assembly. During the early portions of the Revolution, Haitian revolutionaries – former slaves – ...
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This chapter focuses on the Haitian Revolution and its brief moment of impact in France’s National Assembly. During the early portions of the Revolution, Haitian revolutionaries – former slaves – asserted their claims to the ‘rights of man’ in strong and direct ways, following up on their successful military action with petitions to the new government in France. For a moment in the midst of the two revolutions, the idea of the ‘rights of man’ reached across boundaries of race and geography, as the National Assembly voted to end slavery in Haiti and other colonies. These thin trans-Atlantic bonds did not last long, however, as the rights of man were overridden by racism, violence and, finally, the resumption of slavery. The flow of ideas back to the metropole was thus profoundly incomplete. The chapter illustrates, moreover, the dangers in interpreting the Haitian Revolution too strongly through these French terminologies. The Haitian revolutionaries who adopted the language of the rights of man were themselves few in number and unrepresentative. A far larger portion of the Haitian population identified much more strongly with a different kind of universal practice, one lacking its own theoretical canon: the process of marronage, of running away from enslaving and domineering social structures to live on their own terms in any way possible.Less
This chapter focuses on the Haitian Revolution and its brief moment of impact in France’s National Assembly. During the early portions of the Revolution, Haitian revolutionaries – former slaves – asserted their claims to the ‘rights of man’ in strong and direct ways, following up on their successful military action with petitions to the new government in France. For a moment in the midst of the two revolutions, the idea of the ‘rights of man’ reached across boundaries of race and geography, as the National Assembly voted to end slavery in Haiti and other colonies. These thin trans-Atlantic bonds did not last long, however, as the rights of man were overridden by racism, violence and, finally, the resumption of slavery. The flow of ideas back to the metropole was thus profoundly incomplete. The chapter illustrates, moreover, the dangers in interpreting the Haitian Revolution too strongly through these French terminologies. The Haitian revolutionaries who adopted the language of the rights of man were themselves few in number and unrepresentative. A far larger portion of the Haitian population identified much more strongly with a different kind of universal practice, one lacking its own theoretical canon: the process of marronage, of running away from enslaving and domineering social structures to live on their own terms in any way possible.
Angela Naimou
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780823264766
- eISBN:
- 9780823266616
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823264766.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter argues that Jones’s book-length poem Song for Anninho and novel Mosquito challenge death-bound theories of personhood through their narrational modes of flight, fugitivity, and ...
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This chapter argues that Jones’s book-length poem Song for Anninho and novel Mosquito challenge death-bound theories of personhood through their narrational modes of flight, fugitivity, and sanctuary. It examines Jones’s depictions of historical and contemporary forms of sanctuary that organize the storyworlds of each text, including the seventeenth-century colonial Brazilian marronage community of Palmares, church sanctuary law, the North American Underground Railroad, and the U.S. Sanctuary Movement for unauthorized immigrant refugees. Responding to collapsed distinctions between fugitive and stateless personhood that have marked black Americans, indigenous persons, and other subjects of punitive jurisprudence in the hemisphere, Jones’s narrators identify themselves as refugees and fugitives who redefine sanctuary as a practice, not a place. In doing so, Jones’s narrators construct multiple extra-legal literary personae and other alternative modes of storytelling and archival memory that challenge the cultural logics underpinning taxonomies of legal personhood.Less
This chapter argues that Jones’s book-length poem Song for Anninho and novel Mosquito challenge death-bound theories of personhood through their narrational modes of flight, fugitivity, and sanctuary. It examines Jones’s depictions of historical and contemporary forms of sanctuary that organize the storyworlds of each text, including the seventeenth-century colonial Brazilian marronage community of Palmares, church sanctuary law, the North American Underground Railroad, and the U.S. Sanctuary Movement for unauthorized immigrant refugees. Responding to collapsed distinctions between fugitive and stateless personhood that have marked black Americans, indigenous persons, and other subjects of punitive jurisprudence in the hemisphere, Jones’s narrators identify themselves as refugees and fugitives who redefine sanctuary as a practice, not a place. In doing so, Jones’s narrators construct multiple extra-legal literary personae and other alternative modes of storytelling and archival memory that challenge the cultural logics underpinning taxonomies of legal personhood.
Charles Beatty-Medina
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036637
- eISBN:
- 9780252093715
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036637.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, African Studies
This chapter explores how Christianization became an indispensable tool for Afro-Amerindian rebels seeking political legitimacy and continued autonomy on the frontiers of the Spanish empire and ...
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This chapter explores how Christianization became an indispensable tool for Afro-Amerindian rebels seeking political legitimacy and continued autonomy on the frontiers of the Spanish empire and within an African diasporic world. Focusing on the period 1577–1617, it considers how clerical intervention and the discourse of religious conversion shaped colonization over time by looking at the case of Esmeraldas maroons on the coast of early colonial Ecuador. By analyzing aspects of marronage and maroon societies in Spanish America, it elucidates how the colonial state resorted to Christian missionizing and conversion as part and parcel of its pacification campaign. It shows that the Esmeraldas maroons deftly navigated both religious intervention and the discourse of Christian conversion in order to situate themselves as the legitimate lords of Esmeraldas.Less
This chapter explores how Christianization became an indispensable tool for Afro-Amerindian rebels seeking political legitimacy and continued autonomy on the frontiers of the Spanish empire and within an African diasporic world. Focusing on the period 1577–1617, it considers how clerical intervention and the discourse of religious conversion shaped colonization over time by looking at the case of Esmeraldas maroons on the coast of early colonial Ecuador. By analyzing aspects of marronage and maroon societies in Spanish America, it elucidates how the colonial state resorted to Christian missionizing and conversion as part and parcel of its pacification campaign. It shows that the Esmeraldas maroons deftly navigated both religious intervention and the discourse of Christian conversion in order to situate themselves as the legitimate lords of Esmeraldas.
Linda M. Rupert
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814771167
- eISBN:
- 9780814708316
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814771167.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Imperialism and Colonialism
This chapter examines the question of imperial jurisdiction over fugitive slaves in the Caribbean during the eighteenth century. In particular, it considers how slavery intersected with the Spanish ...
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This chapter examines the question of imperial jurisdiction over fugitive slaves in the Caribbean during the eighteenth century. In particular, it considers how slavery intersected with the Spanish Crown's efforts to consolidate its jurisdiction and how the creation of legal spheres of enslavement and freedom helped to legitimate imperial sovereignty. After discussing the Spanish Crown's royal decrees related to intercolonial marronage, the chapter cites the importance of enslaved Africans as a commodity in intercolonial commerce and the Crown's attempts to stem the contraband slave trade as well as the perennial labor shortage. It then explores how authorities wrestled with the problems of compensation and restitution wherever fugitives crossed political boundaries. It also highlights several dimensions of legal pluralism that played out in the slave societies in the Caribbean with respect to inter-imperial marronage. Finally, it explains how the interests of fugitive slaves combined with those of the Spanish Crown to influence the empire's legal order.Less
This chapter examines the question of imperial jurisdiction over fugitive slaves in the Caribbean during the eighteenth century. In particular, it considers how slavery intersected with the Spanish Crown's efforts to consolidate its jurisdiction and how the creation of legal spheres of enslavement and freedom helped to legitimate imperial sovereignty. After discussing the Spanish Crown's royal decrees related to intercolonial marronage, the chapter cites the importance of enslaved Africans as a commodity in intercolonial commerce and the Crown's attempts to stem the contraband slave trade as well as the perennial labor shortage. It then explores how authorities wrestled with the problems of compensation and restitution wherever fugitives crossed political boundaries. It also highlights several dimensions of legal pluralism that played out in the slave societies in the Caribbean with respect to inter-imperial marronage. Finally, it explains how the interests of fugitive slaves combined with those of the Spanish Crown to influence the empire's legal order.
Vincent L. Wimbush
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190664701
- eISBN:
- 9780190664725
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190664701.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter is exploration of the conditions and reasons for the near destruction of the villagers who are ensnared by the colonial project and its forms of violence. Beyond expropriation of their ...
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This chapter is exploration of the conditions and reasons for the near destruction of the villagers who are ensnared by the colonial project and its forms of violence. Beyond expropriation of their land, the villagers face erasure of their local customs and traditions, their rituals, their language, their rhythms, and so forth, as the colonial power commandeers discourse itself. We are presented a frightening picture of the destructive work that scriptures—texts, yes, but more broadly, textual and discursive politics—can be made to do. The new religion and its government—the British colonials—effectively tear Umuofians from their own world. Such rupture is evident to most Umuofians. Beyond honest recognition of things having fallen apart, the challenge is to figure out what to make of the rupture.Less
This chapter is exploration of the conditions and reasons for the near destruction of the villagers who are ensnared by the colonial project and its forms of violence. Beyond expropriation of their land, the villagers face erasure of their local customs and traditions, their rituals, their language, their rhythms, and so forth, as the colonial power commandeers discourse itself. We are presented a frightening picture of the destructive work that scriptures—texts, yes, but more broadly, textual and discursive politics—can be made to do. The new religion and its government—the British colonials—effectively tear Umuofians from their own world. Such rupture is evident to most Umuofians. Beyond honest recognition of things having fallen apart, the challenge is to figure out what to make of the rupture.
Jesse Cromwell
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781469636887
- eISBN:
- 9781469636948
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469636887.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Chapter 7 analyzes Afro-Caribbeans as participants in illicit commerce, but it also discusses smuggling’s impact on slavery in the coastal circum-Caribbean. People of color were involved in smuggling ...
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Chapter 7 analyzes Afro-Caribbeans as participants in illicit commerce, but it also discusses smuggling’s impact on slavery in the coastal circum-Caribbean. People of color were involved in smuggling not only as contraband cargo to Venezuela but also often as active workers in the illegal marketplace. This chapter asks how smugglers amalgamated the slavery apparatus of Venezuela and its surrounding foreign colonies into the black market. Furthermore, how did Africans being trafficked illegally and smuggling conducted by the enslaved alter notions of property, criminality, and subjecthood? Venezuelan planters frequently sent their slaves to trade with unlicensed foreign merchants. These traders, in turn, sometimes employed enslaved people as sailors or porters on smuggling ventures. For enslaved and free people of color alike, contraband trade carried the prospects of wage earning and greater autonomy in labor, but also the risks of captivity and enslavement in Spanish dominions. The embargo of foreign contraband vessels produced thorny questions regarding the freedom or bondage of the slaves aboard. Competing legal jurisdictions, temporary manumissions, and opportunities for marronage only compounded these uncertainties.Less
Chapter 7 analyzes Afro-Caribbeans as participants in illicit commerce, but it also discusses smuggling’s impact on slavery in the coastal circum-Caribbean. People of color were involved in smuggling not only as contraband cargo to Venezuela but also often as active workers in the illegal marketplace. This chapter asks how smugglers amalgamated the slavery apparatus of Venezuela and its surrounding foreign colonies into the black market. Furthermore, how did Africans being trafficked illegally and smuggling conducted by the enslaved alter notions of property, criminality, and subjecthood? Venezuelan planters frequently sent their slaves to trade with unlicensed foreign merchants. These traders, in turn, sometimes employed enslaved people as sailors or porters on smuggling ventures. For enslaved and free people of color alike, contraband trade carried the prospects of wage earning and greater autonomy in labor, but also the risks of captivity and enslavement in Spanish dominions. The embargo of foreign contraband vessels produced thorny questions regarding the freedom or bondage of the slaves aboard. Competing legal jurisdictions, temporary manumissions, and opportunities for marronage only compounded these uncertainties.
