Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of History
First Advisor
Candice Goucher
Term of Graduation
Spring 1998
Date of Publication
1998
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.) in History
Department
History
Language
English
Subjects
Blacks -- Tobago -- Religion, Tobago -- Religious life and customs, Slavery -- Tobago
DOI
10.15760/etd.8148
Physical Description
1 online resource (iii, 190 pages)
Abstract
This thesis examines African religion as a form of cultural resistance to slavery in pre-emancipation Tobago. African religion was a tool of resistance to enslavement and oppression in pre-emancipation colonial Tobago. African religion acted as a source of empowerment, cohesion, and identity at a time when the colonial authorities in Tobago were attempting to strip the African of his/her Culture. This research examines the social dimensions of this struggle for religious/cultural supremacy between master and the enslaved African.
The purpose of this study is to show that the colonial authorities in Tobago, in order to sustain their basic economy had to "break" the Africans in order to make them obedient slaves who would ensure orderly production. Through indoctrination and physical bondage the "instruction of containment" was created by the colonial authorities. It was through that acculturation process that the master would bring about the total acceptance of the slave status by the enslaved African in Tobago. This process never fully occurred because the African resisted the process of acculturation through the dynamic process of religious adaptation syncretism and survival. The preservation of African religion was essential to the physical and psychological resistance to slavery. Most historians have considered Tobago's military and/or economic experience as central to understanding the past. The author advances the position that the social dimensions of African religion in Tobago served as a form of cultural resistance to slavery.
Rights
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Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/39510
Recommended Citation
Essiet, Okokon Okon, "The Persistence of African Religious Beliefs and Practices as Cultural Resistance to Slavery in Pre-emancipation Colonial Tobago" (1998). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 6288.
https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.8148
Comments
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