Conspiracy, Sedition, Rebellion: Categories and Concepts in Black Resistance Studies

• In Event: Black Internationalism and Diasporic Politics

Abstract

Resistance movements are always understood along a spectrum of types. From conspiracy to protest, from riot to rebellion, a litany of categories are available for us to choose from as we try to understand different episodes of resistance in their historical contexts. Yet in the process of arguing for particular categories over others in the study of resistance movements, historians often attempt to establish clear criteria for what constitutes a true “conspiracy” or a true “rebellion” or a true “independence movement.” Focusing on the realness of a movement, or to what degree it represents a distinct example of one or another category overlooks the ways that many movements inhabited a range of categories over the duration of their existence. In other words, what is occluded from our view in debates about whether a movement belongs to one category or another is the simple fact that movements often move and seldom occur within the framework of one categorical index. This paper examines this problematic through a study of three resistance movements: Denmark Vessey’s Conspiracy of 1822 in Charleston, South Carolina, the Aponte Conspiracy of 1812 in Cuba, and the Tailor’s Conspiracy of 1798 in Bahia, Brazil. Though the degree to which each of these events were conspiracies has been debated extensively, the degree to which they moved to or from other types of resistance movements becomes lost in these debates. I thus argue for studying Diasporic resistance movements along a spectrum of categories. I emphasize both the flexibility of black political thought in times of conflict, as well as the difficulty that contemporary elites had in naming and fixing most “conspiracies” within that single framework.

Author

• Greg Childs, Brandeis University