The Sociology of Slavery

Black Society in Jamaica, 1655-1838

Orlando Patterson

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781509550999
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sozialwissenschaften
• Subtopic: Soziologie

Orlando Patterson's classic study of slavery in Jamaica reveals slavery for what it was: a highly repressive and destructive system of human exploitation, which disregarded and distorted almost all of the basic prerequisites of normal social life. What distinguishes Patterson's account is his detailed description of the lives and culture of slaves under this repressive regime. He analyses the conditions of slave life and work on the plantations, the psychological life of slaves and the patterns and meanings of life and death. He shows that the real-life situation of slaves and enslavers involved a complete breakdown of all major social institutions, including the family, gender relations, religion, trust and morality. And yet, despite the repressiveness and protracted genocide of the regime, slaves maintained some space of their own, and their forced adjustment to white norms did not mean that they accepted them. Slave culture was characterized by a persistent sense of resentment and injustice, which underpinned the day-to-day resistance and large-scale rebellions that were a constant feature of slave society, the last and greatest of which partly accounts for its abolition.

This second edition includes a new introduction by Orlando Patterson, which explains the origins of the book, appraises subsequent works on Jamaican slavery, and reflects on its enduring relevance. Widely recognized as a foundational work on the social institution of slavery, this book is an essential text for anyone interested in the role of slavery in shaping the modern world.

CHAPTER VII
Social Institutions of the Slaves

1. WITCHCRAFT, SORCERY AND RELIGION

IN THIS and the following chapter we shall examine the supernatural beliefs and practices of the slaves in conjunction with their other main forms of behaviour. This will entail an analysis of their internal economy; their recreational patterns; and their internal forms of social control. We shall begin with their supernatural views and practices.

PART I
SUPERNATURAL BELIEFS AND PRACTICES OF AFRICAN ORIGIN

This aspect of the slaves’ lives may be considered under two heads. First, the survivals of African supernatural behaviour as they were reshaped during slavery; and secondly, the impact of Christianity on the slaves. The latter was of no real significance until the last three or four decades of slavery and will be considered last. The former, which we shall presently consider, was neither approved of nor fully understood by the whites, and this includes those on whose writings we must depend for data.

In one respect, however, our position is far better than that of contemporary observers in that we are now able to draw upon a wealth of anthropological material on Africa. This material clarifies much that must have appeared utterly confusing in this aspect of the slaves’ lives as seen through the eyes of the contemporary chroniclers. Our present knowledge of African tribal life makes it possible for us to re-read the descriptions of the chroniclers and extract from their statements implications of which they themselves were not aware. Where the chroniclers are too vague, or silent, we have the assistance of modern sociological researches into the life of the descendants of the slaves, the findings of which are significant with regard to the light they throw on the past.

Let us begin then, with a few observations on the African background of the slaves as it relates to this aspect of their lives. There is a remarkable uniformity in the supernatural beliefs of all West African Negroes. We have already noted Daryll Forde’s and Herskovits’ concurrence on this fact. Other writers may be cited. Geoffrey Parrinder has made a careful examination of the literature on West African religions and has demonstrated the uniformity in these beliefs all over the Guinea coast.¹ This is even more true of witchcraft and sorcery beliefs. Here there is a continuous process of external influence due to the strong belief that the magical practices of a neighbouring or distant tribe are always more powerful than one’s own.²

Further a clear distinction was often drawn between the different categories of the supernatural. This may seem an obvious point but its importance will be demonstrated later. Field has given us what is perhaps the clearest account of these categories in relation to West Africa. The primary distinctions are those between religion, medicine, and witchcraft. The main features of West African religion are the beliefs in a supreme being too remote to be active in the ordinary affairs of man; the worship of a pantheon of gods which are usually non-human spirits associated with natural forces; ancestor worship; and the belief in and use of charms and fetishes. Revolving around these various areas of beliefs are large numbers of cults.

Medicine in West Africa means anything which possesses a ‘power’ or ‘breath of life’ and ‘is the abode of a spiritual being or won’.³ A won is morally neutral and can be employed for either evil or good, ‘as long as the proper ceremonies are performed’.⁴ On this basis, the Ga, like other West African peoples,⁵ make a distinction between the good medicine-man (wontfe) who uses a combination of good medicine and ordinary herbs for good purposes only; and the bad medicine-man (wontfulo) who is ‘exclusively engaged in killing and harming and is employed by people who wish to hurt others’.⁶

Witchcraft, on the other hand, has nothing to do with either bad medicine-men, or the tangible embodiment of their medicines. Witchcraft is defined by Field as: ‘a bad medicine directed destructively against other people, but its distinctive feature is that there is no palpable apparatus connected with it, no rites, ceremonies, incantations, or invocations that the witch has to perform.’⁷* The precise nature and function of witchcraft and witchcraft-beliefs has attracted a considerable amount of anthropological interest and speculation.⁸ From the various points of view advanced on the subject we may select the structural framework – the main proponents of which are Nadel and Wilson – as being most useful for our purposes. According to Nadel:

Witchcraft beliefs enable a society to go on functioning in a given manner, fraught with conflicts and contradictions which the society is helpless to resolve; the witchcraft beliefs thus absolve the society from a task apparently too difficult for it, namely, some radical readjustment.⁹

Monica Wilson emphasizes the moral and psychological functions of such beliefs in her study of the Nyakyusa, writing that witchcraft ‘is perhaps the main sanction for moral behaviour within the village’.¹⁰ People who are moody, solitary, irascible and generally not ‘good company’, who are proud and unsociable, tend to be those who are accused of witchcraft. Witchcraft victims are also people whose conspicuous happiness or success arouses envy. The Nyakyusa recognize that the type of person accused of witchcraft is usually himself a ‘victim’ of the society, feeling isolated, unwanted and inadequate.¹¹ Very common among African peoples too, is the belief that illness is caused by a witch eating the Kla (to use the Akan term meaning life-blood) of another.¹²

In the light of the above observations, let us now examine the material relating to the subject during slavery in Jamaica. To begin with, it must be noted that the clearly defined categories of supernatural practices which one finds in Africa were not to be found in Jamaica, where elements of ancestor worship, of the various divinities and of the cult of the dead, were all incoherently combined in the supernatural beliefs of the slaves.

The two words used by writers on Jamaica to describe these beliefs were obeah¹³ and myalism. Obeah or Obi was sometimes used in the generic sense to designate all forms of supernatural beliefs and practices among the slaves, including myalism. This is the sense in which it is used both by Long¹⁴ and in the Fuller report,¹⁵ But generally a distinction was drawn between obeah proper and myalism in which the latter was seen as the opposite of the former.

There has been some controversy regarding the etymology of these words.¹⁶ Williams and later Cassidy suggest the Twi word bayi, meaning witchcraft.¹⁷ However, the closely related Twi word obeye (which in pronunciation is far closer to the Jamaican word) seems more convincing, especially in view of the f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Introduction to the 2022 Edition: Life and Scholarship in the Shadow of Slavery
• Preface
• I The Masters: An Overall View of Slavery
• II The Slave Plantation: Its Socio-Economic Structure
• III The Treatment of the Slaves in Law and Custom
• IV An Analysis of the Slave Population of Jamaica
• V The Tribal Origins of the Jamaican Slaves
• VI The Socialization and Personality Structure of the Slave
• VII Social Institutions of the Slaves: 1 Witchcraft, Sorcery and Religion
• VIII Social Institutions of the Slaves: 2 Economy, Recreation and Control
• IX The Mechanisms of Resistance to Slavery 260
• X The Cultural and Social Development of Jamaica: 1655–1865
• Appendix 1: Stephen Fuller’s Account of the Number of Negroes imported and exported at Jamaica each year, 1702–1775
• Appendix 2: Exports from Jamaica, 1768
• Appendix 3: General Return from the Island of Jamaica, for Fifty-Three Years, ending 31st December 1836, abstracted from the Journals of the House Assembly
• Appendix 4: Output, Income and Expenditure in 1832
• Appendix 5: Manuscripts and Official Publications Consulted
• Appendix 6: Europeans in West Africa; Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries
• Appendix 7: Africa as known to Europeans in the Mid- Eighteenth Century
• Plate Credits
• Index
• Plates
• End User License Agreement