Michel Foucault's Definition Of Slave Resistance

Michel Foucault once said “ Where there is power , there is resistance.” Foucault’s def-inition of power transcends what we often resonate it with in regards to status or politi-cal standing with in a community. He refers to it as something that is not socially con-structed but rather something more elusive. The way that Foucault defines power em-bodies exactly what unfolded within the African Diaspora so that there could be a tri-umphant resistance. The resistance to slavery was global and persistent. Despite the age, color , or sex of a person, an anti slavery mentality was usual. Unbeknownst to a lot of people and unacknowledged in a lot of historical texts women played a major role in slave resistance. Religious groups too played a fundamental role in the rebellion.
As many historians know , the “Slave Narrative Collection” was used as a prima-ry source for quite sometime.
The topic of slave resistance is nothing new and has been a topic of discussion for a very long time. Post World War I , U.B. Phillips published a very “paternalistic” view of slave history and portrayed blacks as racially inferior. Ac-companied by this assumption , Phillips also said that their was very little evidence of Black revolts in the United States. Such behavior would be incompatible with his claims against a submissive natured group of people who he categorized as stupid , docile , in-constant , negligent and inept. Until about 1943 , the image of slavery in the South remained unquestioned and universally accepted. In 1943 a book was published challenging all of Phillips paternal-ism theories. Herbery Aptheker’s book “American Negro Slave Revolts testifies the re-bellions. Of the many short comings of slave history, one of the biggest is the inclusion of the participation of slave
women.

Verene Shephered in the “Introduction of Women in Caribbean History” men-tions various reasons for the possible reasons for female exclusion in history. One being historians