ABSTRACT
This chapter provides Resistance, refusal to conform or obey: this could be collective, but is most likely to be small-scale and personal. Then Rebellion, a threat to the established order, attack on the ruling class or controlling authorities of an unequal society. Finally Revolution, following much the same violent process as a rebellion, but with an alternative social or political order in mind to be created at the end of the process. The most striking aspect of the rebellions in British colonies in the 1790s was the role of the free, mostly French-speaking, smallholders in framing the grievances and leading the resistance. The revolution began as a challenge to French imperial authority by colonial whites, but it soon became a battle over racial inequality, and then over the existence of slavery itself. The colonial structures set up by Europeans in the colonies were deeply unequal and exploitative, inevitably generated resistance and conflict at both personal and collective levels.
