"Focuses on role of slave resistance, e.g., revolts, flight, messianic movements, land invasions, etc., and on efforts of urban ex-slaves and mixed bloods in the abolitionist process. The authorities and the press played down such activities for fear of panicking the white population, but by the 1880s there was clear evidence of a growing loss of social control and a spreading fear of a breakdown in public order"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.