## Religious and cultural resistance  
In Catholic lands, the enslaved population was excluded from the white community but included in the spiritual realm. Baptism of the 'heathens' was obligatory, but Muslims were hard to convert, as noted by Father Jean-Baptiste Labat, who was posted in the French Caribbean from 1693 to 1705: 'When they [Muslims from Senegal] are brought in the islands, it is better not to take them, for they never embrace the Christian religion'. This was also the opinion of Father Vidaud, who worked in eighteenth-century Martinique (Debien, 1974, p. 254; Du Tertre, 1868, p. 106; Labat, 1979, p. 203).  
Given that overt defiance was met with harsh punishments, many Muslims pragmatically underwent fake conversions. In nineteenth-century Brazil, the French envoy Arthur de Gobineau stated:  
Most of the Minas, if not all, are outwardly Christians, but they are actually Muslims, but as this religion would not be tolerated in Brazil, they bide this fact [...] Notwithstanding  
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[^0]:    2 Wolof from Senegambia, many of whom were Muslim.  
outward appearances, I have been able to ascertain that they faithfully cherish the beliefs they bring with them from Africa and zealously hand them on, since they study Arabic thoroughly enough to understand the Koran, at least roughly (Raeders, 1934, p. 75).  
As forced conversions became the policy in Protestant colonies in the late 1700s, the Muslims' response was similar. In 1834 in Kingston, Jamaica, Richard Madden noted that 'very few' Muslims renounced their religion. 'But this they do not acknowledge because they are afraid to do so' (Madden, 1835, p. 102).