Some slaves departed sharply enough from the "Sambo" image to become leaders in insurrections.

These men were usually urban slaves possessing unusual talents, and thereby escaping much of the emasculation which the typical slave had to endure.
Emphasizing the slave as the victim of the slave system further reduces him to a passive object by insisting that the slave was effectively detached from his African heritage.

Many scholars, including Elkins, believe that the attempt to discover Africanisms in America by researchers such as Melville J.

Herskovits has led to trivial and insignificant results.

This belief is reinforced by the example of the German concentration camps.