Well actually it was the other way around. The former slaves used to maco Massa doing this in the Carnival fetes and street parades. Our J'Ouvert is derived from the European Carnival that was praticed in Trindad 1780's -1838. The majority of characters were 'africanized' versions of the European ones and parodies of their 'masters'. The only one to come through almost untouched was the Jab Jab, the stick fighting talent was the African part. It was common for the plantocracy class to dress up/down and play slaves thmselves,like the Negue Jardin.

Bats and Robbers came much later in the 19th century and were not derived from this. Those have seperate histories altogether and were never really part of J'Ouvert.

And remember, although Carnival has its pagan roots, it was the Roman Catholic Church that adopted it as a kind of 'festival' to gradually convert pagans over into the Church. It was a prelude to Lent, this is why its butt up aganist Ash Wednesday. Christams is also pagan based feastival as is many things of daily life. But doh get meh started on this this early morning.