A French colonial decree outlawed racial distinctions among free people in the Americas

Evidence

From that day forward, there would be only two categories of people in the colonies, free and enslaved; and there would be no racial distinctions among the free. It was a dramatic step. In the heart of the slave societies of the Americas, legal distinctions on the basis of race were outlawed. With free-coloreds so numerous in Saint-Domingue, the decree assured that people of African descent would have significant political power. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 445

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how slaveries across the Americas maintained race-based legal hierarchies; France briefly broke the pattern.