Charging enemies with planning to restore slavery was the standard Saint-Domingue smear tactic

Evidence

Soon after Villatte’s attempted coup was defeated, the new commissioners named by the Directory arrived in Saint-Domingue. In addition to the new French constitution, they carried tens of thousands of guns for the colony’s army. Sonthonax’s return was celebrated in Le Cap, where the streets were packed with “good citizens” and “lined with flowers.” The great emancipator had returned. Curiously, though, some spread the rumor—which had become, and would remain, the standard method for discrediting one’s enemies in Saint-Domingue—that he had come to reestablish slavery. The commissioner did everything he could to dispel this impression as he sought to complete what he had begun in 1793, suspending all ongoing litigation involving the sale of slaves, outlawing racial insults, and threatening those who criticized emancipation with deportation. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 707

Categorization

• XREF: Recalls the reader’s interest in how accusation-rhetoric functions as a political weapon — the slavery-restoration rumor as the period’s version of a discrediting meme.