Colonial administrative disputes in the 1780s fed Saint-Domingue’s push for self-government

Evidence

In the same year, while Martinique and Guadeloupe were granted the right to create colonial assemblies, Saint-Domingue was not. Moreau was in Saint-Domingue at the time, and he and his colleagues in the Cercle des Philadelphes openly attacked these decisions and the “despotic” administration that passed laws without consultation with the colony. In the process they helped lay the foundation for the demands for self-government that would later explode into open rebellion. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 119

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Saint-Domingue’s denial of colonial assembly rights fueled the self-government demands that preceded rebellion (similarity 0.94)
• The conflict hinged on whether metropolitan or colonial authority would govern Saint-Domingue (similarity 0.82)
• Colonial institutional rivalries escalated dangerously amid slave reform and war (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial planters’ smuggling undermined French imperial authority in Saint-Domingue (similarity 0.79)