Colonial masters were astonished that slaves they deemed incapable organized a vast revolt

Evidence

“There is a motor that powers them and that keeps powering them and that we cannot come to know,” Pierre Mossut wrote to Gallifet of the insurgents. “All experienced colonists know that this class of men have neither the energy nor the combination of ideas necessary for the execution of this project, whose realization they nevertheless are marching toward with perseverance.” Although many had been captured and questioned, “all observed obstinate silence when questioned about who armed them and incited this odious trance.” What was happening was impossible, and yet it was happening before his very eyes. Other masters were also bewildered by the success of the insurrection. “How could we ever have known that there reigned among these men, so numerous and formerly so passive, such a concerted accord that everything was carried out exactly as was declared?” one asked. A revolution was under way, but no one—not its victims, not those who were marching across the northern plain of Saint- Domingue seeking freedom and vengeance—knew how far it would go or where it would take them. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 329

Categorization

• QUESTION: The slaves’ ‘obstinate silence’ about who organized and armed them is striking — what did captured rebels reveal, and how did the insurrection’s leadership structure work before commanders like Boukman emerged publicly?