Colonial racial ideas circulated bidirectionally between metropole and province.

Evidence

According to one account, when Galbaud complained to Sonthonax about his actions against whites in the town, the commissioner responded, “Understand, citizen, that the only thing white about me is my skin.” Galbaud retorted that he had heard that Sonthonax had a “black soul” but was surprised that he admitted it so readily. The perhaps apocryphal story of the exchange played on the two meanings of “black,” suggesting Sonthonax as both evil and a friend of the slaves and enemy of the whites. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 539 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Colonial racial rationalization seeped back into the imperial metropoles; Metropolitan equivocation on free-colored rights planted the seeds of colonial conflict. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 296; British race-relations thought drew on South Africa and the colonial empire — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 661 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Metropolitan commissioners broke with white colonists’ racial worldview #complicates (0.76) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 539
• Metropole-colony analytic unity was itself a dilemma of colonial rule #complicates (0.74)