Emancipated slaves kept control of plantations while former masters petitioned bureaucracies for return

Evidence

The men and women who occupied them, however, seemed quite content to be left alone. Descourtilz described a stubborn and brazen refusal on the part of ex-slaves to give up the gains they had been freed. For many planters, the tables were turned in a particularly distressing way, for they found their plantations in the hands of one of their former slaves. As they waited for the local bureaucracy to consider their requests to take back their lands, they were at the mercy of those they had once owned. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 798

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of the revolution’s meaning hinging on land control, a thread running through black freedom movements in the Americas.