Enlightenment abolitionists warned that emancipation had to precede and preempt slave revolt

Evidence

The passages in Raynal and Mercier were intended as both indictment and warning. Mercier appended a note to his powerful portrait of the “Avenger,” spoken from the eighteenth-century present: “This hero will probably spare the generous Quakers who have just granted liberty to their negroes in a memorable and touching era that made me cry tears of joy, and will make me detest those Christians who do not imitate them.” There, was, then, a way to avoid carnage and revenge. Slavery must be abolished by the Europeans, before the slaves abolished it—and their masters— themselves. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 210

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ADDENDUM article on sacrifice — abolition framed as a choice between voluntary release and violent destruction echoes the sacrifice-love logic.