Even loyal slaveholders abandoned Saint-Domingue once slaves had rebelled

Evidence

Her slaves had not rebelled, and no insurgents had reached her plantation. Her husband, the marquis de Rouvray, was leading troops that had kept the insurgents out of the region. Still, Madame de Rouvray announced resolutely that they would have to leave Saint-Domingue, “for how can one stay in a country where slaves have raised their hands against their masters?” They might go to Havana, where they could find land and rebuild a plantation with their slaves—“if we are lucky enough to preserve them from the contagion.” If it became impossible to live as slave masters in Saint-Domingue, Cuba would have to do—even if its customs were “quite opposed to our own.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 390

Categorization

• XREF: The fear of insurrectionary ‘contagion’ spreading to Cuba matches the wider Atlantic-world panic that eventually feeds US slaveholders’ anxieties and later Cuban slavery’s expansion. — connects to: Saint-Domingue’s revolution was driven by slaves, not slave owners; Napoleon’s attempt to restore slavery in Saint-Domingue failed — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 19
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Saint-Domingue’s revolution was driven by slaves, not slave owners; Napoleon’s attempt to restore slavery in Saint-Domingue failed — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 19