France’s racial reversal is embodied in the fates of the 1794 deputies

Evidence

The racial egalitarianism of 1794 had been replaced by a reinvigorated racist regime. The extent to which times had changed was made clear by the fate of the three men who had come from Saint-Domingue bringing news of Sonthonax’s emancipation in 1794, and who had been showered with applause in the National Convention as living symbols of the end of the “aristocracy of the skin.” In March 1802 the African-born Jean-Baptiste Belley was arrested by Leclerc and deported to France. … His onetime colleague Jean-Baptiste Mills, who was of mixed African and European descent, was arrested and deported to Corsica, where he was joined by hundreds of other deportees from the Caribbean who were condemned to forced labor on the island. The white member of the three-man group, Louis Dufay, who had given the speech celebrating the emancipation Sonthonax had proclaimed in Saint- Domingue, was left free and given permission to return to Saint-Domingue. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1005

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Poignant bookend to earlier chapters on the 1794 National Convention celebration — illustrates how completely France reversed its racial politics.