Free-coloreds switched their allegiance from local planters to the metropolitan government

Evidence

General Bauvais would explain that the free-coloreds had never been the “dupes” of the wealthy planters, having joined with them only because they needed “auxiliaries” as they struggled for their rights. “If the devil had presented himself, we would have recruited him,” he declared. The freecoloreds, in any case, no longer needed their local white allies, for they had gained an even more powerful ally: the metropolitan government, which increasingly came to depend on them as its base of power in the colony. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 472

Categorization

• CANDY: ‘If the devil had presented himself, we would have recruited him’ is a memorable, tweetable line about revolutionary pragmatism.
• XREF: connects to: Metropolitan equivocation on free-colored rights planted the seeds of colonial conflict. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 296; Free coloreds resented white governors ruling their own colony — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 690; Frontier racial hardening followed the waning of metropolitan civilizing norms — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1368 (+2 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Metropolitan equivocation on free-colored rights planted the seeds of colonial conflict. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 296; Free coloreds resented white governors ruling their own colony — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 690; Frontier racial hardening followed the waning of metropolitan civilizing norms — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1368 (+2 more)