Free people of color defected to Britain to keep slaves while preserving racial equality.
Evidence
In much of the west, notably in Saint-Marc, free people of color dominated political life. Like white planters, most free-colored property owners were infuriated by the emancipation decree and sought a solution that would allow them to remain masters. At the same time, however, they did not want to give up the right to racial equality they had gained through the April 4 decree. When, in February, Saint-Domingue planters in London had offered to hand over Saint-Domingue to the British, they proposed that propertied free people of color retain “the same rights as the whites.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 574
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Echoes the earlier free-colored struggle for citizenship and property in prior chapters.
Related
- British capitulation stripped free people of color of their full racial equality (similarity 0.87)
- France reversed its May 15 concession to free people of color (similarity 0.85)
- British occupation of Saint-Domingue reimposed racial discrimination that alienated free-coloreds (similarity 0.85)
- Saint-Domingue whites built a racist democratization that excluded free people of color (similarity 0.83)
- The slave uprising drove France to grant political rights to free-coloreds (similarity 0.82)
- British fear of colonial precedent drove them to impose racial discrimination in occupied Saint-Domingue (similarity 0.81)
- Free people of color miscalculated that selective emancipation would preserve slavery (similarity 0.81)
- The slave uprising in Saint-Domingue shifted the French revolution into granting racial equality (similarity 0.79)
- The 1791 decree enfranchised only free-born coloreds, excluding the recently freed (similarity 0.79)
- White planters rejected free-colored allies because prejudice sustained slavery (similarity 0.78)
- Free people of color deserted colonial forces to join the insurgents with weapons. (similarity 0.78)
- White colonists argued that even free-colored rights would shatter slave obedience (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- Slave insurgency forced racial equality as a means to preserve slavery
#corroborates(0.80) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 446 - British occupation of Saint-Domingue reimposed racial discrimination that alienated free-coloreds
#contradicts(0.70) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 623 - British capitulation stripped free people of color of their full racial equality
#qualifies(0.60) - Colonial administrators promoted racial division to secure white loyalty and preserve slavery
#complicates(0.50) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 229