Free people of color deserted colonial forces to join the insurgents with weapons.

Evidence

African veterans were not the only ones who brought military experience to the insurgents. Although they were a minority, there were also free people of African descent in the insurgent camps, some of whom had expef i r e i n t h e c a n e 109 rience of serving in the French colonial militia or the maréchaussée. Many of them brought more than just experience. In late September a group of “mulattoes and free negroes” who had been serving against the insurgents deserted “with arms, baggage, and military stores” and “joined the rebels.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 373

Categorization

• XREF: Illustrates the fragile loyalty of free colored militiamen to the white colonial regime—an instability that matters for the broader plantocracy narrative.