Freed laborers chose free time over pay, trusting their own plots more than wages

Evidence

Many plantation laborers, however, saw the new policy as a retraction of their rights. In his 1793 labor regulations, Sonthonax had required cultivators to sign one-year contracts on their plantations, after which they were permitted to move to another plantation if they wished. Rigaud’s administration in the south had instituted a similar practice. Louverture had consistently ordered workers to return to their plantations, but he had not issued regulations regarding the length of their terms of contracts. In the areas under his control many former slaves seem to have moved between plantations, seeking better treatment or the company of family and friends, with relative impunity. In the increase in the terms of the contracts, some smelled the scent of slavery. A few laborers claimed they would rather “live in the woods their whole life” than sign three-year contracts, and in some towns the registers in which the contracts were to be signed were ripped up. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 770 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Freed slaves feared the uncertainty of independent work more than slavery’s abuses.; Freed women chose free time over higher pay, trusting their own plots; Freed slaves turned ruined plantations into independent subsistence family plots (+1 more)

Related

• Freed slaves feared the uncertainty of independent work more than slavery’s abuses. (similarity 0.92)
• Former slaves resisted longer labor contracts as a return to slavery (similarity 0.87)
• Freed slaves valued autonomous garden-plot time over higher paid plantation wages (similarity 0.81)
• Former slaves valued free time over higher plantation wages (similarity 0.81)
• Ex-slaves built a subsistence-based rural economy on former plantations (similarity 0.80)
• Former slaves actively resisted contract labor that smelled of a return to slavery. (similarity 0.79)
• Former slaves revolted against Louverture fearing he would restore slavery. (similarity 0.79)
• Louverture forced freed people to stay working on the plantations, opposing their own aspirations (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Freed women chose free time over higher pay, trusting their own plots #corroborates (0.95)
• Freed slaves turned ruined plantations into independent subsistence family plots #expands (0.60)
• Former slaves resisted longer labor contracts as a return to slavery #complicates (0.40) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 770