French atrocities united the revolution by alienating mixed-race French loyalists

Evidence

An expert in atrocity, Rochambeau “ordered his victims (both military and civilian) burned alive, drowned in sacks, hung, crucified, asphyxiated by sulphur fumes in ships’ holds,” and “shot (after digging their shallow graves).” His brutality, like Leclerc’s terror, proved counterproductive: it helped expand and cement the alliance that proved crucial for the final victory of the revolutionary army in Saint-Domingue. Just as French killings of colonial troops had united Alexandre Pétion and Jean-Jacques Dessalines—who just a few years before had faced off against each other during the brutal war between Louverture and Rigaud—Rochambeau’s actions alienated the most steadfast supporters of the French: portions of the communities of color in the west and south who powerfully resented Louverture and who initially viewed the French as saviors. Witnessing and suffering from the racial violence of Rochambeau, most of these supporters realized that their only hope for survival was to join the revolution. Racist delirium shattered the last fragments of moral authority the French had in Saint-Domingue. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1033

Categorization

• XREF: The pattern of state terror backfiring by unifying its enemies recalls similar dynamics in the Algerian and Vietnamese independence struggles.
• DEEPTHINKING: French ‘racist delirium’ erasing the earlier color-line alliance that had defined the Republican era in the colony is a dense, pivotal observation about how terror reconstructs political identity.