French authorities actively censored transatlantic information reaching slaves
Evidence
Already in July 1789, several slave women who had arrived in a French port from Saint-Domingue had been detained and sent back to the colonies by port authorities concerned about what they might learn in continental France and communicate back to the colony. In August one member of the Club Massiac proposed that all “blacks or mulattoes” arriving from Europe be banned from entering Saint-Domingue, and in September the club wrote to merchants in the port towns asking them to prevent individuals of African descent from embarking for the colonies. Several ship captains sent assurances that they would do so. Attempts to control the flow of information would continue: in April 1790 local officials directed Le Cap’s postal director “to stop all arriving or departing letters that are addressed to mulattoes or slaves and to deliver these letters to the municipality.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 268
Categorization
Category: Factual Claims
- QUESTION: How effective was this censorship, and did the detention of returned slaves itself spread word of revolutionary events?
Related
- French authorities tried to stop slaves from carrying revolutionary ideas back to the colonies. (similarity 0.86)