French strategy relied on exemplary terror executions to disarm rebels

Evidence

French officers sought to terrorize the rebels into submission. Giving the order to execute “five negroes” who had been stopped by a patrol with weapons and bayonets, one officer announced: “It is only through terrible examples that we will succeed in disarming the country and give this important colony back its splendor and its prosperity.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 1000