Haitian independence made American enslavers fear a local uprising

Evidence

The emergence of a sovereign Black nation, rising from the ashes of France’s most profitable slave colony, represented the culmination of white people’s deepest fears and Black people’s deepest hopes. After all, if the enslaved in Haiti could have a successful rebellion, defeat multiple armies, and establish a sovereign country, couldn’t the same thing happen elsewhere? Perhaps in their very midst? — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 374

Categorization

• XREF: The contagious-example dynamic parallels the moral panic and contagion dynamics the reader has studied in other contexts.