Insurgent slave leaders sought negotiated freedom for themselves at the expense of the masses.

Evidence

Jean-François and Biassou took advantage of the opportunity presented them and put forth a plan to end the insurrection. The assembly would grant several hundred “liberties” to the insurgent leaders, who would distribute them among their officers. The mass of the insurgents who were not granted freedom would be granted an amnesty from punishment. In return, the leaders would end the war and bring them back to their plantations. Jean-François and Biassou presented themselves as leaders eager to contain their more radical followers, and recommended that a proclamation be issued to the slaves assuring them that the assembly would “take care of their situation.” But they also threatened that if their proposals were refused, “a horrible carnage” might ensue, including the death of “the white prisoners, and white women.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 428

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the internal hierarchy within slave insurgencies—leaders bargaining for their own liberty echoes patterns in other Atlantic slave revolts and anticipates the internal class conflicts of the revolution.
• QUESTION: Were Jean-François and Biassou genuinely willing to abandon the rank-and-file, or was this a tactical opening bid? The gap between leaders’ ambitions and mass goals recurs through the revolution.