Kongo slaves dominated mountain regions and supplied key insurgent leaders.
Evidence
The Kongos were especially dominant in the mountains, where many coffee plantations had been founded in the second half of the eighteenth century. In the decade before the revolution they made up at least half the slave population on coffee plantations in the Northern and Western Provinces. In some mountain regions of Saint-Domingue, languages of the Kongo region were probably spoken as commonly as creole and French. In the Northern Province they also accounted for 40 percent of slaves on sugar plantations in the years before the revolution. Among these Kongo slaves were men like Macaya and Sans-Souci, who would become leaders of insurgent bands, and eventually of revolutionary armies, in the Northern Province. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 154
Categorization
Category: Connection Points
- XREF: Names Macaya and Sans-Souci, insurgent leaders who appear later in the revolution’s story.
Related
- Kongo-born slaves dominated the mountains and produced future revolutionary leaders (similarity 0.96)
- Kongo-speaking slaves dominated mountain coffee plantations in the Northern and Western Provinces (similarity 0.94)
- Kongo political traditions contributed revolutionary ideas as much as France did. (similarity 0.82)
- Kongo captives were the largest slave group imported to Saint-Domingue. (similarity 0.81)
- Kongolese veterans brought guerrilla warfare tactics that defeated French troops. (similarity 0.78)
- Plantations mixed slaves from a bewildering array of African nations. (similarity 0.78)