Le Cap burned again eight years to the day after French abolition was decreed.

Evidence

Christophe made good on his threat and ordered his soldiers to set the town alight. For the second time in a decade, it was devoured by flames. It was February 4—eight years to the day since the abolition of slavery had been decreed in Paris. Despite all the protestations made by Leclerc and Bonaparte, many in Saint-Domingue believed that liberty itself was at stake. Several months later one of Louverture’s colonels, the African-born Sans-Souci, would describe the officers serving with him as “defenders of liberty.” As it turned out, they had good reason. As Leclerc would later admit, a few “negroes” who were arrested soon after the arrival of the expedition were sold as slaves by French officials. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 940

Categorization

• SHARE: The bitter symmetry — Le Cap burned on the exact anniversary of abolition — is a striking detail for anyone studying the revolution’s chronology.