Louverture described insubordination as uncontrollable and self-amplifying

Evidence

Such insubordination, Louverture wrote to Laveaux, was like a river overflowing its banks, “ravaging” all in its path, and stopping the torrents in one place would only give them more force elsewhere. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 688

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• XREF: Foreshadows Louverture’s later campaign against desertion and his stricter labor discipline after 1800.
• DEFINE: The river metaphor defines how Louverture conceived of troop disloyalty as a natural force to be contained, not reasoned with.