Metropolitan commissioners broke with white colonists’ racial worldview

Evidence

According to one account, when Galbaud complained to Sonthonax about his actions against whites in the town, the commissioner responded, “Understand, citizen, that the only thing white about me is my skin.” Galbaud retorted that he had heard that Sonthonax had a “black soul” but was surprised that he admitted it so readily. The perhaps apocryphal story of the exchange played on the two meanings of “black,” suggesting Sonthonax as both evil and a friend of the slaves and enemy of the whites. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 539

Categorization

• CANDY: The punning insult duel between a colonial official and a white planter is vivid, portable material about how race language shifted during the revolution.
• DEFINE: Shows how ‘black’ carried simultaneous moral and racial meanings in the era.