Planters’ treason pushed the French to arm rebel slaves

Evidence

Turning to the enemy was a reasonable and a pragmatic choice for the planters. In the end, however, instead of saving slavery, it created the conditions for its final destruction. In making themselves traitors to the Republic, they opened the way for slaves to become citizens and defenders of France. The planters pushed the beleaguered Republican commissioners to find new allies. Like the Spanish, the French turned to the rebel slaves. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 531

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• DEEPTHINKING: The central irony of the revolution: planters seeking to preserve slavery by siding with Britain accidentally created the conditions for its destruction by forcing the Republic to court rebel slaves. This is the decisive peripety of the whole narrative arc.

Related

• Planter defection to Britain forced France to court rebel slaves (similarity 0.92)
• Planters’ treason pushed France to emancipate slaves as defenders. (similarity 0.89)
• Planters believed the Assembly would abolish slavery and sought transnational slaveholder alliance (similarity 0.84)
• French atrocities pushed wavering slaves into joining the revolt (similarity 0.84)
• Spanish flogging of slaves triggered revolts that swung the colony back toward France (similarity 0.83)
• Slave rebels sought freedom through alliance with France, not secession (similarity 0.82)
• Planters felt the uprising as betrayal because trusted slaves revolted too. (similarity 0.82)
• The revolt was led by the most favored slaves, shocking planters (similarity 0.81)
• French atrocity toward slaves drove fence-sitters into the insurgent camps (similarity 0.81)
• Planters used abolitionists’ rhetoric to discredit their free-colored allies as revolt instigators (similarity 0.81)
• French planters organized their own lobby to defend colonial slavery (similarity 0.81)
• Planters blamed abolitionist propaganda and white agitators for the revolt. (similarity 0.81)
• The Spanish alliance between white planters and black insurgents was untenable. (similarity 0.80)
• France began arming insurgent slaves against their own colonial masters in 1793. (similarity 0.80)
• The revolt’s most favored slaves often led it against their masters (similarity 0.80)