Revolution destroyed sugar production and drove planters to flee the colony

Evidence

Le Cap had been preserved from the insurgents, but much of the property in the northern plain had been destroyed. Sugar production, the lifeblood of the region, was at a standstill. And for many planters the government of France, prey to a powerful revolutionary movement, was almost as dangerous and unpredictable as the slave insurgents themselves. For some, exile was the only choice. One man announced his departure for New England with a poem that began “Adieu France.” A woman “recently arrived from France” had soon seen enough, and offered her services as a chambermaid to anyone headed back across the Atlantic. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 396

Categorization

• XREF: Brown’s chapter on silence resonates with the flattening effect of revolution on prior social roles: a wealthy woman reduced to offering herself as chambermaid to escape.