Rigaud’s land-rental policy revived a new form of plantation labor exploitation

Evidence

Rigaud’s administration resembled that in place in the north in many ways. It pursued the goal of maintaining the plantation economy, building upon Polverel’s regulations. But Rigaud introduced an innovative approach to managing abandoned plantations. Seeking alternatives to direct management by the state, he began to rent them out to private citizens. The policy had two major advantages: the administration gained badly needed revenue, and the work of reconstruction and production on the plantations was placed in the hands of individuals working for their own profit. It also, of course, had a potential political liability: many of those who had the money to take advantage of this policy were members of the wealthy class of people of color who had once been slave masters in the region. Those who had owned nothing in the old order—not even their bodies—found few opportunities to do anything but remain on the plantations, as they were ordered to do, and serve as laborers to these new masters. The placing of abandoned plantations in private hands represented another step away from the thrilling promise, made by Polverel in August 1793, that this land would be distributed to the ex-slaves. Disappointed ex-slaves in the south, as in the north, saw the ghosts of slavery in the new order. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 681

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the north’s plantation-restoration policy under Polverel described earlier — the revolution preserving forced labor structures.