Rigaud rebutted racist charges by citing his black family
Evidence
Rigaud denied that his resistance to Louverture was motivated by racism. It was, he insisted, simply a response to the vicious treatment he had suffered at Louverture’s hands. “I have chiefs, but I have no master,” Rigaud wrote, “and never did an irritated and foul-mouthed master treat his slave in a manner as atrocious as I have been treated.” Rigaud noted that he had been born, like “General Toussaint,” to a mother who was a “négresse.” He had a brother who was black whom he had always “obeyed and respected.” He had been educated by a black schoolteacher. All these individuals had always given him orders, and he had always followed them. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 817
Categorization
- CANDY: Rigaud’s line ‘I have chiefs, but I have no master’ is a quotable, punchy statement of the free-colored leader’s self-conception.
- XREF: connects to: Rigaud rejected the accusation of racism by citing his own black kin and teachers — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 817
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Rigaud rejected the accusation of racism by citing his own black kin and teachers — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 817
Broader Connections
- Rigaud rejected the accusation of racism by citing his own black kin and teachers
#expands(0.95) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 817