Slaves seized management of plantations through revolt while maintaining loyal correspondence

Evidence

I am black, but, my dear mistress, I am true and loyal,” he declared. He was raising his children to love and fear God, he announced, and to faithfully respect their masters. Philipeau did not complain about the plantation manager, as he had years before. Instead, he wrote to Mauger of the profits “I made this year.” He was now— as he had long argued he should be—the manager of her indigo plantation. It was not, however, Mauger’s generosity or farsightedness that had brought this about. Indeed, although he must have assumed she knew what had happened, Philipeau was reticent about announcing the change too openly. His new power had come from revolt: sometime during the previous months, he and other slaves had risen up and forced their hated manager off the plantation. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 448

Categorization

• XREF: The Philipeau correspondence shows the micro-level social transformation paralleling the macro-political decree.
• SHARE: A historian of Atlantic slavery would enjoy the irony of a self-managing slave sending profit reports to his absent owner.