Some black soldiers actively protected whites during Dessalines’s massacres
Evidence
Some black soldiers sought to protect white prisoners. Descourtilz, spared from the initial slaughter because of his ability to “heal people who are sick,” had his life saved twice by sympathetic soldiers. One of these, an elderly man named Pompée, held up a revolver to protect Descourtilz and announced that anyone who wished to kill the white doctor would have to kill him first. Those who showed him pity were vindicated: Descourtilz would prove himself useful in taking care of rebel wounded during the dramatic battle that was to come. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 964
Categorization
- XREF: Complicates the clean race-war narrative; echoes how other histories of the revolution show racial categories were less fixed than the colonial binary suggests. — connects to: Individual rebel soldiers shielded specific white prisoners from the massacres; Dessalines pre-authorized killing of French-allied whites but spared culturally assimilated ones. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 960
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Individual rebel soldiers shielded specific white prisoners from the massacres; Dessalines pre-authorized killing of French-allied whites but spared culturally assimilated ones. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 960