Some slave insurgents framed their demands in the language of the Rights of Man

Evidence

In a few cases, slave insurgents explicitly phrased their demands in the language of Republican rights. When a group of slaves were questioned about the meetings they had attended just before the insurrection began, they declared that “they wanted to enjoy the liberty they are entitled to by the Rights of Man.” The next day several “leaders of those mobs” were “taken and interrogated,” and their answer “was like the first received.” Another account of the 1791 insurrection described how “an innumerable troop of negroes presented themselves almost underneath the batteries of Le Cap, asking for the rights of man.” The pamphlet of the “Rights of Man” found on one executed insurgent also suggests the important role of this document in inspiring certain slaves. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 363

Categorization

• XREF: Direct parallel to the revolutionary rhetoric in France itself, and to later anticolonial appropriations of European universal rights language. — connects to: Human rights discourse can be mobilised to defend property owners against popular demands — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 4