The commissioners’ rhetoric against plantation tyranny hid their own plantation rental policy

Evidence

Although the commissioners had as a political tactic criticized Rigaud’s plantation regime, they, too, started to rent plantations to private individuals. Understanding the advantages of this policy—revenue and privately driven development—they stipulated that renters had to pay for repairs, and in so doing ultimately profited the state, which maintained official ownership over the plantations. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 711

Categorization

• XREF: Mirrors the earlier pattern where Sonthonax’s stated emancipation ideals coexisted with coercive plantation labor — revolutionaries borrowing the masters’ economic model.