Violence by insurgent slaves was no greater than that of other revolutions

Evidence

Since the moment slaves rose up in Saint-Domingue in 1791, accounts of the revolution have focused a great deal on its violence. The fact that some of the atrocities in the Haitian Revolution were committed by insurgent slaves, and later by black officers and troops, has made them the object of fascination and intensive debate. Many writers have felt the need to answer for the violence of one or another party. Did one side commit horrors first, and others only in retaliation? Were the atrocities of the slave insurgents merely responses to those of the slave owners? Political violence was a major feature of the Haitian Revolution, as it was of all other revolutions before and since. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 31

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to debates about revolutionary terror in France and elsewhere, and echoes the question of whether violence by the oppressed deserves contextual reading.