White fears of slave insurrection in 1789 were premature but not deluded.

Evidence

By late October fears of slave insurrection had mushroomed. It was announced one day that 3,000 rebel slaves were gathered above Le Cap waiting to attack the town. A detachment of soldiers sent to disperse the gathering found nothing, although they accidentally shot one member of their own party. They were guided by a slave named Jeannot who, two years later, would be one of the earliest and most brutal leaders of the slave insurrection; perhaps his own rebellion began with the wild goose chase outside Le Cap. The whites who imagined masses of slaves gathering outside the town were not completely deluded—simply premature. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 277

Categorization

• QUESTION: The claim that Jeannot’s rebellion ‘began with the wild goose chase’ is speculative but provocative — is this actually supported by sources or authorial inference?
• XREF: Echoes the pattern of colonial rumors-outrunning-reality that James C. Scott and others describe, and the ‘premature but not deluded’ foreshadowing of 1791.