White insurrectionists received martyr status denied to Black slave rebels

Evidence

On the morning of August 23 a man rode into Le Cap on a barebacked horse, shoeless, hatless, a sword in his hand. “To arms, citizens, our brothers are being slaughtered and our properties are being burned; all the slaves of the plain are advancing with fire and iron in hand!” “At first everyone thought he was crazy,” but they gathered around him, asking questions, and soon came to believe him. Refugees from the northern plain were soon pouring into Le Cap. The town’s officials issued an order preventing all ships in the harbor from leaving—to keep the sailors around for the defense of the town, and to ensure that there was somewhere for the inhabitants to go if it failed. They fortified the roads and passes and placed troops and cannon around the edges of the city. They also began punishing slaves they suspected of complicity in the revolt. “Above 100 negro prisoners” were “shot in the burying place” during two days in late August. Soon “six gallows” were erected in one square, flanked by a wheel “to put the poor devils to torture, as they are brought in.” One man proposed that all the masters in the town hand over their male domestic slaves, who would be placed in preventive custody on ships in the harbor. … In the distance there could be heard “the rumbling of burning fires and the explosions and whistling of cannon,” but the war was everywhere: “One feared being slaughtered by one’s servants.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 327 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: White victims receive instant humanity denied to Arab and Muslim victims; White colonial authorities responded to the slave revolt with mass executions and terror — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 327; White authorities ignored violence against Black men in the Jim Crow South — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project: A New American Origin…, 993

Broader Connections

• White colonial authorities responded to the slave revolt with mass executions and terror #complicates (0.75) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 327