White observers denied slaves an independent political agency in their own revolt

Evidence

But he added that it was also “very certain” that “the partisans of counterrevolution” had played a major role in inciting the slave revolt in the hope that the loss of Saint- Domingue would help stir up the coastal provinces of France and turn their inhabitants against the revolution. The idea that white counterrevolutionary planters were behind the revolt would have a long life. In 1793 the Republican commissioners in the colony would arrest some planters, accusing them of having “advised, encouraged, excited, or protected” slave revolt, as well as of having supplied insurgents with ammunition and provisions. In a proclamation on slavery issued in May of that year, they announced that it was not “among the slaves” that the “causes of their insurrections” would be found. It was neither “for themselves” nor “from themselves” that they had revolted, but rather the result of external “impulsions” by men who had no “African blood.” — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 356

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader pattern in Atlantic histories where the colonized are denied autonomous political motive and reframed as pawns of rival white factions — parallels the ‘telescope’ given to colonial agency elsewhere.