White violence against free people of color triggered the first armed skirmishes
Evidence
Whites were also quick to respond to the threat posed by free people of color, who saw in the Revolution an opportunity to ratchet up their protests against their oppression. During 1789 delegations of free men of color had repeatedly demanded inclusion in local political assemblies. Except in rare cases, whites overwhelmingly rebuffed them, and soon began responding with violence. In November 1789, in the town of Petit-Goâve in the Southern Province, an elderly white man named Fernand de Baudière was accused of being the author of a petition written by the free-coloreds in the town. He was arrested and put into prison, but a crowd overpowered the local magistrates and lynched him. Elsewhere in the south, a group of whites broke into the house of a wealthy free man of color, beat him, tied him to a horse, and dragged him down the road. Some friends intervened and saved his life, but one of his sons was killed. In Le Cap a man named Dubois “not only declared himself an advocate of the mulattoes, but with a degree of imprudence which indicated insanity, sought occasions to declaim publicly against the slavery of the negroes.” He was arrested and put in prison, and would probably have been lynched had the governor not intervened and expelled him from the island. Soon free men of color were responding by arming themselves. The first skirmishes in the war were under way. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 278
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
Related
- The revolution began as violent colonial racial conflict before the slave uprising (similarity 0.88)
- White and free-colored infighting expanded slave revolution beyond the north (similarity 0.82)
- White and free-colored factions spread slave revolution by arming slaves (similarity 0.82)
- Colonist civil wars between whites and free coloreds armed the slaves and spread revolution (similarity 0.80)
- White settlers refused free-colored rights even when slave revolt threatened total ruin (similarity 0.80)
- The white assembly’s refusal to arm free-coloreds drove them into the enemy camp (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- The revolution escalated from colonial grievance to racial battle to antislavery war
#expands(0.55) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 24 - Insurrection against whites could yield official freedom, setting a precedent.
#expands(0.45) — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 475