11/19/2017 Blog Post

How did the abolitionist movement in late 18th century affect the slave revolt in Latin American plantations?

It was the late 18th century when the ideals of the abolition of slavery started to gain traction as a legitimate source of societal discourse and heated political debate. This phenomenon was mostly centered around the countries with large colonial territories where slave labors where commonly used. As abolitionist ideas started to be subjects of mainstream political debates in European mainlands, the question on whether to keep slavery as the rule of the land or abolish it also increasingly became subjects of widespread discourse both among educated white populace and some slaves or freed ex-slaves who were educated in various degrees. While slave revolt precedes such discourse on abolition of slavery, many plantation owners started to suspect such political and ideological climate where abolitionist ideas gained significant supports to be one of the main reason for growing unrest among slaves. One of the good example for this is Letter to the Marquis de Gallifet, a letter written by a plantation manager called Pierre Mossut. In this letter Mossut blames popularization of abolitionist writings to be one of the main causes of the slave revolts which had been plaguing the local plantations in 1790s’ Haiti. “The varied writings produced in your capital [Paris] in favor of the Negroes, the unbelievable discussions that led to the May 15 decree, writing that have long circulated in the colony and that the negroes knew about […] “. This shows that abolitionist political trends did have significant influence over growing awareness among slaves about the questions of their status and unfairness of their treatment.

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