Summary

After the storming of the Bastille, tensions break out between the white colonists and Mulattoes in San Domingo. A few men to agitate for Mulatto rights are lynched. San Domingo whites form the Colonial Assembly, pledging allegiance to the king.

In September 1789, the Mulatto delegation asks for white support for their rights, and goes to the newly created National Assembly. They argued: “How could an Assembly which had just passed the Rights of Man refuse to relieve these men from the injustices under which they suffered?” (68). While it was a compelling argument, colonists from San Domingo who had also come to Paris threatened the National Assembly with independence and slave revolt. The opinion of the National Assembly on the “colonial question” (69) split. But in the end, the wealth and connections of the pro-slavery, anti-Mulatto contingent won and “everybody conspired to...