The Rising Expectations of Free and Enslaved Blacks in the Greater Caribbean

Abstract

In this chapter, the author argues that the French revolutionary message had a more direct impact on free people of colour in the Caribbean than on slaves. Aiming to achieve full legal equality, free blacks and mulattoes echoed the message of the Declaration of the Rights of Man. A lively commercial entrepot, Curacao was intimately connected to the French, Spanish, British, and Danish colonies. The tumultuous Caribbean decade of the 1790s had its roots in the European events of 1789, although the outbreak of the French Revolution did not in itself spark rebellious behaviour of free and enslaved blacks in the colonies. Saint-Domingue, spread a false emancipation rumour, and feigned close ties with the revolutionary French. He personifies the Greater Caribbean circa 1795: a closely connected, mutinous world, driven by a well-oiled rumour mill. Keywords: British colonies; Curacao; Danish colonies; enslaved blacks; free blacks; French Revolution; Greater Caribbean; Rights of Man; Saint-Domingue; Spanish colonies