1706-May-03
1706-May-03: Council of Léogane orders inhabitants to plant subsistence crops to prevent slave theft.
1706-May-03: Council of Léogane orders inhabitants to plant subsistence crops to prevent slave theft. This administrative action was an attempt to reduce the hunger that drove many enslaved people to steal or desert. Nuance: This wasn’t humanitarian; it was “security policing.” Hunger drove enslaved people to steal from “loyal” subjects or desert to the mountains (marronage), threatening the colony’s stability.
Source · p. 62
Ghachem, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution, 62