1790: An overseer on a plantation in the Cap Français district reported the arrest of twenty-seven fugitive slaves in his vicinity within a single short period.

1790: An overseer on a plantation in the Cap Français district reported the arrest of twenty-seven fugitive slaves in his vicinity within a single short period. Many of these runaways were discovered hiding in the slave quarters of the plantation rather than in the surrounding hills. This incident reflected a broader tradition of short-term desertion that bedeviled managers across Saint-Domingue. By this time, white colonists began to fear that these mobile individuals would facilitate the spread of revolutionary ideas from the cities to the countryside.