1792-Feb.-27: James Innis wrote to Governor Lee of Virginia to report on the mounting anxieties regarding the “contagion” of slave unrest from the West Indies.

1792-Feb.-27: James Innis wrote to Governor Lee of Virginia to report on the mounting anxieties regarding the “contagion” of slave unrest from the West Indies. He noted that the news from Saint-Domingue was being followed with intense interest by the state’s enslaved population, leading to fears of a localized uprising. Innis suggested that the “example of the French islands” was the primary catalyst for a new spirit of defiance observed among slaves in the tidewater region. This correspondence helped prompt the Virginia legislature to consider more restrictive measures on slave mobility and assembly. It illustrated how North American slaveholders directly linked Caribbean events to domestic security.