1793-Jan.: In January 1793, a crowd in Bridgetown, Barbados, performed a counter-revolutionary ritual by burning an effigy of Thomas Paine.

1793-Jan.: In January 1793, a crowd in Bridgetown, Barbados, performed a counter-revolutionary ritual by burning an effigy of Thomas Paine. The figure was shown clutching a copy of his radical treatise, The Rights of Man, as the island braced for the “great expectation of war” with France. This public demonstration was part of a managed effort by colonial elites to discredit egalitarian ideas and check the spread of republican sentiment. By attacking Paine’s symbols, the slavocracy sought to reinforce social conformity and emphasize the dangers of the French Revolution’s “False Philosophy”. However, these public displays also inadvertently broadcast the very ideas of liberty they were intended to suppress to all witnesses.