1793-Oct.: South Carolina officials arrested a black immigrant in Charleston who reportedly bragged about having “massacred eleven whites” during the uprisin…

1793-Oct.: South Carolina officials arrested a black immigrant in Charleston who reportedly bragged about having “massacred eleven whites” during the uprising in Saint-Domingue. The city’s committee of public safety immediately ordered the ship’s captain to return the passenger to the Cap or face the gallows. Shortly after this incident, Governor Moultrie issued orders calling for the expulsion of all free blacks and people of color from Saint-Domingue within ten days. These repressive measures were driven by the fear that French radicals intended to ignite similar slave rebellions in the American South. The episode highlighted the intense vigilance maintained by slaveholding states against revolutionary “contagion”.