1795-Apr.: A parish-wide conspiracy to rise against plantation owners was discovered in Pointe Coupee, Louisiana, a region with a heavy black majority.

1795-Apr.: A parish-wide conspiracy to rise against plantation owners was discovered in Pointe Coupee, Louisiana, a region with a heavy black majority. An intense investigation revealed the plot originated among French-speaking slaves on Julien Poydras’s estate and spread as far north as Natchez. Contemporaries blamed prevalent rumors of a suppressed emancipation decree and the influence of a free Negro from Saint-Domingue named Luis Benoit. In the aftermath, a Spanish court executed twenty-six blacks and sentenced others to hard labor for their complicity. Governor Carondelet responded by closing the port of New Orleans to all slave imports and cracking down on inter-plantation mobility.