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

1795-Apr.: A parish-wide conspiracy to rise against enslavers was discovered in Pointe Coupee, Louisiana, a region with a heavy black majority. An intense investigation revealed the plot originated among French-speaking captives 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 trafficking of captives and cracking down on inter-plantation mobility.