1795-Spring: Spanish officials discovered and suppressed major conspiracies against their governments in two widely disparate regions: western Venezuela and …
1795-Spring: Spanish officials discovered and suppressed major conspiracies against their governments in two widely disparate regions: western Venezuela and Pointe Coupee parish in Louisiana. In Coro, a multiracial coalition of slaves and free blacks under the leadership of a runaway from Curaçao attempted to establish a “republic” free of Spanish rule. Simultaneously, authorities in Louisiana held hearings to unravel a plot involving French-speaking slaves on isolated plantations outside New Orleans. Both conspiracies were deeply influenced by the recent news of slave emancipation in Saint-Domingue and years of revolutionary agitation. These simultaneous flashpoints demonstrated the powerful regional impact of the Haitian Revolution on the outer rim of the Caribbean basin.