1799: Thomas Jefferson expressed deep alarm following the lifting of the North American embargo on trade with Saint-Domingue, fearing the arrival of “black c…

1799: Thomas Jefferson expressed deep alarm following the lifting of the North American embargo on trade with Saint-Domingue, fearing the arrival of “black crews” and “missionaries” of rebellion. He warned that if the “combustion” of the black revolution could be introduced into the Southern United States, it would threaten the entire structure of American slavery. British Admiral Hyde Parker echoed these sentiments, registering strong objections to the “coloured communication” facilitated by authorized trade. Both leaders recognized that commercial intercourse inevitably led to the exchange of dangerous political ideas between the unfree. Their shared anxiety demonstrated a transnational consensus among slaveholding powers to suppress black maritime agency.