The Abolition of The Slave Trade

Miscellaneous American letters and papers. > Slavery and abolition.

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture / Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division

ID# 1243998

Fear of Saint Domingue

The successful slave uprising in Saint Domingue had a profound effect on slave societies. In the United States, free and enslaved blacks, refugees from the revolution, settled in New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, and mostly New Orleans. On July 2, 1795, fearful of the "mischief" of such "Negroes or Mulattoes" from the island, the inhabitants of Savannah asked that black people from the Caribbean - whom they suspected had been actively involved in the uprising - be barred from entering the city.