Summary

The image I selected is titled Incendie Du Cap. Révolte générale des Nègres. Massacre des Blanca. Which means fire of cape, a French town in Saint Domingue, general revolt of blacks, massacre of the whites.If one was to glance at this picture without knowing the title even if only for a split second, they would be able to see the unrest. Even more so, one would be able to tell that there is a clear racial divide because the fighting is only happening to members of the opposite race. In 1793 two years after the slave revolts started to expand throughout the island of Saint Domingue, the revolt depicted below took place in a town named Cape Francis. Cape Francis became a perfect target of these expanded revolts, because it clearly represented the inequality between the and the French that were there and the people of color in Saint Domingue. Cape Francis became the capital of the colony and was oftentimes referred to as the "Paris of the West." This revolt targeting the capital seemed to be a very purposeful attack to not only make a point to the French on the island but it also seems to serve the purpose of bringing attention to the situation, possibly inspiring others to do the same. When analyzing the picture you can observe the levels of class which was a clearly frustrating the blacks on island. When paying attention to the white people in this portrait who are running they are dressed up nice, which gives the impression that they were well off but this is all coming at the expense of the laboring people of color on the island. You can even see the different levels of class through the weaponry, the blacks only had swords and they're fighting against guns that the French have. There are definitely a couple blacks within this picture that do have guns as well but presumably they disarmed someone or retrieved it after killing someone. If you look really closely to the upper right of the photo you can see another advantage the French had, the advancement in military tactics. The French had the understanding that being lined up and grouped together when attacking was more successful. Just looking at this picture you can see the amount of advantages that the French had whether socially, economically, or militarily. Another advantage that they clearly had was naval power or at least naval reinforcements. The image clearly depicts a ship docked and if you look really closely all the way at the front of that ship it seems to be a man who is a French captain and he seems to be under attack, but at the same time the reinforcements he presumably brought in seemed to be fairing well. Under the assumption that the Frenchmen with guns depicted in this image were reinforcements and weren't necessarily there from the beginning, makes more sense as to why the whole town is up in smoke. The title of the image does tell you that there is a fire in Cape Francis but clearly this wouldn't have been allowed in the "Paris of the West" had French troops been there at the beginning. During this revolt the blacks who were revolting used some of the same techniques used by people in previous revolts in different parts of the island. The idea of burning towns and the plantations sends a direct message to their oppressers and especially in the capital in this case, this was definitely meant as a statement.
Work Cited: https://thelouvertureproject.org/index.php?title=Le_Cap