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On April 15, 1793, Louis-Philibert-François Rouxel de Blanchelande, the last royal governor of the vital French slave colony of Saint Domingue, was guillotined in Paris, having been convicted on charges of trying to undermine the French Revolution by depriving the white colonists of their rights and abetting the slave uprising that had begun there in 1791. Blanchelande had certainly made many mistakes in trying to deal with the crises that beset Saint Domingue during the nearly two years of his mission, but his conviction was above all a reflection of the contradictions between the liberal principles of the French Revolution’s first years and the realities of politics in a slave society. Ordered to respect the white colonists’ right to self-government, to impose equality between them and Saint Domingue’s free people of color, and to repress the slave revolt, Blanchelande found himself facing a task that was, as one witness at his trial put it, “too great for . . . any human being.” Drawing on previously unexploited archival sources, this article dispels long-standing claims that Blanchelande acted out of counterrevolutionary motives and puts the story of his mission in the context of the crisis that the period’s revolutionary movements caused in all transatlantic empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the languages used in Haiti during the Haitian Revolution of the late 18th century. By examining letters and a memoir written by the Haitian Revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture, the author illustrates that Louverture wrote primarily in French and may have spoken Haitian creole only occasionally. The author also suggests that Haitian creole was more influenced by older and regional varieties of the French language than by African languages. The author suggests that historians haven't fully explored the use of different languages in Haiti during the 18th century. Languages used during this time included Haitian creole, French, and diverse African languages.