Slavery in the French Colonies & the Code Noir

"Abolitionists retorted that in their cruelty and ignorance the planters were leaving their slaves no choice but to revolt."

I agree with this quote completely because if the slave owners would have treated their slaves a little more like people and a little less like animals, then they would have felt more respected, valued on the plantations, and would not have had so much built-up anger towards their owners.  In class on Tuesday, we talked about how Makandal burned two of his female slaves' legs off because he assumed that they were making and distributing poison with intentions to harm him, which they were not even actually making poison at all.  Makandal had to go to court, but ended up receiving no punishment for his harsh and unjust actions.  He violated the Code Noir and in turn received nothing but a slap on the wrist.  I can only imagine how discouraged, angry, hopeless, and revengeful all of the slaves were after hearing about this.  This "code of conduct" was supposed to exist to improve conditions for slaves by putting restrictions on punishments that slave owners were allowed to enforce on them, but instead it hardly improved anything.  Slaves were still being beaten, burned, starved, and murdered by these white plantation owners.  Ultimately, when the authorities chose to not enforce the Code Noir, they really angered slaves all over the colony.  Eventually this anger in their hearts was going to start a mass rebellion.  By not following the Code Noir, land and slave owners were basically setting themselves up for the revolt that was about to take place.  

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Just going back to what we discussed in class on Tuesday about how this incident not only began the revolting of the slaves in the colony, but also started the shaping of social classes and racial division and inequality.  This horrible incident involving Makandal and his female slaves is the perfect example of how racism even existed way back in the 1600's.  I can totally see how the different social classes began to form based on people's social statuses as well as how racial inequality, which was obviously always a problem, began to take shape in the French Colonies during this time and in the events leading up to Chapter 6 in The Avengers of the New World.