Assembly of Saint-Marc

The Assembly of Saint-Marc was the all-white colonial legislature formed in 1790 that claimed internal legislative power for Saint-Domingue while resisting metropolitan interference from the French National Assembly. A planter-dominated body that briefly reassembled colonial unity, it borrowed revolutionary rhetoric of constitutionalism and rights while applying them exclusively to the white colonial body. It reveals how white colonists could sound revolutionary while defending slavery and existing in fundamental tension with the demands of free people of color.