Colin

“When Rochambeau put to death 500 at Le Cap and buried them in a large hole dug while they waited for execution, Dessalines raised gibbets of branches and hanged 500 for Rochambeau and the whites in Le Cap to see. But neither Dessalines' army nor his ferocity won the victory. It was the people. They burned San Domingo flat so that at the end of the war it was a charred desert. Why do you burn everything? asked a French officer of a prisoner. We have a right to burn what we cultivate because a man has a right to dispose of his own labour, was the reply of this unknown anarchist.”
― CLR James

“The rich are only defeated when running for their lives.”
― C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

“It is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its foundations among his people, he never had the illusion that it conferred any moral superiority. He knew French, British, and Spanish imperialists for the insatiable gangsters that they were, that there is no oath too sacred for them to break, no crime, deception, treachery, cruelty, destruction of human life and property which they would not commit against those who could not defend themselves.”
― C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

“The patience and forbearance of the poor are among the strongest bulwarks of the rich.”
― C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution