Despite provisions accepting “social distinctions” and declaring property a “sacred and inviolable right,” many planters saw the universalist Declaration as a clear threat to slavery, reacting as if it were a disease to be quarantined. Already in July 1789, several slave women who had arrived in a French port from Saint-Domingue had been detained and sent back to the colonies by port authorities concerned about what they might learn in continental France and communicate back to the colony. In August one member of the Club Massiac proposed that all “blacks or mulattoes” arriving from Europe be banned from entering Saint-Domingue, and in September the club wrote to merchants in the port towns asking them to prevent individuals of African descent from embarking for the colonies.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 115