But they also threatened that if their proposals were refused, "a horrible carnage" might ensue, including the death of "the white prisoners, and white women."27 The planter-dominated assembly, however, refused to deal with "rebel negroes." Speaking as if they were still powerful masters, they told the insurgents that if they returned to their plantations and showed themselves to be repentant, they might be forgiven. Tousard, who had been approached individually by the insurgents, responded in a similar vein: "Do not believe that the whites, and especially the members of an assembly of representatives from the colony, would lower themselves so far as to receive conditions dictated and demanded of them by their rebel slaves." He demanded, before any negotiation could take place, a complete end to hostilities, the release of all prisoners, the return of all plantation slaves to their plantations, the disarmament of all "negroes," and the surrender of all their weapons. As one of the commissioners noted months later, a major opportunity to end the slave insurrection was lost.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 178