Finally, on August 29, when Sonthonax issued a decree that began “Men are born and live free and equal in rights,” all who were “currently enslaved” in the Northern Province were declared free. They would “enjoy all the rights attached to the quality of French citizenship.” Slavery had been abolished in the richest region of Saint-Domingue, on the plains out of which the revolt of 1791 had emerged, in the mountains that had served as “boulevards of liberty” to the insurgents.

Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ …, loc. 233