| On August 21, 1791, the French colony of Saint-Domingue erupted in revolution. The initial eruption began in the Northern Province among slaves that resisted the institution of slavery and sought to achieve freedom. As the slave revolution spread throughout the colony, thousands of plantations, towns, and lives were destroyed. This destruction caused nearly 20,000 white colonists, free people of color, and even slaves to flee the colony. They sought refuge in the wider Caribbean, Latin America, France, and the United States.;The city of Charleston received a population of at least 500 refugees, but they did not experience immediate assimilation. The revolution disrupted their previous way of life and caused the majority of refugees to flee with little financial stability. White planters were severed from their profitable lands and non-planters from their various businesses. They had to rely on the benevolent responses from the federal, state, and local government before they could begin assimilating into society. As a result, this thesis explores the assimilation processes of white refugees. They assimilated into the dominant social, economic, and political fabric of the city, but these processes did not automatically lead to cultural assimilation. Refugees established French newspapers, a theatre, a masonic lodge, militia units, and transformed the ethnic majority of the existing Catholic congregation. Therefore, this thesis argues that refugees proved they could achieve social, economic, and political assimilation, while still being culturally resilient. |
