“We can debate the brutality of slavery all day long”
Not really - here we’re talking about the brutality of FRENCH slaves IN Haiti in the 1700s - it was considered brutal by the Standards of the day, not by today’s standard (where it would be incredibly brutal).
Slavery is using a person without pay and forcing them to do some work - but it doesn’t HAVE to be brutal.
Some slave-owners in English colonies were not —> read the biography of Olaudah Equiano - a man who was enslaved as a 11 year old by Africans and then later sold to people who took him to the Carribean: he describes different types of slave owners:
To me, it would seem logical that you want to treat the slaves kindly so that they don’t rise up. You would also see better returns and you’d have less “replacement cost”.
Many of the slave-holders did understand this.
But we KNOW that in Haiti, they did not - the brutality was remarked upon by French observers of the time
How people are treated is crucial. The Haitian American known as Pierre Toussaint was born into slavery. Treated well, he was educated and trained for household work. Brought to New York, Toussaint prospered in freedom as a hairdresser and became the de facto founder of Catholic Charities. He was declared Venerable by the Catholic Church for his kindness and many acts of charity, which extended to the impoverished French family who had once owned him. Toussaint is now buried under the altar of St. Peters, a distinction otherwise reserved for bishops and cardinals.