Imprisonment was commonly used by masters to punish runaway slaves and for other domestic offences (lack of zeal for work, effrontery, larceny, etc.). Although not recognized as an instrument of discipline in the Code Noir, the use of the dungeon was sinisterly common on the plantations, and masters seemed particularly attached to it. Some masters even systematically lock up sick people, whom they suspect of malingering. They can take a variety of forms: purpose-built facilities, disused rooms set up as prisons, or even, as in the Vallentin case, a specially-built tomb-like space next to the sugar refinery.
In addition to its narrowness, heat and deadly humidity, Vallentin had had the window sealed to prevent Sébastien’s escape.
Cyrille, mason.
In 1838, Mr. Vallentin asked me to plug the hole in the dungeon through which the negro had tried to escape.
He told me it was useless, because he had given orders to a workman, who I believe to be Jean Laurent, to use a drill to make holes in the doors. I didn’t see those holes. He also pointed out that he didn’t want to restore the window well, because Sébastien might try to escape again.
Vallentin shares the colonists’ obsession with poison as an occult knowledge of the negroes, which the magistrate from France observes with dismay. For the colonists, epizootics do not exist, and livestock deaths can only be attributed to malicious acts. Imitating their masters, some other slaves also confirmed the poison theory: