The aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars jeopardized the status of freed slaves and free persons of color in the French colonies. Some Black men and mulattos had been manumitted in order to serve in the militia in the first decade of the 19th century. But men of color later might find themselves impressed into service or re-enslaved because they failed to prove their status to the satisfaction of current authorities attempting to reinstate the former colonial regime. In 1822, these circumstances led to a slave revolt in Martinique, and in turn to stricter "security measures" that affected both free persons of color as well as those who had been questionably enslaved.Berman, Creole Crossings, p. 111; Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, p. 477. The homes of free people were searched for anti-slavery materials.Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, p. 477. Bissette was one of three free men of color who were arrested during the crackdown for possessing a political pamphlet agitating against the loss of rights for their people.Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, p. 477; Berman, Creole Crossings, p. 111. The pamphlet was De la situation des gens de couleur libres aux Antilles françaises ("On the situation of free people of color in the French Antilles").
