  In the third chapter Cooper documents the various Civil Commissions sent to Santo Domingo along with the resulting reports and decrees that followed with those visits. White colonists continued to act in open opposition to any semblance of political equality (which they feared might also lead to social equality) for mulattoes (SFHR, 88). She notes, “…April 4th a new National Law annulled the Constitutional Decree of September 24th, 1791, conferred upon colored men and free Negroes equal political rights with whites, and ordered a new election, more in accord with principles of equality, of the colonial and parochial assemblies which had been reinvigorated by then to enforce the new Law the [a]ssembly provided for the appointment of three new Civil Commissioners having dictatorial powers and supported by a sufficient military force” (SFHR, 88).