 However, slavery was of vital importance in France's Caribbean possessions, especially Saint-Domingue.In 1793, influenced by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man of August 1789 and alarmed as the massive slave revolt of August 1791 that had become the Haitian Revolution threatened to ally itself with the British, the French Revolutionary commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel declared general emancipation to reconcile them with France.In Paris, on 4 February 1794, Abbé Grégoire and the Convention ratified this action by officially abolishing slavery in all French territories outside mainland France, freeing all the slaves both for moral and security reasons.