In 1667, the British Parliament passed a series of black codes intended to control the slaves in the Caribbean colonies. Other colonial powers followed their example. The law stated that a slave could not be away from the plantation on a Sunday and that he was not permitted to carry any weapons. It also specified that, if he were to strike a Christian, he could be whipped. If he did it a second time, he could be branded on the face. However, if a master, in the process of punishing a slave, accidentally beat him to death, this master could not be fined or imprisoned. Because the Europeans did not view the islands as their home, there was always a shortage of white women. One of the results of this was the development of an ever-growing class of mulattoes. More and more of them were granted their freedom. While these freedmen did not receive equal treatment with the whites, they were careful to preserve the advantages they held over the slaves. Many of them served in the militia to help keep the slaves under control. However, the threat of slave revolts continued. The greater the possibility of success, the greater the probability that slaves would take the risk of starting a revolt. All of the islands in the West Indies had a history of slave rebellion. Undoubtedly, the most outstanding slave revolt in the western hemisphere took place in Haiti. During the French revolution, concepts of the rights of man spread from France to her colonies. In Haiti, the free mulattoes petitioned the French revolutionary government for their rights. The Assembly granted their request. However, the French aristocrats in Haiti refused to follow the directives of the Assembly. At this point, two free mulattoes, Vincent Oge and Jean Baptiste Chavannes, both of whom had received an education in Paris, led a mulatto rebellion. The Haitian aristocrats quickly and brutally suppressed it. By this time, however, the concepts of the rights of man had spread to the slave class. In 1791, under the leadership of Toussaint l'Ouverture, the slaves began a long and bloody revolt of their own. Slaves flocked to Toussaint's support by the thousands until he had an army much larger than any that had fought in the American revolution, This revolt became entangled with the French revolution and the European wars connected with it. Besides fighting the French, Toussaint had to face both British and Spanish armies. None of them was able to suppress the revolt and to overthrow the republic which had been established in Haiti.