The mulatto yet holds a doubtful place in the history and destiny of
man. It is urged by many, that he has lost that pure and unlimited
sensuous nature which, in the black, will be the basis for a new and
surprising development, and that he has not gained the force of will
and nervous intellectual power which, in the present time, gives the
Caucasian race the control of the world. If this be so, we can look
in them but for an imitative civilization and a temporary existence,
and their large production in slave countries is then, at least,
a waste. We will look at them for a moment as they existed in St.
Domingo, where they nearly equaled the whites in numbers.
When the Revolution broke out in France, lavish luxury abounded among
the planters in the colony of St. Domingo; but the poor whites, “the
petits blancs,” were poor and discouraged, as they are in all slave
communities, and were envious of the rich planters.
The whites set up the tree of liberty, and shouted over the rights
of man, as they did in Paris. The poor whites (the petits blancs)
were bitter, the mulattoes discontent, and the slaves reckless,
or sullen, or indifferent. The planters did not believe themselves
fools or mad! When the mulatto Lacomb presented his petition to the
authorities, asking the rights and privileges of a man, in the name
of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, he was only hanged for doing it.
When a respectable planter, Beaudiere, at Petite Goave, presented a
petition, asking for rights for the mulattoes, he was simply derided,
and then torn in pieces.[8] The temper of the times was hot.
Many of the mulattoes were rich, many educated, with the tastes and
manners of well-bred men. The whites hated them from the moment that
it appeared that the “rights of man” included _them_, and that they
knew it. The self-constituted General Assembly of the whites declared
“that they would rather die than participate their political rights
with a bastard and degenerate race.” Both parties knew who had made
them bastards; and the injurers always hate the injured.
The mulattoes were by thousands the slaves of their own fathers—often
freed, and favored, but all despised. The murder-spots would never
out; no time, no talent, no wealth, no virtue, no genius, could wash
away the stain. African blood, even if of princes, “tainted the
character for ever!”[9] Their condition was worse, “in truth, much
worse,” than the same class in the British Islands.[10]
They could hold no public office—no mulatto could be a priest, or
a physician, or lawyer, or schoolmaster. He could not even take the
surname of his father. They were as the Tiers Etat of ancient France,
which at last drowned the noblesse in their own blood. By a law (not
often enforced) a mulatto who struck a white man, upon any pretext,
was to have that hand struck off; a white man who struck a free
mulatto was dismissed with a small fine.[11]
By law, the free mulattoes were at the mercy of the King’s army
officers—they could be compelled to serve indefinitely in the army,
as horse or foot, without pay, to provide themselves with arms and
to defray their expenses. They were free mulattoes, truly, but the
slaves of the State.
They could acquire property—the pursuit of wealth alone was free.
Many were, therefore, immensely rich. The presence of cultivated
and manly fellows, such as some of these mulattoes were, in Paris,
increased the zeal of the extreme Republicans in their favor, and the
society of “Amis des Noirs”[12] (formed in 1787) comprised some of
the best and most brilliant men of France. These asserted, with power
and eloquence, that the civil rights of this class of “_free men_” in
the French Colonies were guaranteed by the Declaration of Rights.
To this class belonged Vincent Ogé, the son of a rich coffee-planter
of St. Domingo. Educated in Paris, accustomed there to the society of
the first men, the equal of Brissot, Lafayette, Gregoire, and others,
he felt keenly, saw clearly, and at last determined rashly to seize
what the rights of man and the French nation asserted and admitted,
what only a few blinded planters and slave-drivers refused and denied
him.
His plans were known in St. Domingo before he reached there. He
landed from an American sloop on the north side of the island, on
the 23d of October, 1790,[13] freed and armed his mother’s slaves,
drew to his cause a small number of mulattoes, (some 300 in all)—was
defeated, driven into the Spanish part of the island, was given up
by the Spaniards, brought to Cap François, the chief town of the
island, and executed speedily and without mercy. The sentence ran
thus:[14]—“The court condemns the said Vincent Ogé, a free quarteron
of Dandon, and Jean Baptist Chavanne, a free quarteron of La Grande
Rivière, to be brought by the public executioner before the great
door of the parish church of the city, and there, uncovered, in their
shirts, with ropes about their necks, on their bare knees, etc. * *
* This being done they are then to be taken to the Place d’Armes,
and to the opposite side to that appointed for the execution of
white people, and have their arms, legs, thighs, and ribs broken,
alive, upon a scaffold erected for that purpose, and placed by the
executioner upon wheels with their faces turned towards heaven, there
to remain as long as it shall please God to preserve life; after
this, their heads to be severed from their bodies and exposed on
stakes, their goods to be confiscated, etc.”[15]
How long it pleased God(!) to preserve their lives we are
not informed. His brother and one other suffered the same
fate,—twenty-one were hanged and thirteen condemned to the galleys
for life. Thus was the devil worshiped in the year of grace 1790.
These judicial massacres sent a thrill of horror through earth and
heaven. The deeds were done—not by savages—not by slaves—not by
beasts—but by enlightened men of a most civilized nation—which had
heard the name of Jesus for centuries. The vibration reached across
the ocean and shook the heart of France. The friends of the blacks
were eloquent, the friends of slavery dumb. The question was pressed,
and on the 15th of May, 1791,[16] the National Assembly passed the
famous decree which declared that the people of color born of free
parents—not the blacks—were entitled to and should be allowed all
the privileges of French citizens. The sufferings of the Ogés had
sanctified them martyrs. Deep in the hearts of the mulattoes was
their memory cherished, and they vowed vengeance; they seized their
arms, for the whites threatened. This decree, raising them to a
civil equality, roused the scorn of the whites and aggravated the
irritation to a fierce fever. Dissension had weakened the whites:
during the year (1790) a struggle went on between the officers
appointed by the Crown and the Colonial Assemblies, and now their
hour was coming, and they knew it not. “Yes,” said Mirabeau, “they
sleep on the verge of the volcano, and the first convulsions do not
waken them.” They tore off the tricolor cockade and trampled it under
foot—they determined to resist the foul indignity of sitting in the
assemblies side by side with colored men (even if their own sons) at
all hazards. They forced Blanchelande (the Governor) to promise to
suspend the operation of the obnoxious decree. They derided the idea
of danger from the slaves; the _free mulattoes_ were to be guarded
against. “I know,” said M. Odeluc, “I know the slaves; they love
their masters; experience has taught me that they confide in those
who feed and govern them.”[17] M. Odeluc was a fool, and too soon met
a fool’s fate. He left a large posterity, who believe to rule men,
white and black, by fear. All despotism rests upon that principle.
Despotism is infidelity systematized; its principle is a lie; its
companions ignorance and degradation, and its fruits revolution and
destruction.