But now, when all was prosperity, much sugar ground out, when the
slaves of both sexes were seen dancing every night, when “Liberty!”
and “To arms! To arms!” were on every tongue, who could fear or
suspect the blacks! The happy, careless creatures who loved their
masters.
“Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of God,” has
been truly said—not a pebble rolls from its mountain-bed, but the
relations of matter in the whole creation are changed: for the laws
of gravitation are universal, and sustain the worlds. Nor is mind
less universal or less mighty than matter. No thought is thought,
no word is spoken, no act is acted, but it thrills the mind of the
universe. We may not be conscious of this, yet it must be so; and
it is well, therefore, for every man to see to it, that his secret
thoughts are noble, not base.
The innate necessity for freedom had found expression in France,
and the loftiest aspirations and most earnest hopes went, like the
lightning, from mind to mind, from man to man, from nation to nation,
and lighted even the benighted mind of the slave in St. Domingo.
Thus matters stood in 1789. The Third Estate, the slaves in France
had risen, and grasped the handle of the whip. Centuries of political
and ecclesiastical misrule and profligacy had exasperated the people
to a state of frenzy. The battle of liberty and despotism was begun;
the Bastile had fallen! The principles of manhood had been asserted
and seized; the petit blancs in St. Domingo felt the impulse, and
aspired to self-government. The whites were rent into parties[18]—for
the king and against the king—but all against the men of color “les
sangs melées.”
The _free_ mulattoes claimed their rights, and had presented Ogé as
their bloody sacrament. Their rights were declared by the French
nation;—their rights were resisted by the whole body of the planters.
Arms were in every hand; all was combustible, and a spark might start
the conflagration.
The whites and mulattoes stood upon the thin crust of the crater;
under their feet were four hundred and eighty thousand negro slaves.
On the 25th of August was the feast of St. Louis.
For the week preceding, the planters gathered at Cap François, to
concert measures against the mulattoes—against the National Assembly
and—to dine. The great men, and the rich, and the brave, were there.
It was not a time to drive the slaves; and during that week they
“danced” more than before. On the evening of the 22d August,[19]
the best dishes of the cook Henri (a born prince, whose future
no one could suspect) tempted the palates of the born whites. In
brave counsels, in denunciations of the mulattoes, in songs for
Blanchelande and Liberty, the time passed, the wine flowed, and
hearts swelled—so the shadows of the night stole on. Light! more
light! was called for; they threw open the jalousées; curious black
faces swarmed about the piazzas—but what meant that dull glare which
reached the sultry sky! The party was broken up—they rushed to the
windows—they could smell the heavy smoke—they could hear the distant
tramp of feet. The band, unbidden, struck the Marseillaise; it was
caught up in the streets; and from mouth to mouth, toward the rich
Plain du Nord, passed along the song:
“Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Aux armes! aux armes! pour Liberté!”[20]
Consternation followed the feast—each man grasped his arms—into the
midst of the company rushed a negro covered with dust, panting with
heat. He sought his master. Pale with fear, and excited with wine, he
received him on the point of his sword. As the life and blood flowed,
he gasped, “Oh, master! Oh, master!” Murmurs of disapprobation filled
the room, but it was too late—the hour had come! the slaves had
risen. This poor creature had wished to save the man that owned him.
The rebellion broke out on the plantation of Noe, nine miles from
Cap François. At midnight the slaves sought the refiner and his
apprentice, and hewed them in pieces—the overseer they shot. They
then proceeded to the house of Mr. Clement—he was killed by his
postillon. They proceeded from plantation to plantation, murdering
the whites; their ranks swelled by crowds of scarred and desperate
men, who had nothing to lose but life; and life with slavery was not
so sweet as revenge. Everywhere, they applied the torch to the sugar
mills (those bastiles, consecrated to the rites of the lash and to
forced labor, dumb with fear), and to the cane fields, watered with
sweat and blood.
Towards morning, crowds of whites came pouring into Cap François,
pale, terror-stricken, blood-stained! Men, women, and children,
found the day of judgment was come—none knew what to do—all was
confusion—the signal gun boomed through the darkness, warning of
danger—and every man stood to his arms. The inhabitants of the city
were paralyzed with fear. They barred their doors and locked up their
house-slaves. The only living objects in the streets were a few
soldiers marching to their posts. Panic ruled the hour. The Assembly
sat through the night. Touzard was sent out to attack the negroes,
but was driven back. Guns were mounted, and the streets barricaded.
The morning dawned, and with the rising sun came rising courage. “It
is nothing!” said some—“Burn and hang a few negroes, and all will
go on as before.” The exasperation against the mulattoes, who were
charged with having fomented the rising, resulted in hatred, insult,
bloodshed, and murder, in and around Cap François; and a butchery
was only stayed by the vigorous opposition of the governor. Whatever
negroes were seized were tortured and massacred. “Frequently,” says
Lacroix, “did the faithful slave perish by the hands of an irritated
master, whose confidence he sought.”
The maddened negroes had tasted blood. They seized Mr. Blen, an
officer of police, nailed him alive to one of the gates of his
plantation, and chopped off his limbs with an axe.
M. Cardineau had two sons by a black woman. He had freed them, and
shown them much kindness; but they belonged to the hated race,
and they joined the revolt. The father remonstrated, and offered
them money. They took his money, and stabbed him to the heart. If
they were bastards, who had made them so! “One’s pleasant vices
aye come home to roost.” Horrors were piled on horrors—white women
were ravished and murdered—black were broken on the wheel—whites
were crucified—blacks were burned alive—long pent-up hatreds were
having their riot and revenge. M. Odeluc was wrong, then? The slaves
did _not_ seem to love their masters. What could it mean? Pork and
bananas—slavery and ignorance, with some dancing and the free use of
the whip seemed to be producing surprising results. The whites could
not understand it. Much sugar was raised, and yet the _negroes_ were
not satisfied, and now seemed to have gone mad. Destruction hung over
the whites, and they concluded to try hanging and burning in their
extremity, having no faith in justice and honesty for the blacks.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, owed their safety to the kindness of
their house-slaves.[21]
Mons. and Mad. Baillou, with their daughter, her husband, and two
white servants, lived about thirty miles from Cap François, among
the mountains. A slave gave them notice of the rising; he hid them
in the forest, and joined the revolt. At night he brought them food,
and led them to another place of safety. He did this again and again,
led them through every danger and difficulty till they escaped to
the sea. For nineteen nights they were in the woods, and the negro
risked his life to save theirs. Why repeat instances? This was one of
hundreds.
Mr. Odeluc was the Superintendent of the Gallifet estate, the largest
on the Plain:—“As happy as one of Gallifet’s negroes,” was a saying
in the district. He was sure of _his_ hands, and regretted the
exaggerated terror of the whites:—with a friend and three or four
soldiers, he rode out to the estate, and found his negroes in arms,
with the body of a white child for a standard. Alas! poor Odeluc! He
believed the negroes were dogs, and would lick the hand that struck
the blow. It was too late—he and his attendants were cut down without
mercy—two only escaped to tell the tale.[22] Four thousand negroes
were in arms, and they were everywhere successful; the Plain was in
their possession; the quarters of Morin and Limonade were in flames,
and their ravages extended from the shore to the mountains. Their
recklessness was succeeded by regular organization and systematic
war. In the first moments of their headlong fury, all whites were
murdered indiscriminately. This did not last—they soon distinguished
their enemies, and women and children were saved. The blacks were
headed by Jean François and Biassou, generals not to be despised.
Brave, rapid, unscrupulous, vain of grandeur, greedy of plunder, they
were not far from the marshals of France.
This, then, was not a revolt, but a revolution![23] Success would
decide. Never could the whites believe that the blacks were men. Ogé
had revealed a wide-spread conspiracy, headed by well-known slaves.
The whites concealed this. They did not believe him; they believed
only that the blacks were their born slaves, fit for the whip,
incapable of courage, or honor, or martyrdom. Experience only was to
teach them _there and elsewhere_.
At first, the whites acted upon the defensive. The Assembly was
rancorous against France in the midst of this destruction, and
effaced from behind the Speaker’s chair, the motto “Vive la Nation,
la Loi, et le Roi:” even when destruction was over them they heeded
not: their bickerings continued. The negro generals declared that
they were fighting for their king, and against slavery—for a rumor
had reached them that Louis favored emancipation. They had the
strongest party and the strongest side. At length, the whites
determined upon a war of extermination. The blacks responded. Heads
of whites were stuck on poles around the negro camps. Bodies of
negroes swung on gibbets in the white encampments, and on trees
by the roadside. Within two months 2,000 whites and 10,000 blacks
perished. Te Deum was sung in both camps, and daily thanksgivings
were said for what was done. Pale ghosts hovered over them, and
sighed in the tropical groves—but they could not speak for pity
or for justice. The insurrection spread to the southwest, and two
thousand mulattoes, headed by Rigaud, rose to revenge the death of
the Ogés. Many negroes joined them, and they threatened Port au
Prince. The colonists were now thoroughly alarmed, and proceeded to
try reconciliation. The inhabitants of Port au Prince and Rigaud
agreed upon a truce, and the whites admitted that the death of Ogé
was “infamous,” and agreed that the civil rights of the mulattoes
should be allowed them. At last! Was it not too late?[24]
The Governor, Blanchelande, issued a proclamation, earnestly
entreating the revolted negroes to lay down their arms and return to
their duty. It was too late. They laughed in derision at his small
request. What! to slavery, and work, and degradation, and cruelty,
even! They had burst their fetters, and stood with arms in their
hands. “Will you,” they replied to the Governor, “will you, brave
general, that we should, like sheep, throw ourselves into the jaws of
the wolf? It is too late. It is for us to conquer or die!”
On the 11th Sept., 1791, the whites at Port au Prince had consented
to the civil rights of the mulattoes. On the 23d of October, the
“Concordat” had been signed; the whites and mulattoes had walked arm
in arm through the City, and peace seemed possible, when word came,
that on the 24th of September, the National Assembly at Paris had
reversed the decree of the 15th of May. The mulattoes at once flew
to arms, and the struggle between them and the whites went on with
increased carnage and cruelty. This continued, with varied results,
through 1792. “You kill mine and I’ll kill yours,” was the cry. As
it had been from the outset, so it continued among the whites—open
war between the colonists and the governors—between the people of the
North and the South; contention and bitterness—intrigue—treachery.
They made head nowhere against the mulattoes, nowhere against the
negroes. And, in Dec., 1791, three commissioners arrived from France,
to distract the confusion. They accomplished nothing, and were
succeeded, in Sept., 1792, by Sauthonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud;[25]
ordinary men, not sufficient for so extraordinary a state of things
as this.