The hour had come, but not the man: the world waited for him, but
none knew where to look, for none believed him to be among the
degraded negroes. The old custom of master and slave was broken in
pieces, and a nation of men, with no cultivation, with no education
in self-government, with none of the conservative strength which
hangs about privileges and possessions, and long-honored habit, were
now up, inspired only with a hatred of slavery and vague aspirations
for that which they knew not how to name. In this chaotic hour, the
man who could express this longing for freedom, this need of growth,
this aspiration for infinite good, not only in words, but in deeds
and in life, was needed: without him all would come to nothing, and
the struggle of the blacks would be but a spasm, to end in exhaustion
and discouragement; for successful revolutions have been secured by
developing from among the unknown the known man, around whom the
elements of the new State could gather for new Order.
Among the half million blacks there must be one—and more than one—who
could redeem his race; to whom the outcast and despairing might look,
and take courage, and say, “Such as he is, I may try to be.” This
man was longed for—consciously or not, the blacks yearned for their
king, could they but see him. The presentiment existed, for had not
the Abbé Raynal long before predicted a vindicator for the race? No
man can save another, and no nation. Each race must look for its
salvation and its leaders in its own comprehensive soul. The Moses
who will lead the blacks out of bondage must be a black! and he will
come.
Let us go back for a moment. On the arrival of the first
commissioners, Mirbeck, Roume and St. Leger,[26] the mulattoes in
the West were in arms under Rigaud—the blacks in the North under
Jean François and Biassou. They were a ragged crowd—pikes, muskets,
cane knives, axes, whatever the hand could find, were their arms,
and they fought without order or discipline, inspired by revenge
and hatred to slavery. Jean François, if vain and ostentatious,
was sagacious and full of resource. Biassou was bold, fiery, and
vindictive. The blacks had slaughtered and been slaughtered—hanged
and been hanged—plundered and been plundered. There seemed no end to
it and no object. They heard that the Commissioners were placable, so
they wished to make terms. But who would dare to venture among the
whites? We’re not all outcasts, hunted beasts—fugitive slaves. Raynal
and Duplessis (mulattoes) at last took the hazard. The Governor
sent them to the Commissioners, they to the Colonial Assembly. The
Assembly that day was in an exalted state—it emulated the gods. It
replied loftily:—“Emissaries of the revolted negroes, the Assembly
established on the law and by the law cannot correspond with people
armed against the law. The Assembly might extend grace to guilty
men, if, being repentant, etc., etc.,” and Raynal and Duplessis were
ordered sharply to “withdraw!”
They did withdraw, amid the hootings of the mob. They returned to
Grande Rivière. The army and the people came out to meet them wishing
peace—they told their story and peace was turned to war, love to
hatred. Biassou, in a rage, ordered all the white prisoners in the
camp to be put to death. “Death to the whites” went along the lines
and among the people. The insane pride of the whites worked its own
punishment, and now a hundred more were to be slaughtered. No white
was there to save them, and no God to wrest them away. Then a man,
black as Dr. Pennington, indifferent in person, unpleasing of visage,
meanly dressed, makes his way among the crowd to Biassou swelling
with rage; he speaks to him a few words, quietly, calmly; they are
to the purpose. The General’s face is composed; he listens, he
countermands his orders, and the whites are saved.[27]
The negro who saves them is Toussaint Breda, afterward called
Louverture.
The son of an African chief, Gaou-Guinon, with no drop of white blood
in his veins, he had been the born slave of the Count de Breda, and
had been well treated by his Manager, Bayou de Libertas. He was the
husband of one wife, and the father of children. With religious
aspirations, an inflexible integrity, an inquiring mind, he had
been a valuable slave, and had been raised from a field hand to be
M. Bayou’s coachman. Toussaint was never hungry while a slave; he
was not whipped. His hut was comfortable, vines grew around his
door. Bananas and potatoes luxuriated in his garden. The sky was
serene over his head, and the birds sang to him, too, as at evening
he sat among his children. What more could he wish in such a fool’s
paradise? Is, then, a full belly all? Thomas Carlyle—he _knew_
what you do not; what Sterne said, “Disguise thyself as thou wilt,
still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught!” Toussaint, it seems, was
_not_ a beast of burden. To make sugar, he was worth no more than a
Bozal just stolen, but with these rare virtues—Patience, Courage,
Intelligence, Fidelity—he might have sold for five hundred dollars
and might be trusted to drive horses. When the rebellion broke out,
he did not join it, but assisted M. Bayou with his family to escape,
and shipped a rich cargo to the United States for his maintenance.
Toussaint was then fifty years old. None knew the day of his birth;
the records of stock then and there were not carefully kept. For
fifty years this negro had lived the life of a slave, his only
occupations the hoeing of cane and the grooming of horses. What
thoughts, what struggles, what hopes had taken shape in that black
brain no man knows, for Toussaint was a man of few words, and he
left no writings. It was late in life to begin a new trade; late to
begin to find out his own powers and strength; late to trust himself
to freedom, he who had always had a master; late to speculate upon
the destinies of the black race; late to attempt to shape them.
But in revolutionary times men learn fast; great men need only the
opportunity, they rise to the emergency. Cromwell was not a _born_
or _trained_ general or ruler, nor was Washington, nor was Tell.
Toussaint had bided his time. This slave was ignorant, knew nothing.
He learned to read when approaching the downward years; then he
studied—Raynal, Epictetus, Cesar, Saxe, Herodotus, Plutarch, Nepos,
these were the books and lives he knew.[28] But the great book of his
own life was before him. Nature, the page of God, was open at his
feet, before his eyes, and over his head. Human beings were about
him revealing the Infinite, and, more than all, through his own soul
God spoke the voice of truth. Books are well, but are not the only
educators.
He decided to join his race, and having some knowledge of simples,
was made physician of his forces by Jean François. Here he served
well as he always did, and learned the trade of war. Shocked at the
cruelties of whites and blacks, he took the side of mercy and saved
lives from the sword as well as from disease. He saw the vanity of
François, the rashness of Biassou, the cruelty of Jeannot. But he
retired disgusted to no stupid monastery—he returned not to the
ease and degradation of slavery, but was equal to the facts of
life, however hard, and grappled with them and mastered them as a
MAN should. He was then loyal to the King, and he was loyal to the
Church, a devout Catholic. But he came to be the servant and King of
the blacks, loyal to his race, and to speak his prayers in deeds more
than in words.