Independence declared.—Dessalines attempts to take the city
of Santo Domingo.—Raised to the imperial dignity.—New
constitution.—His atrocious massacres.—Attempts to import negroes
from Africa.—Encourages cultivators.—Census taken.—State of his
army.—His death and character.
THE independence of Hayti was declared on the 1st of January, 1804,
and the first step taken by Dessalines, who had been vested with the
chief command, was to endeavour to stop the emigration which was going
on, and remove the delusion under which the blacks were labouring. For
this purpose he caused it to be made generally known, that all previous
opinions would be buried in oblivion, and those who had been allured
to take part with the enemies of the colony, and had been induced to
emigrate from apprehension of the consequences which such conduct
might entail upon them, were invited to return to their homes, being
assured of protection and security; at the same time, however, he gave
it out, that all those who were disposed to accompany the French army
were at liberty to do so, and should be allowed to depart unmolested.
This augured favourably, and many took advantage of this declaration
of clemency, who afterwards had to regret their credulity and condemn
their own want of foresight and discretion.
To give a colour of clemency and humanity to this declaration of the
black general-in-chief, and to stamp it with the mark of sincerity,
another proclamation was issued signed by Dessalines, Christophe,
and Clerveaux, a mulatto, in which the independence of the colony is
declared, and encouragement given to the emigrants to return to their
properties. It says, “towards those men who do us justice, we will act
as brothers; let them rely for ever on our esteem and friendship; let
them return amongst us. The God who protects us, the God of freemen,
bids us stretch out towards them our conquering arms.” Allured by a
proclamation which held out a promise of security and protection, many
returned from the interior of the island, whither they had fled for
safety.
As a great many freemen of colour, as well as slaves, had emigrated
to the United States at the commencement of the revolution, and as
many had manifested a desire to return, but were without the means
of accomplishing it, Dessalines devised a plan to enable them to do
so; but this plan does not appear to have succeeded, for there is no
authentic proof that any of them ever returned: it is on the contrary
known, that although the emissaries of Dessalines were industriously
employed in America, but very few of the negroes and people of
colour availed themselves of the advantages which were so glowingly
held out to them; doubting the sincerity of the general-in-chief on
the one hand, and on the other, living in some degree of comfort
and tranquillity with their new masters, they had no wish to try an
experiment by which they might lose a great deal, and gain nothing. As
it afterwards turned out, their decision was prudent and wise, for it
was no doubt the aim of the inhuman Dessalines to make them all objects
of his brutal ferocity, and this was the impression of those who were
beyond the reach of his vengeance; they could never be inspired with
the hope of safety, were they to give up the hold of which they had
obtained possession. To hazard a security, by visionary schemes of
improvement is a proof of weakness and indiscretion; and those who
had obtained that security were determined to preserve it, by not
listening to the proposals of the negro chief. Had such a proposal
been made by Toussaint, many, from an innate love of their native
soil, would no doubt have accepted it; but a proposition from a man so
base and sanguinary as Dessalines, surely, could never have found one
individual who would have had faith or confidence in it. It is evident,
that he meditated the destruction of all those who returned, and that
too in the most cruel and brutal way; such a thing as mercy formed no
constituent of the character of the most ferocious tyrant that ever
afflicted the inhabitants of any country. Those who had emigrated to
America, I think, would have returned, had the proposition for their
doing so been made by any other of the chiefs; but coming from such a
wretch as Dessalines, it deterred instead of having encouraged them.
A short time after Dessalines had been invested with the chief command,
he began to discard all the appellations which were used in the time of
the French, and Hayti, the name given to the island by the Aborigines,
was adopted instead of Saint Domingo, and he was severe in the extreme
towards any one who might by the smallest and purest accident use any
of the abrogated terms. This was followed by a general call on the
people to revenge the wrongs which they had endured, and to execute
vengeance upon those whom they conceived to have been the authors
of it. The white French people, therefore, were indiscriminately
sacrificed, not indeed by the inhabitants or cultivators, who preferred
peace, and wished clemency to be shewn towards all, but by the troops,
headed by their officers, and under the orders of the general-in-chief.
No age nor sex was spared: the brutal soldiers, led on by their
merciless officers, ran from door to door, and left not one alive whom
they could find within; the females, whose amiable softness might have
stayed the hand of the savage in his native wilds, first endured the
most dreadful violation, and then were bayoneted and most shockingly
mangled.
Military execution is at all times, and in all countries, to be
greatly dreaded. It is always attended with those appalling enormities
and barbarities, which make it the scourge of those nations which
resort to it; it shews not the least mercy to either the innocent,
the child, or the female with all her sweetness and charms, but all
are indiscriminately the objects of its ravages, and the innocent
with the guilty feel its atrocious influence, without being able to
avert its vengeance and fury. In Hayti the effects of it must have
been heavy indeed, and from the fact of its having been perpetrated
by people who were little advanced over the unlettered savage of the
desert, its consequences must have been horrible beyond the powers
of language to describe. The measures which the merciless Dessalines
adopted were enough to deter people from expressing their abhorrence
for such vindictive proceedings. He made all his officers assume the
capacity of spies, and in consequence, it became dangerous even to
speak; all therefore being silent spectators of his enormities, he took
it for granted that they approved, whilst fear alone prevented them
from loudly pronouncing their abhorrence and detestation of his most
flagitious conduct.
This crafty and execrable monster had recourse to one of the most
diabolical acts recorded in the annals of history, for the purpose of
collecting all those people together, who had escaped from the military
massacres. He gave it out by a proclamation, that as he intended
to stay his vengeance for the sufferings to which his brethren had
been exposed, all those who had escaped execution under his military
decree, should appear at an appointed spot for the purpose of receiving
tickets, which might in future protect them from the vengeance of the
people; and many who had been fortunate enough to escape, as they
thought, in the first massacre, became the victims of the second; for
no sooner did these unsuspecting and deluded creatures obtain what they
conceived an assurance that their lives would be spared, than leaving
their hiding places, they ran with eagerness to the place announced for
issuing the tickets, when they were immediately seized and led away
for instant execution. Before he perpetrated so deliberate, base, cool
blooded, and horrible an act, even Nero would have paused; but the
infamous and blood thirsty negro Dessalines secretly rejoiced at the
success of his inhuman stratagem.
Another of this monster’s acts of barbarity is recorded. A young
Frenchman, the son of a very opulent planter, had escaped during the
early part of the revolution, with his father and the rest of his
family, to Jamaica, where he had followed the occupation of a clerk in
a mercantile house in Kingston. On its being known that all persons
were invited back to their native country, he adopted the resolution to
go up to Port au Prince, and procure leave to settle there. Speaking
English fluently, he obtained a clerkship in the counting-house of
an English merchant in that city. After having been there for some
time, the monster heard of him, and it was intimated that he was a
Frenchman. When he was sent for to appear at the government-house, the
young man complied, and attended at the time appointed. Dessalines
received him in the presence of his numerous officers, and told him
that he had sent for him to ascertain if he were a Frenchman. The young
man replied in the negative, and that he was a native of Jamaica,
born of French parents, and had come to the city as a clerk to an
establishment connected with the house in which he had lived in that
island. Dessalines expressed much regret at the disappointment he felt,
said he hoped to discover in him the son of a planter of his name, from
whom he, Dessalines, had received much kindness, and who had once saved
his life; and stated that he was most anxious to learn if any of the
family were living, that he might be enabled to shew his gratitude,
by restoring them to their estates, and affording them encouragement
and protection. The young man elated with this expression of kindness
and good will, and in the moment of credulous joy, declared himself
to be the son of the man whom he had represented as having been his
benefactor. The inhuman savage with a laugh which resounded through
the whole apartment, and jumping, as he was wont to do whenever he had
succeeded in entrapping an individual, from his chair, ordered the
young man to be bayoneted in his presence, which was instantly done,
whilst he looked on with the most ferocious countenance, indicative of
the inward satisfaction he felt in having sacrificed another victim on
the altar of revenge.
It is certain that Dessalines willingly took upon himself the
responsibility of all these enormities; he even gloried in them,
boasted that he had inflicted them on the French, and alleged that
his predecessor Toussaint had been too lenient and too backward in
his measures against those who opposed his cause. In his subsequent
proclamation, he claims to himself the whole merit of these atrocious
proceedings, and declares that in future he will admit no Europeans to
hold property in the colony. That part of his proclamation is extremely
harsh, and shews the malignancy of his nature, and his hatred of the
whites; it states, as the translation from another author has it:
“Generals, officers, soldiers, somewhat unlike him who has preceded
me, the ex-general Toussaint L’Ouverture, I have been faithful to the
promise I have made to you when I took up arms against tyranny, and
whilst a spark of life remains in me I will keep my oath. Never again
shall a colonist or European set his foot upon this territory, with the
title of master or proprietor. This resolution shall henceforward form
the fundamental basis of our constitution.”[5]
When all the massacres were at an end, he began to turn his attention
towards restoring the country to some degree of tranquillity, after
the injuries which it had sustained by the war, and to endeavour, if
possible, to remove the fears under which the people seemed to labour,
from the apprehension of a future interruption of their quiet and
repose. He therefore determined to visit all parts under his command,
and to make those arrangements which had a tendency, not only to
augment the wealth of the island, but also to promote the welfare
of his people, and inspire confidence in his future government. So
commendable an act was certainly entitled to the highest praise and
consideration, but emanating from so execrable a character it seemed
paradoxical, and many questioned his sincerity, and were apprehensive
that he contemplated measures of a contrary tendency. In the present
instance, however, he was not dissembling, for he evinced more than
common anxiety for the reestablishment of agriculture, and held out
to the people the high advantages that were to be derived from their
personal exertions in the culture of their lands; and for the purpose
of stimulating them, he assured them of his intention to encourage
an intercourse with the United States and England, in order to open
a vent for their own productions, and to ensure on better terms the
purchase of those articles of foreign growth and manufacture of which
they stood in need. This seems to have been particularly offered for
his consideration by some American merchants of respectability, with
whom Dessalines frequently held conferences on subjects having a
reference to his future government: and it has been communicated to
me by one of them, that he was, notwithstanding his irascible temper,
very attentive to their representations, and shewed great deference for
their opinions, and frequently acted upon them in matters of commerce,
when he found them consistent with the policy which he meant to pursue;
otherwise he heard them deliberate upon them, and if he thought they
proposed any thing to which he could not readily concur, he would
freely state his objections, but always expressed himself thankful.
After a short period had elapsed, he also began to concert measures
for the reduction of the Spanish part of the island. The city of Santo
Domingo had rendered ineffectual all the efforts of the blacks to sow
dissensions among the people. There were but few slaves in this part
of the island, and those were living in so great a state of equality
with the people, that slavery was only known by name, and they evinced
no desire whatever to throw off their adherence to their masters, and
join their brethren of the west. Both these parties united in their
resolution to oppose the tyrant, whom they equally detested, should
he appear before Santo Domingo. At last Dessalines laid siege to the
city, vainly conceiving that the terror of his name and the extent of
his achievements would deter the people from making any resistance,
and that they would surrender on his first appearance before it, on
being assured of his protection and friendship. But in this he was
egregiously deceived, for the besieged made strong preparations for
defence, and determined on the most vigorous efforts to repel his
attacks. In the mean time a reinforcement having arrived from France,
proved a very seasonable succour to the inhabitants; this induced
Dessalines to raise the siege and return to the west, without having
been able to carry into effect this last design, which caused him no
little chagrin and disappointment.
His tour through the country, and his incursion to the Spanish part
of the island, were followed in a short time by his elevation to the
imperial dignity; on the 8th of October, 1804, with great parade
and splendour, he was crowned “Emperor of Hayti.” His elevation to
the imperial throne was recognized in the following year by the new
constitution, and being proclaimed immediately throughout the island,
the announcement was received with little or no enthusiasm.
In this new constitution there are some things which certainly indicate
a great desire for the improvement of the country, and manifest a
very strong wish to promote the happiness and improve the condition
of the people, and to introduce something like morality among them.
It says, that no Haytian is entitled to the privileges of a citizen,
who does not inherit all the qualities of a good father, a good son,
and a good husband. No child could be disinherited by his parents;
emigration subjected a person to the loss of his citizenship, and a
citizen becoming bankrupt lost all his privileges; all citizens too
were required to make themselves skilful in some mechanical trade. Such
enactments as these did credit to the people from whom they emanated,
and must in some measure soften our detestation of Dessalines, who
consented that they should form a part of the fundamental laws which
he was sworn to observe, and by which he engaged to govern. By the new
constitution also religion was tolerated, although it was declared that
there should be no predominant religion, copying in this particular
the United States, which it was the aim of the Haytians to imitate as
nearly as circumstances would permit. Marriage it declared to be merely
a civil ceremony, tending to improve society, and to inspire the people
with a disgust for the unlimited sensuality then so prevalent in the
country.
Dessalines during his imperial reign made the strongest efforts to
increase the population of the island, his ferocious disposition having
been somewhat softened by the sweets of peace and tranquillity, which
now in all parts happily reigned. People of colour and blacks began to
return to their homes, and others from the French and British colonies
found their way thither, and were received in a very cordial manner,
every pledge of protection being given them. One act of the emperor,
however, for the purpose of increasing his male population, seems to
have excited no little astonishment as well as indignation, and that
was the importation of people from Africa. For this object he wished
to enter into a commercial treaty with the British agent from Jamaica,
offering to open the ports of Hayti to the British slave ships, and to
grant to the Jamaica importers the exclusive right of selling negroes
in Hayti! True it is, the privilege was to extend to the importation
of men only, and that they were not to be sold to any other persons
but those appointed by the government, which wanted them, as it has
been generally wished should be understood, to increase their military
establishment, but which in fact required them for the cultivation
of the government lands which had fallen into a state of neglect and
unproductiveness. This arrangement however did not take place; not
by reason of any backwardness evinced by the emperor, but because no
disposition was shewn by the British agent to accept the offer of a
grant, which, to say the least of it, appeared a most extraordinary and
unaccountable measure. Some have observed, that the emperor himself was
dissuaded from it on the ground that its principle was nearly allied
to that slave trade, to which it could not fail to give encouragement;
but he contended, that it was a measure of necessity, of political
expediency, which, with him, superseded every other consideration; and
besides, he alleged that he should be performing an act of humanity
towards the African race, by permitting them to be brought into his
dominions, as otherwise they would be taken to Jamaica and made slaves.
From a note which I obtained of a census taken in 1805, the population
of Hayti appears to have amounted to about four hundred thousand, of
all denominations, so that by natural augmentation and by emigration
from other countries, there was an evident increase in three years
of at least twenty-five thousand, taking M. Humboldt’s statement of
the population in 1802 to be a correct one. But from the manner in
which the census was taken, a considerable degree of inaccuracy must
have arisen, and hence the census of 1805 may in all probability have
overstated the actual number: otherwise the increase seems to have been
prodigious, and consequently questionable. The taking of a census was
left entirely to the military officers of the respective districts in
which they commanded, and a very large proportion of these personages
could neither read nor write, and no great confidence can therefore be
placed in these returns.
Placide Justin states the amount of the census of 1805 at three hundred
and eighty thousand, and twenty thousand, which from a variety of
causes, he says, may have been omitted in the returns. This is a strong
evidence of their mode of taking a census being most imperfect.
Dessalines was particularly solicitous for the encouragement of the
cultivators of the soil, and held out to them every possible inducement
to labour. The code of Toussaint was enforced, and the people seemed
to work contentedly, but not to the same extent as they did in
Toussaint’s time. By Dessalines the cultivators were permitted to
change the estates on which they had chosen to work, on expressing to
the commanding officer of the district that they wished to do so, and
by assigning a sufficient reason for such wish: but on no other account
could they leave the property without incurring the penalty attached
to such an offence. Now whatever may be said about the freedom of the
cultivators by the advocates for free labour, I must be permitted to
say, that no instance has yet been adduced of such freedom in practice,
and I must beg leave to maintain still that the code of Toussaint,
which was acted upon by his successor, exhibits a greater proof of
the existence of coercion than any thing I have seen, and that the
conduct pursued by Dessalines towards the cultivators, though he wished
it to be understood that he was anxious for their welfare, was harsh
and severe in the extreme, and that those who worked on the government
estates felt it so. It has been communicated to me by an individual who
managed one of the properties held by the government, that Dessalines,
who well knew the work which could be performed by one man, had a
regular daily return sent in to him of the quantum of work done, and
should there have been any relaxation from the day before, he broke out
into a torrent of abuse, and often sentenced the negligent negroes, as
a punishment, to labour on the public roads.
The greater portion of the labour bestowed upon the soil was confined
to the cultivation of coffee. The sugar plantations having been
destroyed and the works demolished, but little sugar was now made in
proportion to the quantity produced in the time of the French, as will
be shewn hereafter in my general remarks upon the agricultural state of
the country, and the specifications of the returns at the respective
periods.
Dessalines, it is said, paid some attention to the clergy, although he
was but little better than an infidel. He gave strict injunctions that
all persons should be attentive to the celebration of public worship,
and particularly observe the sabbath. This was a measure dictated
by policy, for the better preserving order, and keeping the people
in a tranquil state. He went through the exterior forms of religious
worship as a matter of necessity, and as an example to his subjects,
but not from any inward feelings of devotion or regard for religion. He
encouraged marriage as much as possible among his people, and rigidly
exacted attention to it, and endeavoured to impress his people with the
impropriety of sensuality and voluptuousness; but in his own person he
appears to have been the most depraved and most licentious man in the
country.
The army of the emperor did not form a very powerful body. His standing
force after the conclusion of the war did not exceed twenty thousand
men, of infantry and cavalry. The militia, or, as they were formerly
termed, the national guards, were numerous, because every man from the
age of sixteen to fifty was obliged to assemble four times a year,
and undergo a regular service of training for several days at each
period, when they returned to their usual avocations. His troops were
active, well disciplined and armed, but their clothing was of the
coarsest kind, and at all times in the very worst condition. All the
fortifications in the different parts of the island he endeavoured to
put in a proper state of defence, lest the French should make another
descent, of which they were at times very apprehensive, and he took
care to keep all the provision grounds in the vicinity of the several
fastnesses in the mountains in a good state, that the different
garrisons might be well supplied with provisions in case it should, at
any subsequent period, become necessary to resort to them for security.
The good old maxim, that the best security for the preservation
of peace is always to be prepared for war, seems not to have been
forgotten by Dessalines, or by those on whom the executive part of his
government devolved.
Although Dessalines, impressed at last by a sense of his own
enormities, endeavoured to make some atonement for them, yet the
people, who had so often experienced the severity of his mandates, and
dreaded a recurrence of similar measures, secretly detested him as a
savage and a tyrant, under whom it was not possible to expect happiness
or repose; and any indication of mildness and humanity was only
considered the forerunner of some atrocious crime which he meditated.
Wearied out by his suspicions and jealousies, deprived of friends
and connexions who were often snatched from them, and hurried to an
immediate execution, without even the semblance of judicial proceedings
having been instituted against them, the people at last determined to
dethrone him, and aided by his troops, who could no longer submit to
his caprices and his tyranny, they conspired against him, and in the
vicinity of Port au Prince, and at no great distance from the north
gate of the city, he was killed by one of his own soldiers, on the 17th
of October, 1806.
The individual who shot him was a mulatto youth, whom I have seen, and
who at the time of the tyrant’s death did not exceed fifteen years of
age. He was attached to the militia, and was in ambush at the time
of Dessalines’ advance at the head of his staff, accompanied by some
soldiers. The moment they saw their master fall, some of them attempted
to revenge his death, but they met a similar fate: others rejoiced at
an event which appeared to them merely in the light of just retribution
for crimes of unparalleled inhumanity and atrocity.
Dessalines had been a slave; his master was a carpenter, or shingler,
somewhat like a tiler in England. He was short, but very stoutly
formed, and capable of undergoing more than the ordinary fatigue of
men. His capacity was not extensive, rising but little, if at all,
above mediocrity; he could neither read nor write, with the exception
of being capable of signing his name. His military talents had more
the appearance of daring movements, than of judicious and well planned
operations; and he more often succeeded by his own courage and
example, than by the superiority of his arrangements. His activity
was surprising, and the celerity with which he moved from one point
of his command to another, astonished even his enemies. He was vain,
capricious, and fond of flattery; and those who were most forward
to compliment him for his exterior embellishments, to which he was
exceedingly attentive, were certain of being admitted into his favour.
His last wife, for he had been twice married, is now living in Port
au Prince in retirement, and with a very small income. She is quite
neglected by the present government, to its disgrace, as she had often
been the means of staying the bloody hand of her husband, when he was
about to sign an order for the indiscriminate execution of the whites
and mulattoes. She bears the marks of a negress who at one time was
extremely handsome, and her exterior must have been commanding: she
is rather above the middle size of females, but not too tall, nor yet
too large in proportion. The white inhabitants of Port au Prince, and
particularly strangers who occasionally visit it, never fail to attempt
to obtain a sight of her, as her name and her character excite a great
deal of interest, and surely entitle her to the best support of the
existing government, which boasts—and it is only an empty boast—of
being generous to those who have rendered the country a service.