CHRISTOPHE AS KING, AND PÉTION AS PRESIDENT OF HAYTI.
Christophe, now enthroned as the sovereign of the North, seized upon
the leisure which was afforded him after perfecting the internal
details of his new government, to attempt a peaceable union of the
blacks of the South with those who were already the loyal subjects
of what he considered the legitimate authority of the Island. For
this purpose a large deputation was dispatched from his capital, to
proceed into the territory of the republic as the envoys of the black
king, who proposed the union of the whole population in one undivided
government, secured under the form of an hereditary monarchy, both
from the revolutions and weakness of one, the structure of which was
more popular. These emissaries, sent to declare the clemency and
peaceful intentions of the monarch of the North, were taken from among
the prisoners who had fallen into the power of Christophe by the
capitulation of the Mole St. Nicholas, and who had been adopted into
the royal army, and made the sharers of the royal bounty of the black
king. To assist in this new measure, a proclamation was issued from
the palace at Cape Henry on the 4th of September, 1811, addressed to
the inhabitants of the South, who were no longer called the enemies of
the royal government, but erring children, misled by the designing;
and they were implored to return to their allegiance to the paternal
government of that chief who had just been constituted the hereditary
prince of the blacks. “A new era,” said this royal document, “has now
dawned upon the destinies of Hayti.
“New grades, new employments, new dignities; in fine, an order of
hereditary nobility are hereafter to be the rewards of those who devote
themselves to the State. You can participate in all these advantages.
Come, then, to join the ranks of those who have placed themselves under
the banners of the royal authority, which has no other design than the
happiness and glory of the country.”
This policy of Christophe was to employ the weapons of Pétion against
himself. But the republican chieftain was in better play with the foils
than his more unsophisticated rival of the monarchy, and Christophe
soon discovered that while he was attacking the government of Pétion by
appeals to the blacks, who were to be dazzled with his royal goodness,
the arts of his rival were employed in the very heart of his dominions,
and had already insinuated the poison of rebellion among his most
trusted subjects. His infant navy had hardly been launched and manned
with the objects of his clemency and royal favor, when a detachment of
the squadron, consisting of the Princess Royal and several brigs of
war, abjured his authority, and raised the standard of the republic.
This defection was punished by an English frigate under Sir James
Lucas Yeo,[40] who captured the rebellious squadron, and restored the
agents to Christophe’s vengeance.
Indignant at these attempts of the mulatto government to divert the
affections of his subjects from their sworn allegiance to his throne,
Christophe resolved on immediate war and the employment of the sword
against that race whose pride and hatred made them the enemies of the
pure blacks. Conscious of his military superiority, he resolved to make
his preparations for the intended enterprise such as to ensure success
over his opponent, and all the disposable forces of his army were
gathered together for an invasion of the territories of the Republic.
The Artibonite was soon crossed, and Pétion’s forces, under the command
of General Boyer, were met and defeated in the gorges of the mountains
of St. Marks; and the way thus laid open for an immediate advance on
Port au Prince.
The siege of this place was the object of the expedition, and
Christophe pressed forward once more to try the fortune of war against
his hated enemy. So sudden was the invasion, that Pétion was taken
totally unprepared--a considerable portion of his army being absent
from the capital, employed in watching the movements of General
Borgella in the south.
In this state of weakness the town might have been surprised, and
fallen an easy prey to the invading army, but Christophe had not
calculated upon such a speedy result, and though his vanguard had
seized upon a post a little to the north of the town, while the
inhabitants in their exposed condition were panic-struck at the
certain prospect of being captured immediately, the arrival of the main
body of Christophe’s army being delayed twenty-four hours, time was
thus afforded to Pétion to rally and concentrate his means of defence,
so as to be prepared for an effectual resistance. Christophe’s whole
force came up the next day, and Pétion’s capital was nearly surrounded
by a formidable train of artillery, and an army of twenty thousand men.
In this gigantic attempt of their old adversary, the mulattoes felt
with terror that defeat and conquest would not be to them a simple
change of government, but would involve in its tremendous consequences
the total extermination of their race. In so hazardous a situation,
they were taught to reflect upon the madness of their ambition, which,
by sowing dissensions among themselves, had exposed them, weak and
unarmed, to the whole power of their natural enemy. In so fearful a
crisis, the resolution was at last taken to repair their former error,
and thus avert the disasters which now overhung them by an attenuated
thread. Negotiations were hastily commenced with General Borgella, who,
sympathizing with his brethren of Port au Prince in their perilous
situation, consented to conditions of peace, and even yielded himself
to the orders of Pétion. The assistance of the army of the South was
thus secured, and General Borgella at the head of his forces marched
to the assistance of Pétion, and succeeded, in spite of the efforts of
Christophe, in gaining an entrance into the town.
The operations of the siege had already commenced; but the mulattoes,
now united, were enabled to make a vigorous defence. Christophe’s
formidable train of artillery had been mounted in batteries upon the
heights above the town, and kept up a slow but ceaseless fire upon the
works of the garrison within.
Pétion conducted the defence with considerable ability, and a
succession of vigorous sallies made upon the lines of the besieging
army without the town, taught the latter that they had a formidable
adversary to overcome before the town would yield itself to their mercy.
Amidst these continued struggles, which daily gave employment to the
two forces, and had already begun to inflame Christophe with the rage
of vexation that his anticipated success was so likely to be exchanged
for defeat, Pétion had, one day, at the head of a reconnoitering party,
advanced too far beyond his lines, when he was pursued by a squadron of
the enemy’s cavalry.
The President of the Republic had been discovered by the decorations
upon his hat; and the enemy kept up a hot pursuit, which hung upon
the very footsteps of the mulatto commander-in-chief, whose escape in
such circumstances seemed impossible, when one of his officers devoted
himself to death to save the life of his chief.
Exchanging hats with the president, he rode swiftly in another
direction. The whole party of the enemy were thus drawn after him, and
he was soon overtaken and cut down, while Pétion made his escape into
the town.
The siege of Port au Prince had now continued two months, and the
obstinacy of its defence had already begun to make Christophe despair
of final success, when an occurrence took place which determined him
to raise it immediately. Indignant at the tyranny of the black king,
several chiefs of his army had formed a conspiracy to assassinate him
during his attendance at church. Christophe was always punctual at
mass, and upon these occasions the church was filled with officers in
waiting, and surrounded with soldiers. It had been arranged to stab him
while he was kneeling at the altar, and then to proclaim the death of
the tyrant to the soldiery, whose attachment to their monarch, it was
thought, was not so warm as to render such an enterprise hazardous.
This dangerous undertaking had been prepared in such secrecy, that
a great number of the officers and soldiers of the army had been
drawn into the ranks of the conspirators, and all things were now in
readiness for the final blow. In this stage of the transaction, a
mulatto proved faithless to his associates, and informed Christophe
minutely of all the plans of the conspiracy, and of all the agents who
had devoted themselves to his destruction.
The monarch, thus possessed of a full knowledge of all that had been
prepared against him, concealed the vengeful feelings that burned
within him under an appearance of the utmost composure. He feared
lest a whisper intimating that he had been informed of the intentions
of the conspirators might snatch them from his vengeance by urging
them to desert to the enemy. At the usual hour the troops paraded
at the church, and Christophe, instead of entering to assist at the
mass, placed himself at the head of his army, and designated by their
names the leaders of the conspiracy, who were ordered to march to
the centre. An order was then given to the troops to fire, and the
execution was complete.
A black named Etienne Magny, was one of the ablest of Christophe’s
generals; and though he had been secretary to the council of state that
had raised the latter to the throne of Hayti, he had now become so
dissatisfied with his work that nothing retained him to the standard
of his king but the reflection that his family, whom he had left at
Cape Henry, would be required to pay the forfeit of his defection
with their heads. A body of black soldiers, who were upon the point
of deserting to the army of Pétion, willing to give éclat to their
defection by taking their commander with them, surrounded the tent of
Magny by night, and communicated to him their intention. The black
general hesitated not to express his willingness to accompany them; but
he urged that tenderness for his family forbade an attempt which would
doom them all to certain destruction.
The black soldiers refused to yield to these considerations, and
seizing upon Magny, they bore him off undressed, and without his arms,
into the town. To preserve the lives of Magny’s family, Pétion treated
him as a prisoner of war; and he remained at Port au Prince until the
death of Christophe, when he was made the commander of the North under
Boyer.
Christophe, discouraged at his defeats, and enraged at the sweeping
defections which were every day diminishing the numbers of his army,
and strengthening the resources of his rival, now commenced his retreat
towards the north, whence intelligence had lately reached him of
designs in preparation against him among his own subjects. The army
of the republic, under General Boyer, commenced a pursuit. The cause
of Pétion seemed triumphant. Boyer pressed closely upon the rear of
the royal army, and Christophe seemed on the point of losing all, when
the cautious policy of Pétion restrained Boyer’s activity, and the
republicans turned back from the pursuit. Christophe had been foiled
in his great effort by Pétion and Borgella, and he now regarded the
mulattoes with a hatred so deep and fiendlike, that nothing would
satisfy the direness of his vengeance but the utter extermination of
that race. A body of mulatto women of the town of Gonaives, who had
sympathized with their brethren of Port au Prince in the struggle
which the latter were maintaining against the power of Christophe, and
with this communion of feeling had made prayers to the Virgin against
the success of their king, became the first victims of the rage of
Christophe against their race.
They were marched out of the town, and all subjected to military
execution, without a distinction in their punishment or consideration
of mercy for their sex. Christophe had long ago resolved to rest the
foundation of his power upon the support of the pure blacks, and he
now determined to make his administration one of ceaseless hatred and
persecution to the mulattoes.
Through the influence of this policy, he hoped to make the number of
the blacks prevail over the superior intelligence and bravery of the
mulattoes.
FOOTNOTE:
[40] Lacroix.