Columbus discovered this island December 6, 1492. It is of the Great
Antilles of the Caribbean Sea, and lies between Cuba and Puerto Rico.
He called the island Hispaniola, but Hayti, or Haiti, was its original
name. It seems beyond the power of language to exaggerate its
beauties, its productiveness, the loveliness of its climate, and its
suitability as an abode for man.
At the time of its discovery the island was divided into five states
or cacicats. Thus divided it was easily conquered by the Spaniards who
subjected the native Indians to slavery. Soon after the discovery,
Spain began establishing a plantation colony as opposed to a farm
colony. The work fell upon the subjected Indians, who vanished from
the island, in about 50 years, leaving the problem of labor to the
overseers and the colonists. To meet this need, the Spaniards repaired
this loss by bringing in Africans, supplied by the Portuguese, who at
that time occupied themselves with the slave trade. Hierrera, who
claimed to be an authority, said that one Negro would do more work
than four Indians.[1] In 1630, a number of French adventurers were
expelled by the Spanish from St. Christophe, which they had taken
possession of five years before under the leadership of Neil
d'Enambroe of Dieppe. Shortly afterward they established themselves at
La Fortue. In 1650 the Spaniards still held the inner and greater
islands, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Jamaica; though in
Hispaniola French buccaneers were laying the foundations of the
prosperous French Colony of St. Domingo. Smouldering resentment on the
part of the Spaniards soon burst forth in open hostility, exhibiting
more seriousness than before. Then followed savage contention between
Spain and France, the Spaniards disputing the rights of the French,
the French creeping steadily inward until 1697 by virtue of the
treaty of Ryswick an end was put to this struggle. Louis XIV obtained,
under this treaty, from Charles II of Spain, the cession of all the
western part of the island, which for forty years belonged to the
French by virtue of conquest. Spain kept the eastern portion of the
island, calling it Santo Domingo. This cession was of great economic
value to France, she increased her number of slaves and soon supplied
all Europe with cotton and sugar. Santo Domingo, Spain's portion of
the island, as compared with Haiti, was a sluggish community. Here
also Negroes increased as slaves and soon the population of these two
colonies was mostly Negro.
The distinct line between master and slave, white and black, was to
become smeared. Soon there grew up four distinct classes.
Miscegenation, the result of the contact of European masters with
slave women, gave rise to a new class called mulattoes. These were
usually given their freedom, and it was the practice to liberate the
mother as well. This gave rise to another class, the free-blacks. The
mulattoes and free-blacks obtained with emancipation no political
rights whatever. At first this caused no worry or serious difficulty.
Some of the mulattoes received vast wealth from their fathers and
often they were educated abroad, usually in France. Some of the
free-blacks accumulated a little property but in a far lesser degree,
however. With the increase of mulattoes and free-blacks, and the
return of those mulattoes from studies abroad, dissatisfaction grew
into thought and subsequently into expression and agitation for
political rights. Behind and beneath the growing dissatisfaction of
these two classes, the mulattoes and free-blacks, was a resentful and
restless slave population.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, even before it, France had
in her possession eight slave holding colonies, San Domingo,
Martinique, Guadeloupe, Cayenne, Tabago, St. Lucie, the Isle of
France, and the Isle of Bourbon. The most important of these being
Martinique and Guadeloupe, with a white population of about 25,000,
contained about 150,000 slaves and a small number of free Negroes; and
then there was her flourishing colony of San Domingo. Martinique and
Guadeloupe were represented in the National Assemblies which brought
France into early contact with the issue rising out of racial
color.[2] San Domingo with its large population and economic
importance offered a more perplexing problem. The population there was
large. Moreau de St. Méry quoted the official figures of 1790 as
30,826 whites, 24,262 free Negroes and mulattoes, and 452,000
slaves.[3]
The legal status of slaves here was substantially the same as that of
slaves in the tropical colonies of other nations; in fact, the Western
European slave code remains practically the same. This slave colony
seems singular in being unfavorable to the health and life of the
natives. The annual excess of deaths over births amounted to about two
and one half per cent. Added to this death rate was the rapid spread
of the feverish desire for wealth at any cost among the peoples of
European countries. The slave trade was profitable. The demand for
slaves was continual, amounting at this period to anywhere between
30,000 to 35,000 a year in the French West Indies. Human life and
rights were subordinate to gold, despite the position assumed by these
nations as champions of Christianity.
The question of mulattoes and freedmen and their descendants was
peculiar to San Domingo. The free Negroes and mulattoes were four
fifths the whites in number. When the offspring of illicit unions
between slave women and their masters attained their majority they
were emancipated, and in many cases their mothers were set free also.
As follows a system of servitude,
"The Sons of gods take the Daughters of men, but
The Sons of men dare not touch the daughters of the gods."
And thus it came about the number of these classes increased rapidly.
The poor laboring class of the community, corresponding somewhat to
the class of "poor whites" within the slave section of our country,
was made up of free Negroes.
"According to the _Code Noir_ of Louis XIV, freemen and their
descendants were entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizens
of France. However, in defiance of the law, race prejudice had built
up during the eighteenth century a special body of customary rules for
their control, and this custom was recognized by numerous
administrative edicts and royal ordinances." Great effort was put
forth to keep the possibilities of uprisings at a distance. Any use of
fire arms was prohibited even the mulattoes, and the commissioned
officers of military service were kept white without exception. A
trace of Negro blood was a bar to individual attainment, even marriage
to a mulatto received its share of condemnation. A strong feeling of
social repugnance was being brought into play which outlawed all
social intercourse between the races. This sort of thing, going on in
so many different places--practically wherever the Western European
colonized--became imbedded in custom and in places was expressed in
law.
While the _Code Noir_ of Louis XIV went even so far as to lay down
certain practices as the fundamental law of slavery, it was apparently
only a "law." There was a lack of the moral support necessary to
insure for it even a respectable amount of operation. There were at
work, however, forces which sought to create a widespread social
antipathy to slavery. This resulted somewhat from the situation in
England where there was a strong sentiment against slavery. The
Quakers in England, whose founder had been a fearless critic of the
institution, were foremost in the attack on slavery. In 1727 the
Society of Friends passed a resolution of censure against the slave
trade, and in 1758 its influence was strongly exerted to keep its
members from even an indirect connection with it. In 1765, Granville
Sharp began to look after the interests of Negroes who were claimed in
British ports as slaves, and in 1772 was instrumental in securing the
famous Somerset decision that, as soon as any slave set foot on
British soil he became free. In 1783 the Society of Friends submitted
to Parliament the first petition for the abolition of the slave trade.
In that same year Thomas Clarkson won the prize in a competition in
Latin composition at Cambridge upon the assigned subject, "Whether it
is right to enslave others against their will." His essay immediately
became a standard authority among opponents of the trade and the
institution. A greater consequence was that Clarkson himself was so
inspired he devoted his life to the cause of the blacks. In 1787 a
"Committee for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade" was
organized. It was composed chiefly of Quakers, having Granville Sharp
as President and Thomas Clarkson as its most prominent member. Their
work was organized to embrace appeals to the public and petitions to
the government. Wilberforce, a member of Parliament and an intimate
friend of Pitt, was to head the campaign in Parliament, while the
Committee was to solicit funds, collect information and arouse public
sentiment. This campaign lasted until the abolition of British slave
trade in 1806.
This work in behalf of freedom soon extended to France. A little over
three months after the London Committee was formed it received a
letter from Jean Pierre Brissot, requesting that he and Etienne
Clavière might become associates of the committee for the purpose of
publishing French translations of its literature and collecting
subscriptions to be remitted to London for the good of the common
cause. The committee declined the offer of financial aid but elected
Brissot an honorary member and recommended that a society be formed in
France. Now both Brissot and Clavière were active figures in the
Revolution. Clavière was at one time minister of finances and Brissot,
most ardent of revolutionists, was a Parish Deputy during the Reign of
Terror, and a leader of the Girondins from 1789 to 1792. Accordingly,
a society was formed in Paris in February, 1788, under the name of the
Society of Friends of the Blacks, with Clavière as President. It
adopted the same seals as the Committee in England but was an entirely
independent organization. Directly its influence began to draw within
its folds powerful figures. The famous Comte de Mirabeau was a charter
member, Marquis de Lafayette, an officer who had served in the
American Revolution, and Condorcet, a member of the Convention, whose
report as a member of the Committee of Public Instruction of the
Legislative Assembly formed the actual basis of subsequent plans for
education, were among the first additions to its membership. Other
prominent members who came in later were Sièyés, Petion, Grégoire,
Robespierre, and the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Mirabeau issued the
early publications of the society as supplements to his journal; at a
later time Brissot's journal, the "Patriote francaise," became the
organ of the society.
With Brissot's return from a visit to America in 1788, the society
went seriously to work. In America he seems to have met some things
which clinched his convictions and determinations. Coincidental, the
National Assembly was about to meet, deputies were being elected,
cahiers were being written, and the country was stirred up over the
watchword liberty. This offered an exceptional advantage to the
society. What better opportunity could one anticipate to secure the
abolition of slavery and the slave trade, the most flagrant violations
of the principles of equality and liberty ever known? On February 3,
1789, Condorcet, at that time the President, addressed a circular
letter to all the bailiwicks of France, urging that there be inserted
in the cahiers a demand that the Estates-General destroy the slave
trade and make preparations for the ultimate abolition of slavery. The
results of this campaign were disappointing. As a whole the cahiers
made it perfectly clear to the Society and all concerned, that an
attack on slavery was not a matter vital to the mass of the nation,
and that success, if it came at all, must be due to the loyalty of the
Estates-General to the principles of equality and liberty, and to the
ability and energy of the little group of intellectual leaders who
made up the Society of Friends of the Blacks. This was the status of
the controversy. Anti-slavery agitation was confined to an
intellectual élite, promoted by an appeal to the mind.
In the National Assembly the contest between Friends of the Blacks and
defenders of slavery began in connection with the application of a
delegation for admission to the Estates-General as representatives of
San Domingo. Early in 1788 there was formed in Paris an organization,
the "colonial committee" by name, composed of certain colonial
proprietors residing in France, a few merchants interested in colonial
trade, and a small number of actual residents of San Domingo, which
began an agitation for representation of the colony in the
Estates-General, which had been promised for 1792. The committee
circulated pamphlets and the like. It made a formal request of the
king for representation of San Domingo. The request was refused by the
Council of State. The agitators boldly drew up and sent to the colony
a plan for electoral assemblies. These assemblies were held without
any legal sanction, and thirty-one deputies were elected.
The committee continued its work in France, and succeeded in securing
a demand for the admission of colonial deputies in at least fourteen
cahiers of primary assemblies. Repeated applications were made to
Necker and to the Minister of Marine, but without result, and when the
Estates-General opened the representatives of San Domingo had no legal
standing. Nevertheless part of the deputies presented themselves on
June 8, making application separately to each of the three orders.
The third estate alone proved receptive. On June 20, eight San Domingo
deputies were allowed to take the Tennis Court Oath. On June 27 the
Committee on Credentials made a report unanimously recommending the
admission of the colonial deputation but declared itself unable to
agree on the number of deputies to which the colony was properly
entitled. The Assembly accepted the report, apparently without a
dissenting voice, and postponed discussion of the question of numbers
to June 3. This brought squarely before the Assembly the delicate
problem of slavery and the status of free-blacks under the new régime,
and brought upon the colonial delegation the wrath of the powerful
Society of the Friends of the Blacks.
The Friends of the Blacks recognized in this San Domingo delegation a
foe. Mirabeau's newspaper challenged their right to count the slaves
as a basis of representation, and taunted them with bitter words.
"Either count your Negroes as men or as beasts; if they are men, free
them, let them vote, let them be elected to office. If they are
cattle, let the number of deputies be proportional to your human
population; we have counted neither our horses nor our mules."[4]
Between the vote of admission on June 27 and the final debate on July
3 and 4 the Friends of the Blacks awoke to the importance of the
issue. Condorcet published a vigorous pamphlet denouncing the slave
holder and all his works. "We are tempted," said he, "to advocate a
law which shall exclude from the National Assembly every man, who, as
a slave holder, is interested in the maintenance of principles
contrary to the natural rights of man, which are the only purpose of
every political organization.... The natural rights of man to be
governed only by laws to which he has given his consent cannot be
invoked in favor of a man who is himself at the very moment violating
the law of nature." The pamphlet closes with the remark that the
planters can doubtless speak concerning their own interests, "but that
on their lips the sacred word 'rights' would be blasphemy against
reason."[5]
When the question was reopened on July 3, Mirabeau took the lead in
the discussion, raising again the question of counting the slaves, and
arguing further that the so-called deputies really represented only
about one half the free population, since the whole body of free
blacks and mulattoes had been excluded from suffrage. The spokesman of
the colonial deputation was the Marquis de Gouy d'Arsy, a colonial
proprietor residing in Paris, from the beginning a leader in the
movement for colonial representation. Gouy made no attempt to defend
the principle of slave representation. He based his claim for the
admission of eighteen or twenty delegates on the wealth and commercial
importance of the colony. His weak point was the exclusion of free
tax-paying mulattoes from the electoral assemblies. He said that since
the mulattoes were natural enemies of the whites it would be dangerous
to give them any influence, an argument which made a bad impression on
the Assembly. The debate was finished the next day, and the number of
deputies was fixed by a compromise at six. The chief importance of
this discussion was the prominence which it gave to two questions that
the colonial deputies were anxious to keep smothered--slavery and the
civil status of the free Negroes. During the debate on June 27 the
Duke de la Rochefoucauld found opportunity to present the aims of the
Society of Friends of the Blacks, and requested the future
consideration of the problem of emancipation. Remarks by other
deputies to the effect that something be done to improve the condition
of slaves received hearty applause.
The French Revolution plunged the island into a state of chaos. The
vast majority of the population of the western colony were slaves, and
the number of free blacks and mulattoes were nearly equal to the
number of whites. "The news of the Revolution had encouraged each
class of the colonial population to expect the realization of its
peculiar hopes. The planters desired freer access to the markets of
the world, the poor whites hoped for the advantages that their richer
neighbors alone enjoyed, the free blacks and mulattoes for civil
equality; even the slaves cherished hopes of liberty."[6] The clash of
interests brought on civil war in Santo Domingo. The situation here,
the richest of the sugar colonies, was serious; it soon received
special attention from the home government. A colonial assembly was
chosen, and did in miniature what the National Assembly undertook for
all France. It controlled royal officers and troops, attempted to
reorganize the administrative system and the courts, and even opened
the ports to products specifically excluded by a royal ordinance. The
question of the status of the free blacks had reached an acute stage.
As property holders their interests were identical with those of the
whites, provided the whites did not exclude them from a share in the
civil conquests of the French Revolution. The National Assembly
finally gave to the colonies an organization similar to the local
administrative system of France except that it delegated executive
powers to a governor. The constitution of the colony, once approved by
the national legislature, could not be changed without the demand or
consent of the local assemblies. To this local legislature was given
the responsibility for the making of laws on all matters except trade
and defense. If the governor did not withhold his consent in order
that the authorities at Paris should first be consulted, laws could be
put into force provisionally before they received the final sanction
of the National Assembly and the Crown.
The free people of color petitioned the National Assembly for
political rights and privileges in 1789. On May 15, 1791, on the
question of the free blacks, the Assembly passed a decree declaring
that people of color, born of free parents, were entitled to all the
privileges of French citizens. When the news reached the island the
mulattoes and free Negroes rejoiced. The whites were opposed to any
such measure. Thereupon the governor of the island delayed
promulgating the decree while he communicated with the home
government. The free people of color were angered and civil strife
followed. The mulattoes took up arms against the whites. To complicate
matters, the slaves rose in insurrection in August, 1791. The whites,
finding themselves in a perilous situation, decided to accede to the
demands of the free people of color, who in turn promised to combine
with the whites to suppress the revolt. Meanwhile, in the last days of
the Assembly the friends of the planters succeeded in having the whole
matter referred to the colonial assemblies. The people of color,
mulattoes and free blacks, fled to arms again and joined the slaves,
leading bands of them against the whites or remained indifferent in
actual warfare. Then followed actual civil war. The French land owners
or "colons" called in the English to help them combat the blacks.[7]
The English came to their aid. By the end of 1793 the latter took
possession of a part of the island which seemed lost to France, being
occupied partly by Spaniards and partly by English, when Toussaint
L'Ouverture, the bondman leading the revolting slaves, espoused the
cause of France. Following months of bloody war, France, apprehensive
of a British invasion in full force, and not being able to put down
the insurgents, weary and tired of the struggle, conciliated. August,
1793, Universal Freedom was proclaimed--this measure was ratified by
the National convention early the following year. This was the first
time in the history of the world a legislative assembly ever decreed
the abolition of human slavery.
The British, having taken Port-au-Prince and besieged the French
Governor at Port-de-la-Paix when the blacks under Toussaint
L'Ouverture defeated them and released the French Governor, abandoned
the island in 1797. L'Ouverture, who up to forty years of age had been
a slave, thus succeeded in ridding the island of the Spaniards and the
English. The French government rewarded him by appointing him
major-general and governor of the island.
This left L'Ouverture Commander-in-Chief and virtually dictator of the
island. He set up a Republic, drew up a Constitution, which he sent to
Napoleon. For answer Napoleon appointed Leclerc governor of the
colony, and sent a formidable army to reduce the authority of
L'Ouverture. War broke out again. After several engagements
L'Ouverture surrendered and retired on his properties. He was
subsequently decoyed on board a French vessel, kidnapped and deported
to Paris. He was then placed by Bonaparte in a damp prison of the
fortress of Joux on the chilly heights of Jura where he died. In
September, 1802, the peoples of color took up arms against French
domination under the leadership of General Dessalines and swore to die
rather than remain subservient any longer.[8] By the end of 1793
Rochambeau, who on the death of General Leclerc was put in command by
Bonaparte, was hard pressed in the city of Cape Haitien by black
troops and was compelled to capitulate and "the power of France was
lost on the island forever." On January 1, 1804, Haiti, as it was
better known, proclaimed its independence with General Dessalines as
ruler. Slavery was abolished forever. In 1822 Haiti, the western
colony, controlled the whole of the island; but in 1844 the eastern
part seceded and established an independent government known today as
the Dominican Republic.