When the French vessels, bringing news of the developing Revolution,
touched the wharves of Cap Français, a spark seemed to leap forth into
the colony, to run through all ranks and classes of men, setting the
Creole hearts afire, till it fell dead against the _gros peau_ and the
_peau fin_[27] of the black man. Three colonial parties vibrated with
expectations that were radically discordant when the cannon of the
people thundered against the Bastille. First in rank and assumption were
the old planters and proprietors, two-thirds of whom were at the time
absentees in France. They were, excepting a small minority, devoted
royalists, but desired colonial independence in order to enjoy a perfect
slaveholding authority. They were embittered by commercial restrictions,
and longed to be set free from the mother-country, that San Domingo
might be erected into a feudal kingdom with a court and gradation of
nobility, whose parchments, indeed, would have been black and engrossed
all over with despotism. They wanted the freedom of the seas and all the
ports of the world, not from a generous motive, nor from a policy that
looked beyond the single object of nourishing slavery at the cheapest
rates, to carry its products to the best markets in exchange for flour,
cloths, salted provisions, and all the necessaries of a plantation. The
revolutionary spirit of Prance was hailed by them, because it seemed to
give an opportunity to establish a government without a custom of Paris,
to check enfranchisements and crush out the dangerous familiarity of the
mulatto, to block with sugar-hogsheads the formidable movements in
France and England against the slave-trade. These men sometimes spoke as
republicans from their desire to act as despots; they succeeded in
getting their delegates admitted to seats in the National Assembly to
mix their intrigues with the current of events. Their "_Club Massiac_"
in Paris, so named from the proprietor at whose residence its meetings
were held, was composed of wealthy, adroit, and unscrupulous men, who
often showed what a subtle style of diplomacy a single interest will
create. It must be hard for bugs of a cosmopolitan mind to circumvent
the _formica leo_, whose sole object in lying still at the bottom of its
slippery tunnel is to catch its daily meal.
If this great party of slave-owners had preserved unity upon all the
questions which the Revolution excited, their descendants might to-day
be the most troublesome enemies of our blockade. But history will not
admit an If. The unity which is natural to the slaveholding American was
impossible in San Domingo, owing to the existence of the mulattoes and
the little whites.
A few intelligent proprietors had foreseen, many years previous to the
Revolution, that the continuance of their privileges depended upon the
good-will of the mulattoes and the restriction of enfranchisement. The
class of mixed blood was becoming large and formidable: of mulattoes and
free negroes there were nearly forty thousand. They were nominally free,
and had all the rights of property. A number of them were wealthy owners
of slaves. But they still bore upon their brows the shadow cast by
servitude, from which many of the mixed blood had not yet emerged. The
whites of all classes despised these men who reminded them of the color
and condition of their mothers. If a mulatto struck or insulted a white
man, he was subjected to severe penalties; no offices were open to him,
no doors of society, no career except that of trade or agriculture. This
was not well endured by a class which had inherited the fire and vanity
of their French fathers, with intellectual qualities that caught
passion and mobility from the drops of negro blood. Great numbers of
them had been carefully educated in France, whither they sent their own
children, if they could afford it, to catch the port and habits of free
citizens. They were very proud, high-strung, and restless, sombre in the
presence of contempt, lowering with some expectation. Frequent attempts
had been made by them to extend the area of their rights, but they met
with nothing but arrogant repulse. The guilty problem of the island was
not destined to be relieved or modified by common sense. The planters
should have lifted this social and political ostracism from the mulatto,
who loved to make money and to own slaves, and whose passion for livid
mistresses was as great as any Frenchman's. They were the natural allies
of the proprietors, and should have been erected into an intermediate
class, bound to the whites by intelligence and selfish interest, and
drawn upon the mother's side to soften the condition of the slave. This
policy was often pressed by French writers, and discussed with every
essential detail; but the descendants of the buccaneers were bent upon
playing out the island's tragedy.
The mulattoes were generally selfish, and did not care to have slavery
disturbed. When their deputies went to Paris, to offer the Republic a
splendid money-tribute of six million livres, and to plead their cause,
one of their number, Vincent Ogé, dined with Clarkson at Lafayette's,
and succeeded in convincing the great Abolitionist that he believed in
emancipation. "The slave-trade," they said, "was the parent of all the
miseries in St. Domingo, not only on account of the cruel treatment it
occasioned to the slaves, but on account of the discord which it
constantly kept up between the whites and people of color, in
consequence of the hateful distinctions it introduced. These
distinctions could never be obliterated while it lasted. They had it in
their instructions, in case they should obtain a seat in the Assembly,
to propose an immediate abolition of the slave-trade, and an immediate
amelioration of the state of slavery also, with a view to its abolition
in fifteen years."[28]
There is reason to doubt the entire sincerity of these representations,
but they were sufficient to convert every proprietor into a bitter foe
of mulatto recognition. The deputies were soon after admitted to the bar
of the National Assembly, whose president told them that their claims
were worthy of consideration. They said to Clarkson that this speech of
the president "had roused all the white colonists in Paris. Some of
these had openly insulted them. They had held also a meeting on the
subject of this speech; at which they had worked themselves up so as to
become quite furious. Nothing but intrigue was now going forward among
them to put off the consideration of the claims of the free people of
color." The deputies at length left Paris in despair. Ogé exclaimed, "If
we are once forced to desperate measures, it will be in vain that
thousands will be sent across the Atlantic to bring us back to our
former state." Clarkson counselled patience; but he found "that there
was a spirit of dissatisfaction in them, which nothing but a redress of
their grievances could subdue,--and that, if the planters should
persevere in their intrigues, and the National Assembly in delay, a fire
would be lighted up in St. Domingo which could not easily be
extinguished."--This was the position of the Mulatto party.
The third class, of Little Whites, comprised the mechanics and artisans
of every description, but also included all whites whose number of
slaves did not exceed twenty-four. This party likewise hailed the
Revolution, because it hated the pride and privileges of the great
proprietors. But it also hated the mulattoes so much that the obvious
policy of making common cause with them never seemed to be suggested to
it. Among the Little Whites were a goodly number of debtors, who hoped
by separation from the mother-country to cancel the burdens incurred for
slaves and plantation-necessaries; but the majority did not favor
colonial independence. Thus the name of Liberty was invoked by hostile
cliques for selfish objects, and the whole colony trembled with the
passion of its own elements. Beneath it all lay stretched the huge
Enceladus, unconscious of the power which by a single movement might
have forestalled eruption by ruin. But he gave no sign.
Several mulattoes had been already hung for various acts of sympathy
with their class, when Ogé appeared upon the scene at the head of a
handful of armed slaves and mulattoes, and attacked the National Guard
of Cap Français. He was routed, after bravely fighting with partial
success, fled into the Spanish quarter, whence he was reclaimed in the
name of the king, and surrendered by the governor. Thirteen of his
followers were condemned to the galleys, twenty-two were hung, and Ogé
with his friend Chavannes was broken upon the wheel. A distinction of
color was made at the moment of their death: the scaffold upon which
they suffered was not allowed to be erected upon the same spot devoted
to the execution of whites.
Now the National Guard in all the chief towns was divided into adherents
of the mother-country and sympathizers with colonial independence. In a
bloody street-fight which took place at Port-au-Prince, the latter were
defeated. Then both factions sought to gain a momentary preponderance by
allying themselves with the mulattoes: the latter joined the
metropolitan party, which in this moment of extremity still thought of
color, and served out to the volunteers _yellow pom-pons_, instead of
the white ones which distinguished themselves. The mulattoes instantly
broke up their ranks, and preserved neutrality.
It would be tedious to relate the disturbances, popular executions, and
ferocious acts which took place in every quarter of the island. Murder
was inaugurated by the colonists themselves: the provincial faction
avenged their previous defeat, and were temporarily masters of the
colony. On the 15th of May, 1791, the National Assembly had passed a
decree, admitting, by a precise designation, all enfranchised of all
colors who were born of free parents to the right of suffrage. When this
reached the island, the whites were violently agitated, and many
outrages were committed against the people of color. The decree was
formally rejected, the mulattoes again flew to arms, and began to put
themselves into a condition to demand the rights which had been solemnly
conceded to them. In that decree not a word is said of the slaves: the
_Amis des Noirs_, and the debates of the National Assembly, stretched
out no hand towards that inarticulate and suffering mass. The colonists
themselves had been for months shaking a scarlet rag, as if they
deliberately meant to excite the first blind plunge of the brute from
its harness.
The mulattoes now brought their slaves into headquarters at
Croix-des-Bouquets, and armed them. The whites followed this example,
and began to drill a body of slaves in Port-au-Prince. Amid this
passionate preoccupation of all minds, the ordinary discipline of the
plantations was relaxed, the labor languished, the negroes were ill-fed
and began to escape to the _mornes_, the subtle earth-currents carried
vague disquiet into the most solitary quarters. Then the negroes began
to assemble at midnight to subject themselves to the frenzy of their
priestesses, and to conduct the serpent-orgies. But it is not likely
that the extensive revolt in the Plaine du Cap would have taken place,
if an English negro, called Buckman, had not appeared upon the scene, to
give a direction to all these restless hearts, and to pour his own clear
indignation into them. No one can satisfactorily explain where he came
from. One writer will prove to you that he was an emissary of the
planting interest in Jamaica, which was willing to set the fatal example
of insurrection for the sake of destroying a rival colony. Another pen
is equally fertile with assurances that he was bought with the gold of
Pitt to be a political instrument of perfidious Albion. It is shown to
be more probable that he was the agent of the Spanish governor, whose
object was to effect a diversion in the interest of royalism. According
to another statement, he belonged to the Cudjoe band of Jamaica maroons,
which had forced a declaration of its independence from the governor of
that island. Buckman was acquainted with Creole French, and was in full
sympathy with the superstitious rites of his countrymen in San Domingo.
Putting aside the conjectures of the times, one thing is certain beyond
a doubt, that he was born of the moment, and sprang from the festering
history which white neglect and criminality had spread, as naturally as
the poisoned sting flutters from the swamps of summer. And he filled the
night of vengeance, which was accorded to him by laws that cannot be
repealed without making the whole life of the planet one sustained
expression of the wrath of God.
A furious storm raged during the night of August 22: the blackness was
rent by the lightning that is known only to the hurricane-regions of the
earth. The negroes gathered upon the Morne Rouge, sacrificed a black
heifer with frantic dances which the elements seemed to electrify,
thunder emphasized the declaration of the priestess that the entrails
were satisfactory, and the quarters were thrown into a huge brazier to
be burned. At that moment a bird fell from the overhanging branch of a
tree directly into the cooking spell, and terrible shouts of
encouragement hailed the omen. Is it an old Pelasgic or a Thracian
forest grown mænadic over some forgotten vengeance of the early days? It
is the unalterable human nature, masked in the deeper colors of more
fervid skies, gathering a mighty breath into its lacerated bosom for a
rending of outrage and a lion's leap in the dark against its foe.
"Listen!" cried Buckman. "The good God conceals himself in a cloud, He
mutters in the tempest. By the whites He commands crime, by us He
commands benefits. But God, who is good, ordains for us vengeance. Tear
down the figure of the white man's God which brings the tears to your
eyes. Hear! It is Liberty! It speaks to the hearts of us all."
The morning broke clear, but the tempest had dropped from the skies to
earth. The costly habitations, whose cornerstones were dungeons, in
whose courts the gay guests of the planter used to season their dessert
with the punishments he had saved up for them, were carried off by
exulting flames. The great fields of cane, which pumped the earth's sap
and the negro's blood up for the slaveholder's caldron, went crackling
away with the houses which they furnished. Rich garments, dainty
upholstery, and the last fashions of Paris went parading on the negroes'
backs, and hid the marks of the floggings which earned them. The dead
women and children lay in the thickets where they had vainly implored
mercy. There are long careers of guiltiness whose devilish nature
becomes apparent only when innocence suffers with it. Then the cry of a
babe upon a negro's pike is the voice of God's judgment against a
century.
Will it be credited that the whites who witnessed the smoking plain from
the roofs of Cap Français broke into the houses of the mulattoes, and
murdered all they could find,--the paralytic old man in his bed, the
daughters in the same room, the men in the street,--murdered and
ravished during one long day? In this crisis of the colony, suspicion
and prejudice of color were stronger than personal alarm. Every action
of the whites was piqued by pride of color and the intoxication of
caste. These vulgar mulatto-making pale-faces would hazard their safety
sooner than grasp the hand of their own half-breeds and arm it with the
weapon of unity. Color-blindness was at length the weakness through
which violated laws revenged themselves: the French could not perceive
which heart was black and which was white.
If Northern statesmen and glib editors of Tory sheets would derive a
lesson from San Domingo for the guidance of the people, let them find
it in the horrors wrought by the white man's prejudice. It is the key to
the history of the island. And it is by means of the black man that God
perceives whether the Christianity of Church and State is skin-deep or
not. Beneath those oxidated surfaces He has hidden metal for the tools
and swords of a republic, and into our hands He puts the needle of the
text, "God has made of one blood all nations," to agitate and attract us
to our true safety and glory. The black man is the test of the white
man's ability to be the citizen of a long-lived republic. It is as if
God lighted His lamp and decked His altar behind those bronze doors, and
waited for the incense and chant of Liberty to open them and enter His
choir, instead of passing by. So long as America hates and degrades the
black man, so long will she be deprived of four millions' worth of God.
In so much of God a great deal of retribution must be slumbering, if the
story of San Domingo was a fact, and not a hideous dream.