Part 2

Mr. Odeluc was the Superintendent of the Gallifet estate, the largest on the Plain:—“As happy as one of Gallifet’s negroes,” was a saying in the district. He was sure of _his_ hands, and regretted the exaggerated terror of the whites:—with a friend and three or four soldiers, he rode out to the estate, and found his negroes in arms, with the body of a white child for a standard. Alas! poor Odeluc! He believed the negroes were dogs, and would lick the hand that struck the blow. It was too late—he and his attendants were cut down without mercy—two only escaped to tell the tale.[22] Four thousand negroes were in arms, and they were everywhere successful; the Plain was in their possession; the quarters of Morin and Limonade were in flames, and their ravages extended from the shore to the mountains. Their recklessness was succeeded by regular organization and systematic war. In the first moments of their headlong fury, all whites were murdered indiscriminately. This did not last—they soon distinguished their enemies, and women and children were saved. The blacks were headed by Jean François and Biassou, generals not to be despised. Brave, rapid, unscrupulous, vain of grandeur, greedy of plunder, they were not far from the marshals of France.

This, then, was not a revolt, but a revolution![23] Success would decide. Never could the whites believe that the blacks were men. Ogé had revealed a wide-spread conspiracy, headed by well-known slaves. The whites concealed this. They did not believe him; they believed only that the blacks were their born slaves, fit for the whip, incapable of courage, or honor, or martyrdom. Experience only was to teach them _there and elsewhere_.

At first, the whites acted upon the defensive. The Assembly was rancorous against France in the midst of this destruction, and effaced from behind the Speaker’s chair, the motto “Vive la Nation, la Loi, et le Roi:” even when destruction was over them they heeded not: their bickerings continued. The negro generals declared that they were fighting for their king, and against slavery—for a rumor had reached them that Louis favored emancipation. They had the strongest party and the strongest side. At length, the whites determined upon a war of extermination. The blacks responded. Heads of whites were stuck on poles around the negro camps. Bodies of negroes swung on gibbets in the white encampments, and on trees by the roadside. Within two months 2,000 whites and 10,000 blacks perished. Te Deum was sung in both camps, and daily thanksgivings were said for what was done. Pale ghosts hovered over them, and sighed in the tropical groves—but they could not speak for pity or for justice. The insurrection spread to the southwest, and two thousand mulattoes, headed by Rigaud, rose to revenge the death of the Ogés. Many negroes joined them, and they threatened Port au Prince. The colonists were now thoroughly alarmed, and proceeded to try reconciliation. The inhabitants of Port au Prince and Rigaud agreed upon a truce, and the whites admitted that the death of Ogé was “infamous,” and agreed that the civil rights of the mulattoes should be allowed them. At last! Was it not too late?[24]

The Governor, Blanchelande, issued a proclamation, earnestly entreating the revolted negroes to lay down their arms and return to their duty. It was too late. They laughed in derision at his small request. What! to slavery, and work, and degradation, and cruelty, even! They had burst their fetters, and stood with arms in their hands. “Will you,” they replied to the Governor, “will you, brave general, that we should, like sheep, throw ourselves into the jaws of the wolf? It is too late. It is for us to conquer or die!”

On the 11th Sept., 1791, the whites at Port au Prince had consented to the civil rights of the mulattoes. On the 23d of October, the “Concordat” had been signed; the whites and mulattoes had walked arm in arm through the City, and peace seemed possible, when word came, that on the 24th of September, the National Assembly at Paris had reversed the decree of the 15th of May. The mulattoes at once flew to arms, and the struggle between them and the whites went on with increased carnage and cruelty. This continued, with varied results, through 1792. “You kill mine and I’ll kill yours,” was the cry. As it had been from the outset, so it continued among the whites—open war between the colonists and the governors—between the people of the North and the South; contention and bitterness—intrigue—treachery. They made head nowhere against the mulattoes, nowhere against the negroes. And, in Dec., 1791, three commissioners arrived from France, to distract the confusion. They accomplished nothing, and were succeeded, in Sept., 1792, by Sauthonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud;[25] ordinary men, not sufficient for so extraordinary a state of things as this.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] LACROIX, vol. i., p. 83.

[19] BROWN and MARTINEAU. LACROIX, vol. i., p. 90.

[20]

“The day has come—the glorious day! To arms! to arms! for Liberty!”

[21] Let it be remembered, that nine in ten negroes were strangers to their owners. They were worked in the field in gangs during the day, and folded into barracks at night.—RAINSFORD, p. 139.

[22] EDWARDS, p. 75.

[23] LOUIS XVI., and LIANCOURT. _French Rev_., vol. 1, p. 200.

[24] Two hundred negroes who were with Rigaud were paid for by the State, and landed clandestinely in Jamaica: they were sent back by the English. The Colonial Assembly sent them in irons on board a hulk at the Môle St. Nicholas. Sixty of them were butchered in one night, and the rest left to perish.—_Quarterly Review_, No. 42.

[25] BRYAN EDWARDS, p. 117.

V.

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.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] December, 1791.

[27] LACROIX, p. 303. _Life of Toussaint_, by JOHN E. BEARD, D. D., of Leipsic. London, 1853.

[28] RAINSFORD.

VI.

In 1792, the three Commissioners, sent out from France to “settle” the affairs of the colony, had been thwarted and finally driven away-by the whites. In Sept. (1792), Santhonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud, had arrived with troops, money, and instructions, and a new governor (Desparbes) in place of Blanchelande. He soon became disgusted, alarmed, and he fled. The Commissioners distributed themselves to settle the commotion. The rich planters were for the King; the Petits Blancs were for the Directory; the mulattoes, under Rigaud, ravaged the west; the revolted negroes under Jean François, Biassou, and others, hung upon the north. France herself, that ancient kingdom, was now fermenting; struggling (yet with hope) to realize in the State her unformed faith in Democracy—with the energy of despair, to beat back the waves of bayonets which bristled on her borders. The dynasties of Europe were against her, for, on the 21st of January, 1793, the people of France, determined no more to be taxed, shot, and despotised by a dynasty, had, as Danton said, “flung at their feet, as wager of battle, the head of a king!” Thus matters stood in France—thus in St. Domingo. The slaves in both countries had risen, and rushed to arms. Their remedy was desperate; so was their disease.

General Galbaud, a new governor, arrived from France in May, (1793). The Commissioners were engaged in the west, in fighting Rigaud. They returned to Cap François to fight the governor, whose authority they disputed. Galbaud held the ships and the arsenals, and determined to assert his authority. His soldiers and sailors entered the town and abandoned themselves to drunkenness, pillage, and brutality. (21st June, 1793). The Commissioners armed the slaves in the town, promised them freedom, and sent for aid to the negro generals. Jean François and Biassou refused; but a chief, Macayo, at the head of three thousand blacks, entered the town, and the conflict raged—the whites were driven into the sea and slaughtered. Madness ruled—none were fiercer than the mulattoes. Galbaud fled, and half the city was destroyed by fire.

At last—for a while—the whites gave up the hope of recovering their slaves. Thousand fled (some suppose nine-tenths),[29] and found refuge along the American coasts. Gentlemen they mostly were, certainly, (as far as their back teeth), but quite useless, a spectacle to gods and men, of those who, having lived so long on the forced labor of others, must now live on charity or die.

Famine had more than once increased the misery during these three years—yet the island was fruitful, and cultivation, here and there, went on. The sagacious Jean François had initiated cultivation along the mountain-sides, and among their valleys; and he enforced it. He thus secured an unfailing magazine. Rarely the songs of labor now were heard, those sounds with which the negroes are wont to lighten their weariness. Small parties were to be seen at work; but no man’s life was safe, nor was he secure of the produce of his labor; and the men and women scattered like frightened partridges at the tramp of feet. They lay hidden among the canes, or in the ravines, till the danger passed.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] EDWARDS, p. 153.

VII.

Toussaint, meanwhile, continues his duties with the negro troops. Steadily and surely, if not rapidly, he gains strength and influence, and knowledge of war. He has measured himself with Jean and Biassou, and is not wanting. His prudence, patience, silent will, and courage, make him useful to them, and his justice, and determination, and mercy, make him the idol of the men. The last are often imposed upon by demagogues, but give them time to _know_ a true, brave, and wise man, and axes cannot hew them away. The Marquis Hermona, governor of the Spanish part of the island, made advances to the negro chiefs. Santhonax, in his extremity, after the destruction of Cap François, sent Macayo to propose an alliance. They distrusted him—Louis was beheaded. They said, “We have lost the king of France, but the king of Spain esteems us and gives us succors.” They declined the proposals of the Commissioners, and threw themselves on the side of Spain. Toussaint was loyal to the memory of the king, and followed François and Biassou. Hermona saw that Toussaint was a man; and while Jean François was advanced to the first rank, Toussaint was raised to that of colonel in the Spanish army. He at once applied himself to his duties, and what he did was always well done. His troops became, as if by a word, the best disciplined in the army. The reason was plain—he knew what men ought to do, and what they can do; and the men knew that he was upright and wise. So these ragged, ignorant, roving hordes became efficient troops. Confidence begat confidence—the commander trusted his men, and they relied on him: together they were strong. Idleness was not Toussaint’s policy. The insurgents, under Jean François, Biassou, and Toussaint, held strong positions in the mountains south of Cap François. Brandicourt, the general of the French troops, was at once trapped and compelled to order his troops to lay down their arms. Grande Rivière, Dondon, Plaisance, Marmalade, and Ennery, the most important places in the north, quickly fell into Toussaint’s hands.

The French Commissioners were getting into straits. The Spanish troops were against them, the blacks were against them, the remaining whites were divided—some wore the black cockade, others the white; the troops and friends of the commissioners, the tricolor; the mulattoes, the red; war was everywhere, and no man was safe but with arms in his hands, and in the strongest party. But this was not enough; some of the planters mounted the English hat and sent to the English for succor. Even “Perfide Albion” was welcome, if they might but reëstablish slavery and get again their estates. In this extremity, Santhonax decided to make friends with the blacks, and proclaimed at Cap François universal freedom (20th Aug., 1793). Polverel repeated the proclamation at Port au Prince.[30] The enthusiasm among the negroes was great, but not universal. Their leaders were not moved; they distrusted the Commissioners, and they doubted the stability of the French Republic; so the war went on.

In September, the English landed at Jeremie, in the extreme southwest. They took possession of St. Nicholas, in the extreme northwest, and during the year 1794, the whole western coast was in their possession—St. Nicholas, St. Marc, Jacmel, Tiburon, Jeremie; and at last, on the 4th of June, Port au Prince, the capital, yielded. “Twenty-two top-sail vessels,” with their cargoes, worth 400,000 pounds sterling, were a part of the spoil. The mulatto chief, Rigaud, had taken the side of France. Educated in Bordeaux, he had followed, in St. Domingo, his trade of a goldsmith, which the whites thought “too good for a nigger.” He was a brave man, mild in peace, terrible in war, and, aided by Petion, he kept up a harassing fight against the English. Shortly after the fall of Port au Prince, a ship arrived with a requisition for the Commissioners to return to France; they must answer for their doings there, and General Laveaux was left as provisional governor. His case, and that of the French, was desperate. Shut up in Port de Paix, the last stronghold of the French, he wrote, (24th May, 1794):—“For more than six months we have been reduced to six ounces of bread a day, officers as well as men; but from the 13th, we have none whatever, the sick only excepted. If we had powder we should have been consoled. We have in our magazines, neither shoes, nor shirts, nor clothes, nor soap, nor tobacco. The most of the soldiers mount guard barefoot: we have not flints for the men. But be assured, that we will never surrender; be assured, too, that, after us, the enemy will not find the slightest trace of Port de Paix.”[31] Dark was the outlook, but brave was the heart of General Laveaux.

FOOTNOTES:

[30] BROWN’S _Hist._, v. i, p. 255.

[31] BEARD’S _Life_, p. 82. BROWN’S _History_.

VIII.

Let us look at France: she had grown desperate in her revolutionary fever; had risen _en masse_ against the powers of Europe, and had beaten them back. Dugommier even had carried the war across the Pyrenees, and his soldiers, like demons, shouting the _ça-ira_, threatened Spain. _The Convention at Paris on the 4th of February, 1794, confirmed and proclaimed the_ FREEDOM _of all the slaves!_[32]—news of which came slowly across the Atlantic, and reached the ears of Toussaint upon the heights of Dondon.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] _Biographie Universelle_. Art. Toussaint L.

IX.

The hour was nigh! The hands advanced on the dial plate of time. Events, which no man could have foreseen or controlled, had gathered for judgment, and at last a great nation had decreed freedom to a poor, debauched and servile race. But who should lead them, who should now defend them against themselves—give shape and system to their undisciplined wishes—carry them safely through the anarchy of unbounded liberty, and crystallize them into a STATE, whose only sure basis is the _Rights and Duties of Labor, Thought, Speech and Worship, the Rights and Duties of Manhood_?

The Hour _has_ come and the Man. Toussaint Breda, from his eyrie near Dondon, sweeps the horizon. In the East he sees the decadent power of Spain—it has spoken no word of freedom for the blacks. In the West he sees the white sails of England—she is hand and glove with the planters to reëstablish slavery. In the North France and Laveaux are nigh death. France only has proclaimed liberty to the blacks. Toussaint sees the “opening” for his race and for himself, and from this day he is Toussaint Louverture—the first of the blacks. Bone of their bone and skin of their skin, he alone knows their needs, their capacities and their hearts. With the clear glance of inspiration he sees the moment, with the firm grasp of talent he seizes it.