III.
The mulatto yet holds a doubtful place in the history and destiny of man. It is urged by many, that he has lost that pure and unlimited sensuous nature which, in the black, will be the basis for a new and surprising development, and that he has not gained the force of will and nervous intellectual power which, in the present time, gives the Caucasian race the control of the world. If this be so, we can look in them but for an imitative civilization and a temporary existence, and their large production in slave countries is then, at least, a waste. We will look at them for a moment as they existed in St. Domingo, where they nearly equaled the whites in numbers.
When the Revolution broke out in France, lavish luxury abounded among the planters in the colony of St. Domingo; but the poor whites, “the petits blancs,” were poor and discouraged, as they are in all slave communities, and were envious of the rich planters.
The whites set up the tree of liberty, and shouted over the rights of man, as they did in Paris. The poor whites (the petits blancs) were bitter, the mulattoesdiscontent, and the slaves reckless, or sullen, or indifferent. The planters did not believe themselves fools or mad! When the mulatto Lacomb presented his petition to the authorities, asking the rights and privileges of a man, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, he was only hanged for doing it. When a respectable planter, Beaudiere, at Petite Goave, presented a petition, asking for rights for the mulattoes, he was simply derided, and then torn in pieces.[8]The temper of the times was hot.
Many of the mulattoes were rich, many educated, with the tastes and manners of well-bred men. The whites hated them from the moment that it appeared that the “rights of man” includedthem, and that they knew it. The self-constituted General Assembly of the whites declared “that they would rather die than participate their political rights with a bastard and degenerate race.” Both parties knew who had made them bastards; and the injurers always hate the injured.
The mulattoes were by thousands the slaves of their own fathers—often freed, and favored, but all despised. The murder-spots would never out; no time, no talent, no wealth, no virtue, no genius, could wash away the stain. African blood, even if of princes, “tainted the character for ever!”[9]Their condition was worse, “in truth, much worse,” than the same class in the British Islands.[10]
They could hold no public office—no mulatto couldbe a priest, or a physician, or lawyer, or schoolmaster. He could not even take the surname of his father. They were as the Tiers Etat of ancient France, which at last drowned the noblesse in their own blood. By a law (not often enforced) a mulatto who struck a white man, upon any pretext, was to have that hand struck off; a white man who struck a free mulatto was dismissed with a small fine.[11]
By law, the free mulattoes were at the mercy of the King’s army officers—they could be compelled to serve indefinitely in the army, as horse or foot, without pay, to provide themselves with arms and to defray their expenses. They were free mulattoes, truly, but the slaves of the State.
They could acquire property—the pursuit of wealth alone was free. Many were, therefore, immensely rich. The presence of cultivated and manly fellows, such as some of these mulattoes were, in Paris, increased the zeal of the extreme Republicans in their favor, and the society of “Amis des Noirs”[12](formed in 1787) comprised some of the best and most brilliant men of France. These asserted, with power and eloquence, that the civil rights of this class of “free men” in the French Colonies were guaranteed by the Declaration of Rights.
To this class belonged Vincent Ogé, the son of a rich coffee-planter of St. Domingo. Educated in Paris, accustomed there to the society of the first men, the equal of Brissot, Lafayette, Gregoire, and others, he felt keenly, saw clearly, and at last determined rashly to seize what the rights of man and the Frenchnation asserted and admitted, what only a few blinded planters and slave-drivers refused and denied him.
His plans were known in St. Domingo before he reached there. He landed from an American sloop on the north side of the island, on the 23d of October, 1790,[13]freed and armed his mother’s slaves, drew to his cause a small number of mulattoes, (some 300 in all)—was defeated, driven into the Spanish part of the island, was given up by the Spaniards, brought to Cap François, the chief town of the island, and executed speedily and without mercy. The sentence ran thus:[14]—“The court condemns the said Vincent Ogé, a free quarteron of Dandon, and Jean Baptist Chavanne, a free quarteron of La Grande Rivière, to be brought by the public executioner before the great door of the parish church of the city, and there, uncovered, in their shirts, with ropes about their necks, on their bare knees, etc. * * * This being done they are then to be taken to the Place d’Armes, and to the opposite side to that appointed for the execution of white people, and have their arms, legs, thighs, and ribs broken, alive, upon a scaffold erected for that purpose, and placed by the executioner upon wheels with their faces turned towards heaven, there to remain as long as it shall please God to preserve life; after this, their heads to be severed from their bodies and exposed on stakes, their goods to be confiscated, etc.”[15]
How long it pleased God(!) to preserve their lives we are not informed. His brother and one othersuffered the same fate,—twenty-one were hanged and thirteen condemned to the galleys for life. Thus was the devil worshiped in the year of grace 1790.
These judicial massacres sent a thrill of horror through earth and heaven. The deeds were done—not by savages—not by slaves—not by beasts—but by enlightened men of a most civilized nation—which had heard the name of Jesus for centuries. The vibration reached across the ocean and shook the heart of France. The friends of the blacks were eloquent, the friends of slavery dumb. The question was pressed, and on the 15th of May, 1791,[16]the National Assembly passed the famous decree which declared that the people of color born of free parents—not the blacks—were entitled to and should be allowed all the privileges of French citizens. The sufferings of the Ogés had sanctified them martyrs. Deep in the hearts of the mulattoes was their memory cherished, and they vowed vengeance; they seized their arms, for the whites threatened. This decree, raising them to a civil equality, roused the scorn of the whites and aggravated the irritation to a fierce fever. Dissension had weakened the whites: during the year (1790) a struggle went on between the officers appointed by the Crown and the Colonial Assemblies, and now their hour was coming, and they knew it not. “Yes,” said Mirabeau, “they sleep on the verge of the volcano, and the first convulsions do not waken them.” They tore off the tricolor cockade and trampled it under foot—they determined to resist the foul indignity of sitting in the assemblies side by side with colored men (even if their ownsons) at all hazards. They forced Blanchelande (the Governor) to promise to suspend the operation of the obnoxious decree. They derided the idea of danger from the slaves; thefree mulattoeswere to be guarded against. “I know,” said M. Odeluc, “I know the slaves; they love their masters; experience has taught me that they confide in those who feed and govern them.”[17]M. Odeluc was a fool, and too soon met a fool’s fate. He left a large posterity, who believe to rule men, white and black, by fear. All despotism rests upon that principle. Despotism is infidelity systematized; its principle is a lie; its companions ignorance and degradation, and its fruits revolution and destruction.
FOOTNOTES:[8]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 20.[9]Browne’sHist. and Present Condition, p. 3, Philad., 1837.[10]Bryan Edwards, p. 9.[11]Edwards, p. 12.[12]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 16.[13]Brown.Lacroix, p. 55.Edwardssays. 12th Oct., p. 46.[14]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 64.[15]Quarterly Rev., No. 42.[16]Edwards, p. 65.Quarterly Review, No. 42.[17]The Hour and the Man.
[8]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 20.
[8]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 20.
[9]Browne’sHist. and Present Condition, p. 3, Philad., 1837.
[9]Browne’sHist. and Present Condition, p. 3, Philad., 1837.
[10]Bryan Edwards, p. 9.
[10]Bryan Edwards, p. 9.
[11]Edwards, p. 12.
[11]Edwards, p. 12.
[12]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 16.
[12]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 16.
[13]Brown.Lacroix, p. 55.Edwardssays. 12th Oct., p. 46.
[13]Brown.Lacroix, p. 55.Edwardssays. 12th Oct., p. 46.
[14]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 64.
[14]Lacroix, vol. i., p. 64.
[15]Quarterly Rev., No. 42.
[15]Quarterly Rev., No. 42.
[16]Edwards, p. 65.Quarterly Review, No. 42.
[16]Edwards, p. 65.Quarterly Review, No. 42.
[17]The Hour and the Man.
[17]The Hour and the Man.