IV.

But now, when all was prosperity, much sugar ground out, when the slaves of both sexes were seen dancing every night, when “Liberty!” and “To arms! To arms!” were on every tongue, who could fear or suspect the blacks! The happy, careless creatures who loved their masters.

“Not a sparrow falls to the ground without the knowledge of God,” has been truly said—not a pebble rolls from its mountain-bed, but the relations of matter in the whole creation are changed: for the laws of gravitation are universal, and sustain the worlds. Nor is mind less universal or less mighty than matter. No thought is thought, no word is spoken, no act is acted, but it thrills the mind of the universe. We may not be conscious of this, yet it must be so; and it is well, therefore, for every man to see to it, that his secret thoughts are noble, not base.

The innate necessity for freedom had found expression in France, and the loftiest aspirations and most earnest hopes went, like the lightning, from mind to mind, from man to man, from nation to nation, and lighted even the benighted mind of the slave in St. Domingo.

Thus matters stood in 1789. The Third Estate, the slaves in France had risen, and grasped the handle of the whip. Centuries of political andecclesiastical misrule and profligacy had exasperated the people to a state of frenzy. The battle of liberty and despotism was begun; the Bastile had fallen! The principles of manhood had been asserted and seized; the petit blancs in St. Domingo felt the impulse, and aspired to self-government. The whites were rent into parties[18]—for the king and against the king—but all against the men of color “les sangs melées.”

Thefreemulattoes claimed their rights, and had presented Ogé as their bloody sacrament. Their rights were declared by the French nation;—their rights were resisted by the whole body of the planters. Arms were in every hand; all was combustible, and a spark might start the conflagration.

The whites and mulattoes stood upon the thin crust of the crater; under their feet were four hundred and eighty thousand negro slaves.

On the 25th of August was the feast of St. Louis.

For the week preceding, the planters gathered at Cap François, to concert measures against the mulattoes—against the National Assembly and—to dine. The great men, and the rich, and the brave, were there. It was not a time to drive the slaves; and during that week they “danced” more than before. On the evening of the 22d August,[19]the best dishes of the cook Henri (a born prince, whose future no one could suspect) tempted the palates of the born whites. In brave counsels, in denunciations of the mulattoes, in songs for Blanchelande and Liberty, thetime passed, the wine flowed, and hearts swelled—so the shadows of the night stole on. Light! more light! was called for; they threw open the jalousées; curious black faces swarmed about the piazzas—but what meant that dull glare which reached the sultry sky! The party was broken up—they rushed to the windows—they could smell the heavy smoke—they could hear the distant tramp of feet. The band, unbidden, struck the Marseillaise; it was caught up in the streets; and from mouth to mouth, toward the rich Plain du Nord, passed along the song:

“Le jour de gloire est arrivé!Aux armes! aux armes! pour Liberté!”[20]

“Le jour de gloire est arrivé!

Aux armes! aux armes! pour Liberté!”[20]

Consternation followed the feast—each man grasped his arms—into the midst of the company rushed a negro covered with dust, panting with heat. He sought his master. Pale with fear, and excited with wine, he received him on the point of his sword. As the life and blood flowed, he gasped, “Oh, master! Oh, master!” Murmurs of disapprobation filled the room, but it was too late—the hour had come! the slaves had risen. This poor creature had wished to save the man that owned him.

The rebellion broke out on the plantation of Noe, nine miles from Cap François. At midnight the slaves sought the refiner and his apprentice, and hewed them in pieces—the overseer they shot. They then proceeded to the house of Mr. Clement—he was killed by his postillon. They proceeded from plantationto plantation, murdering the whites; their ranks swelled by crowds of scarred and desperate men, who had nothing to lose but life; and life with slavery was not so sweet as revenge. Everywhere, they applied the torch to the sugar mills (those bastiles, consecrated to the rites of the lash and to forced labor, dumb with fear), and to the cane fields, watered with sweat and blood.

Towards morning, crowds of whites came pouring into Cap François, pale, terror-stricken, blood-stained! Men, women, and children, found the day of judgment was come—none knew what to do—all was confusion—the signal gun boomed through the darkness, warning of danger—and every man stood to his arms. The inhabitants of the city were paralyzed with fear. They barred their doors and locked up their house-slaves. The only living objects in the streets were a few soldiers marching to their posts. Panic ruled the hour. The Assembly sat through the night. Touzard was sent out to attack the negroes, but was driven back. Guns were mounted, and the streets barricaded.

The morning dawned, and with the rising sun came rising courage. “It is nothing!” said some—“Burn and hang a few negroes, and all will go on as before.” The exasperation against the mulattoes, who were charged with having fomented the rising, resulted in hatred, insult, bloodshed, and murder, in and around Cap François; and a butchery was only stayed by the vigorous opposition of the governor. Whatever negroes were seized were tortured and massacred. “Frequently,” says Lacroix, “did the faithful slaveperish by the hands of an irritated master, whose confidence he sought.”

The maddened negroes had tasted blood. They seized Mr. Blen, an officer of police, nailed him alive to one of the gates of his plantation, and chopped off his limbs with an axe.

M. Cardineau had two sons by a black woman. He had freed them, and shown them much kindness; but they belonged to the hated race, and they joined the revolt. The father remonstrated, and offered them money. They took his money, and stabbed him to the heart. If they were bastards, who had made them so! “One’s pleasant vices aye come home to roost.” Horrors were piled on horrors—white women were ravished and murdered—black were broken on the wheel—whites were crucified—blacks were burned alive—long pent-up hatreds were having their riot and revenge. M. Odeluc was wrong, then? The slaves didnotseem to love their masters. What could it mean? Pork and bananas—slavery and ignorance, with some dancing and the free use of the whip seemed to be producing surprising results. The whites could not understand it. Much sugar was raised, and yet thenegroeswere not satisfied, and now seemed to have gone mad. Destruction hung over the whites, and they concluded to try hanging and burning in their extremity, having no faith in justice and honesty for the blacks. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, owed their safety to the kindness of their house-slaves.[21]

Mons. and Mad. Baillou, with their daughter, her husband, and two white servants, lived about thirty miles from Cap François, among the mountains. A slave gave them notice of the rising; he hid them in the forest, and joined the revolt. At night he brought them food, and led them to another place of safety. He did this again and again, led them through every danger and difficulty till they escaped to the sea. For nineteen nights they were in the woods, and the negro risked his life to save theirs. Why repeat instances? This was one of hundreds.

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 ofhishands, 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 themthere 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 saidfor 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]BrownandMartineau.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., andLiancourt.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.

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

[19]BrownandMartineau.Lacroix, vol. i., p. 90.

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

[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., andLiancourt.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.

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