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of color. |
When the General Assembly in France decreed equality of rights to |
all citizens, the mulattoes of Santo Domingo made a petition for the |
enjoyment of the same political privileges as the white people--to the |
unbounded consternation of the latter. They were rewarded with a |
decree which was so ambiguously worded that it was open to different |
interpretations and which simply heightened the animosity that for years |
had been smoldering. A new petition to the Assembly in 1791 primarily |
for an interpretation brought forth on May 15 the explicit decree that |
the people of color were to have all the rights and privileges of |
citizens, provided they had been born of free parents on both sides. The |
white people were enraged by the decision, turned royalist, and trampled |
the national cockade underfoot; and throughout the summer armed strife |
and conflagration were the rule. To add to the confusion the black |
slaves struck for freedom and on the night of August 23, 1791, drenched |
the island in blood. In the face of these events the Conventional |
Assembly rescinded its order, then announced that the original decree |
must be obeyed, and it sent three commissioners with troops to Santo |
Domingo, real authority being invested in Santhonax and Polverel. |
On June 20, 1793, at Cape François trouble was renewed by a quarrel |
between a mulatto and a white officer in the marines. The seamen came |
ashore and loaned their assistance to the white people, and the Negroes |
now joined forces with the mulattoes. In the battle of two days that |
followed the arsenal was taken and plundered, thousands were killed |
in the streets, and more than half of the town was burned. The French |
commissioners were the unhappy witnesses of the scene, but they were |
practically helpless, having only about a thousand troops. Santhonax, |
however, issued a proclamation offering freedom to all slaves who were |
willing to range themselves under the banner of the Republic. This was |
the first proclamation for the freeing of slaves in Santo Domingo, and |
as a result of it many of the Negroes came in and were enfranchised. |
Soon after this proclamation Polverel left his colleague at the Cape and |
went to Port au Prince, the capital of the West. Here things were quiet |
and the cultivation of the crops was going forward as usual. The slaves |
were soon unsettled, however, by the news of what was being done |
elsewhere, and Polverel was convinced that emancipation could not be |
delayed and that for the safety of the planters themselves it was |
necessary to extend it to the whole island. In September (1793) he set |
in circulation from Aux Cayes a proclamation to this effect, and at the |
same time he exhorted all the planters in the vicinity who concurred in |
his work to register their names. This almost all of them did, as they |
were convinced of the need of measures for their personal safety; and on |
February 4, 1794, the Conventional Assembly in Paris formally approved |
all that had been done by decreeing the abolition of slavery in all the |
colonies of France. |
All the while the Spanish and the English had been looking on with |
interest and had even come to the French part of the island as if to aid |
in the restoration of order. Among the former, at first in charge of |
a little royalist band, was the Negro, Toussaint, later called |
L'Ouverture. He was then a man in the prime of life, forty-eight years |
old, and already his experience had given him the wisdom that was needed |
to bring peace in Santo Domingo. In April, 1794, impressed by the decree |
of the Assembly, he returned to the jurisdiction of France and took |
service under the Republic. In 1796 he became a general of brigade; in |
1797 general-in-chief, with the military command of the whole colony. |
He at once compelled the surrender of the English who had invaded his |
country. With the aid of a commercial agreement with the United States, |
he next starved out the garrison of his rival, the mulatto Rigaud, whom |
he forced to consent to leave the country. He then imprisoned Roume, the |
agent of the Directory, and assumed civil as well as military authority. |
He also seized the Spanish part of the island, which had been ceded to |
France some years before but had not been actually surrendered. He then, |
in May, 1801, gave to Santo Domingo a constitution by which he not only |
assumed power for life but gave to himself the right of naming his |
successor; and all the while he was awakening the admiration of the |
world by his bravery, his moderation, and his genuine instinct for |
government. |
Across the ocean, however, a jealous man was watching with interest the |
career of the "gilded African." None knew better than Napoleon that |
it was because he did not trust France that Toussaint had sought the |
friendship of the United States, and none read better than he the logic |
of events. As Adams says, "Bonaparte's acts as well as his professions |
showed that he was bent on crushing democratic ideas, and that he |
regarded St. Domingo as an outpost of American republicanism, although |
Toussaint had made a rule as arbitrary as that of Bonaparte himself.... |
By a strange confusion of events, Toussaint L'Ouverture, because he was |
a Negro, became the champion of republican principles, with which he |
had nothing but the instinct of personal freedom in common. Toussaint's |
government was less republican than that of Bonaparte; he was doing |
by necessity in St. Domingo what Bonaparte was doing by choice in |
France."[1] |
[Footnote 1: _History of the United States_, I, 391-392.] |
This was the man to whom the United States ultimately owes the purchase |
of Louisiana. On October 1, 1801, Bonaparte gave orders to General Le |
Clerc for a great expedition against Santo Domingo. In January, 1802, Le |
Clerc appeared and war followed. In the course of this, Toussaint--who |
was ordinarily so wise and who certainly knew that from Napoleon he had |
most to fear--made the great mistake of his life and permitted himself |
to be led into a conference on a French vessel. He was betrayed and |
taken to France, where within the year he died of pneumonia in the |
dungeon of Joux. Immediately there was a proclamation annulling the |
decree of 1794 giving freedom to the slaves. Bonaparte, however, had not |
estimated the force of Toussaint's work, and to assist the Negroes in |
their struggle now came a stalwart ally, yellow fever. By the end of the |
summer only one-seventh of Le Clerc's army remained, and he himself died |
in November. At once Bonaparte planned a new expedition. While he was |
arranging for the leadership of this, however, the European war broke |
out again. Meanwhile the treaty for the retrocession of the territory |
of Louisiana had not yet received the signature of the Spanish king, |
because Godoy, the Spanish representative, would not permit the |
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