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Brown, J., M.D. The History and Present Condition
of St. Domingo . Vol. l: Preface; 172-180. Vol 2: 286-289. Philadelphia:
William Marshall and Co., 1837.
THE
HISTORY
AND
PRESENT CONDITION
OF
S T. D O M I N G O.
BY J. BROWN, M. D.
HUMAN AFFAIRS ARE IN NO INSTANCE GOVERNED BY STRICT
POSITIVE RIGHT.--Junius.
IN TWO VOLUMES.–VOL. I.
PHILADELPHIA:
WILLIAM MARSHALL AND CO.
1837.
Facsimile: London: Frank Coss & Co. LTD., 1971.
PREFACE.
During a residence of more than a year in St. Domingo, in the course of 1833-34,
I availed myself of the opportunity that my situation and leisure afforded, to collect
the most authentic intelligence of that island's eventful history, as well as to
investigate the condition and operation of things under the present dynasty of the
blacks.
Having gathered together these materials, I have deemed it not unadvisable to communicate
to the public the result of my labors. I was the more inclined to such a step, as
but little is accurately known in the United States of the early progress of that
brilliant French colony, or of the train of events, all dependent upon each other,
which gradually brought on the fierce struggle of the Revolution, terminating in
the death or expulsion of the whites, and the emancipation and independence of the
blacks.
I have confined myself, throughout, to a simple recital of facts, having no system
of politics to establish, more than a decided penchant for order, humanity and moral
principle.
In my account of the earlier fortunes of the Spanish colony of Hispaniola, I have
closely followed Mr. Washington Irving, in his Life of Columbus–conscious that I
could add nothing to the extent or accuracy of his historical facts.
I have adhered to the elaborate work of Moreau de St. Mery for most of the incidents
appertaining to the French colony previously to the Revolution; and for an account
of the troublous times immediately succeeding that epoch, I have consulted a host
of French authors, few or none of whom seem to me to possess much merit except Dalmas,
whose history extends to the burning of Cape Francois and the emancipation of the
blacks; and Lacroix, who, in his excellent work upon the expedition to St. Domingo
under General Leclerc, combines the merit of an accurate observer of the scenes around
him, together with that of one of the most elegant of narrators.
For intelligence of the time subsequent to the Emperor Dessalines, I found myself
compelled to rely, chiefly, upon tradition, or, at least, the oral accounts of those
who were actors in the scenes they described; as the few pretended documents that
have survived the fierce wars of Christophe and Petion are so wretched in their nature
that it would be folly to depend upon them as materials for history.
I might add, that a moral is perhaps to be drawn by us from the events here described;
namely, that political abuses are sooner or later repaid by popular vengeance; and
that we should not, by ignorant or unnecessary legislation, disturb that arrangement
of the social order under which experience has assured us that our national prosperity
is safe.
Greenland, June 15, 1836.
Vol. I, 172-180.
The long reign of disorder and civil contention had at last awaked a spirit of insubordination
among the slaves, and the indications of a wide spread conspiracy might have been
evident to any but to those purposely blinded to their own destruction. On the 20th
of August an insurrection broke out on the plantation Galiffet, in the plain of the
Cape, commenced by an attempt to murder the overseer, M. Mossut. An old negro named
Ignace, long exempted from labor and treated with much kindness, had nevertheless
been for some time in the secret of the intended rising. The definitive arrangements
had been made a few days before, at a meeting of the principal negro chiefs in a
wild spot on the plantation Normand. Alive to the superstitions of their race, they
began the consultations upon their hazardous enterprise by a sacrifice after the
fashion of their original country. A black hog was covered with fetiches, and tricked
off in a manner the most fanciful and bizarre, and offered a[s] sacrifice to the
all-powerful genius of the negro race. A little of the blood was drunk, and each
one took a few of the bristles to wear next his body as a talisman to shield him
from danger by making his body invulnerable. M. Mossut, on the night when the attack
was made had just returned from Cape Francois, accompanied by a friend who designed
to lodge at his house. When just fallen asleep he was awakened by a noise, and demanding
to know what it meant, he received for answer, " it is we, who have come to
speak with you." As he was raising the curtains of his bed, two blows of a manchette
(a long knife used in cutting cane) rent them in pieces, and the third wounded him
in the shoulder and hand. He immediately leaped from the bed and wresting a lance
from a negro he encountered in the passage, hurled the assassins into the gallery
of the house. The negroes, astonished at such resistance, were dismayed, and fled
into the surrounding darkness. M. Mossut ran to the apartment of his friend, awoke
him, and sent him to the plantation house for assistance. Mr. Odeluque was found
there, and these three men, but half armed, but with resolute hearts, were in the
midst of five hundred rebel negroes, without any attempt from the latter to renew
their attack. Finding no traces of the rebels in the grounds about the residence
of the overseer, the three whites proceeded to the plantation house, the gate of
which they found open, and its lock broken. This had been done by the leader of the
rebels, who, seeing the attack on the overseer fail, had run with all his might to
stay any farther proceeding. But notwithstanding all his precaution, fire had already
been set at different points in the neighborhood. Those negroes upon whom suspicion
rested, were the next day arrested, and one of them, Ignace, confessed the whole
extent and minute preparations of the conspiracy. The confederation was discovered
to be extensive; but from a fatality which seems to have resulted from the madness
of suicide, the immediate perpetrators of the attack on M. Mossut were alone punished,
while the planters held in their hands a clue to guide them to a full discovery of
the meditated insurrection, which was in a few days to spread desolation over the
fairest portion of the earth.*
*Dalmas.
On the 22d of August, the insurrection, the time of which had been anticipated by
the former attempt, burst forth in all its terror and calamity. The slaves of the
plantation Turpin, headed by an English negro named Buckman, set out at ten o'clock
at night, in their way drawing into their ranks the slaves of four or five other
plantations, and commenced the horrors of a wide spread negro insurrection. They
were the veriest tigers in rage and cruelty. The plain of Cape Francois, that might
have rivaled the fabled garden of the Hesperides, both in richness and beauty, was
soon in one universal conflagration, the gleams of which painted the sky in lurid
horror, while the smoke enveloped the whole country in uncertain gloom. The ranks
of the rebels were increased at every step of their progress, and along their march
of devastation they massacred every white who fell into their power without distinction
of age or sex, viewing with fiendish delight the agonies and groans of those whom
so lately they had not dared to look in the face.
These scenes of destruction were continued through the night, and on the following
day the inhabitants of Cape Francois knew nothing of the disasters around them, but
by the smoke that obscured the horizon and the fugitives that were pouring into their
gates. Petrified with horror and panic they quickly fastened themselves in their
houses, and locked up their slaves. The troops of the garrison were the only living
objects seen in the streets, as they were hurrying to their different posts. An alarm
gun soon called the whole population to arms. The people came out of their houses,
accosted and questioned each other, and catching courage from the effect of numbers,
their former fear was soon changed to an inspiriting cry for vengeance, which in
their determined infatuation was principally directed against the mulattoes. These
were accused of having instigated the blacks to revolt, and on them it was thought
immediate and summary vengeance should fall. In the delirium of the moment a few
of that unfortunate race expiated with their lives the suspicion of their being accomplices
with the rebels in the plain. To stop this wicked injustice of murdering the innocent
for the crimes of the guilty, the provincial assembly hastened to assign places of
refuge for this proscribed caste, who ran thither to put themselves under the protection
of the military. They demanded arms, especially the mulatto planters, and expressed
an eagerness to march against the common enemy; and such was the blindness of creole
prejudice that even the assembly, hesitated at first to accept their offer.*
The insurrection spread like a stream of electricity, and within four days one third
part of the plain of Cape Francois was but a heap of ashes. Many members of the new
colonial assembly in their journey from Leogane to the Cape were surprised and killed
by the rebels, and a detachment of troops was found necessary to guard the route
of the president, secretaries and archives of this body. M. Tousard was despatched
against the rebels with a detachment of troops of the line and national guards, together
with some grenadiers and chasseurs of the regiment of the Cape; but nothing, without
the courage and veteran skill of this able officer, could have kept the troops in
an imposing attitude in such fearful circumstances. On every side, and in every direction,
they were beset by swarms of the rebels, who seemed to despise danger and defy the
utmost that could be done against them. An order from the governor general, however,
recalled the forces of M. Tousard in haste to Cape Francois, where from the advance
of the negroes on that town the consternation was heart-rending. The place was now
entirely surrounded with blazing plantations, and even the hideous outcries could
be heard of those fiends, who were every where triumphant in their march of desolation
and massacre. The advance guard established on the plantation Bongars had been affrighted
from its defence of that post, and thus the two most beautiful quarters of the colony,
those of Morin and Limonade, were given to the torches of the rebels. They even advanced
to the Haut du Cap, and the cannon brought to play upon their huddled masses was
scarcely sufficient to check them in their headlong march. The return of Tousard
upon their rear dispersed them, but by his retreat they were left in undisputed possession
of the country. They immediately extended their ravages from the sea shore to the
mountains, and when nothing more was left for them to destroy, their headlong tumultuousness
began to give place in their leisure to a
* Lacroix.
regular organization and a more systematic warfare. Their continuance in the field,
notwithstanding the vast amount of plunder to tempt them from their course, and the
celerity and skilfulness of their movements, had already given rise to the suspicion
that they were guided in their enterprise by some being superior to themselves. They
no longer exposed themselves in masses to the destructive sweep of cannon and small
arms, but by scattering their detachments, by suddenly dispersing to the shelter
of hedges and thickets, when occasion required, they often succeeded in surprising
or surrounding their enemy, and when neither could be done, in crushing them by a
vast superiority in numbers. While the preparations for the attack were in progress
their obics performed the Ouangah, or mysterious rite to their demons, by which the
imaginations of the multitude were heated and strained to the utmost degree of tension,
and the women and children danced an accompaniment to the ceremony with howlings
and outcries that savored of Pandemonium. Amid the excitement of this wild uproar
the attack began with yells and terrific gesticulations. If they met with a firm
and effective resistance the energy of their attack soon slackened–but if the defence
was weak and faltering their boldness and audacity became extreme. They rushed forward
to the cannon's mouth, and thrusting in their arms and bodies purchased the retreat
of the enemy by this self immolation. Contortions and howlings were not the only
means they used to intimidate their adversaries–-the flames which they applied to
the highly inflammable fields of cane, to the houses and mills of the plantations,
and to their own cabins, covered the heavens with clouds of smoke by day, and illuminated
the horizon by night with gleams that gave to every object the color of blood. After
a silence the most profound there would arise an outcry from their camp the most
appalling; this would again be followed by the plaintive cries of their prisoners,
whom the savages made it their sport to sacrifice at their advance posts.
In the midst of these scenes of horror the new colonial assembly commenced its sittings.
Burning with rancor toward France, and distrustful of the aid which might be rendered
them by an Assembly whose sublimated doctrines had caused so much disorder in the
colony, the members doggedly refused to send an official account of the rebellion
to France, or turn their hopes of succor to that mother country to whose ill-advised
legislation they ascribed all their misfortunes. To compel the governor general to
adopt the same policy, an embargo was laid on all the ports of the colony. Fully
determined to be sufficient for its own defence in the present emergency, the assembly
proceeded to decree the immediate formation of three regiments of troops–to proclaim
the existence of martial law–to protract the usual term of office to its president,
to enable that officer to finish a negotiation already opened with the governor of
Jamaica, to which island two commissioners had already been despatched, to solicit
assistance in the perilous crisis of their affairs. Goaded on by its irritated feelings
the assembly next proceeded to a measure which was to cut its vain step-mother to
the heart. The chapeau bras was banished from the island, and it was ordered that
the English round hat should be universally worn in its stead. A uniform of red and
black was decreed to be the costume of the new levy of troops. The motto, "vive
la nation, la loi and le roi," was effaced from behind the president's chair,
and the president himself assumed a cockade of black instead of the national tricolor.
It was farther decreed that the members of the colonial assembly should wear a scarf
of black crepe as a badge of their office, while the members of the old provincial
assembly of the Cape were to wear scarfs of red, "a decoration puerile and ridiculous,"
observes M. Dalmas, "if it had not indicated the end toward which every thing
was tending."
The solicited succors from Jamaica amounted to little more than friendly assurances,
and empty wishes for the speedy restoration of tranquillity to the island. A vessel
of war had been despatched to Port au Prince by Lord Effingham, the governor, and
five hundred muskets, some munitions of war, and a quantity of provisions had been
sent to Cape Francois–-the governor stating "that he could not take it upon
himself to do more in the then critical situation of the West India islands."
The infatuated colonists could only be restrained from their perpetual discord by
a sense of immediate and overwhelming danger. Soon as success in a few skirmishes
had manifested to them that even in their crippled state they could maintain their
superiority over the negroes, all their ancient discord was commenced anew. Instead
of marching to crush the rebellion by one bold and vigorous movement, the time, which
was so precious and irrevocable, was spent in mutual recrimation and reproaches of
each other; both sides accusing their opponents of having excited the slaves to rebellion.
Meantime the insurgents, in full possession of the plain of Cape Francois, were revelling
amidst the spoils of the vanquished. The colonists to intimidate them changed the
sluggish and inefficient war they were carrying on to one of extermination. This
was ill-timed and impolitic, for the insurrection had grown too strong to yield to
fear, and the negroes repaid the cruelty by augmenting the tortures of their own
captives. The negro chiefs would have no neutrals among those of their race, and
the more faithful slaves, who were found concealing themselves from the rebels, were
immediately put to death by their own countrymen. On the other hand parties of enraged
whites were traversing the country, and with an undiscriminating vengeance killing
every living-thing that was black. The faithful slave, who in this reciprocal destruction
came to claim the protection of his master against those who on either side sought
his life, was in many instances put to death by that very master himself. This blind
severity served no purpose but to swell the ranks of the rebels, for the peaceable
negro could find no security for his life but by assuming arms in the ranks of his
countrymen.
In the first moments of the rebellion the negroes had murdered all their prisoners,
but as success increased the complacency of triumph taught them more clemency, or
perhaps they had become glutted with cruelty and crime. They no longer massacred
the women and children, and only showed themselves cruel to their prisoners taken
in battle, whom they put to death with such studied tortures as cannot be named without
a thrill of horror. They tore them with red-hot pincers–sawed them asunder between
planks–roasted them by a slow fire–or tore out their eyes with red-hot cork-screws.
Their principal leader, Jean Francois, assumed the title of grand admiral of France,
and his lieutenant, Biassou, called himself generalissimo of the conquered country.
They were evidently under the guidance and instruction of demons higher in intelligence
than they. The rebels stated that they were in arms for their king, whom their enemies
and his had cast into prison–-but at other times they asserted that their sole object
was to save themselves from their tyrants, the planters. These were the reasons of
their chiefs; but the mass of the insurgents had no distinct object in view, farther
than to gain a freedom from labor, and to gratify their desire for a life of plunder
and drunkenness. It soon became known that there were white men in their ranks, and
a letter was found in one of their places of encampment, which contained promises
of supplies, and was signed Don Alonzo. A party of the rebels presented itself before
the town of Port Margot, bearing a white flag, on one side of which was written "
vive le roi," and upon the other " ancient regime." They stated that
they were fighting for their king, who had been put in prison because he wished to
liberate the blacks–-that the ancient regime must be restored, and then the whites
might return to their homes, after having been disarmed. This reasonable overture
was followed by an attack upon the town of Port Margot in which the negroes were
defeated and dispersed in flight, leaving upon the field of battle four pieces of
cannon and two hundred of their dead. This and a few other checks taught the rebels
circumspection, and they grew more cautions in offering battle, except when a post
had become weakened by disease, or was isolated from any means of ready succor. By
this wary proceeding they at last gained possession of nearly every place in the
north of the colony which was not in close communication with a fortified town. Never
was the old maxim that those who are destined to destruction are first demented,
more fully exemplified than among the whites of St. Domingo at this epoch. They still
continued their mad bickerings when their very homes had grown unsafe, from the torch
of the revolted negroes. While the former were driven to conceal the weakness of
the points they could not cover, the rebels were every day making acquirements in
the art of war, and learning to turn the vicissitudes of battle to their own benefit.
What the colonial government should have made an overwhelming armament was frittered
away in garrisoning insignificant posts, and the grand and united effort, which would
have forever crushed the rebellion, was wasted away in petty skirmishes, in which
the multitudes of the negroes were an equal balance to the superior skill of the
whites. Te Deum was daily sung by both belligerents, in impious thanksgiving to God
for what was nothing but a continued massacre. The heads of murdered whites, stuck
on poles, surrounded the camp of the rebels, and the hedges that bordered the way
conducting to the posts of the whites were filled with the dead bodies of negroes
swinging in the wind.
After a long succession of skirmishes which had resulted in nothing but to drive
the rebels from the plain to the mountains, whence after the withdrawal of the troops
they rushed back again to the plain, the negroes were nearly subdued by a combined
movement, which had been ordered by M. Blanchelande, and executed by M. Tousard.
Camp Lecoque and Acul were taken by the whites, and a large body of negroes were
surrounded upon the plantation Alquier, who were surprised by night, and all who
were unable to effect an escape were cut in pieces. M. Tousard was fortunate enough
in this expedition to save from the hands of the negroes a great number of white
children, and eighty white females, who were found shut up in the church at Limbe.
The horrible fact that their female captives were not destroyed by the Negroes, and
the disclosure of facts which afterwards conducted to the scaffold the priest of
Limbe, for prostituting these females to Biassou, came to add to the afflicting details
of the time.*
*Lecroix.
Vol.II, 286-289.
The ancient plantations, once such opulent domains, are fallen into utter dilapidation,
and nothing but the walls of the various edifices remain as monuments of former magnificence.
These are concealed in a growth of wild shrubbery, which the fertility of the soil
has caused to spring up on all sides, covering immense tracts once occupied as fields
of cane. Even the negro cabins upon these plantations were built of solid masonry,
and their roofless walls are still in good preservation. The descendants of the slaves
who once occupied these commodious residences make no attempts to restore them to
a habitable condition,–-and they prefer a hovel made of mud and wicker-work, and
concealed in the depths of the thicket, to the superior conveniences of the abodes
where their ancestors dwelt. Upon a soil which requires but the planting of the seeds
to ensure a gainful harvest, these negroes live in perfect idleness and the most
abject poverty. Buried treasures have at different epochs since the independence
of the country been dug up among the ruins of these deserted plantations. These occurrences
inflamed the cupidity of the blacks to the utmost, and for a season gave rise to
a universal desire for money-digging. Sufficient sums have been discovered to leave
no doubt that immense treasures have been left concealed under the soil during the
disastrous times of the revolution. Twenty thousand dollars in doubloons were, not
many years ago, discovered upon a plantation near Cape Francois, and smaller sums
have at different times been dug up in the neighborhood of Port au Prince and St.
Marks. So much has been found as to excite the attention of the government, which
has become jealous of the good fortune of the discoverers. A municipal regulation
now exists, forbidding under severe penalties the concealment of this revealed treasure
from the knowledge of the government, or silently appropriating it to individual
possession. The proportion of one third is allowed to the discoverer, and the remainder
is divided between the government and its subordinate agents in the transaction.
In later times the entire absence of public credit or private security has led many
of the black citizens of the country to bury their treasures for their preservation;
and this practice is universal among all the more thrifty cultivators of the coffee
districts in the interior. With such subterranean investments of capital, in cases
when the possessor dies suddenly without pointing out to his heir the locale of his
buried treasures, the family of the deceased are reduced from comparative opulence
to utter destitution through the fatal negligence of their intestate progenitor.
As to public conveniences the population of the island is almost solely indebted
to the achievements of a former age. The enterprise of the French during the existence
of the colony is still evinced by the public works in roads, bridges and canals,
which though sadly neglected and many of them in ruins, are the only media of communication
between the different towns and settlements of the country. Carriages are almost
unknown, and horseback travelling is the only method of conveyance in use among the
population. As there exist no inns upon the road, and no hotels in the towns, the
traveller is followed in his lonely ride by a pack-horse loaded with provisions,
and for a shelter by night takes the bad fortune of a dirty negro cabin, or "
trusts to the sky for a greatcoat." The attempt to obtain a supply of food from
the cabins of the natives would be as fruitless as the hope to purchase oranges in
Siberia. To every demand made successively for the various articles of gastronomic
employment, the reply is invariably the same–-"Pas gagne a rien, monsieur."*
If astonishment is expressed at such destitution, and a new inquiry is made as to
what they employ themselves about, the answer is still "a rien, monsieur."
Crossing into the Spanish territory the same condition is described in a different
language–-for if it is demanded of these blacks what is the nature of their employments,
the answer is readily forthcoming– 'nada, senor." If the question is renewed
as to what their ancestors did, the simple answer is still, "nada, senor."**
These blacks assume the manners of Spanish hidalgoes, forever smoking and forever
lounging in their hammocks. A few of them are herdsmen or mahogany gutters. In the
vast solitudes of the interior the former reside continually on horseback, with a
lasso at their side, and a small case of cigars and a bottle of aquadente at their
saddle-bow. The flesh of their cattle serves them for food, and the hides are sent
to the different towns upon the coast to be exchanged for their favorite luxuries.
In fine, to sum up all that might be said upon the actual condition of Hayti, poverty
and degradation stare one in the face wherever he goes–-and the state of the whole
island will be fully understood in the United States when it is bluntly asserted,
that the country is one continuous negro village, built of mud cabins, and unfurnished
with the usual comforts of life. The population is, with small exceptions, an indolent,
naked multitude, without sustenance or a disposition to make exertions to obtain
it; without enormous vices, but petty and insignificant in every thing relating to
human character, and not many removes from the tribes upon the Niger in point of
civilization. The fact is indisputable, that as a nation the blacks of St. Domingo
are in a retrograde movement as regards intellectual improvement, and no obstacle
seems to exist to prevent this descent to barbarism. The government and institutions
of the country must for the present remain unstable, and it is difficult to pronounce
what the changes involved in the future will produce.
* Not got any thing, sir. ** Nothing, sir.
