Negro Revolution in Haiti;
Toussaint Louverture Establishes the Dominion of His Race

A.D. 1791

CHARLES WYLLYS ELLIOTT

Haiti, the Spanish Santo Domingo, earlier called Espanola, is the largest of the West Indian islands except Cuba. The bloody revolutionary and slave revolts which began in 1791 and ended in the supremacy of the negroes, form the most memorable passages in its history. From 1797 their great leader, Toussaint Louverture, whose achievements are here recounted, was Governor of the whole island, whose independence he proclaimed in 1801. Having afterward opposed Napoleon’s attempt to reestablish slavery, Toussaint was treacherously arrested and sent to France, where, in a dungeon, he died in 1803. But white supremacy was never restored in Haiti.

In 1697 France, by treaty, acquired the western part of the island, the eastern portion remaining in the possession of Spain, which had held it ever since its discovery by Columbus. The French found their Haitian lands very profitable in cotton and sugar, and the western region prospered, while the Spanish community was stagnant. At the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789) the whole island was thrown into a ferment, out of which came the changes that Elliott relates.

At that time the French portion of Haiti had about half a million inhabitants, of whom some forty thousand were of European blood, thirty thousand free negroes, the rest negro slaves. The free colored people, mostly mulattoes, had no voice in the Government, but in 1790 the French National Assembly decreed to those born of free parents full citizenship. Opposition on the part of the whites caused delay in carrying out the decree. Taking advantage of the ensuing commotion, the slaves rose in revolt (August, 1791), and the conditions which Toussaint at length was called upon to meet were inevitably brought about.

This black hero, of whose origin and personality information is given below, has been made the subject of a noble sonnet by Wordsworth, of an equally fine eulogy by Wendell Phillips, of a tragedy by Lamartine, and of a romance, The flour and the Man, by Harriet Martineau. Auguste Comte, the founder of positivism, placed Toussaint in his new calendar among the great modern liberators-Hampden, Cromwell, Algernon Sidney, Washington, and Bolivar.

ON August 25, 1791, was the feast of St. Louis. For the week preceding, the planters gathered at Cap Francois¹

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 August 23d, 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 Governor Blanchelande and "Liberty," the time 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 jalousies; 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 up the Marsellaise; 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 arrive!Aux armes! aux armes! dour Liberte!"

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, "O master! O 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 Francis. 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 postilion. They proceeded from plantation to 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 bastilles, consecrated to the rites of the lash and to forced labor, dumb with fear-and to the cane fields, watered with sweat and blood.

Toward morning crowds of whites came pouring into Cap Francois, 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 Francois; 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 slave perish 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 often 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 did not seem 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 the negroes were 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.

Monsieur and Madame Baillou with their daughter, her husband, and two white servants lived about thirty miles from Cap Francois, 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.

M. 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. 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 Francois 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! Success would decide. Never could the whites believe that the blacks were men. Oge had revealed a widespread conspiracy, headed by well-known slaves. The whites concealed this. They did nob believe him; they believed only that the blacks were their boa slaves, fit for the whip, incapable of courage or honor or marty" dom. Experience only was to teach them.

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 Ia Nation, Ia Loi, et Ie 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 two thousand whites and ten thousand 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 some of their comrades; many negroes joined them and they theatened 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 slaughter of certain mulattoes had been "infamous," and agreed that the civil rights of the mulattoes should be allowed them. At last! Was it not too late?

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 September 11, 1791, the whites at Port au Prince had consented to the civil rights of the mulattoes. On October 23d 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 September 24th the National Assembly at Paris had reversed the decree of May 15th. 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. In December, 1791, three commissioners arrived from France to distract the confusion. They accomplished nothing, and were succeeded in September, 1792, by Santhonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud, ordinary men; not sufficient for so extraordinary a state of things as this.

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 privilege and possession 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 Abbe 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, the mulattoes in the West were in arms under Rigaud; the blacks in the North, under Jean Francois 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 Francois, 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? Were 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 revoked 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.," and Raynal and Duplessis were ordered sharply to "with-draw."

They did withdraw, amid the hooting of the mob. They returned to Grande Riviere. 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, 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 counter-mands his orders, and the whites are saved.

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, and 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 twined around his door. Bananas and potatoes grew in his garden. 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 occupation the hoeing of cane and the grooming of horses. What thoughts, what struggles, what hopes had taken shape in that uncultivated 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 William Tell. Toussaint had bided his time. This slave was ignorant, knew nothing. He learned to read when approaching his declining years; then he studied: Raynal, Epictetus, Caesar, Saxe, Herodotus, Plutarch, Nepos- these were the books and lives he knew.

He decided to join his race, and having some knowledge of simples was made physician of the forces commanded by Jean Francis. Here he served well, as he always did, and learned the trade of war. Shocked at the cruelties of whites and blacks Ice took the side of mercy and saved lives from the sword as well as from disease. He saw the vanity of Francois, 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.

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 September (1792), Santhonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud had arrived with troops, money, and instructions and a new governor, Desparbes, in place of Blancbelande. He soon became disgusted, alarmed, and he fled. The commissioners bestirred 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 Francois, Biassou and others, threatened on the North. France herself, that ancient kingdom, was now fermenting; struggling-yet with hope-to realize in the state her unformed faith in democracy, and with the energy of despair striving to beat back the waves of bayonets which beat and bristled on her borders. Thus matters stood in France, thus in Santo 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 Francis 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. The commissioners armed the slaves in the town, promised them freedom, and sent for aid to the negro generals. Jean Francis 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, and none 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. Thousands fled-some suppose nine-tenths-and found refuge along the American coasts.

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 Francois had initiated cultivation along the mountain-sides, and in the valleys; and thus secured an unfailing magazine of supply.

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 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 Francois, sent Macayo to propose an alliance, but they distrusted him.

Meanwhile Louis XVI was beheaded. They said, "We have lost the King of France, but the King of Spain esteems us and gives us succor." They declined the proposals of the commissioners, and ranged themselves on the side of Spain. Toussaint was loyal to the memory of the King, and followed Francois and Biassou. Hermona saw that Toussaint was a man; and while Jean Francois 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 Francois, Biassou, and Toussaint held strong positions in the mountains south of Cap Francis. Brandicourt, the general of the French troops, was at once trapped and compelled to order his troops to lay down their arms. Grande Riviere, 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 reestablish slavery and get again their estates. In this extremity, Santhonax decided to make friends with the blacks, and proclaimed at Cap Francois universal freedom (August 20, 1793). Polverel repeated the proclamation at Port au Prince. 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, St. Jacmel, Tiburon, Jeremie; and at last, on June 4th, Port au Prince, the capital, yielded. "Twenty-two topsail vessels," with their cargoes, worth four hundred thousand 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 Santo Domingo, his trade of a goldsmith, which the whites thought too good for a "nigger." He was a brave man, mild in peace, and 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 (May 24, 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 no 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." Dark was the outlook, but brave was the heart of General Laveaux.

The hour was nigh: the hands advanced on the dial 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 Man. 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 reestablish 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.

General Laveaux saw this, and through the priest, La Haye, made advances to him. Toussaint is wise and he is wary; he keeps his own counsel; he consults not Jean Francois, who had once cast him into prison; nor Biassou, nor the Marquis Hermona. As usual, he performs his duties; as usual, he partakes of the communion; as usual, his troops look to him, and Hermona said: "There exists on earth no purer soul." He has placed his wife and children in safety; he has ordered his affairs; his horse stands saddled and bridled; then, tearing off his epaulettes he casts them at the feet of the Spanish officers, flings himself on his horse, and rides like the wind out of the camp. The Spaniards are for a moment paralyzed: they pursue him, but neither hoof nor pistol can reach him. Toussaint is not to be caught.

On May 4, 1794, he pulls down the Spanish and hoists the French colors. Marmalade, Plaisance, Ennery, Dondon, Acul, and Limbe submit to him. Confusion and fear prevail among the Spaniards; joy exalts the negroes. Laveaux is saved, and the colony not yet lost to France. Toussaint is a power in the state: the negroes everywhere respond to the sound of his voice they look to him as their hero, defender, guide, and guard. Toussaint sets himself to his work. The whole province of the north soon falls into his hands, and he drives the Spanish ally, Jean Francois, westward along La Montaigne Noire. Then he hastens into the rich valley of the Artibonite, attacks and beats back the English and besieges the strong fortress of St. Marc; but neither forces nor ammunition is sufficient and he retires to the mountain fastnesses of Marmalade to recruit his troops. On October 9, 1794, he carries the fortress of San Miguel by storm.

Toussaint determines to drive away the English, and he falls with fury upon General Brisbane in the Artibonite and compels him to retreat. But Jean Francois hung over him in the heights of La Grande Riviere. Again he retires to Dondon and organizes his forces to repel the Spaniards. In four days he takes and destroys twenty-eight positions, but Jean Francois with a superior force threatens his rear while the English are in front; again he is baffled and he returns to Dondon. Toussaint is no longer the leader of marauding bands but the head of an army. His troops are mostly raw and ignorant, badly clothed, armed, and fed, but they trust in him and have courage. He seeks for efficient officers, and finds Dessalines, Desroulaux, Maurepas, Clervaux, Christophe and Lamartiniere. These he must command with discretion; his troops he must provide with arms, ammunition, and food. He must watch the forces of the Spaniards, the movements of the English. Intrigues abroad and treacheries at home; henceforth he must organize campaigns.

The treaty of Basel had secured the cession of the whole Spanish part of the island to France. Jean Francois was, therefore, at liberty to retire to Spain, to enjoy his honors. There remained now but the English to distract the plans of Toussaint and the French. One more disturbing element yet existed. The mulattoes felt themselves superior to the blacks, and the rightful successors to the whites in the honors and government of the island. Jealous of Toussaint and the favors shown the blacks, headed by Nillate (Villate), they rose against Laveaux, the Governor of the Cape, and threw him into prison; his danger was extreme. Toussaint descended on the town with ten thousand blacks and saved him. Laveaux appointed him his lieutenant, second in command in the island, and declared that he was the "Spartacus," foretold by Raynal, who should avenge the sufferings of his race. Confidence grew now between the blacks and the whites, and Lacroix-who is in no way friendly to the blacks-admits that "if Santo Domingo still carried the colors of France, it was solely owing to an old negro who seemed to bear a commission from Heaven." The French continued to send commissioners-Santhonax among them-but Toussaint was the moving mind; and when Laveaux, having been elected Delegate to the Assembly, sailed for France, Santhonax finally appointed him commander-in-chief.

Toussaint, now "Louverture"; a strong hand and a clear head, though black, now directs the affairs of the island. Daily he gains strength and the confidence of the negroes. They flock to his army; they listen and obey his words. Christophe, in the north, had encouraged cultivation. Toussaint throws his powerful influence into the work. His maxim, "that the liberty of the blacks can never endure without agriculture," passes from mouth to mouth among the negroes, and rouses in them the desire for lands and wealth-for the first time now possible. He wishes that Cape and the towns along the north should be rebuilt. It is done; they rise from their ashes. All hopes are centred in the General-in-Chief: he can restore peace and prosperity; he alone.

The English now were sore bestead. The French pressed them in the west; Desfourneaux in the north; Rigaud in the south; Christophe had carried the heights of Valliere-the Vendee of Santo Domingo. Toussaint Louverture again attempts to take St. Marc; thrice he storms it, thrice he deserves success, but again he fails to clutch this strong fortress. He turns now to Mirebelois, an interior Thermopylae, strongly fortified by the English. His lieutenant, Mornay, intercepted Montalembert, who was advancing with seven hundred men and two pieces of artillery. The next day he drives in all the English troops, invests the village of St. Louis, carries the forts by assault, and in fourteen days totally defeats the English, taking two hundred prisoners, eleven pieces of cannon, and military stores. The efforts of the English are nearly at an end; weak and weary, their strength is spent. Whitlocke, Williamson, Whyte, Horneck, Brisbane, and Markham, have tried to subdue these rebels and to wrest the colony from France: they have bitten a file. Millions of pounds have been wasted; Brisbane and Markham are killed; thousands of soldiers slain; the yellow fever, too, has done its work.

General Maitland at last decided to leave the island, and between him and Toussaint there went on a struggle of diplomacy; but Louverture was more than his equal: he accepted his honors, but refused his bribes. They made terms, and Maitland evacuated Port au Prince and St. Nicholas. One incident illustrates Maitland’s confidence in Toussaint. Before the disembarkation of his troops, he determined to return Louverture’s visit. He proceeded to his camp, through a country full of negroes, with but three attendants. On his way he heard that Roume, the French commissioner, had advised Toussaint to seize him; but he proceeded, and when he reached the camp, after waiting a short time, Toussaint entered, and, handing him two letters-Roume’s and his reply-said: "Read; I could not see you until I had written, so that you could see that 1 am incapable of baseness."

General Lacroix has written that he saw, in the archives at Port au Prince, the offers made to Toussaint, securing him in the power and kingship of the island, and liberty to his race, with a sufficient naval force on the part of England, provided he would renounce France and form a commercial treaty with England. The event leads one to regret that Toussaint’s ambition was not superior to his loyalty to France.

During these proceedings with the English, Santhonax had departed for France, partly at his own request, partly because he was in the way of Toussaint’s plans for the restoration of the island. With him, Toussaint sent his two sons to receive some education in France, and to show, as his letter stated, "his confidence in the Directory-at a time when complaints were busy against him." He said, "there exist no longer any internal agitations; and I hold myself responsible for the submission to order and duty of the blacks, my brethren."

¹Now, in English, Cape Haitien. The place is a seaport of northern Haiti.-ED.