History

History of the Disasters in Saint-Domingue

Source: Michel Etienne Decourtilz,  Histoire des desastres de Saint-Domingue. Chez garnery, Paris An III (1795); Translated: for marxists.org by  Mitchell Abidor; CopyLeft:  Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004.

The French naturalist Michel Etienne Descourtilz lived in Saint-Domingue during much of the revolt that led to independence for the island. This is his account of the beginning of the uprising in August 1791 in Le Cap.

It was August 23, 1791 that the plot broke out that, in the blink of an eye, covered in ruin and blood the most brilliant, the richest county of the universe. The entire horizon suddenly seemed covered by a thick smoke, and one could distinctly see the flames occupy the environs of Limonade and Morin in the north, La Petite Anse and Limbé, and finally the entire extent of the area known under the name of Plaine du Cap that surrounds that city. A crowd of men, women and children, escaped from the fire and iron of the assassins, ran there from everywhere, seeking refuge. It was learned from them that the slaves were in a state of insurrection, and that almost everywhere they'd killed their masters and representatives, and that they'd set fire to the buildings and the sugarcane in order to promote their projects. 

Soon the ravages reached the gates of Le Cap, from which one could see the rebels — the torch in one hand and iron in the other — set fire everywhere, and pursue the unfortunate ones who fled the burning homes and sought to escape a sure death. Panic fear was the first emotion one felt in that city.

There soon followed a disturbing agitation and furor: there was a united cry against the mulattoes, and the multitude viewed them as the authors of the disaster that surrounded them. From this idea it was only one small step to the most terrible vengeance. The  petits blancs  [1] threw themselves upon the first men of color who offered themselves to their blows, and treated them just as the rebels were treating at the same time the whites of the burning plains. Some were massacred and the rest would have met the same fate if more humane men hadn’t thrown themselves between them and their assassins, and hadn’t managed to calm this movement of a blinded and furious multitude. The provincial assembly of the North immediately established places of refuge for these unfortunates, most of whom, at least the women and children, had nothing to do with the crimes for which their like were responsible...

Masters of the plains, where they met no resistance, the blacks could have spread out and carried throughout the colony the example of the rebellion, the germ of which must secretly have existed everywhere there was slaves, and that waited for nothing but their approach in order to develop. A little bit of concerted action would easily have overcome the feeble obstacles put in their way in the first moments. But themselves astonished by their progress and drunk with joy, they lost the most precious instants by celebrating their victories, festivities that ended with the massacre of a great number of unfortunate prisoners, who their rage had at first spared. They had barely spared a few elderly — most of whom have since died of hunger and poverty — and a few women exposed to outrages a thousand times more cruel than death. 

The impression they'd initially made gradually weakened; one began to have contempt for an enemy who was only terrible due to his number and the flames that marked his steps. It was soon resolved to attack him in the midst of the ruins with which he was surrounded. Of the 25 parishes that make up the North only eight — but the most important of them — had been totally ruined. The others had only partially suffered. The fury and the attacks of the blacks had slowed down. Not only could the places they hadn’t attacked be guaranteed, but they could even have been attacked in the center of their conquests and in the places in which they believed themselves to be the most tranquil owners if, left to themselves and their own means, they hadn’t been supported and guided by an invisible and experienced hand. In all of the blacks’ attempts, and in the most remarkable of their actions, they appeared to march under the command of freemen of color, along with chiefs they'd chosen from among their own class. Everywhere one saw the mixed- bloods make common cause with them, and their property spared in the midst of the ruin of that of whites. Some among them made themselves remarkable by acts of barbarism more atrocious than those committed by the most ferocious blacks: the mulatto Candy had the eyes of whites who'd fallen into his hands torn out with corkscrews reddened by fire; the bloody Coco Mondion had 34 hung in one day.

Letter to the Citizens of Color and Free Negroes of Saint-Domingue

By M. Grégoire, Deputy of the National Assembly, Bishop of the Department of the Loir & Cher.

Written: 8 June 1791; Source:  Henri Grégoire, Lettre aux citoyens de couleur et nègres libres de Saint-Domingue et des autres isles francoises de l’Amerique. Paris, Imprimerie du Patriote Français, 1791; Translated: for marxists.org by  Mitchell Abidor; CopyLeft:  Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2006.

Friends:

You were men; you are now citizens and reintegrated to the plenitude of your rights. From this day forward you will participate in the sovereignty of the people. The decree that the National Assembly rendered in your regard on this subject is not a  favor, for a  favor is a  privilege, and a  privilege is an  injustice, and these words must never again soil the Code of the French. In assuring you the exercise of political rights we have paid a debt. To fail in this would have been a crime on our part and a stain on the constitution. Could the legislators of a free nation do less for you than our former despots?

More than a century ago Louis XIV solemnly recognized and proclaimed your rights, but this sacred patrimony was invaded by pride and cupidity, which gradually made heavier your yoke and poisoned your existence. The resurrection of the French Empire opened your hearts to hope, and this consoling ray soothed the bitterness of your ills. In Europe this was barely suspected. The white colonists who were seated among us loudly complained of ministerial tyranny, but they were careful not to speak of their own. They never articulated the complaints of the unfortunate mixed-bloods, who are nevertheless their children. It is we who, from a distance of two thousand leagues, were forced to defend the children against the contempt, the fury, the cruelty of their fathers. But it was in vain that they attempted to silence your demands, your sighs. Despite the extent of the seas that separate us your ills resonated in the hearts of the French of Europe, for they have a heart.

In his tenderness God embraces all men. His love only admits the difference that results from the extent of their virtues. Can the law – which must be the emanation of eternal justice – consecrate a guilty predilection, and the fatherland, which looks after all the members of the great family, can it be the mother of some, and the stepmother of others?

No, messieurs, you could not escape from the solicitude of the National Assembly. Upon unfurling before the eyes of the universe nature’s great charter it found your titles. An attempt had been made to make them disappear, but fortunately the characters were ineffaceable, like divinity’s sacred imprint engraved on your foreheads. 

Already, on March 28, 1790, in its instructions to the colonies, the National Assembly had included both the whites and the mixed-bloods in a common denomination. Your enemies wanted to make the paper lie by printing the contrary. But it is uncontestable that when I specifically asked that you be included a mass of deputies, including several planters, hastened to say that the article included you in its generality. And M. Barnave himself, who had told me this, ceding to my many questionings, finally admitted this before the Assembly. Was I not right in fearing that perverted interpretation would travesty our decrees? New vexations concerning you, and your ills carried to an extreme, have only too well justified my apprehensions. The letters I have received from you have made my tears flow. Posterity will be astonished, will perhaps be indignant, that for five consecutive days we debated your cause, whose justice is so evident. Alas, when humanity is reduced to fighting against vanity and prejudice, its triumph is a difficult conquest.

For quite some time the “Society of the Friends of Blacks” has sought to find a means of easing your lot and that of the slaves. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to do good with impunity, and its respectable zeal has earned it many insults. Vile men have hidden themselves behind anonymity to cast their venom on it, and in impudent pamphlets they have not ceased to repeat objections and calumnies that have been pulverized a hundred times. How may times have these perverted beings not accused of us having sold out to the English, of being paid off by the English against the French, of having addressed incendiary letters to you and sent you arms! My friends, you know how cowardly and atrocious are these impostures, we who have ceaselessly preached attachment to the motherland, resignation, and patience while waiting for justice’s reawakening. Nothing was able to cool off our zeal, nor that of your mixed-blood brothers who are in Paris. M. Raimond, above all, has heroically dedicated himself to your defense. With what transports you would have seen this distinguished citizen at the bar of the National Assembly – which he deserves to be a member – present the heart-rending tableau of your misfortunes and energetically demand your rights! If the Assembly had sacrificed them it would have corrupted its glory. Duty commanded it to decree with justice, to explain with clarity, to execute with firmness, and this it did. And if (which God forbid) some event hidden in the future’s breast were to tear our colonies from us would it not be better to have a loss to deplore instead of an injustice to be reproached?

Citizens, raise your humiliated faces. To the dignity of men, associate courage and the pride of a free people. May 15, the day upon which you re-conquered your rights, should be forever memorable to you and your children. This epoch will periodically awaken in you sentiments of gratitude towards the Supreme Being, and let your voices strike the vaults of heaven to which you will raise your grateful hands!

You finally have a fatherland, and from this day forward you will only see the law above you. The advantage of participating in its creation will assure you the inalienable right of all peoples, that of only obeying yourselves. 

You have a fatherland, and it will doubtless no longer be a land of exile in which you recognize only masters or companions in misfortune, the former distributing, the latter receiving contempt and insults. Your sobs of pain were punished like cries of rebellion. Placed between daggers and death that unhappy countryside was often drenched with your tears, sometimes tinted with your blood. 

You have a fatherland, and doubtless happiness will shine on those places that witnessed your birth. In peace you will then taste the fruits of the fields that you have cultivated without trouble. Then will be filled the gap that – placing at a great distance from each other the children of a same father – silenced nature’s voice and broke the ties of fraternity. Then the chaste sweetness of the conjugal union will replace the filthy explosions of debauch, which was an insult to the majesty of morality. 

And by what strange overturning of reason was it shameful for a white to wed a woman of color, when there was no dishonor in living with her in the crudest libertinage? The more denuded a man is of virtues, the more he seeks to surround himself with frivolous distinctions. And what an absurdity to want to base merit on the nuances of skin, on the more or less brown tincture of a face! The thinking man sometimes blushes at being a man when he sees his like blinded by such a delirium. But since pride unfortunately is the most tenacious of passions, the reign of prejudice has been prolonged, for man seems not to be able to attain truth until he has exhausted all of errors possibilities. 

In our eastern colonies this prejudice does not exist, which have been condemned by the organ of MM Monneron. There is nothing as touching as the elegy of the people of color as it was consigned by the inhabitants of that part of the world in their instructions for their deputies to the National Assembly. The Academy of Sciences in Paris has the honor of counting among its correspondents a mulatto from the Ile de France. Among us, a highly-esteemed Negro is the administrator of the district of Saint Hypolite in the Department of the Gard. We do not believe that the difference in skin is capable of establishing different rights between the members of a political society. Nor will you find that prideful pettiness among our brave National Guard, who want to go to America to ensure the execution of your decrees. Penetrated by the praiseworthy sentiments manifested by the city of Bordeaux, along with it they will tell you that the decree relating to men of color, written under the auspices of  prudence and  wisdom is an homage to  reason and  justice; that the deputies of the colonies  slandered your  intentions and  those of commerce. It is quite strange, the conduct of these representatives, ardently soliciting from Versailles their admission to the Assembly, swearing along with us at the Jeu de Paume not to quit us until the constitution shall be completed, and then declaring to us, after the decree of last May 15, that they can no longer take their seats among us . This desertion is an abandonment of principles and a breach in the religion of the vow. 

Already those white colonists who are worthy of being Frenchmen have hastened to abjure ridiculous prejudices and only see in you brothers and friends. With what sweet emotion do we quote these words of the active citizens of Jacmel: “Vowing to follow without restriction the decrees of the National Assembly on our present and future constitution, and to conform to those that could change its substance.” The citizens of Port-au-Prince tell the National Assembly the same thing but in different terms: “ Deign, Messieurs, to receive in the vow taken by the municipality in the name of the commune of Port-au-Prince, to respect and promptly execute all your decrees and to never stray under any pretext.”

It is thus that philosophy expands its horizons in the New World, and soon absurd prejudices will have as its only followers subaltern tyrants, who want to perpetuate in America the reign of despotism that was crushed in France. And what would they have said if the men of color had attempted to tear from whites the enjoyment of political advantages? With what force would they not have cried out against this vexation! They are foaming with rage that your rights were revealed and your rights rendered to you. In the hope of consoling their irritated pride they will perhaps exhaust themselves in efforts to foil our decrees’ success. They will attempt an uprising which, tearing the colonies from their motherland will facilitate the means of escaping from their creditors. They are tireless in spreading terror, in saying that an act of justice touching you will shake Saint Domingue. We have seen nothing but falsehood in that assertion. On the contrary, we believe that this decree will tighten the ties that unite you to the metropole. Patriotism enlightening your interests and affections, it is yet towards the metropole that you will direct your commercial operations, and the mutual tributes of industry will establish between France and its colonies a constant exchange of fortunes and fraternal sentiments. If you were to be unfaithful to France you would be the vilest and most evil of men. No, generous citizens, you will not be traitors to the fatherland; the very idea of this penetrates you with horror. Rallied along with all good Frenchmen under the flags of liberty, you will defend our sublime constitution. One day deputies of color will cross the ocean to come sit in the national diet and swear with us to live and die under our laws. One day the sun will only light free men among you; the rays of the star that spreads light will no longer fall upon irons and slaves. The National Assembly has not yet associated these latter to your destiny, for the rights of citizens, briskly conceded to those who do not know the obligations, would perhaps be for them a harmful present. But do not forget that like you, they are born free and equal. It is part of the irresistible march of events, of the progress of enlightenment that all the dispossessed peoples of the domain of liberty will finally recuperate that  inalienable property .

More than whites, you are reproached for your harshness towards Negroes. But alas, so many impostures about you have been spread that it would be only prudent to have doubts concerning that accusation. If it were nevertheless to be founded, act in such a way that a malicious rumor becomes a slander.

Your oppressors have often kept the lights of Christianity far from slaves, because the religion of kindness, of equality, of liberty, was not suitable for the ferocity of these blood-thirsty men. May your conduct contrast perfectly with theirs.  Charity is the cry of the gospel; your pastors will make it resound among you. Open your hearts to this divine morality whose organ they are. We have eased your sufferings, ease those of these unfortunate victims of avarice who water your fields with their sweat and often with their tears. Let existence no longer be a torture for the slaves. By your beneficence toward them expiate Europe’s crimes. In progressively bringing them towards liberty you will be fulfilling an obligation, you will be preparing consoling memories for yourselves, you will be honoring humanity, and you will be assuring the prosperity of the colonies. It is this shall be your conduct towards your Negro brothers. But what should you do regarding your white fathers? You will doubtless be permitted to shed tears on the ashes of Ferrand de Baudière , over the unfortunate Ogé, legally assassinated and dying on the wheel for having wanted to be free. But may he perish, he from among you who will dare conceive projects of vengeance against your persecutors. In any case, are they not given over to remorse and covered in eternal opprobrium? Will not contemporary execration outstrip posterity’s execration concerning them? Bury in a profound forgetfulness all of hatred’s resentment, taste the delicious pleasure of doing good to your oppressors, and repress those too open joyful impulses which by recalling their wrongs will sharpen repentance’s point against them.

Religiously submissive to law, inspire the love for it in your children. May a meticulous education, developing their moral faculties, prepare for the generation that will succeed you virtuous citizens, public men, and defenders of the fatherland. 

How their hearts will be moved when, taking them to your shores, you will point their gaze towards France, saying to them: over there is the motherland. It is from there that liberty, justice, and happiness came among you. There are our fellow citizens, our brothers and our friends. We have sworn them eternal friendship. Heirs of our sentiments, of our affections, may your hearts and your mouths repeat our vows. Live to love them and, if need be, die to defend them.

Signed,

Grégoire Paris June 8,1791

 

Decree of the National Convention

Translated: for marxists.org by  Mitchell Abidor ; CopyLeft:  Creative Commons  (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004.

In March 1793 revolutionary France was at war with England and Spain, a war that also involved the colony of Saint-Domingue. During this period Toussaint was leading troops fighting for Spain, which he and other black leaders thought was the best way to obtain freedom. The liberation of the slaves of Saint-Domingue occurred in August 1793, in part to obtain black support for France against its enemies.

March 5, 1793, Second year of the French Republic

Which declares that all the French colonies are in a state of war

The National Convention, on the report of its committee of general defense, decrees:

Article 1

Until otherwise decreed all French colonies are in a state of war. Nevertheless, all governors general and other military agents, as well as the civil administration, are enjoined to act in concert with the national civil commissioners and to obey all their requisitions.

Art II

All the free men of the colony who wish to take up arms for the internal and external defense of the colonies are authorized to gather in free legions or companies, that will be organized by the governors general and the national civil commissioners in keeping with the existing laws, which cannot be departed from.

Art III

Said national commissioners and governors general are authorized to provisionally make all the changes they deem necessary to the rules governing the police and discipline in the work gangs in order to maintain the internal peace of the colonies.

Art IV

The minister of the marine will give the orders necessary to have transported to France the regiment of Le Cap, which will take its place in the line

Art V

Those citizens transported from Saint-Domingue by order of the national commissioners Ailhaut, Santhonax [ sic], and Polverel, or who will be, can only return there upon cessation of the troubles in that colony, and after having obtained a special authorization from the legislative body. The minister of the marine is charged with giving the necessary orders to all ports for the execution of this order.

Art VI

The National Convention approves the formation of free companies of free men in Saint-Domingue under the orders of the national commissioners.

Act VII

The minister of the marine is similarly charged with organizing in free companies all those native to the colonies currently in France, in conformity with the existing laws, and to have them passed as quickly as possible to Saint-Domingue.

Broadside

Translated: for Marxists.org by  Mitchell Abidor ; CopyLeft:  Creative Commons  (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004.

On August 29, 1793 the French commissioner Léger-Félicité Sonthonax issued a decree freeing the slaves of the Northern province of Saint-Domingue, followed two weeks later by a similar decree by his fellow-commissioner Poleverel for the rest of the colony. This historic decree infuriated the whites of the colony, as well as some of the mixed-blood population and in order to defend himself, Sonthonax had the following printed as a broadside that was posted throughout the island.

In the name of the Republic:

I have just learned that the cowardly and imbecilic Lasalle, after having kneeled before the English in order to be granted permission to emigrate, has finally obtained his grace at the price of a diatribe in the form of a proclamation against the civil commission, printed by the royal press of Mole. That that proclamation, where I am dismissed by an officer I created and that the law put under my orders, is being widely broadcast throughout the North.

I learn that in almost all of the communes still intact in that province, notably at Gros-Morne, that farmers are forced to submit to the whip; that my proclamation isn’t being carried out; and that in those places where Africans know of it they are ceaselessly told that I don’t have the right to free them.

At the same time I learn that other more subtle villains, basing themselves on a proclamation of my colleague Polverel, say that I wasn’t free in Le Cap when I pronounced the general freedom of the slaves of the North, and that I am busy with another proclamation retracting that of August 29.

I have also learned that newspapers from Jamaica are being circulated in the colony, as well as personal letters from Mole announcing to the good people that they have no longer to obey the civil commissioners, that they were recalled and accused by the national Convention, and that Englishmen who were the white cockade and the Cross of St. Louis found themselves the executors of the legislative body.

In order to remove all pretexts from those with evil intentions, and to reassure the weak and credulous, but especially the mixed-bloods and the faithful Africans and descendants of Africans:

I declare that Lasalle who, since leaving Le Cap has shown himself to be an enemy of the general liberty was once the most ardent supporter of my proclamation of August 29, as can be seen by his letter of the 30th of that month, a copy of which is below.  [1]

I declare that the letter was signed by him and offer to all those who would like to assure themselves of this fact that they come to the secretariat of the civil commission to recognize his signature.

I declare that I was perfectly free during the entire time of my residence in Le Cap; that I especially enjoyed the most complete freedom when I proclaimed the Rights of Man in the Northern province; that the Africans and descendants of African awaited my decision with the most touching resignation and that they would have respected the person of the delegate of the republic even if I would have refused to fulfill their wish.

I declare that I will support until death the civil rights and the independence of those with mixed blood, of Africans and the descendants of Africans, and that if I were to be pounded into mortar I would never be so low as to retract the proclamation of August 29.

I declare that it is false and absolutely false that my colleague Polverel stopping the progress of liberty in the West and the South.

I declare that the liberty bonnet was openly displayed in all the public places of the cities of the West and South, and that the majority of Africans and descendants of Africans were there declared free.

At the same time, I declare that my colleague and I are working on a projected law, applicable to the three provinces that will, in a stable manner, assure the interests of the colonists and the absolute freedom of the slaves. 

We order that the above declaration and Lasalle’s letter be printed, published, posted and registered in the intermediary commission as well as the municipalities and tribunals of the provinces of the north and west, and sent to the municipalities of the South.

November 5, 1793, second year of the French republic

Sonthonax

Accept my compliments for the wisdom of your proclamation of the 29th, a few copies of which you sent me. It was impossible in so critical a moment to reconcile the good of farming with the rights of humanity, and a third of the production accorded as their share to the members of the work gangs forces the farm workers to defeat their laziness and to do right by the owner, since their salaries increase with the harvest. I believe that the owners of the owners in the other provinces, if they carefully reflect on the advantages that will result for them from this wise measure, will be the first to accept it and demand its execution in their respective quarters.

Proclamation

Source: Au nom de la Republique, Proclamation. [n.d 1794?] [n.p.] [Cap?]; Translated: for marxists.org by  Mitchell Abidor ; CopyLeft:  Creative Commons  (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2007.

In the Name of the Republic:

We, Leger Felicité Sonthonax, Civil Commissioner of the Republic, delegate to the French windward islands of America for the reestablishment there of order and public tranquility

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights; this, citizens is the gospel of France. It is more than time that it is proclaimed in all the departments of the Republic.

Sent by the Nation in the quality of Civil Commissioners to Saint-Domingue, our mission was to see to it that the law of April 4 was executed, to have it reign in all its force, and to gradually prepare there, without causing rifts and upset, the general freeing of the slaves.

On our arrival we found a frightful schism among he whites who, divided in interests and opinions, were in agreement on only one point, that of eternally perpetuating the servitude of the negroes as well as proscribing any system of liberty, and even of improvement in their lot. In order to foil the ill intentioned and to reassure spirits, with all on the alert for fear of a sudden movement, we declared that  slavery was necessary to cultivation.

We were telling the truth, Citizens: slavery was then essential, as much for the continuation of labor as for the preservation of the colonists. Saint-Domingue was still in the power of a horde of ferocious tyrants who publicly preached that the color of skin should be the sign of power or reprobation. The judges of the unfortunate Ogé, the henchmen and the members of those infamous provost commissions who filled the cities with gallows and wheels for sacrificing Africans and men of color to their atrocious pretensions, all these bloodthirsty individuals still populated the colony. If by the greatest of imprudence we had, at that time, broken the bonds that chained slaves to their masters their first impulse would doubtless have been to throw themselves on their executioners and, in their too just fury, they would easily have confounded the innocent with the guilty. In any event, our powers didn’t extend so far as pronouncing on the lot of Africans, and we would have been traitors and criminals if the law had been violated by us.

Today the circumstances are quite different. The slave owners and the man-eaters are no more. Some have perished, victims of their impotent rage, and others have sought their salvation in flight and emigration. Those of the whites that are left are friends of the law and of French principles. The greater part of the population is formed of men of April 4, of those men to whom you owe your liberty, who were the first to set an example of courage in defending the rights of nature and humanity; men who, proud of their independence, preferred the loss of their property to the shame of again imposing the ancient irons. Never forget, Citizens, that you owe them the arms that conquered your freedom; never forget that it is for the French Republic that you fought; that of all the whites in the universe the only ones who are your friends are the French of Europe. 

The French Republic wants liberty and equality among all men, without distinction of color. Kings are only happy among slaves. It is they who, on the coasts of Africa, sold you to whites. It is the tyrants of Europe who want to perpetuate this infamous traffic. The REPUBLIC adopts you as its children; kings aspire only to cover you in chains or to annihilate you. 

It is the representatives of that same Republic who, in order to come to your rescue, have untied the hands of the Civil Commissioners by giving them the power to provisionally change  the organization and discipline of workshops. That organization and that discipline are going to be changed: a new order of things is going to be born, and the ancient servitude will disappear. 

Nevertheless, don’t think that the freedom you are going to enjoy is a state of laziness and leisure. In France everyone is free, and everyone works; in Saint-Domingue, subject to the same laws, you will follow the same example. Return to your workshops or to your former owners; you will receive the wages of your suffering. You will no longer be subjected to the humiliating correction that was once inflicted on you; you will no longer be the property of another: you will remain masters of your own, and you will live happy.

Having become citizens by the will of the French Nation you should also be zealous respecters of its decrees. You will doubtless defend the interests of the Republic against kings, less from a sentiment of your independence than from gratitude for the benefits it has bestowed on you. Freedom makes you pass from nothingness to existence: show yourselves worthy of it. Forever abjure indolence and brigandage: have the courage to will to be a people and you will soon be the equal of European nations.

Your slanderers and your tyrants maintain that having become free, the African will no longer work: show that they are wrong. Redouble your emulation at the sight of the prize that awaits you. Prove to France, through your activity, that in joining yourself to its interests it has truly increased its resources and its means. 

And you, citizens led astray by infamous royalists; you who, under the banners and the livery of the Spanish coward, blindly fight against your own interests, against the freedom of your women and children, at long last open your eyes to the immense advantages offered you by the Republic. Kings promise you freedom, but do you see them give it to their subjects? Without a doubt, no. On the contrary, he promises to charge you with new irons as soon as your services are no longer useful to him. Is it not he who turned Ogé over to his assassins? Unfortunates that you are! If France once again took a king you would soon become the prey of the émigrés. They caress you today; they will become your first executioners.

In these circumstances, the civil commissioner, deliberating over the individual petition signed in common assembly;

Exercising the powers delegated to him by Art. III of the decree of the National Convention last March 6;

Has ordered and orders the following to be executed in the Northern Province:

FIRST ARTICLE

I. The Declaration of the Rights of man and Citizen shall be printed, published, and posted wherever need be, on the responsibility of municipal officers, cities and towns, and of military commanders in camps and posts.

II. All Negroes and mixed bloods currently enslaved are declared free in order as to enjoy all the rights attached to the quality of French citizen. They will nevertheless be subject to a regime whose dispositions will be contained in the following articles.

III. All former slaves will have themselves, their wives and their children registered at the municipality of their place of residence, where they will receive their ticket as French citizens, signed by the civil commissioner.

IV. The formula on these tickets will be determined by us. They will be printed and sent to the municipalities on responsibility of the civil commander.

V. Domestics of both sexes can only be hired in the service of masters or mistresses for three months, and this at a salary that will freely be fixed between them

VI. Former domestic slaves attached to the elderly of greater than 60 years, to the infirm, to nursing babies and children of less than ten years will not be free to leave them. Their salary remains fixed at one Portuguese per month for nursing babies and six Portuguese per annum for the others, without distinction of sex.

VII. The salaries of domestics can be demanded every three months.

VIII. Those of laborers of whatever kind shall be freely fixed with the entrepreneur who employs them.

IX. Negroes currently attached to the habitations of their former masters will be obliged to remain there. They will be employed at cultivation.

X. Soldiers serving in camps or garrisons can establish themselves on the habitations by taking up cultivation and previously obtaining leave from their chiefs or by our order, which can only be delivered to them upon finding as replacement a man of good will.

XI. Former field slaves will be hired for one year, during which time they can only change habitation with the permission of the justice of the peace, who shall be spoken of below and in cases which we shall determine.

XII. The revenue of each habitation will be shared in three equal portions after deduction of imposts, which shall on levied on the whole. A third remains affected to property in land and shall belong to the owner. He will have right to another third for the expenses involved in rendering the land profitable. The remaining third shall be shared among the cultivators in a manner to be fixed.

XIII. In the expenses of rendering the land profitable are included all expenses for cultivation, tools, the animals necessary for cultivation and the transportation of produce, the construction and maintenance of buildings, hospital expenses, surgeons, and managers.

XIV. In the third of revenue belonging to the cultivators commanders, who will henceforth be called work leaders will have three parts.

XV. Sub-leaders will receive two parts, as well as those employed at the making of sugar and indigo.

XVI. The other cultivators, of fifteen and older, will each have a portion.

XVII. Women of fifteen and greater will have a two-third portion.

XVIII. From ages ten to fifteen, children of both sexes shall have a half-portion

XIX. Cultivators will also have a place for provisions. They shall be equitably shared among each family, taking into consideration the quality of the land and the quality to be accorded.

XX. Mothers with one or several children less than ten years of age will receive an entire portion. Up till said age children shall remain their parents’ charge for food and clothing.

XXI. From the age of ten until fifteen children can only be employed at the guarding of animals or at gathering and separating coffee and cotton.

XXII. The elderly and the infirm shall be nourished by their relatives. Clothing and medicine shall be at the charge of the landowner.

XXIII. Produce shall be shared at each delivery between the landowner and the cultivator, either in kind or money, at the landowner’s choice. In the case of sharing in kind the latter shall be responsible to have the cultivators’ share driven to the nearest wharf.

XXIV. A justice of the peace and two assessors shall be established in each commune, whose functions will be pronouncing on disagreements between landowners and cultivators, and of the latter among each other relative to the division of their portion of revenue. They will see to it that cultivators be well cared for in illness and that all work equally, and they will maintain order in the workshops.

XXV. Landowners, farmers and managers must have a register signed by the municipality of the locale in which will be written the quantity of each delivery of produce and shall regulate the third belonging to the cultivators. This sharing out shall be verified by the inspector of the parish and definitively decreed by him. The justice of the peace will be responsible for having a duplicate of the register maintained by each manager or landowner and to present it to the inspector general whenever required. It shall be the same for managers relative to justices of the peace and the inspector general.

XXVI. The inspector general of the Northern Province shall be charged with inspecting all habitations, with obtaining from justices of the peace all possible information concerning the organization and discipline of the workshops and of rendering accounts, to the governor general and the civil commander. He shall be on inspection tour at least twenty days of the month.

XXVII. Punishment by whipping is absolutely suppressed. It shall be replaced, for transgressions of discipline, by the bar for one, two, or three days, in keeping with the demands of the case. The strongest penalty shall be the loss of a part or the totality of wages. It shall be pronounced by the judge of the peace and his assessors. The share of he or they who shall be deprived of this shall increase the profits of the workshop.

XXVIII. Concerning civil crimes, former slaves shall be judged in the same way as other French citizens.

XXIX. Cultivators cannot be forced to work Sundays. They shall be given two hours a day for the cultivation of their places. The justices of the peace shall regulate, in accordance with the circumstance, the hours at which work shall begin and end.

XXX. It shall be up to the landowner or manager to have a given number of labor leaders and sub-leaders. They shall be chosen by him and can also be dismissed from their position by him, on condition they render accounts to the justice of the peace who, assisted by his assessors, will pronounce on the validity of the dismissal. The leaders and sub-leaders can also be dismissed by the justices of the peace assisted by the assessors upon complaint against them by cultivators.

XXXI. Women seven months regnant shall not work in the garden, and shall only return there two months after giving birth. During this time they shall enjoy not less than two thirds of the portion allocated to them.

XXXII. Cultivators can change habitation for reasons of health, or recognized incompatibility of character, or at the request of the workshop in which they are employed. All of which shall be submitted for the decision of the justice of the peace, assisted by his assessors.

XXXIII. A fortnight from the date of the promulgation of the present proclamation all men without property and who are neither enrolled nor attached to cultivation nor employed in domestic service and who are found wandering shall be arrested and put in prison.

XXXIV. Women without known means of existence who are not attached to cultivation or employed in domestic service in the abovementioned span of time, or who are found wandering shall also be arrested and put in prison.

XXXV. Men and women put in prison in the cases of the preceding two articles shall be detained for one month in the first instance, three months in the second, and the third time condemned to public labor for one year.

XXXVI. Persons attached to cultivation and domestics cannot, for any reason, leave without permission of the municipality, the commune in which they reside. Those who contravene this disposition shall be punished in the manner determined in Art. XXVII.

XXXVII. The justice of the peace shall be expected to visit the habitations under his responsibility every week. An account of the visit shall be sent to the inspector general who will send it to the Civil Commissioners, the Governor general, and the Civil Commander.

XXXVIII. The dispositions of the Black Code remain provisionally abrogated.

The present proclamation shall be printed and posted where need be.

It shall be proclaimed at the crossroads and public squares of the cities and provinces of the Northern Province by municipal officers wearing sashes, preceded by liberty bonnets borne at the top of a pike.

We order the intermediary commission, the administrative and judicial bodies to have it transcribed in their registers, published and posted.

We order all military commanders to assist in its execution.

We request that the interim Governor General to see to its execution.

The Expedition to Saint-Domingue

Source: Victor Schoelcher,  Vie de Toussaint Louverture. Paul Ollendorf, Paris, 1889; Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor.

In 1801 Bonaparte decided to put an end to Toussaint’s — and Saint-Domingue’s — independent conduct by sending an expeditionary force to the island.

(November 18,1801)

Citizen General:

The peace with England and all the European powers, which has established the Republic in the highest degree of power and grandeur, now allows the government to occupy itself with the colony of Saint-Domingue. We are sending there Citizen Leclerc, our brother-in-law, in his quality as General to serve as first magistrate of the colony. He is accompanied by a considerable force in order to ensure the respect of the sovereignty of the French people.

It is in these circumstances that we hope that you will prove to us, and to all of France, the sincerity of the sentiments that you have regularly expressed in the letters that you wrote to us.

We hold you in esteem, and we are happy to recognize and proclaim the great services that you have rendered the French people. If its banner flies over Saint-Domingue it is to you and the brave blacks that this is owed.

Called by your talents and the force of circumstances to the leading position of command, you have done away with civil war, put a brake on the persecution by several ferocious men, and returned to its place of honor the cult of God, from which everything emanates.

The constitution you made, while including many good things, contains some that are contrary to the dignity and sovereignty of the French people, of which Saint-Dominigue forms only a portion.

The circumstances in which you found yourself, surrounded on all sides by enemies without the metropole being able to either assist or revictual you, rendered articles of that constitution legitimate that otherwise would not be. But today, when the circumstances have changed for the better, you should be the first to render homage to the sovereignty of the nation that counts you among its most illustrious citizens thanks to the services you have rendered it and by the talents and the force of character with which nature has graced you. A contrary conduct would be irreconcilable with the idea we have conceived of you. It would have you lose the many rights to recognition and the benefits of the republic, and would dig beneath your feet a precipice which, in swallowing you up, could contribute to the misfortune of those brave blacks whose courage we love, and whose rebellion we would, with difficulty, be obliged to be punished.

We have made known to your children and their tutor the sentiments that animate us. We are returning them to you.

Assist the General with your counsels, your influence and your talents. What could you wish for? Freedom for blacks? You know that in all the countries we've been we have given it to people who didn’t have it. Consideration, honors, fortune? After the services you have rendered us, that you can yet render us, and the particular sentiments that we have for you, can you possibly be unsure about your fortune and the honors that await you.

And General, think that if you are the first of your color to have arrived at such a great power, and to have so distinguished himself for his bravery and military talents, you are also before God and ourselves principally responsible for the conduct of the people of Saint-Domingue.

If there are evil ones who say to the individuals of Saint-Domingue that we arrive to investigate what they did during the time of anarchy, assure them that we are informing ourselves only of their conduct in those circumstances, and that we are only investigating the past in order to learn of the traits that distinguished them in the war they carried out against the English and the Spaniards, who were our enemies.

Count without any reservation on our esteem, and conduct yourself as should one of the principal citizens of the greatest nation in the world.

The First Consul, Bonaparte.