| [2] | A monument to Petion has been set up in the public square of Caracas. |
These glimpses are sufficient to show that from some cause and by some means, the colored people of San Domingo had acquired an appreciation of freedom including more than the mere desire to be free from slavery. The revolt against slavery, however, was their most notable manifestation of their love of liberty. Petion in his consultation with Bolivar after the latter's defeat before mentioned, insisted that on renewing his efforts he should proclaim the freedom of all the slaves as a first step. Bolivar in his letter to Petion replying to this suggestion said: "In my proclamation to the inhabitants of Venezuela, and in the decree that I shall issue announcing liberty to the slaves, I do not know that it will be permitted to me to demonstrate the real sentiment of my heart toward Your Excellency, and to leave to posterity an undying monument to your philanthropy." He then asked if he might make known the fact that wise counsel and material aid had been furnished him by the infant black Republic.
Petion's reply was as follows: "You know, general, my sentiments toward the cause that you have the valor to defend and also toward yourself personally. You surely must feel how ardently I desire to see the oppressed delivered from the yoke of bondage; but because of certain diplomatic obligations which I am under toward a nation that has not as yet taken an offensive attitude toward the republic, I am obliged to ask you not to make public the aid I have given you, nor to mention my name in any of your official documents."
Toussaint L'Ouverture in his first proclamation to the self-emancipated slaves of his country, and to those still in bondage, says: "It is my desire that liberty and equality shall reign in Saint Domingo. I am striving to this end. Come and unite with us, Brothers, and combat with us for the same cause."
Liberty and equality then reigned in the French mind and however vague the idea which had found lodgment in the brain of the San Domingo blacks and mulattos, it was nevertheless sufficiently entrancing to call them from the depths of the inferno in which they were cast and to tempt them to essay the dizziest heights. At a later period this most remarkable man in explaining the object for which he was contending, defined his idea of liberty in words worthy of that greatest statesman, soldier and patriot that has adorned the Negro Race in modern times.[3] He said: "It is not a liberty of circumstance, conceded to us alone, that we wish; it is the adoption of the principle absolute that no man, born red, black or white, can be the property of his fellow man."
| [3] | "But Bonaparte's plans were doomed to encounter an obstacle in the most remarkable man of negro blood known to modern history. Toussaint L'Ouverture was the descendant, he claimed, of an African chieftain. Highly endowed by nature, he had obtained an excellent education, and had gradually, though born a slave, cultivated his innate power of leadership until all the blacks of San Domingo regarded him with affection and awe."—Sloan's Napoleon, Vol. II, pages 236-237. |
Thus spoke Toussaint L'Ouverture, the man of whom Lamartine says: "After God, this man was a nation;" thus he spoke in 1799, a time when all the nations of the earth were themselves slaves to slavery. To this black man was given to see the truth; to them it was not given.
We are now, I trust, prepared to estimate that thirteen years' struggle which went on in that island, during which the tidal wave of destruction, torture, and death, swept the land from side to side, and from end to end, inundating everything except the indomitable spirit of the humble people to whom the heavens of freedom had been opened. Truly does MacMaster class it among the noblest struggles for liberty. I cannot detail that mighty struggle here. For the history of those thirteen eventful years, for the instructive and thrilling story of those heroic black men who garlanded our race, I must refer you to my book on the Haitian Revolution from 1791 to 1804.
We may pause here at the close of this awful period and stand in the proud presence of these triumphant black heroes, as the last of their enemies sail slowly away as prisoners of war. With the new flag floating over the fortresses of the Cape, and the victorious army well-equipped and intact, it is Dessalines, the intrepid Dessalines, never beaten in battle, never surprised in camp, who in the name of the black people and Men of Color of Saint Domingo announces:
"The Independence of Saint Domingo is Proclaimed.