The 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 the 11th Sept., 1791, the whites at Port au Prince had consented to the civil rights of the mulattoes. On the 23d of October, 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 the 24th of September, the National Assembly at Paris had reversed the decree of the 15th of May. 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. And, in Dec., 1791, three commissioners arrived from France, to distract the confusion. They accomplished nothing, and were succeeded, in Sept., 1792, by Sauthonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud;[25] ordinary men, not sufficient for so extraordinary a state of things as this.
FOOTNOTES:
[18] Lacroix, vol. i., p. 83.
[19] Brown and Martineau. Lacroix, vol. i., p. 90.
“The day has come—the glorious day!
To arms! to arms! for Liberty!”
[21] Let it be remembered, that nine in ten negroes were strangers to their owners. They were worked in the field in gangs during the day, and folded into barracks at night.—Rainsford, p. 139.
[22] Edwards, p. 75.
[23] Louis XVI., and Liancourt. French Rev., vol. 1, p. 200.