The war maker

by Horace Herbert Smith

I suspected that the coffee I received had been stolen from planters who were loyal to the government, and that the rebels had “levied” on it as a war tax, but as they charged me three cents less a pound than the market price, while I charged them four or five times as much for the arms and ammunition as they cost me, I had no compunctions of conscience about taking it. It is a waste of good time and precious protoplasm to sympathize with Central or South Americans who are pillaged by rebels, for in the next uprising the victims of the previous one will, in their turn, be the plunderers. Thanks to the meddling of American warships, things have quieted down a great deal within recent years, but in the good old days, of which I am writing, revolutions were as much a part of the daily life of the people in those countries as their morning meal, and more so than their morning bath. In fact, the most popular morning salutation was, “Who are we revoluting for [or against] to-day?” Few went further and asked why they were in revolt, for that was a minor consideration and there were not many who knew. At least nine-tenths of the steady routine of revolutions were due to nothing more than personal ambition, which has been the curse of Latin America. Some man of influence or a disgruntled general who had helped to elevate some other general to the presidency, and then had not been shown the consideration to which he thought himself entitled, would raise the standard of rebellion. Under a plethora of promises as to what he would do when he became president, he would attract other dissatisfied ones to his cause, and it usually was only a question of time until he overturned the unstable government. Then he would, in turn, be unable or unwilling to make good on all of his promises, real or implied, and those whom he disappointed would proceed to throw him out. Every man of importance had a following of ignorant natives who, either because they had grown up in his section of the country and had been taught to show him homage, or because they expected to lead lazy lives when he became all-powerful, would follow him blindly. A revolution which involved any question of good government was almost unheard of. It is nothing but the inordinate and, among the upper classes, almost unanimous thirst for power that has retarded the development of these rich countries for generations. Blessed by nature beyond the understanding of those who have not spent years in them, they have been cursed by man. When they have become civilized and their development once sets in, it will eclipse anything America has ever seen.

But these observations are not a part of my story. With the cargo of loyalist coffee we headed for New Orleans. We made bad weather of it all of the way. The faddish ship wouldn’t sail or heave to and was as cranky as an old man in his dotage. Some days we actually went backward, and it was a long time before we raised South Pass light and were picked up by a tug. The moment the hawser tightened the old ship threw herself back on her haunches and refused to budge. The captain of the towboat, after struggling strenuously to get us under way, dropped back and screamed at me, “What in hell is the matter with that damned old hooker?”

“You don’t know how to tow and she knows it,” I retorted.

“One would think you had all the anchors in the United States down,” he shouted.

I assured him that we didn’t have even one down and he tried it again and finally got us to going. We were off quarantine soon after sundown and discovered that an embargo of forty days against Central American ports had been raised only an hour before. The balkiness of the “Richards” had prevented us from having to ride at anchor for days or weeks and be subjected to casual inspection and gossip which might have caused trouble. While the delay had been of service to us in that respect it provoked some anxiety on another point. I had an idea that the Costa Rican Government might try to have the ship seized, and our trip had been such a long one that no time was to be lost in selling our cargo and getting away. I took samples of the coffee to New Orleans on a tug and placed them in the hands of old Peter Stevens, of the Produce Exchange, who sold the whole cargo in an hour.

While the coffee was coming out stores were going in, and we were out of the river again and on our way to Hayti in record time. Though I had good cause to remember Santo Domingo I never had been in the “Black Republic,” and as I had heard there was a probability of some lively times there I determined to visit it before I returned to New York. But the crankiness of the “Richards” interfered with my plans. When we were about one hundred miles west of Key West the old ship committed suicide by burning herself to death. The fire started in the hold amidships, but we could not even imagine what might have caused it. It was so unexpected that it had a good start before we discovered it. We fought it, of course, but we might as well have tried to quench a volcano in eruption. The strange craft had made up her mind to go under, and there was nothing for us to do but take to the whaleboat, which was large enough for all of us, as I had only a small crew. After we had shoved off we returned at considerable risk to rescue a big black cat which was on the ship when I bought her. We had christened him “John Croix,” and every man on board undertook to teach him all he knew about navigation, with the result that the animal had become so highly educated that he could do everything about the ship but use the sextant.

Our humanity was well rewarded, for John saved our lives, or at least saved us from a lot of suffering. A stiff norther came up before we sighted land and for several days we were tossed about without any clear idea as to the direction in which we were being blown, for not once did we get a glimpse of sun or moon by which to take a reckoning. Eventually we drifted among the islands to the westward of Key West, and we headed for the largest one in sight. In the heavy sea that was running we made a bad mess of the landing. Our boat was overturned and stove in, the bung came out of the water cask, and all of our supplies and most of our instruments were lost. We got ashore all right, and John Croix with us, but we had neither food nor water, and when a search of the little island failed to reveal so much as a sign of a spring of fresh water, we began to give some thought to what our chances would be in the hereafter. We bivouacked gloomily that night on the beach. Early in the morning the cat awakened me by rubbing against my face. At first I thought he was only depressed, like the rest of us, and wanted company, but he pestered around until I got up and followed him. Calling to me over his shoulder he led the way to a clump of mangrove trees, whose roots overhung the bank three feet above high tide. John trotted under the mass of roots and began to purr loudly. I started to follow him and then backed out, but the cat yowled so loudly that I got down on all fours again and followed him. I crawled along for ten or twelve feet until I found John standing over a rivulet of fresh water about as big as my finger. I drank my fill from it and then awakened the others and told them of John’s discovery. They hailed him as our saviour, and when he came trotting into camp a couple of hours later with an oyster in his mouth they were ready to beatify him. Until John had shown us the way to food, as he had led us to water, we had not thought of looking for oysters, of which there were millions around the roots of the mangrove trees. Strengthened and encouraged we patched up our boat and, when the storm had blown itself out, put to sea again and encountered a little schooner from St. John’s, Florida, which took us to Key West, where we soon got a ship for New York. On the way north we put in at Charleston, where I had enjoyed much excitement as a blockade runner, and there I presented John Croix to a Methodist minister who promised to give him a good home.

I was still anxious to visit Hayti, that land of mystery and murder, and, in the guise of an English planter, I went there on a West Indian steamer. Hayti has had more internal troubles and more presidents than any other of the revolutionary republics and her domestic disorders will continue until they are stopped by some powerful outside influences, for the blacks and mulattoes are eternal enemies. In the first three years following the separation from Santo Domingo there were four presidents. In 1849 Soulouque, a negro, proclaimed himself Emperor, as Faustian I. He ruled with despotic power, renewed the war on Santo Domingo, and played hob generally with the nation’s finances and affairs. In 1858 General Geffrard, a mulatto whom Soulouque had condemned to death, revolted and proclaimed himself President. He restored the constitution and held on until 1867, when he was overthrown by General Salnave, who lasted three years before he was deposed and shot. He had four successors in twice as many years, the last one being General Salomon, who was at the head of affairs when I arrived on the scene.

It did not take me long to make up my mind that Hayti was the warmest hotbed of intrigue I had ever run across and I felt that I was among friends and in a thoroughly congenial atmosphere. The very air seemed to breed revolutions; perhaps because it was peopled with the spirits of the old buccaneers who had their headquarters at the western end of the island in the entrancing early days. There were many plotters for the presidency, but there were two great rival camps, one headed by General F. D. Legitime and the other by General Florville Hippolyte. Legitime was planning to overturn the government at once, but it was the scheme of Hippolyte, who was more cunning and willing to wait, to continue Salomon in power until the election of 1886, when he expected to secure his own election as Constitutional President. All of the plots and counter-plots were laid in secret, of course, yet all men of influence knew in a general way what the others were doing and where they stood, with due allowance for the treachery always found in Latin countries, which creates a delightful element of uncertainty.

Hippolyte was one of the ugliest negroes I have ever known—and my estimate of him as here set down is in no way influenced by the fact that some years later he arranged to have me carefully murdered. With his bloodshot eyes and white whiskers, which latter reminded one of dirty lace curtains, his cruel face was suggestive of some wild animal. He was abrupt and domineering in his manner and there was not a forgiving drop of blood in his veins. If the hippopotamus is as savage a brute as has been pictured, Hippolyte should have taken all of his name from that animal. He could laugh, but only like a hyena, and it was impossible for him to smile. Brutal and bloodthirsty, he was at the same time a forceful old villain and possessed of much native shrewdness. Like all of the blacks he was a devout voodoo worshipper, and with the aid of the papalois—the priesthood of the cannibalistic creed—he played on the superstitions of the ignorant negroes. We became well acquainted during the year or more that I loafed around Port au Prince, revelling in the oddly warlike surroundings and watching the budding plots, and at times I found him interesting.