In the northern department, about Limonde and La Grande Rivière, land is exceedingly low, and notwithstanding its high repute for all the purposes of cultivation, it seldom exceeds forty or forty-five dollars per acre, and even at those prices it is difficult to find purchasers, except for mere plots to be occupied in raising vegetables. The finest pasture-lands, having all the advantages of shade and water, and in all the luxuriance of vegetation, can scarcely find purchasers, and will not bring above forty dollars per acre. With respect to lands on the coast they are generally in waste, unless they happen to be immediately in the vicinity of a town, when some of them are occupied as small settlements for vegetables and for raising poultry for the markets: but there are no extensive plantations of sugar or coffee situate very near the sea, although formerly the whole coast was in cultivation as far as it was practicable to extend it.
In the plains of Cul de Sac, in the neighbourhood of La Croix des Bouquets, the land is a little occupied, but in possession of individuals who have held it since the distribution in the time of Toussaint and Dessalines; and although in this part of the country the soil is exceedingly deep and strong, land hardly finds purchasers. Land again in the mountains varies in price according to its situation. In those valleys surrounded by the cordilleras that are so numerous in the country, and in which the verdure is constant, which are finely watered, and have a delightful temperature through the year, the land sometimes brings fifty dollars per acre, whilst tracts exposed to the north and north-easterly winds, and having rapid descents, are seldom worth purchasing, and few people buy them; they are generally given by the government to superannuated soldiers, who are allowed to leave the army and turn cultivators. Land in the towns and cities is sold at moderate prices, much lower than might be imagined. A lot, containing a frontage of sixty feet, with a depth of forty or fifty feet, eligibly situate for the purposes of trade, may be bought in Port au Prince for about two hundred dollars. This may seem surprising to persons unacquainted with the country, and who have been led to believe that Hayti is in a most flourishing state; but it is true, and at once shews that poverty is generally prevalent, and that there is no security for property in whatever commodity it may be vested. Houses and land are a very insecure tenure under such a government as that which at present exists in Hayti, and whilst such a constitution endures, and such inefficient persons are permitted to command, but little improvement can be expected, and the value of property, instead of increasing, will certainly decline.
CHAPTER XI.
Agriculture.—Crops in Toussaint’s and Dessalines’ time.—System of Christophe and Petion.—Decline under Boyer.—Crops in his time.—Attempts to revive it.—Coercion resorted to.—Code Rural.—doubts on enforcing its clauses.—Disposal of lands.—Consequences from it.—Incompetency of planters.—State of cultivation of sugar, coffee, cocoa, cotton, indigo.—Free labour.—Consequences arising from it.—its inefficacy, etc.
I shall now endeavour to detail the decline of agriculture in Hayti, and to offer a few remarks upon its present state; as well as to shew that under the present inefficient government, very faint hopes only can be held out of any revival, or that the republic of Hayti can ever reach that eminence and repute which once belonged to Saint Domingo as a French colony.
In various parts of this work I have observed that the decline of agriculture commenced immediately after the improvident and impolitic measures pursued by the national assembly of France, and after the first partial revolt of the slave population: and that all the energy of the successive chiefs who have subsequently governed the country, and who have promulgated several edicts to enforce or encourage cultivation, has not been sufficiently powerful to keep up that regular system of tillage from which, in her former state, she derived such advantages. True it is, that great efforts were made by Toussaint, Dessalines, and Christophe, to infuse into the people a taste for husbandry, and to impress on them that the surest way to arrive at affluence is by an undeviating perseverance in the cultivation of those lands which had fallen into their possession; that the only true riches of a country are to be derived from the soil; and that commerce, although a very powerful auxiliary, is only a secondary means by which a nation can arrive at opulence, or its people attain to any advancement in wealth. But their efforts were unavailing in part, though they certainly did more to keep up cultivation than has been attempted since their days. The proclamation of Toussaint in the year 1800 was a powerful document, and had a great effect as an incitement to labour; and his solicitude respecting an intercourse with Europe and the United States shewed that he wished to adopt every expedient by which encouragement could be given to the cultivator; to find a vent for their productions, in order to enhance their value, and thus stimulate the occupiers of the soil to further exertions. He was extremely solicitous to introduce an organized system of cultivation which would eventually aggrandize his country. Coercion he knew to be absolutely necessary. He was well aware that without this nothing could be accomplished. But the state of popular feeling rendered the rigid exaction of duty in agricultural labour a dangerous experiment; he therefore decided on adopting a mean between two extremes which, while it excited no dissatisfaction among the people, would provide for the exigences of his government.
Toussaint unquestionably pursued a plan which, had he not been seized by the French general, and in defiance of the laws of honour and nations so inhumanly transported to France, would in time have so far restored agriculture, and placed his country in so flourishing a condition, that in a few years it would have rivalled even the most happy period of its agricultural and commercial greatness. His object was clearly to advance by degrees, and to stimulate his people to the culture of the soil, by holding it up as the most noble pursuit of which they could possibly make choice; to infuse into them a taste for industry; and to give them a relish for those rural occupations which cultivation required, and for which, the extremely rich and fertile soil of the country would so amply and so quickly reward them. He had also made great strides towards impressing them with an idea that they had many wants, which, although artificial, yet were necessary towards advancing them in the opinion of the world. To teach them this effectually, and to impress it seriously, would have been a work of time, but he made great efforts, and he began to perceive that they had not been unavailing. But wherever he discovered an invincible indisposition to receive these salutary lessons and a total disregard of his admonitions and persuasions, he tried what force would accomplish; and consequently the law for enforcing agriculture was enacted, and all people were directed to make choice of the plantations on which they were disposed to labour, prohibiting all persons from living in idleness and sloth. The estate and the employer being thus once selected, the labourer was not permitted to recall his choice, unless permission to do this were granted him by the officer commanding the district or one of the municipal authorities. Hence the labourers became once more slaves in fact, although not so in name.
When this law was promulgated, Toussaint began to exert the power which he possessed to enforce it, and cultivation began to raise its head in a most eminent degree. The sugar estates exhibited labour going on with the same spirit and success as in former times; the coffee settlements displayed a busy scene in every direction throughout the colony; and the cotton and cocoa plantations shewed that they were not to be neglected in the midst of this animated and interesting struggle for the revival of a country’s greatness and a nation’s wealth. But here coercion did the work, here was compulsory labour resorted to, because it was sanctioned by the law, and those who held the power were more than equal to those who felt a disposition to resist it. The whip, that symbol of office of the principal negro, was dispensed with, it is true, but the cultivators were placed under the apprehension of a more effective weapon, for they were attended through the day by a military guard, and the bayonet and the sabre superseded the cat and the lash. To the astonishment of the leading people in the country, the cultivators submitted to this coercion without a murmur; and it was not until French intrigue was industriously set to work to instil into their minds that their condition was worse than when they were slaves, that any disposition was shewn to oppose the principle of compulsory labour; and even this opposition was far from being general. When we take into consideration that the population under Toussaint had greatly diminished, and that the cultivators in his time exceeded very little more than half of the slaves that were employed in agriculture in the time of the French, and compare the returns of produce at the respective periods, it must be evident that the system of coercion resorted to by Toussaint, must have been to the full as rigid as that which existed at any former period, or it would have been impossible for him to have carried on cultivation to so great an extent.