It was evident to every man in Hayti, at all conversant with the negro character, that an attempt to keep up cultivation without force was impossible, and many of the proprietors, themselves negroes, knew that by force only could they obtain labourers amongst their people. They knew that indolence in the negro was innate, and that it was absolutely impracticable to carry on the work in the soil unless rigid laws were enacted to enforce it. The laws which had been passed by Toussaint and Dessalines had become so mutilated by relaxation and modification, that they were little more than a dead letter; and the government, recovering from its apathy, and feeling the consequences of its loss of energy and want of decision, very wisely remonstrated with the president, and condemned further submission to the will of a people desirous to go on unrestrained in their indolent propensities. This remonstrance was effectual, and Boyer acquiesced in the necessity of establishing a system of extensive cultivation, and of enacting a law to provide for its due observance throughout his dominions. He saw the good effects which had arisen from the application of force on his own plantation at Tor, on which the cultivators worked under the surveillance of a military guard; and he therefore became now as willing an advocate for a law to sanction coercive labour, as he had been negligent in not providing for the culture of the soil from the beginning of his power.
The Code Rural, the existence of which has been the subject of much doubt, was passed by the Chamber of Communes on the 21st of April, 1826, admitted by the senate on the 1st of May, and received the president’s fiat on the 6th of the same month. All this took place during my residence in Port au Prince. This law is the work of Secretary-General Inginac, aided by one or two of the members from the chamber and the senate. During the discussion of this law in the Chamber of Communes, it was remarked by one of the most intelligent of its members, “that it was a measure of expediency, for that the citizen cultivators had become so indolent that agriculture had in some districts been almost forgotten, and that cultivation was completely suspended.” This declaration was echoed through the chamber, and every member concurred in the observation, and gave it his unqualified assent.
On the 1st of May, the day appointed for the celebration of the Fête Agriculture, and when the cultivators were assembled in the public square bearing specimens of their several productions of the soil, the president, together with a member from the chamber and another from the senate, addressed them, and said that the legislature would provide for a more general cultivation, and that all persons not engaged, or usually occupied as labourers, would be peremptorily called upon for a more strict attention to their duty, as the government contemplated a revival of agriculture, which had fallen into so much neglect from the indolent habits of the people. These addresses were not received with acclamation, and many a cultivator heard them with a degree of dissatisfaction which seemed to forebode resistance.
The Chamber of Communes, in its farewell address, tells the people that laws “just and severe” were imperative for the revival of agriculture, and that by the law which they had passed to enforce cultivation they thought that they had materially served their country, and in such an opinion I most readily concur. They rendered to their country an important service by passing the Code Rural; for it will tend towards obstructing the course of immorality pursued by the people in their idleness, and will eventually reestablish upon a sound basis the shattered finances of the state. The passage in that address is so very forcible, and so extremely just, that I shall call the attention of my readers to it, as it has been given by a gentleman to whom I am under many obligations for his assistance upon various rious subjects connected with this work. It says, “What is due to the conservative principle would not have been provided, if the revival of our agriculture had not been stimulated (provoqué) by laws at once just and severe; your representatives in passing the Code Rural, have believed that a benefit was conferred upon the people.” This was conclusive of the opinion of the country that severity was imperative for enforcing a general cultivation, and that, without laws “just and severe”, force cannot be resorted to with any chance of a favourable result.
It may not be unimportant to give a few of the articles of the Code Rural. This Code has now found its way to Europe, and the public, on reading its enactments, will be enabled to judge of the feelings of the leading persons in Hayti with regard to the state of cultivation, when such laws are said to be required to force the people to labour.
“Art. 173. The purposes of Rural Police are,
“First. The repressing idleness.
“Second. Enforcing order and assiduity in agricultural labour.
“Third. The discipline of the labourers collectively or in gangs.
“Fourth. The making and keeping in repair of the roads, both public and private.