The case of St. Domingo is in point. Blood was indeed shed on that island like water, but it was not in consequence of emancipation. It was shed in the civil war which preceded it, and in the iniquitous attempt to restore the slave system in 1801. It flowed on the sanguine altar of slavery, not on the pure and peaceful one of emancipation. No; there, as in all the world and in all time, the violence of oppression engendered violence on the part of the oppressed, and vengeance followed only upon the iron footsteps of wrong. When, where, did justice to the injured waken their hate and vengeance? When, where, did love and kindness and sympathy irritate and madden the persecuted, the broken-hearted, the foully wronged?
In September, 1793, the Commissioner of the French National Convention issued his proclamation giving immediate freedom to all the slaves of St. Domingo. Did the slaves baptize their freedom in blood? Did they fight like unchained desperadoes because they had been made free? Did they murder their emancipators? No; they acted, as human beings must act, under similar circumstances, by a law as irresistible as those of the universe: kindness disarmed them, justice conciliated them, freedom ennobled them. No tumult followed this wide and instantaneous emancipation. It cost not one drop of blood; it abated not one tittle of the wealth or the industry of the island. Colonel Malenfant, a slave proprietor residing at the time on the island, states that after the public act of abolition, the negroes remained perfectly quiet; they had obtained all they asked for, liberty, and they continued to work upon all the plantations.—[Malenfant in Memoirs for a History of St. Domingo by General Lecroix, 1819.]
"There were estates," he says, "which had neither owners nor managers resident upon them, yet upon these estates, though abandoned, the negroes continued their labors where there were any, even inferior, agents to guide them; and on those estates where no white men were left to direct them, they betook themselves to the planting of provisions; but upon all the plantations where the whites resided the blacks continued to labor as quietly as before." Colonel Malenfant says that when many of his neighbors, proprietors or managers, were in prison, the negroes of their plantations came to him to beg him to direct them in their work. "If you will take care not to talk to them of the restoration of slavery, but talk to them of freedom, you may with this word chain them down to their labor. How did Toussaint succeed? How did I succeed before his time in the plain of the Cul-de-Sac on the plantation of Gouraud, during more than eight months after liberty had been granted to the slaves? Let those who knew me at that time, let the blacks themselves be asked. They will all reply that not a single negro upon that plantation, consisting of more than four hundred and fifty laborers, refused to work; and yet this plantation was thought to be under the worst discipline and the slaves the most idle of any in the plain. I inspired the same activity into three other plantations of which I had the management. If all the negroes had come from Africa within six months, if they had the love of independence that the Indians have, I should own that force must be employed; but ninety-nine out of a hundred of the blacks are aware that without labor they cannot procure the things that are necessary for them; that there is no other method of satisfying their wants and their tastes. They know that they must work, they wish to do so, and they will do so."
This is strong testimony. In 1796, three years after the act of emancipation, we are told that the colony was flourishing under Toussaint, that the whites lived happily and peaceably on their estates, and the blacks continued to work for them. Up to 1801 the same happy state of things continued. The colony went on as by enchantment; cultivation made day by day a perceptible progress, under the recuperative energies of free labor.
In 1801 General Vincent, a proprietor of estates in the island, was sent by Toussaint to Paris for the purpose of laying before the Directory the new Constitution which had been adopted at St. Domingo. He reached France just after the peace of Amiens, when Napoleon was fitting out his ill-starred armament for the insane purpose of restoring slavery in the island. General Vincent remonstrated solemnly and earnestly against an expedition so preposterous, so cruel and unnecessary; undertaken at a moment when all was peace and quietness in the colony, when the proprietors were in peaceful possession of their estates, when cultivation was making a rapid progress, and the blacks were industrious and happy beyond example. He begged that this beautiful state of things might not be reversed. The remonstrance was not regarded, and the expedition proceeded. Its issue is well known. Threatened once more with the horrors of slavery, the peaceful and quiet laborer became transformed into a demon of ferocity. The plough-share and the pruning- hook gave way to the pike and the dagger. The white invaders were driven back by the sword and the pestilence; and then, and not till then, was the property of the planters seized upon by the excited and infuriated blacks.
In 1804 Dessalines was proclaimed Emperor of Hayti. The black troops were in a great measure disbanded, and they immediately returned to the cultivation of the plantations. From that period up to the present there has been no want of industry among the inhabitants.
Mr. Harvey, who during the reign of Christophe resided at Cape Francois, in describing the character and condition of the inhabitants, says "It was an interesting sight to behold this class of the Haytiens, now in possession of their freedom, coming in groups to the market nearest which they resided, bringing the produce of their industry there for sale; and afterwards returning, carrying back the necessary articles of living which the disposal of their commodities had enabled them to purchase; all evidently cheerful and happy. Nor could it fail to occur to the mind that their present condition furnished the most satisfactory answer to that objection to the general emancipation of slaves founded on their alleged unfitness to value and improve the benefits of liberty. . . . As they would not suffer, so they do not require, the attendance of one acting in the capacity of a driver with the instrument of punishment in his hand. As far as I had an opportunity of ascertaining from what fell under my own observation, and from what I gathered from other European residents, I am persuaded of one general fact, which on account of its importance I shall state in the most explicit terms, namely, that the Haytiens employed in cultivating the plantations, as well as the rest of the population, perform as much work in a given time as they were accustomed to do during their subjection to the French. And if we may judge of their future improvement by the change which has been already effected, it may be reasonably anticipated that Hayti will erelong contain a population not inferior in their industry to that of any civilized nation in the world. . . . Every man had some calling to occupy his attention; instances of idleness or intemperance were of rare occurrence; the most perfect subordination prevailed, and all appeared contented and happy. A foreigner would have found it difficult to persuade himself, on his first entering the place, that the people he now beheld so submissive, industrious, and contented, were the same people who a few years before had escaped from the shackles of slavery."
The present condition of Hayti may be judged of from the following well- authenticated facts its population is more than 700,000, its resources ample, its prosperity and happiness general, its crimes few, its labor crowned with abundance, with no paupers save the decrepit and aged, its people hospitable, respectful, orderly, and contented.
The manumitted slaves, who to the number of two thousand were settled in Nova Scotia by the British Government at the close of the Revolutionary War, "led a harmless life, and gained the character of an honest, industrious people from their white neighbors." Of the free laborers of Trinidad we have the same report. At the Cape of Good Hope, three thousand negroes received their freedom, and with scarce a single exception betook themselves to laborious employments.
But we have yet stronger evidence. The total abolishment of slavery in the southern republics has proved beyond dispute the safety and utility of immediate abolition. The departed Bolivar indeed deserves his glorious title of Liberator, for he began his career of freedom by striking off the fetters of his own slaves, seven hundred in number.