The Freedmen's Book

by Lydia Maria Child

It was the business of young slaves to tend the flocks and herds. They generally neglected and abused the creatures under their care, because they themselves were accustomed to hard treatment. But Toussaint was of a kindly disposition, and there was less violence on his master's plantation than elsewhere. It was remarked in the neighborhood that he differed from other boys in his careful and gentle treatment of the animals under his care. He was naturally a silent and thoughtful child, and probably this tendency was increased by being much alone, watching the browsing cattle in the stillness of the great valleys. Perhaps also the presence of the mountains and the sky made him feel serious and solemn. His pious godfather told him legends of Catholic saints, which he had heard among the missionaries. All these things combined to give him a religious turn of mind, even in his boyhood. From his own father he learned a great deal about Africa and the customs that prevailed in the tribe of his grandfather, King of the Arradas; also the medicinal qualities of many plants, which afterward proved very useful to him. Nothing is recorded of the moral and intellectual character of his father; but Toussaint always respected him highly, and when he was himself an old man he spoke of him as a good parent, who had trained him well by lessons of honor and virtue.

Toussaint Breda, as he was called, from the name of the estate on which he worked, early acquired a reputation for intelligence, sobriety, and industry. The Manager of the estate, M. Bayou de Libertas, was so much pleased with his conduct and manners that he made him his coachman, a situation much coveted by the slaves, as being more easy and pleasant than most of their tasks. His kindness to animals fitted him for the care of horses, and he was found as faithful in this new business as he had been while he was herds-boy. He was afterward promoted to an office of greater trust, being made steward of the sugar-house.

Having arrived at manhood, he began to want a home of his own. Most of the slaves took up together without any form of marriage, that being one of the bad customs which grows out of Slavery. But Toussaint was religious, and it would have troubled his conscience to live in that bad way. He had become attached to a widow named Suzan, who had one little son called Placide. She was not handsome, but he loved her for her good sense, good temper, and modest manners. They were married according to the ceremonies of the Catholic Church. He adopted her little boy, and brought him up as tenderly as he did his own children. The Manager allowed him a small patch of ground for vegetables, and all the hours they could snatch from plantation labors he and his wife devoted to the cultivation of their little garden. M. Bayou de Libertas was such a humane and considerate man that life in his service seems to have been as happy as the condition of slaves can be. Long afterward, Toussaint, speaking of this period of his life, said: "My wife and I went hand in hand to labor in the fields. We were scarcely conscious of the fatigues of the day. Heaven always blessed our toil. We had abundance for ourselves, and the pleasure of giving to other blacks who needed it. On Sundays and festival days my wife, my parents, and myself went to church. Returning to our cottage we had a pleasant meal, passed the remainder of the day in family intercourse, and closed it by prayer, in which all took part."

Thus contented in his humble station, and faithfully performing its duties, he gained the respect and confidence of both blacks and whites. Many of the slaves in the French colonies were cruelly treated, as is always the case wherever Slavery exists. Toussaint could not avoid seeing a great deal of wrong and suffering inflicted on people of his color, and he was doubtless grateful to God that his lot was so much better than theirs. But he was too intelligent and thoughtful not to question in his own mind why either he or they should be held in bondage merely on account of the complexion which it had pleased God to give them. He was fond of reading, and M. Bayou de Libertas, contrary to the usual custom, allowed him the use of his books. He read one volume at a time, and tried to understand it thoroughly. He devoted every spare moment to it, and while he was at work he was busily thinking over what he had read. It took complete possession of his soul for the time, and he would repeat extracts from it to his companions for weeks after. In this earnest way he read several books of ancient history, biography, and morals, and a number of military books. There was a French author, called the Abbé Raynal, who was much opposed to Slavery. In some way or other, one of his books fell into the hands of Toussaint Breda, and made a deep impression on him. It contained the following sentence: "What shall be done to overthrow Slavery? Self-interest alone governs kings and nations. We must look elsewhere. A courageous chief is all the negroes need. Where is he? Where is that great man whom Nature owes to her vexed, oppressed, and tormented children? He will doubtless appear. He will come forth and raise the sacred standard of Liberty. This venerable signal will gather round him his companions in misfortune. More impetuous than the torrents, they will everywhere leave the indelible traces of their just resentment. Everywhere people will bless the name of the hero who shall have re-established the rights of the human race."

When the Abbé Raynal wrote those prophetic words, he did not foresee that they would meet the eye of the very man he called for; and the humble slave, when he read them, did not hear in them the voice of his own destiny.

While he was diligently toiling for his humane masters, and seizing every opportunity to increase his small stock of knowledge, the island of St. Domingo was growing very rich by agriculture and commerce. The planters acquired enormous wealth, built splendid houses, and lived in luxury, laziness, and dissipation, upon the toil of the poor unpaid negroes. Twenty thousand slaves were imported from Africa every year, to make up the deficiency of those who were killed by excessive toil and cruel treatment. These new victims, men and women, had the name of their purchaser branded on their breast-bones with red-hot iron.

But men never violate the laws of God without suffering the consequences, sooner or later. Slavery was producing its natural fruits of tyranny and hatred, cruelty and despair. The reports of barbarity on one side and suffering on the other attracted attention in Europe; and benevolent and just men began to speak and write against Slavery as a wicked and dangerous institution. The Abbé Gregoire, a humane Bishop of the Catholic Church, introduced the agitating question into the French Assembly, a body similar to our Congress. He also formed a society called Les Amis de Noirs, which means "The Friends of the Blacks." Of course, this was very vexatious to slaveholders in the French colonies. They knew very well that if the facts of Slavery were made known, every good man would cry out against it. Political parties were formed in St. Domingo. Some of the planters wanted to secede from France, and set up an independent government. Others wanted to increase their political power by having a Colonial Assembly established in the island, by means of which they could mainly manage their own concerns as they chose. For this purpose they sent deputies to France. But their request gave rise to the question who should have the right to be members of such an Assembly; and, for the following reasons, that question was very annoying to the haughty slaveholders of St. Domingo.

In the United States of America, slaveholders made a law that "the child shall follow the condition of the mother"; consequently, every child of a slave-woman was born a slave, however light its complexion might be. This was a very convenient arrangement for white fathers, who wanted to sell their own children. In the French colonies, the law was, "the child shall follow the condition of its father." The consequence was, that all the children the planters of St. Domingo had by their slaves were born free. This was, of course, a numerous class. In fact, their numbers were two thirds as great as those of the whites. There were at that time in St. Domingo thirty thousand whites, twenty thousand free mulattoes, and five hundred thousand black slaves. Not unfrequently the white planters sent their mulatto children to France to be educated like gentlemen. Many of them acquired great wealth and held numerous slaves. But they were a class by themselves. However rich and educated they might be, they were kept trampled down in a degraded and irritating position, merely on account of their color. They despised the negro slaves, from whom they had descended on the mother's side; and they in their turn were despised by the whites, whose children they were, because their color connected them with the enslaved race. They were not allowed to be doctors, lawyers, or priests; they could hold no public office; they could not inherit the name or the property of their fathers; they could not attend school with white boys, or sit at a white man's table, or occupy the same portion of a church with him, or be buried in the same graveyard. They were continually insulted by whites, but if they dared to give a blow in return, the penalty was to have the right hand cut off. This class of free mulattoes claimed that, being numerous and wealthy, and the payers of taxes, they had a right to send representatives to the Colonial Assembly to look after their interests. They had the more hopes of gaining this point, because a great Revolution was then going on in France, and the friends of liberty and equality were daily growing stronger there. When the white planters sent deputies to France, the mulattoes sent deputies also, with a present of more than a million of dollars, and an offer to mortgage a fifth part of all their property toward the payment of the French national debt. All they asked in return was that the law should put them on an equality with white men. Being slaveholders, they manifested the same selfishness that white slaveholders did. They declared that they asked redress of grievances only for oppressed freemen; that they had no wish to change the condition of the negroes, who were slaves.

This petition was drawn up in 1790, and sent to Paris by a wealthy colored man named Ogé. It excited lively discussion in the National Assembly of France. One of the members, named Lamoth, who owned large estates in St. Domingo, said: "I am one of the largest proprietors in that island; but I would lose all that I possess there rather than disown principles which justice and humanity have consecrated. I am not only in favor of admitting men of color into the Colonial Assemblies, but I also go for the emancipation of the negro slaves." After animated discussion, the reply received by the mulatto deputies from the President of the Assembly was: "No portion of the French nation shall in vain claim its rights from the representatives of the French people."