Hayti; or, The black republic.

by Sir Spenser St. John

Having driven out the French by deeds of unquestioned valour and energy, and with a cruelty which the infamous conduct of Rochambeau could palliate, if not justify, the Haytians determined to throw off all allegiance to France and establish an independent government.

At Gonaives, on the 1st January 1804, General Dessalines assembled all his military chiefs around him and had read to them the Act of Independence, which terminated with the words, “for ever to renounce France, and to die rather than live under her dominion.” In a proclamation, Dessalines was careful to declare that it was not their mission to disturb the tranquillity of neighbouring islands, but in unmistakable language he called upon them to put to death every Frenchman who remained in the island. This was followed by a declaration signed by the chief generals choosing Dessalines as Governor-General of Hayti for life, with power to name his successor, and to make peace or war. He was thus invested with arbitrary power, and proceeded to exercise it.

His first act was the one on which his fame rests, and which endears his memory to the Haytians. He in fact decreed that all the French who were convicted or suspected of having connived at the acts of the expelled army, with the exception of certain classes, as priests and doctors, should be massacred; and this applied not only to those suspected of guilt, but to all their wives and children. Fearing that some of his generals, from interest or humanity, might not fully carry out his decree, he made a tournée through the different departments, and pitilessly massacred every French man, woman, or child that fell in his way. One can imagine the saturnalia of these liberated slaves enjoying the luxury of shedding the blood of those in whose presence they had formerly trembled; and this without danger; for what resistance could those helpless men, women, and children offer to their savage executioners? Even now one cannot read unmoved the records of those days of horror.

Dessalines, like most of those who surrounded him, was in every way corrupt; he is said to have spared no man in his anger or woman in his lust. He was avaricious, but at the same time he permitted his friends to share in the public income by every illicit means. His government was indeed so corrupt, that even the native historians allow that the administration was distinguished “for plunder, theft, cheating, and smuggling.” Dessalines, when he appointed an employé, used to say, “Plumez la poule, mais prenez garde qu’elle ne crie,”—the rule by which the Government service is still regulated.

The tyranny exercised by Dessalines and his generals on all classes made even the former slaves feel that they had changed for the worse. There were no courts to mitigate the cruelty of the hard taskmasters, who on the slightest pretext would order a man or woman to be beaten to death.

In the month of August 1804 news arrived that Buonaparte had raised himself to the imperial throne; Dessalines determined not to be behindhand, and immediately had himself crowned Emperor. His generals were eager that a nobility should be created, but he answered, “I am the only noble in Hayti.” As the eastern portion of the island was still occupied by the French, he determined to drive them out; but he was unable to take the city of Santo Domingo, and retired again to the west.

In June 1805 he published a constitution, which was worked out without consulting his generals, and created discontent among them. A conspiracy was organised; a rising in the south followed a visit from Dessalines, where he had given full scope to his brutality, and the insurgents marched forward and seized Port-au-Prince. When the Emperor heard of this movement, he hastened to the capital, fell into an ambuscade, and was shot at Pont Rouge, about half a mile from the city.

The only good quality that Dessalines possessed was a sort of brute courage: in all else he was but an African savage, distinguished even among his countrymen for his superior ferocity and perfidy. He was incapable as an administrator, and treated the public revenue as his own private income. He had concubines in every city, who were entitled to draw on the treasury to meet their extravagance; in fact, the native historians are in truth utterly ashamed of the conduct and civil administration of their national hero.

The death of Dessalines proved the signal of a long civil war. A National Assembly met at Port-au-Prince, voted a constitution prepared by General Pétion, by which the power of the chief of the state was reduced to a minimum, and then elected Christophe as first President of the republic. He in some respects was another Dessalines, and resented this effort to restrain his authority. He marched on the capital of the west with twelve thousand men, but after various combats failed to capture the city; then retired to Cap Haïtien, and there had a constitution voted which proclaimed him President of Hayti.

The Senate again met in Port-au-Prince in 1806 to elect a President, and their choice fell on Pétion, who, of all the influential men in the west and south, certainly appeared the most deserving. He had scarcely been installed, when his generals began to conspire against him, and the war with Christophe absorbed most of the resources of the country. No event, however, of any great importance occurred till the year 1810, when Rigaud, having escaped from France, arrived in Hayti, and was received with much enthusiasm. Pétion apparently shared this feeling for his old chief, and imprudently gave him the command of the southern department. Rigaud was too vain to remain under the authority of Pétion, his former subordinate, and therefore separated the south from the west. The President would not attempt to prevent this by war, and accepted the situation, so that the island was divided into five states,—Christophe in the north, the old Spanish colony in the east, Pétion in the west, Rigaud in the south, and Goman, a petty African chief, in the extreme west of the southern department.