The Rising Son; or, the Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race

by William Wells Brown

They decreed that the people should be denominated blacks; but such distinctions are far stronger than words on paper. Unfortunately, the distinctions in question, which was deeply rooted, and rested on prejudices and antipathies which will never be erased from human nature, had been aggravated by long and sanguinary contests between the blacks and mulattoes.

Aware of that individual superiority which springs from a share in the influences of civilization, the mulattoes of Hayti despised the uneducated black laborers by whom they were surrounded, and felt that by submitting to their sway, they put themselves under the domination of a majority whose sole authority lay exclusively in their numbers. The mulattoes really believed that their natural position was to fill the places in the government once held by the whites.

They would no doubt have forgotten their party interests, and labored for the diffusion through the great body of the people of the higher influence of civilization, if they could have secured those positions.

The mutual hatred between the mulattoes and the blacks was so deeply rooted, that neither party could see anything good in the other; and therefore, whatever was put forth by one party, no matter how meritorious in itself, was regarded with suspicion by the other.

The regular army of Dessalines was composed of fifteen thousand men, in which there was included a corps of fifteen hundred cavalry. They were a motley assemblage of ragged blacks, kept in the ranks, and performing their limited routine of duty through the awe inspired among them by the rigid severity of the imperial discipline. The uniform of the troops had not been changed when the Island was erected into an independent power, and the red and blue of the French army still continued to distinguish the soldiers of the Haytian army, even when the French were execrated as a race of monsters, with whom the blacks of St. Domingo should have nothing in common. Together with the regular army of the empire, there existed a numerous corps of national guard, composed of all who were capable of bearing arms; though the services of these were not required but in some dangerous emergency of the State. The national guard and regular army were called into the field four times every year; and during these seasons of military movement, the government of Dessalines was over a nation of soldiers in arms, as they remained in their encampment for some days, to be instructed in military knowledge, and to be reviewed by the great officers of the empire.

Dessalines now put forth a proclamation filled with accusations against the white French still on the Island.

This ferocious manifesto was intended as a preliminary measure in the train of horrible events to follow. In the month of February, 1805, orders were issued for the pursuit and arrest of all those Frenchmen who had been accused of being accomplices in the executions ordered by Rochambeau.

Dessalines pretended that more than sixty thousand of his compatriots had been drowned, suffocated, hung, or shot in these massacres. “We adopt this measure,” said he, “to teach the nations of the world that, notwithstanding the protection which we grant to those who are loyal towards us, nothing shall prevent us from punishing the murderers who have taken pleasure in bathing their hands in the blood of the sons of Hayti.”

These instigations were not long in producing their appropriate consequences among a population for so many years trained to cruelty, and that hated the French in their absence in the same degree that they feared them when present. On the 28th of April it was ordered by proclamation that all the French residents in the Island should be put to death; and this inhuman command of Dessalines was eagerly obeyed by his followers, particularly by the mulattoes, who had to manifest a flaming zeal for their new sovereign, in order to save themselves from falling victims to his sanguinary vengeance. Acting under the dread surveillance of Dessalines, all the black chiefs were forced to show themselves equally cruel; and if any French were saved from death, it was due to the mercy of the inferior blacks, who dared not to avoid their generosity. Dessalines made a progress through all the towns where there were any French citizens remaining, and while his soldiers were murdering the unfortunate victims of his ferocity, the monster gloated with secret complacency over the scene of carnage, like some malignant fiend glorying in the pangs of misery suffered by those who had fallen a sacrifice to his wickedness.

The massacre was executed with an attention to order, which proves how minutely it had been prepared. All proper precautions were taken, that no other whites than the French should be included in the proscription. In the town of Cape François, where the massacre took place, on the night of the 20th of April, the precaution was first taken of sending detachments of soldiers to the houses of the American and English merchants, with strict orders to permit no person, not even the black generals, to enter them, without the permission of the master of the house, who had been previously informed of all that was about to happen. This command was obeyed so punctually, that one of these privileged individuals had the good fortune to preserve the lives of a number of Frenchmen whom he had concealed in his house, and who remained in their asylum until the guilty tragedy was over.