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

by William Wells Brown

CHAPTER XIX. PEACE IN HAYTI, AND DEATH OF PÉTION.

Christophe had now discovered the too palpable truth, that so far from his possessing the means to drive his rival from the government of the South, all his cares and precautions were requisite to maintain the sovereignty over his own subjects of the North. A train of perpetual suspicions kept his jealousy ever alive, and vexed by the tortures of eternal solicitude, his despotic temper grew by the cruelty which had become its aliment. Together with this perpetual inquietude for the safety of his power, which made the new throne of Hayti a pillow of thorns and torture, other considerations had their influence to arrest the hostilities between the two chiefs of the country. The giant power of Napoleon had now extended itself over almost all the thrones of Europe, and with such an infinity of means at his disposal, it was yearly expected that another armament, proportioned to the overgrown power of the French Emperor, would be sent to crush the insurgents of St. Domingo, and restore that island once more to the possession of its ancient colonists.

Influenced by the fears inspired by these forebodings, the two governments of Hayti were actuated by a common instinct of self-preservation to cease from their warfare, and instead of spending their resources in a civil strife which threatened to become interminable, to employ themselves in giving permanence to their existing condition, and prosperity to the country under their control. The population, which had been employed in the armies of the two powers, had been taken from their labors upon the soil, and the ravages of war had consumed and destroyed the scanty growth of the plantations.

Amidst this unproductiveness of agriculture, which spread the miseries of want and destitution among the inhabitants of both governments, the occurrence of a maritime war between the United States and England entirely cut off the supplies which had been drawn from those two countries, and the evil condition of the Island was complete. In this sad state of their affairs, both Christophe and Pétion ceased from all military operations against each other, without previous arrangement or military truce; and they directed all their efforts to heal the wounds which had been inflicted by hostile depredation or the neglect of peaceful employments within their respective territories.

The tax laid by Christophe upon his subjects exceeded in despotism anything of the kind ever before known in the Island; and even surpassed the outrageous demands of Dessalines.

Pétion dared not to tax his subjects to supply the wants of his administration; and for this purpose he was driven to embarrass commerce by the imposition of enormous duties upon the trade carried on in his ports. But Christophe had assumed a station which forebade him to fear his subjects, and he furnished yearly millions to his treasury by a territorial tax, which poured one-fourth of all the productions of the kingdom into the royal coffers. Possessed of this revenue, which placed his finances beyond the contingencies of chance, the commercial regulations of Christophe were the very opposites of those enforced within the republic; and the traffic in the ports of the kingdom was annually augmented by a competition sustained at advantages so immense.

The army of the monarchy was in all things better furnished and more respectable than that of the republic. The troops were well clothed and well armed. They were kept under a discipline so strict that it knew no mercy and permitted no relaxation. The smallest delinquency was visited upon the offender with unsparing flagellation or with military execution. The troops received a merely nominal stipend for their services, and each soldier was required to gain his subsistence by the cultivation of a few acres of ground, which were allotted him out of the national domain; and of this scanty resource a fourth was required to be delivered into the hands of the king’s officers, as a part of the royal revenues.

Although Christophe had determined to maintain his power by the bayonets of the soldiery, he condescended to no measures of unusual moderation in his conduct toward these supporters of his authority. The soldiers of the army, as well as the laborers of the plantations, lived in perpetual dread of the rod of authority which was ever brandished over their heads; and of the merciless inflictions of authority the former obtained a more than ordinary share.

Upon common occasions, Christophe assumed little state, showing himself among his subjects but as a private individual of superior rank. Like his model, George III., it was his habit to walk the streets of the capital dressed in plain citizen’s costume, and with no decorations to designate his rank but a golden star upon his breast. In this unostentatious manner he was often seen upon the quay, watching the operations at the custom-house; or in the town, superintending the laborers engaged in the erection of public edifices. His never-failing companion upon these occasions was a huge cane, which he exercised without mercy upon those who were idle in his presence, or whose petty offences of any kind called for extemporary flagellation.