Africa and the French Revolution
IF YOU should penetrate the campus of an American Ivy League college and challenging a Senior, ask what, in his opinion, was the influence of Africa on the French Revolution, he would answer in surprise if not pity, "None." If, after due apology, you ventured to approach his teacher of "historiography," provided such sacrilege were possible, you would be told that between African slavery in America and the greatest revolution of Europe, there was of course some connection, since both took place on the same earth; but nothing causal, nothing of real importance, since Africans have no history.

Nevertheless, it is a perfectly defensible thesis of scientific history that Africans and African slavery in the West Indies were the main causes and influences of the American Revolution and of the French Revolution. And when, after long controversy and civil war, Negro slavery and serfdom were not suppressed, the United States turned from democracy to plutocracy and opened the path to colonial imperialism and made wide the way for the final world Revolutions in the 20th century.

Let us now look at the story. Columbus had a Negro pilot, and in the 16th century his son Diago was governor of the island of San Domingo and his slaves staged a revolt in 1522. A few years later Vasquez d'Allyon tried to settle in Virginia but his slaves revolted. From the 16th century on, the revolt of the black workers stolen in Africa and transported to America continued. This was proven by the fright of the planters shown by the increased severity of the laws; at the same time, their desire to pretend that the slave system for blacks was perfect and was not resented.
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Early in the 16th century the Maroons appeared all over the West Indies. This was the name given to runaway slaves who took refuge in the mountains of Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica and Central America. They formed their own governments and even built cities. They fought with the Spanish, the British and the French; they made treaties which the Whites broke.

Meantime, by the middle of the 17th century Cromwell had seized Jamaica and the French had started sugar planting on their islands. White indentured servants were imported into the West Indies and the African slave trade increased. Between 1700 and 1776, 600,000 blacks were imported to the West Indies, Central and South America. French commerce quadrupled between 1714 and 1789. Dutch slaves revolted and gained their independence, and in Haiti a succession of black rulers in this land of mountains carried on continuous governmental organization which lasted through the 18th century and still exists.

San Domingo was an island of mountains rising in places 6,000 feet above sea level. The San Domingo planters and the British and French bourgeoisie were the new owners of some of the richest property in the world. Of these three the most important in 1790 were the planters of San Domingo. The island was beautiful. The climate was favorable, and crops grew the year round. The planters lived luxuriously, and spent their vacations or old age in Paris. In France they formed a powerful political force as their counterparts did in England. French women from the gutter as well as the middle class came to the colony. French aristocracy came to rebuild their shattered fortunes. They took Negro concubines. Colonial cities were centers of dirt, gambling and debauchery. In 1789, of 7,000 mulatto women in San Domingo, 5,000 were either prostitutes or mistresses. Failures from all countries flocked to San Domingo. No white person was a servant or did any work that he could get a Negro to do for him. The owners lived in barbaric luxury and the island produced more sugar, coffee, chocolate, indigo, timber and spices than all the rest of the West Indies put together. As early as 1685 Louis XIV had issued a Code Noir which made wives and children of Frenchmen free. By the beginning of the 18th century mulattoes began to accumulate property and educate their children in France. Their children began to return by 1763 and tried as freemen to take part in public affairs.

Meantime, the British were profiting by the slave trade and building up their mercantile system of colonial trade.
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The French regarded the colonies as existing for the profit of France. Colonies must buy all manufactured goods in France and could sell their produce only to France. The goods must be transported in French ships. Sugar must be refined in France. In 1664 France gave the rights of trade with San Domingo to a private company. The colonists refused and the governor had to ease restrictions. This happened again in 1722. There was another insurrection, the governor was imprisoned and the privileges of the company modified. The colonists thought of separating from France. Long before 1789 the French bourgeoisie was the most powerful force in France and the slave trade in the colonies, the basis of its power. The fortunes created at Bordeaux and at Nantes by the slave trade gave the bourgeoisie the pride that demanded "liberty." In 1666, 108 ships went from Nantes to Africa with 37,430 slaves valued at 37 million dollars and giving the owners from 15 to 20 per cent on their money. In 1700 Nantes was sending 50 ships a year to the West Indies with food, clothing and machinery. Nearly all the industries developed in France were based on the slave trade or the trade with America. Bordeaux grew rich by 1750 with 16 factories refining sugar. San Domingo was the special center of the Marseilles trade. A dozen other great towns refined sugar. Hides and cotton came from the West Indies. Two to six million Frenchmen depended for their livelihood upon colonial trade. In 1789 San Domingo received in its ports more ships than Marseilles. France used for the San Domingo trade 750 vessels employing 24,000 soldiers. In 1774 the colonies owed France 200 million and by 1789 between 3 and 5 million. The British envied San Domingo with alarm after the independence of America. San Domingo doubled its production between 1783 and 1789.

The British slave trade became an increasing source of profit and their monoply of colonial trade a matter of increasing importance. When, therefore, the American colonists tried to extricate themselves from British power they struck first at the slave trade. Already the Negro workers were beginning to take part in the struggle. Crispus Attucks led a mob in Boston and Daniel Webster said that the severance of America from the British empire dated from his death. The day of his death was a national American holiday for nearly a quarter of a century.

In 1776 Jefferson emphasized the slave trade as America's grievance against Great Britain. The American Revolution stopped the trade. In 1774, the Second Article of the Continental Association
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said: "that we will neither import nor purchase slaves imported after the first day of December next, after which we will wholly discontinue the slave trade." This all agreed would stop slavery. As the war progressed Negroes took part. General Nathaniel Green writes: "The natural state of the country appears to me to consist more in the blacks than in the whites." American Negroes fought for freedom, perhaps a larger proportion of them than among whites. In the early battles of the revolutionary war Negro soldiers fought side by side with the whites. It was feared that their presence might encourage slaves in the South to accept the offer of freedom given by the British governor, Dunmore, of Virginia, and for a while Washington was induced to refuse colored enlistments. But this he soon gave up. Negroes fought throughout the revolutionary war, mostly on the side of the Americans, but some on the side of the British. And Negro slavery was certainly one of the strongest arguments for the American Revolution. After America gained its freedom in 1783 it was felt in France and America that slavery in America was at an end.

The French Revolution has been written so largely from the white point of view that the part which the blacks played in this drama has been either forgotten or unknown.

A revolution is a transfer of power from the top aristocracy of a nation to lower and lower classes. Very often all the work and demand of an aristocracy is interpreted as transfer of power to the masses of people. This is usually untrue. Magna Carta was not a democratic movement. It was a successful attempt of the higher British aristocracy to wrest power from the King. The writ of habeas corpus did not mean that the working masses escaped unjust imprisonment; it was for the benefit of the rich middle class. And so in France the fall of the Bastille was a victory for unjustly treated aristocrats.

The freedom which France demanded in 1787 was freedom to build their current prosperity on the products of slave labor supported by a slave trade from Africa. Profits from this source were at their highest and French migrants were rushing to San Domingo to get rich. About this time the colored bastards whom the Code Noir had declared to be free and Negroes who had either earned or bought their freedom began to demand French citizenship, and French theorists and dreamers backed them as Friends.

In 1788, France exported to French San Domingo 21 million
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dollars in flour, wine, and manufactures, with 580 vessels in this trade and 98 in the African trade, and 29,500 slaves were brought to San Domingo from Africa.

In 1789, the West Indian colony of San Domingo supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade to France and was the greatest individual market for the European slave trade. It was an integral part of the economic life of the age, the pride of France, and the envy of every imperialist nation. The whole structure rested on the labor of the half million black slaves.

San Domingo was now incomparably the finest colony in the world and its possibilities were limitless. But without slaves San Domingo was doomed. The British colonies had enough slaves from all their trade and the British bourgeoisie who had no other West Indian interests set up a howl for the abolition of the slave trade. The rising British industrial bourgeoisie turned toward free trade and the exploitation of India and called the West Indies, "sterile rocks."

Adam Smith and Arthur Young condemned slave labor. India, after the loss of America, became a source of sugar. The production of cotton in India doubled in a few years. Indian free labor cost only a penny a day. There were hoards of gold, silver and jewels.

In 1786 Wilberforce began the anti-slave trade campaign. Pitt egged him on. Liberals in France, including the great names of the revolution, formed a society, The Friends of the Negro, aimed at the abolition of slavery.

In the Estates General which met in 1789 the French aristocracy gave up many of their rights and formed a Constituent Assembly under the domination of the upper middle classes. They for three years made this bourgeoisie equal in power to the former aristocrats. Thus equality which came in France was equality for the property owners and not for the working, starving masses. For a year the mass of workers began to put forward their demands in the Legislative Assembly and then finally for three years came real revolution. The monarchy was abolished. A Committee of Public Safety was established and pure democracy which allowed the masses to vote was proposed but not ratified. The King was killed and the parties fought for power. A reign of terror ensued which by 1794 was killing 354 people a month until suddenly came Thermidor. Robespierre himself was killed. The power of the Paris Commune with its extreme democracy was stopped. Babeuf, the serf, was executed. But the people were starving and there must
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be a change. In which direction would the change go, to a further devolution of power to the workers- Certainly not, said the respectable people. They turned to Bonaparts who had just married the granddaughter of a Negro and finished an Italian campaign. They brought him back from his wild Egyptian venture and the coup d'etat of the 18th Brumarie which ended in the empire. This is the story we are told and Africa touches it nowhere, save that we say that the terror in France was copied in Haiti and that Napoleon gave Louisiana to America.

This is not the complete story. Let us go over the details again: when the revolution broke out in France in 1787 San Domingo was the source of the greatest accumulation of wealth. San Domingo had more than three-quarter million slaves. the cities of France were flourishing with the slave trade. The French who were gaining equality with the former aristocrats were basing this equality on the profits of the slave trade and on crops grown by black slaves. From the very beginning two parties appeared in France: the moral philosophers and the social theorists, demanding freedom of the slaves. On the other hand, the planters demanded recognition as citizens and the exclusion of the poor whites and the mulattoes.

The planters supported the monarchy against the revolution. The poor whites supported the revolution against the King but opposed the mulattoes. The mulattoes sought alliance with either or both groups of whites. In 1789 the mulattoes sent Raymond and Ogé to Paris with 6 million pounds in gold and a promise of this and one-fifth of the property which the mulattoes owned in San Domingo to pay the French public debt. These delegates were received by the Constituent Assembly, and the Assembly thus recognized the citizenship of free Negroes. The planters were opposed as were also the manufacturers and merchants of the great French cities. The Constituent Assembly voted by large majority not to interfere with the internal government of the colonies and refused to abolish the slave trade. But on March 18, 1790, the Amis des Noirs secured a vote declaring free Negroes citizens. Planters in Martinique, Guadaloupe and San Domingo all decreed that the law recognizing the right to vote applied only to white persons. The planters and poor whites fought each other, but both were against the Negroes.

The planters of San Domingo by secret manipulation placed six of their number in the Constituent Assembly. When representatives
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of the free Negroes and mulattoes appeared in Paris to demand hearing they were received and backed by the organization called the Friends of Negroes. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was adopted.

Ogé returned to America with British money, landing secretly in north San Domingo. He collected 300 men. He was attacked and took refuge in the Spanish part of the island; the governor surrendered him. Ogé and Chavannes were sentenced while alive to have their arms, legs and spines broken and then be exposed to the sun. This was done in the presence of the northern provincial assembly gathered in state.

War started between the planters and the free Negroes. The planters, reinforced by poor whites from France pouring in to make money from slavery, numbered 40,000. The free Negroes and mulattoes were about 26,000. And, despite the supporting votes of the National Convention, the war was going against them.

Then the unexpected happened. The bolder slaves had formed bands of Maroons in the mountains and before 1700 became dangerous. Over 1,000 Maroons are reported in 1720, 3,000 in 1751. By 1750 their greatest chief was Macandel. He planned a rebellion but was captured and burned alive. The planters were determined that nothing would interfere with their methods and the slave system. A half-million black Africans long self-trained in the mountains of Haiti on August 22,1791, in a midnight thunderstorm, attacked. Thiers tells us: "In an instant twelve hundred coffee and two hundred sugar plantations were in flames; the buildings, the machinery, the farmhouses, were reduced to ashes; and the unfortunate proprietors were hunted down, murdered or thrown into the flames, by the infuriated Negroes. The horrors of a servile war universally appeared. The unchained African signalized his ingenuity by the discovery of new methods and unheard-of modes of torture."

They killed, raped and murdered. They destroyed property. The smoke of the fires blotted out the sun for days. The richest colony of France lay in ruins. The world shuddered. The slave-holders were frightened to death. But only gradually on slow sailing ships, loaded with lies, did the truth about what was happening reach France. Only after months did it realize that the foundations of its wealth and prosperity had disappeared. It was this and not any demands from the masses of French workers or of European philanthropists that turned the reaction of Thermidor into a reality
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and in time brought the counter-revolution of the 18th Brumaire.

The Terror did not spread from France to Haiti in 1793. Already in 1791 it came to France from Haiti. It was Africa in America and Africans led by Toussaint L'Ouverture who struck the French Revolution after it had given freedom to property-holders, and faced it with chaos. They plunged into anarchy, tempered by murder, until the reaction of Thermidor restored property to power.

The revolt was all the more startling because while it had been in the fears and imagination of the colonists for two hundred years, it was always undreamed of as an actual occurrence. There had been numberless revolts, which had spread terror to whites all over the West Indies, Central America and the mainland of the United States; but once they were quickly suppressed, their details and facts minimized, the records destroyed and the memory forgotten.

In San Domingo itself the dangers of slave revolts was not unknown. For years runaway slaves had hidden in the mountains, especially in the northeastern part of the island. There were serious slave revolts in 1679, 1691 and 1718, and in the middle of the eighteenth century a Negro, Macandel, carried out systematic poisoning which created a panic.

In Europe the organization of the lowest classes of workers and servants, peasants and laborers to gain political power and property was rare and cannot be compared to the corresponding organizations of the African slaves in the West Indies and South America. Many European revolts which are pictured as risings of the masses are nothing of the sort. The Protest revolution had no sympathy with the peasants and Martin Luther kicked them in the teeth when they revolted. There were revolts of the suffering masses in Hungary, France and England but they were small compared with the concerted, long-continued rebellion of the black Maroons. While the blacks of San Domingo were in wild rebellion France faced two paths: one was that of Babeuf who came up from the bottom of modern class organization, the servant class; he saw the masses starving, he felt their misery and he sang the dirge of the dying. He struggled for a commune of the workers; equality not of property owners but of those who gave property its value. He prayed and struggled for his Paris commune, but the mounting power of the property owners pushed and beat him back until he died. He died on the scaffold in 1796 but he arose from the dead in 1848 and again in 1871 in France; in 1917 in Russia; in 1939 in China and in 1961 in Cuba.
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France repudiating Babeuf, in its unconscious frenzy, took refuge in the reaction of Thermidor, after abolishing monarchy, killing the King, and murdering their leaders. Thermidor was the rule of the property-holders displacing the aristocrats. But in San Domingo, horror faced Toussaint and his rebels. Toussaint revered the King, his Chieftain; he believed in discipline and authority. He deserted impious France and led his legions to the service of Charles IV of Spain. Slowly he and his successors in after years developed his ancient tribal communalism in San Domingo. Beyond these political provisions, he turned attention toward the economic; the island was divided into districts with inspectors who were to see that the freedmen returned to their work. A fifth part of the produce of each estate was to go to the workers. Commercial arrangements were made with the United States and England. He immediately issued a manifesto to all Negroes and mulattoes. "I am Toussaint L'Ouverture; my name is perhaps known to you. I have undertaken to avenge your wrongs. It is my desire that liberty and equality shall reign in San Domingo! I am striving to this end. Come and unite with us, brothers, and fight with us for the same cause."

Through the prowess of Toussaint, the Spanish pushed the French farther and farther back and in a short time secured possession of nearly the whole north of the island and a part of the south. The French commission found itself in a tight place and tried to extricate itself in June, 1793, by offering to free all slaves who would enroll in the army. In August they went even further and proclaimed universal emanicipation in San Domingo, and this action was confirmed by the French National Convention, February 4, 1794.

The first proclamation had no influence upon Toussaint. As a Spanish general, he refused to recognize the authority of the French. But when the English invaded San Domingo, the aspect of things changed. They landed in September and soon had captured that city with its heavy artillery and two million dollars' worth of shipping in its harbor. Toussaint knew the British as slave traders, and he now suspected that Spain wanted vengeance on France rather than freedom for the slaves. When, therefore, the French government affirmed universal emancipation early in 1794, he returned to French allegiance to the open delight of the commission. They said, "Remember that distinctions of color are no more!"
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The blacks under Toussaint now proceeded to restore San Domingo to France. The mere magic of his name did much without fighting. In April Toussaint left the Spanish army; in May the French Flag was flying at Gonaives. From now on Toussaint was known as L'Ouverture, the Savior. Gradually the whole northern part of the island was in his possession. As Sonthonax wrote in his diary, "These Negroes perform miracles of bravery."

In after years, the successors of Toussaint, Dessalines and Christophe developed communalism and made the Haitian state independent and owner of its land and crops; but the surrounding world whirled away: it monopolized wealth in private hands, organized military power in their hand and France, the United States and Britain forced Haiti to become the victim of their stooge who rules Haiti today. Still high in its mountains roll the tom-toms of ancient Africa and its dreams.

People who achieved equality in the French revolution had neither liberty nor brotherhood for the black slaves of Haiti who were dying for the glory of France. For two years a National Convention was in control, which abolished the monarchy and vainly planned an equalitarian democracy. They tried to free the slaves, their own reaction could not survive slavery and live.

Meantime, separated by a vast ocean, with news traveling by slow sailing vessels, and couriers loaded with lies, France and San Domingo led for a long period almost separate lives, neither knowing exactly what was occurring in the other. The French commissioners representing the state arrived in San Domingo. They joined the mulattoes and free Negroes and revoked the abolition of the slavery of the blacks. Toussaint, leader of the blacks, went over to the Spaniards and the French planters appealed to the British.

The governor of the colony helplessly called on the revolting Negroes to surrender. In answer Toussaint wrote: "Sir, -- We have never thought of failing in the duty and respect which we owe to the representative of the person of the King, nor even to any of his servants whatever; we have proofs of the fact in our hands; but do you, who are a just man as well as a general, pay us a visit; behold this land which we have watered with our sweat or rather, with our blood, -- those edifices which we have raised, and that in the hope of a just reward! Have we obtained it? The King -- the whole world -- has bewailed our lot, and broken our chains; while in our part, we, humble victims, were ready for anything, not wishing to abandon our masters. What do we say? We are mistaken;
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those, who next to God, should have proved our fathers, have been tyrants, monsters unworthy of the fruits of our labours: and do you, brave general, desire that as sheep we should throw ourselves into the jaws of the wolf? No! it is too late. God, who fights for the innocent is our guide; he will never abandon us. Accordingly, this is our motto -- Death or Victory!"

Thus while the slaves arranged themselves with the King as symbolic head of the state, the new colonial assembly August 24, 1791, instead of appealing to France, begged protection, especially for their property, from England: "Fire lays waste our possessions, the hands of our Negroes in arms are already dyed with the blood of our brethren. Very prompt assistance is necessary to save the wreck of our fortunes -- already half-destroyed; and confined within the towns, we look for your aid."

The British after five years were sick of their attempt to conquer Haiti. By September 30, 1796, out of the whole number of white troops, British and foreign, who had landed in Haiti since 1795, at least 15,000 men, only 3,000 were left alive. April 22, 1798, the British Commander Maitland evacuated all towns in Haiti except Mole St. Nicholas. He had only about a thousand troops alive.

The brilliant success of Toussaint not only aroused the envy of the mulattoes, but the suspicion of France. The commissioner, Sonthonax, [1] who had returned from San Domingo, reported to the new government in the Director in France, the facts concerning Toussaint, and they thought it best to send a governor who would curb his power. Hédouville, the new governor, arrived April 20, 1798, and proposed to take charge of the negotiations with the English; but Maitland, the English commander, was only too glad to affront France by dealing directly and exclusively with Toussaint and to attempt to gain for England by flattery and bribery what he could not take by force. After five years of fighting, the loss of thirty thousand men and the expenditure of one hundred million dollars, he offered to surrender.

On October 1, 1798, Toussaint entered Mole St. Nicholas as conqueror. The white troops saluted him. He was dined in the public square, on a silver service which was afterwards presented
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to him in the name of the King of England. A treaty was signed by which the English gave up the island, recognized Haiti as independent, and entered into a commercial agreement. Then they tried secretly to induce Toussaint to declare himself King, but he refused.

Paris between March 1793 and July 1794 passed through one of the supreme epochs of political history. In these few months of their nearest approach to power the masses did not forget the blacks. They felt towards them as brothers, and the old slave-owners whom they knew to be supporters of the counter-revolution, they hated as if Frenchmen themselves had suffered under the whip. There were many so moved by the sufferings of the slaves that they had long ceased to drink coffee, thinking of it as drenched with blood and sweat of men turned into brutes.

This was the France to which, in January 1794, three deputies sent by San Domingo to the Convention arrived. Bellay, a Negro slave, who had purchased his freedom, Mills, a Mulatto, and Dufay a white man. On February 3rd they attended their first session. What happened there was quite unpremeditated.

The Chairman of the Committee on Decrees addressed the Convention, "Citizens, your Committee on Decrees has verified the credentials of the deputies from San Domingo. It finds them in order, and I move that they be admitted to their places in the Convention." Camboulas rose. "Since 1789 the aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of religion have been destroyed; but the aristocracy of the skin still remains. That too is now at its last gap, and equality has been consecrated. A black man, a yellow man, are about to join this Convention in the name of the free citizens of San Domingo." The three deputies of San Domingo entered the hall. The black face of Bellay and the yellow face of Mills excited long and repeated bursts of applause.

Lacroix (of Eure-et-Loire) followed. "The Assembly has been anxious to have within it some of those men of colour who have suffered oppression for so many years. Today it has two of them. I demand that their introduction be marked by the President's fraternal embrace."

Next day, Bellay, the Negro, delivered a long and fiery oration, pledging the blacks to the cause of the revolution and asking the Convention to declare slavery abolished. It was fitting that a Negro and ex-slave should make the speech which introduced one of the most important legislative acts ever passed by any
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political assembly. No one spoke after Bellay. Instead Levasseur (of Sarthe) moved: "When drawing up the constitution of the French people we paid no attention to the unhappy Negroes. Posterity will bear us a great reproach for that. Let us repair the wrong -- let us proclaim the liberty of the Negroes. Mr. President, do not suffer the Convention to dishonor itself by a discussion." The Assembly rose in acclamation. The two deputies of color appeared on the tribune and embraced while the applause rolled round the hall from members and visitors. Lacroix led the Mulatto and the Negro to the President who gave them the presidential kiss, when the applause started again.

Cambon, a deputy, drew the attention of the House to an incident which had taken place among the spectators.

"A citizeness of colour who regularly attends the sittings of the Convention has just felt so keen a joy at seeing us give liberty to all her brethren that she has fainted (applause). I demand that this fact be mentioned in the minutes, and that this citizeness be admitted to the sitting and receive at least this much recognition of her civic virtues." The motion was carried and the woman walked to the front bench of the amphitheatre and sat to the left of the President, drying her tears amidst another burst of cheering.

Lacroix, who had spoken the day before, then proposed the draft of the decree. "I demand that the Minister of Marine be instructed to despatch at once advices to the Colonies to give them the happy news of their freedom, and I propose the following decree: The national Convention declares slavery abolished in all the colonies. In consequence it declares that all men, without distinction of colour, domiciled in the colonies, are French citizens, and enjoy all the rights assured under the Constitution."

During this time, the leaders of French industry continued their protests outside the National Convention.

"There is no longer any ship-building in our ports, still less any construction of boats. The manufactories are deserted and the shops even are closed. Thus, thanks to your sublime decrees, every day is a holiday for the workers. We can count more than three hundred thousand in our different towns who have no other occupation than, arms folded, to talk about the news of the day, of the Rights of Man, and of the Constitution."

On June 5th, the day after the celebrations of the King's birthday and the capture of Port-au-Prince, the English commanders at
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St. Kitts heard that seven French ships had escaped the British fleet and landed at Guadeloupe. In command was Victor Hugues, a Mulatto, "One of the great personalities of the French revolution to whom nothing was impossible," taken from his post as public prosecutor in Rochefort and sent to the West Indies. Hugues brought only 1,500 men, but he brought also the Convention's message to the blacks. There was no black army in the Windward islands as in San Domingo. He had to make one out of raw slaves. But he gave them the revolutionary message and dressed them in the colors of the Republic. The black army fell on the victorious British, began to drive them out of the French colonies, then carried the war into the British islands.

Toussaint got the news of the decree sometime in May. The fate of the French in San Domingo was hanging by a thread, but now that the decree of Sonthonax was ratified in France, Toussaint did not hesitate a moment but at once told Laveaux that he was willing to join him. Laveaux, overjoyed, accepted the offer and agreed to make him a Brigadier-General, and Toussaint responded with a vigor and audacity that left all San Domingo gasping. He sent to the destitute Laveaux some good ammunition from the Spanish stores. Then he persuaded those of his followers who were with him to change over, and all agreed -- French soldiers, ex-slaves of the rank-and-file and all his officers, blacks and white royalists who had deserted the Republic to join him. "His demeanour at Mass was so devout that D'Hermona watching him communicate one day commented that God if he came to earth could not visit a purer spirit than Toussaint L'Ouverture."

The Directory which ruled from 1794 to 1799 turned to Napoleon who hated blacks. Nevertheless, he married the granddaughter of a Negro, Josephine, who was a leader of current French society. On the other hand, he dismissed General Dumas from his army solely because of his color. Napoleon was rising to prominence. He conducted a brilliant campaign in Italy and then from the foot of the Pyramids looked toward India, but the British blocked him until unemployment in England brought the Peace of Amiens.

The French planters appealed to Napoleon. He took their side, saying: "the liberty of blacks is an insult to Europe." But Toussaint was powerful. Napoleon had to flatter and cajole him. After consultation with French bankers, Napoleon planned an American empire based on African slavery. He lured Toussaint to France and killed him. He gathered a vast army under his brother-in-law,
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Le Clerc, who sailed for San Domingo in 1801. He took 5 squadrons with 80 vessels and 21,000 troops. The Africans and the fever conquered this army and left Dessalines and Christophe, successors of Toussaint, masters of Haiti.

Napoleon was unable to start colonial imperialism in America. That was accomplished in later years when American democracy restored African slavery in the cotton kingdom.

But the world hailed Toussaint, he was one of the great men of his time. He made an extraordinary impression upon those who knew him personally or studied his life, whether they were friends or enemies. August Comte included him with Washington, Plato, Buddha and Charlemagne as worthy to replace all the calendar saints. Morvins, biographer of Napoleon, calls him "a man of genius." Beauchamp refers to him as "one of the most extraordinary men of a period when so many extraordinary men appeared on the scene." Lamartine wrote a drama with Toussaint as his hero. Harriet Martineau wrote a novel on his life. Whittier wrote about him. Sir Spencer St. John, consular agent in Haiti, called him "the one grand figure of a cruel war." Rainsford, a British officer, refers to him as "that only great man." Chateaubriand charges that Bonaparte not only murdered, but imitated him.

A French planter said, "God in his terrestrial globe did not commune with a purer spirit." Wendell Phillips said, "You think me a fanatic, for you read history, not with your eyes, but with your prejudices. But fifty years hence, when Truth gets a hearing, the Muse of history will put Phocion for the Greek, Brutus for the Roman, Hampden for the English, LaFayette for France; choose Washington as the bright, consummate flower of our earliest civilization; and then, dipping her pen in the sunlight, will write in the clear blue, above them all, the name of the soldier, the statesman, the martyr, Toussaint L'Ouverture." Wordsworth sang:

"There's not a breathing of the common wind
That will forget thee: thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and Man's unconquerable mind."

In 1802 and 1803 nearly forty thousand French soldiers died of war and fever. Le Clerc himself died in November, 1803. Rochambeau succeeded to his command and was promised soldiers by Napoleon; but already in May, 1803, Great Britain started new war with France and communication between France and San Domingo was impossible. The black insurgents held the land; the
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British held the sea. In November, 1803, Rochambeau surrendered and white authority died in San Domingo forever.

The effect of all this was far-reaching. Napoleon gave up his dream of American empire and sold Louisiana for a song. As De Wit Talmadge said: "Thus, all of Montana and the Dakotas, and most of Colorado and Minnesota, and all of Washington and Oregon states, came to us as the indirect work of a despised Negro. Praise, if you will, the work of a Robert Livingstone or a Jefferson, but today let us not forget our debt to Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was indirectly the means of America's expansion by the Louisiana Purchase of 1803."

REFERENCES: This paper is based mainly on C. R. L. James: "The Black Jacobins," London, 1938; Du Bois: "Black Folk, Then and Now," New York, 1939; Aptheker: "American Negro Slave Revolts," New York, 1943.

Notes

[p. nts]

Note from page 146: 1 The Frenchman, Sonthonax, was a true representative of the revolution. "with the blacks his name was already a talisman, and in an insurrection which took place in the revolutionary center, Port-de-Paix, where whites were massacred, the laborers had risen to cries, `long live Sonthonax.'" The Black Jacobins, C. R. L. James, Chap. 8, p. 146.