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506 DOUGLASS' MONTHLY. AUGUST, 1861 [[line across page]] [[3 ruled columns]] [[column 1]] universal liberty, and thus at one blow to annihilate colonial pride. Oge recoiled before the blood and horrors which such an uprising presented to his mind. (1) He ardently desired liberty for all, but conscientious, matured liberty, acquired peaceably by the law of justice. A liberty bloody and terrible, born amid fearful renderings of society and upon the smoking ruins of the colony, such as it was some time after, was repugnant to his humane and generous heart. Garran Coulon, sent to Saint Domingo by the National Convention of France to make a report concerning the troubles in that colony, and who is certainly a competent authority in the matter, says, in speaking of Oge: 'Finally, after having reproached him during his life with having wished to raise the slaves, they (the colonists) have made it a crime that he should have written that he did not desire to arm them against the whites. It is true that Oge thought in 1790, with the prominent philanthropists, and the [[italics]] friends of the blacks [[/italics]] themselves, that liberty could not be given to the slaves [[italics]] all at once. [[/italics]] He did not believe that the attempt was then practicable; and it required the whole extent of our revolution, before that great act of natural justice could be promptly effected--so difficult it is to destroy the most horrible iniquities after they have become rooted in society. But Oge was far from despising the rights of the negroes, or desiring, like the two colonial assemblies, that their perpetual bondage should be the basis of the colonial constitution. He had perceived the necessity of ameliorating their condition in the memorial which he had the imprudence to present to the club Massiac.' (2) And Southonax himself, whose unjust prejudice against the free men of color of St. Domingo (the former emancipated slaves) signalized particularly his last mission to that colony--a prejudice unworthy his enthusiastic and liberal heart, accounted for only by his inconsistent character, and which Victor Schœlcher, and others after him, believe that they ought to espouse, without well knowing why--Southonax, I say, who was proud to have been the first to proclaim universal liberty to the slaves of St. Domingo or Hayti, acknowledged, nothwithstanding, that the young martyr Oge [[italics]] 'died for the liberty of his brethren,' [[/italics]] (the men of color,) [[italics]] 'and even for the liberty of the blacks.' [[/italics]] (3) The remarks which we here make, concerning this young hero, apply to all the men of color of that period. After the terrible punishment which Oge and Chavannes were made to undergo in the city of the Cape, for having dared to assert the rights of their brethren, yet we see the men of color sending commissioners to Paris to demand these same rights before the National Assembly of France; and in the petition which they addressed to that assembly in May, 1791, page 7th, they say: 'The citizens of color behold with anguish the sad condition of the enslaved blacks; but they perceive, with you, the necessity of not precipitating any innovation in their behalf. You will behold them, since, like the whites, they are unfortunately the possessors of slaves, you will behold them the first to concur in all the methods which your wisdom and humanity may dictate for the amelioration of their condition, [[italics]] whilst you are preparing to break their fetters.' [[/italics]] All this, and still other facts, appear to me a sufficient reply to the erroneous assertion made by Mr. Elizur Wright, doubtless thro' misinformation, 'that the mulattoes of Saint Domingo claimed the right of property in negroes, and joined the whites to fight them, and keep them enslaved,' &c. So much for the philosophy of the men of color: now let us examine their practice. The horrible punishment inflicted on Oge and his associates in Hayti did not, however, retard in France the progress and triumph of ----- [[footnote]] (1) History of Hayti. T. Madiou. Vol.1, p.57. B.Ardouin. Vol. 1, pp.134, 135. (2) Report of the Troubles of St. Domingo. J.P. Garran. Vol. 2, p.55. (3) Notes of B. Ardouin. Hist. d'Haiti, p.144, vol. 1. [[/footnote]] [[/column 1]] [[column 2]] the Revolution. Two decrees, establishing the political equality of colored men, were made on the 13th and the 15th of May, 1791, by the National Assembly. But the whites of St. Domingo, on the receipt of the intelligence, exhibited the most violent indignation. A thunderbolt, says P. de Lacroix, could not have produced a more sudden explosion than that which this intelligence produced in St. Domingo. All the parishes protested against the execution of that decree of the 15th May, and the colonists swore that they would perish beneath the heaped up ruins of their property, rather than submit to such an infringement of their rights. (1) The men of color, however, who, since the sad and cruel death of Oge and his companions, were thought to be overwhelmed by fear, were, on the contrary, only the more firmly resolved to enjoy the liberty and equality which the legislation of France had granted them, or die. (2) The assassination of Lacombe, the murder of Ferrand de Baudieres, and that barbarous execution of Oge, to which the article of Mr. Wright alludes, had only excited in them a justifiable hatred against the whites, whose privileges and pride they were resolved to crush down. (3) The dissension which arose on account of the animosity cherished on both sides--between the representatives of France, or the revolutionists charged with the execution of the liberal enactments of the National Assembly, and the colonists opposed to the execution of laws which, they said, violated their privileges--between the great planters and the petty whites--appeared to present a favorable opportunity for the men of color to rise, and shake off the yoke under which they were oppressed. (4) In the months of June and July, 1791, several insurrectionary movements occurred in the South and West, at the instigation of the men of color who shortly before were assembled at Mirebalais, in order to decide upon the means to be used to vindicate their rights. Finally, on the 21st of August, the very night prior to the rising of the blacks in the North, a formidable insurrection of the men of color burst forth in the neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, under the lead of Lambert, a free black, and Bauvais, a mulatto; another, again, who had distinguished himself under Count d'Estaing in the American Revolutionary War. Nearly at the same time, Jourdain at Petit-Trou, and Guilloux at l'Arcahaye, took up arms, also at the head of men of color, for the purpose of obtaining their rights. (5) But in the North, more directly under the eyes and within the control of the colonial authority which was there concentrated, the men of color did not dare avow, or could not manifest, their opposition as openly as those of the South and West had done. Meanwhile, although their apparent conduct might not indicate any hostility, their departure from the cities, under pretence of escaping the jealous hatred of the whites, (6) could not have been likely, without influence upon the formidable insurrection of the blacks which almost immediately broke forth there. However, when that insurrection broke out, the revolutionary party (then the [[italics]] unionists [[/italics]]) charged the conspiracy to the colonists, (then the [[italics]] secessionists [[/italics]]) whom they accused of wishing by these means to frustrate, in the colony, the liberal changes which France had just instituted; and the colonists, on the other hand, attributed it to the revolutionists, whom they had suspected of complicity with the blacks, for the purpose of destroying their authority and prestige in St. Domingo, (7) just as it has happened now, that the South, charging the whole North with abolition designs for having appointed a Republican President, have though [sic] it best to secede from the American Union. ----- [[footnote]] (1) Protest of the Parish of Gros Morne. (2) Letter of Labruissoniere, mulatto, to J. Raymond. (3) Pamphile de Lacroix, vol. 1, pp. 24, 64. B. Ardouin, Etudes sur l'Hist. d'Haiti, vol. 1, p. 224. (4) Hist. d'Haiti, Th. Madiou, vol. 1, pp. 68, 69. (5) Hist. d'Haiti, T. Madion, vol. 1, p. 77. (6) Pamphile de Lacroix, vol. 1, p. 85. (7) Pamphile de Lacroix, vol. 1, pp. 65, 100. [[/footnote]] [[/column 2]] [[column 3]] Mr. Beaubrun Ardouin, with that analytical ability which distinguishes him pre-eminently from all other writers who have studied the History of Hayti, enters at full length, in the first volume of his Disquisitions, at the 6th chapter, into an enumeration of the various causes which are supposed to have led to that insurrection. At any rate, when the blaze of conflagration, and the cries of unfortunate wretches perishing amid avenging flames kindled by the slaves, had given the signal, that same night, the 22d of August, 1791, Candy, a free man of color, took up arms also in the environs of Ouanaminthe, at the head of a large number of his own class, among whom were many outlawed for complicity in the affair of Oge, and came to rally around the standard of the leader, Jean Francois, for [[italics] the common cause. [[/italics]] (1) These black leaders, in the delirium of their hate and the drunkenness of avenging passion, marched through the scenes of devastation and carnage, under the bloody oriflamme which they had raised--the dead body of a white infant on the end of a pike--to the very walls of Cape Haytien. Then the horrified whites, accusing the peacebale and inoffensive mulattoes who had not left the town with having instigated this revolt, commenced to massacre them without pity. Women, children, old men, all fell beneath their assassin blows. Those who succeded in escaping that horrid butchery fled for refuge to the church, where the Colonial Assembly then seemed willing to take them under its protection, [[italics]] on the condition that they would assist the whites to put down the insurrection of the slaves. [[/italics]] Between the certainty of a cold-blooded assassination, if they refused, and the chance of living to revenge themselves some day if they appeared to accept the proposition of the whites to aid them in fighting the insurgents, these unfortunate defenceless men, at the mercy of their enemies, did not hesitate. (2) Very soon, the insurrection being more and more suppressed, shut up in the plains of the North, weakened by want of discipline and the anarchy which prevailed among the leaders of the blacks, the whites found themselves masters of the situation. It was not enough to have armed the free men of color of the Cape against their enslaved brethren; the Colonial government desired to make it a general rule, in order, doubtless, to find a pretext to institute thro'out the island, against those who would not submit, the same persecutions and massacres that those at the Cape had suffered. A decree of the 5th November, 1791, in reference to them, specifics at Art 2: 'That [[italics]] men of color and free negroes [[/italics]] shall be obliged to co-operate with the white citizens in re-establishing order and peace in the colony, under the penalty of being prosecuted, and condemned as seditious and disturbers of public tranquility.' (3) And the penalty then was death--death under its most horrid forms. Thus, the men of color, far from having exhibited an eagerness to unite with the whites in suppressing that insurrection, as Mr. Wright asserts, in his paragraph which I have quoted: 'II. All classes of whites and [[italics]] mulattoes [[/italics]] joined in suppressing the insurrection, and pushed their advantage of science and arms so far, that they overdid it, &c.' So far from that being the case, I say, history proves that they aided the insurrection to the extent of their ability. And it required force, or intimidation, to compel a few of them to take part against the slaves; in the same manner as we see the unfortunate slaves of the South, to-day, obliged to dig trenches and build ramparts to protect their hated masters against the army of the North, whose triumph is, unquestionably, the object of their most fervent prayers. However, intoxicated with their success, these unfortunate slaves abandoned themselves to the most frightful disorders, far from having any thought about establishing their lib- ---------- [[footnote]] (1) Th. Madion, Hist. d'Haiti' vol. 1, p. 71. Garran Coulon, vol. 1, p. 324. (2) Etudes sur l'Haiti, Ardouin, vol. 1, p.240. (3) B. Ardouin, Etudes sur l'Historie d'Haiti, vol. 1., p. 250. [[/footnote]] [[/column 3]]
