settlers a negro insurrection (1678); and when Governor De Cussy came in 1684 he found that Tortuga had been deserted for the advantages of the larger island. The compacting of the French was opportune, for when war broke out between France and Spain in 1689, both sides rallied round their national flags in their marches and conflicts on the island. At the battle of Sabana Real, Jan. 21, 1691, the Spaniards from the easterly end overcame the French and sacked Cape François. The French were soon recruited from St. Kitts, when the English drove the French thence; 1 and in turn Du Cosse, now made governor, attacked Jamaica and brought away much plunder. The scales soon turned, for the English and Spaniards joined forces and captured Cape François. This retaliatory warfare ceased when the Peace of Ryswick (1697) confirmed France in her possession of the western end of the island, which now under peaceful French domination entered upon a career of prosperity. At the Spanish end the times were after a while more stirring. The hostilities between Spain and England in 17402 exposed the commerce of the English to many hazards in these waters, and the town of Santo Domingo gained importance by the accessions to its resources from the Dutch and Danish trade, which was invited, and inducements were held out to immigrants, when a considerable body came from the Canary islands. Still later the Spaniards did not neglect the opportunity for predatory exploits when the war of 1762 followed in the train of events. The boundary disputes, which were a bar to pacification, were finally brought to a close by a treaty in 1777, under which the French and Spanish parts of the island were satisfactorily separated. The treaty is given with a "notice historique" in Calvo's Recueil des traités, iii. 99, and in English in the appendix of Hazard's Santo Domingo. Hilliard d'Auberteuil published at this time his Considérations sur l'état present de la Colonie française de Saint Domingue (Paris, 1776-77), in two volumes. The condition of the island in the year just before the bursting of the revolutionary passions is portrayed for us, for the Spanish part, in Antonio Sanchez Valverde's Idea del Valor de la isla Española (Madrid, 1785), the author having been long a resident, and the inheritor of his father's collection of papers. For the French part, M. L. E. Moreau de Saint Méry published his Lois et Constitutions des Colonies Françaises de l'Amérique sous le Vent (Paris, 1784-85), in five volumes; but 1 Margry has given contemporary material respecting the early settlements of the French, 1692, in the Revue Maritime et Coloniale (Paris, 1862), pp. 794-1818. 2 D'Anville's war map of the West Indies at this time is a convenient accompaniment of the naval accounts. * From a print in Du Tertre's Antilles (Paris, 1667). the French Revolution breaking out he did not complete the work till a Description topographique et politique de la partie Espagnole de l'ile de Saint Domingue appeared in Philadelphia (1796, and a large map; also in English, by W. Cobbett, 1796), and a Partie Française (Philad., 1797-98), a second edition of both parts coming out in Paris, 1875-76. When the doctrines of the French Revolution began to be talked of, the rich French planters thought their opportunity was come, and they began to organize to secure their independence. They called assemblies, but they denied the mulattoes a share in their deliberations, which naturally drove the half-breeds into the support of equal rights, while the governor and his party drifted into open war with the whites and their assembly. The mulattoes prematurely rose under one of their number, James Ogè, who had been sent over by the National Assembly of France to present their decree establishing equal rights; but they were soon put down, while Ogè fled within the Spanish territory. He was given up on condition that his life should be spared; but the whites were faithless, and broke him on a wheel. The passions of all sides were at once let loose. The whites were divided among themselves, and this did much to help the negroes, who now rose in revolt, to carry out under great provocation their nefarious plans of murder and devastation. It was a curious spectacle, with the negroes embattled for the French king, and the whites in opposition. The blacks were not generally successful in the field till the mulattoes joined them, when at Croix des Bouquets, March 28, 1792, they defeated the white forces. We have the French official reports on the causes and scenes of this period of horror in several forms: J. Ph. Garan-Coulon's Rapport sur les troubles de Saint Domingue (Paris, 1797-99), in four volumes. An inquiry into the causes of the insurrection of the negroes in the island of St. Domingo; to which are added Observations of M. Garran-Coulon before the Nat. Assembly (London, 1792). Production historique des faits qui se sont passés dans la partie de l'ouest, depuis le commencement de la révolution de Saint Domingue jusqu'au premier Février, 1792, présentée par les gardes nationales du Port-au-Prince à Messieurs les Commissaires Civils (Port-au-Prince, 1792). A particular account of the commencement and progress of the 1 Carter-Brown, iii. no. 3554. There was a further contribution to the study of this period in the record of the visit to the island of F. A. Stanislaus, the Baron de Wimpffen, whose Voyage to Saint Domingo, 1788-1790, translated from the original MS., was first published in London (1797), while the original text appeared a few months later (Paris, 1797). NOTE. The above cut is reproduced from Charles Yves Cousin d'Avalon's Histoire de Toussaint-Louverture (Paris, 1802). Cf. other engravings in Antoine Métral's Hist. de l'Expédition des Français à Saint Domingue (Paris, 1825); in Louis Dubroca's Vie de Toussaint-Louverture (Paris, 1802). Marcus Rainsford, in his St. Domingo (London, 3d ed., 1802) gives a full-length back view, with profile head, in uniform, as sketched by Major Rainsford from life. Still another likeness is in Toussaint-Louverture's frühere Geschichte nach Englischen Nachrichten bearbeitet (Fürth, 1802). NOTE. Reduced from a plate in Prévost's Voyages (Paris, 1754), vol. xii. There is a modern engraving of this same view in Hazard's Santo Domingo (N. Y., 1873), p. 62, and a plan (p. 219). Cf. other plans and views in Gottfriedt's Newe Welt (p. 350, in connection with Drake's voyage, 1585-86); in Otten's Grand theatre de la Guerre (Amsterdam, 1717), sometimes found also in his Nova Isthmi Americani Tabula (1717); Charlevoix's Espagnole; Jefferys' Desc. of the Spanish Islands (London, 1762); and the Spaniard Lopez (1785). insurrection of the negroes in St. Domingo, made to the Nat. Assembly, by the deputies from the gen eral assembly of the French part of St. Domingo (London, 1792). Dévellopment des causes des troubles et désastres des Colonies Françaises, pré senté à la Convention Nationale par les Commissaires de Saint Domingue sur la demande des comités de marine et des colonies, réunis après en avoir donné communication aux colons résidens à Paris, le 11 Juin, 1793. Of Saint Amand's Histoire des Toussaint Louverture After a picture in Marcus Rainsford's Hist. Acc. of the Black Empire of Hayti (London, 1805). Soon after the news of the execution (Jan. 21, 1793) of Louis XVI reached the island, the blacks abandoned the French part and went over to the Spaniards, when Jean François was created a general, and Toussaint a colonel, in the Spanish army. At the same time (May, 1793), war breaking out between England and France, the governor of Jamaica was directed to capture such ports in St. Domingo as he could, and to hold them in the British interest. Thus the English and Spaniards joining, the adherents of the French Republic were soon driven into one corner of the island. Révolution d'Haïti (Paris, 1860), apparently only the first volume, covering 1789-1792, was published. The early years of the revolution are also dealt with in Boisrond-Tonnerre's Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de Haiti (Port-au-Prince, 1804), which with other matter and an Etude historique par Saint Remy, was republished at Paris in 1851. In 1792, an army of 6000 troops was sent by the ruling powers in France to control events in St. Domingo. They were joined by the mulattoes, who thus separated their fortunes from the blacks. The commissioners who accompanied the troops came empowered to recognize no distinction of color in free men. The French troops captured Port-au-Prince, and the negroes tured Port-au-Prince. Events now moved rapwere subdued. On the 14th of June, 1794, the English cap. idly. The French, under Levaux, were besieging Voter his humble & oblips finitur овед Toussaint Louverture?). the British at Port de Paix, when Toussaint with his negroes deserted his new masters, the Spaniards, and joined forces with Levaux. The next year (1795) the Peace of Basle gave the French the entire control of the island, and the Spaniards evacuated it, and carried with them to Havana and from the city of Saint Domingo the remains of Columbus. There are two contemporary narratives of events up to this period. Dalmas wrote while in the United States in 1793-94, a fugitive from the revolution of the blacks, a Histoire de la Révolution de Saint Domingue depuis le commencement des troubles, which was not printed for some years (Paris, 1814); and M. E. Descourtily's Histoire des désastres de St. Domingue (Paris, 1795). Toussaint now found his army increasing round him. His people trusted him. The French perceived him to be a man who controlled himself and his people. So the prospect brightened. "Cet homme fait l'overture partout," said some one. It seemed prophetic, and Toussaint became L'overture. The grateful home government of France in 1797 made him general in chief, and the next year he forced the English general off the island, and effected a treaty that was to keep Saint Domingo independent during the war. The black chief soon tranquillized the island, and only a small section was held by the French republicans under Rigaud; but this region finally succumbed. The Spaniards, who had not been prompt in carrying out the treaty of 1795, finally, on Jan. 2, 1801, opened the gates of the city of Saint Domingo to Toussaint, and in July the island was declared independent, under a constitution with Toussaint as chief. When the war with England had ceased under the peace of Amiens, Bonaparte, then first consul, turned his attention to Saint Domingo and sent a large force under Leclerc, his brother-inlaw, to reoccupy it; England agreeing to be neutral, and Holland lending the ships. With it went Rochambeau (the son of the soldier of Yorktown) in command of a division, and Villaret as the admiral of the fleet. In Jan., 1802, the French descended upon the island in three places, captured the city of Saint Domingo, and secured Cape François, but not till Christophe, the negro chief in charge of its garrison, had set it on fire and fled. Toussaint resisted all bribes and persuasions, and entered upon an active campaign against the invaders. It ended, however, in his submission, after his trusted adherents had deserted him, and in a peace by which the power of France was re From the close of an autograph document given in Rainsford's Hist. Acct. of the Black Empire of Hayti (London, 1805). |