Chronology of Historical Events
Before the revolution, the colony of Saint Domingue was divided into three sections: The North, the West, and the South. Cap Fran?ais, commonly called Le Cap, was the principal commercial city of the entire colony. In the West, Port-au-Prince was the principal town. Towns in the South were smaller; among these, Jacmel and Les Cayes were significant. The eastern half of the island, separated by mountain ranges from the French colony, was a Spanish possession, with a much smaller population, few slaves, and no significant plantation economy.
1757
A plot to poison all the whites in Saint Domingue is discovered and aborted at Le Cap. The plot was organized by Macandal, a runaway slave who became a leader among the large communities of runaways, or maroons, inhabiting the mountains of the colony.
1758
Macandal is captured at a dance at Dufresne plantation near Le Cap. In March of this year, Macandal is publicly burned.
1787
In France, Louis XVI promises to call the Estates-General.
1788
February: In France, the society of Les Amis des Noirs is founded, complementary to an abolitionist organization founded in London in 1787.
April—May: News of the activities of Les Amis des Noirs reaches Saint Domingue via articles in Mercure de France, causing much consternation.
July: The Colonial Committee, composed of absentee planters, is founded in France. There also exists in France another profoundly conservative alliance of absentee planters called the Club Massiac, divided from the Colonial Committee on some issues but united in opposition to Les Amis des Noirs.
1789
January: Les gens de couleur, the mulatto people of the colony, petition for full rights in Saint Domingue.
May 5: In France, the Estates-General opens.
June 20: The Tennis Court Oath is taken in France. The Colonial Committee joins the Third Estate.
July 7: The French National Assembly votes admission of six deputies from Saint Domingue. The colonial deputies begin to sense that it will no longer be possible to keep Saint Domingue out of the revolution, as the conservatives had always designed.
July 14: Bastille Day. When news of the storming of the Bastille reaches Saint Domingue, the petit blancs flock to the French revolutionary tricolor and lynch those who oppose them. Wearing the pompon rouge as a badge of Revolutionary allegiance, they march from Le Cap to Port-au-Prince.
August 26: The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen causes utter panic among all colonists in France. The Colonial Committtee and Club Massiac now band together.
September 27: The French National Assembly grants a Colonial Assembly to Saint Domingue, in response to petitions from the Colonial Committee and the Club Massiac. This Colonial Assembly, assured of grand blanc planter control by property qualifications, has power over internal affairs and reports directly to the king, rather than to the French National Assembly.
October 5: The Paris mob brings king and National Assembly to Paris from Versailles. The power of the radical minority becomes more apparent.
October 14: A royal officer at Fort Dauphin in Saint Domingue reports unrest among the slaves in his district, who are responding to news of the Revolution leaking in. There follows an increase in nocturnal slave gatherings and in the activity of the slave-policing maréchaussée.
October 22: Les Amis des Noirs collaborate with the wealthy mulatto community of Paris, organized as the society of Colons Americains. Mulattoes claim Rights of Man before the National Assembly. Abbé Grégoire and others support them. Deputies from French commercial towns trading with the colony oppose them.
November 1: A new Provincial Assembly of the northern section of Saint Domingue, dominated by a revolutionary group of petit blancs called Patriots, meets in Le Cap. The petit blancs seize control of the administration from the royalist governor.
Persecution of mulattoes in Saint Domingue intensifies. Some mulattoes begin to make public addresses demanding political rights. The response is lynching of the speakers. More atrocities follow (including, in the western section, pogroms by whites against mulattoes where colored infants are impaled and displayed on spears). Class hatred breaks out, stimulated by fear and by petit blanc jealousy of the wealthy mulattoes. In the absence of royal authority, these resentments are more freely acted out.
December 3: The French National Assembly rejects the demands of mulattoes presented on October 22.
1790
March 8: A decree of the French National Assembly declares the colonies to have control over their own internal affairs, and that the constitution of the mother country will not govern the colonies in all respects. Among other things, the decree turns the mulatto-rights issue over to the Colonial Assembly.
In Saint Domingue, a mulatto rising in the Artibonite fails to attract any support and is suppressed by the militia and the maréchaussée. In the aftermath, new configurations emerge. The mulattoes, traditionally protected by the royal government, become increasingly royalist. Conservatives move to abate persecution of the mulattoes. But the possibility of stabilization is sunk by the arrival of the March decrees from France.
March 25: In Saint Marc, three Patriot-controlled assemblies convene to form a new Colonial Assembly, responding to modified instructions from France which arrived in January.
June: The Chevalier de Mauduit, a royalist officer, arrives in Port-au-Prince to become colonel of the Royal Infantry Regiment there, and begins to win leadership of the conservative faction. By August, Mauduit and his royalist supporters control the western department from Port-au-Prince, but Mauduit’s repressive measures against the petit blancs increase tension there.
October 12: The French government dissolves the Colonial Assembly officially. By the decree of October 12, the National Assembly reaffirms the concept “that no laws concerning the status of persons should be decreed for the colonies except upon the precise and formal demand of their Assemblies.”
October 28: The mulatto leader Ogé, who has reached Saint Domingue from Paris by way of England, aided by the British abolitionist society, raises a rebellion in the northern mountains near the border, with a force of three hundred men, assisted by another mulatto, Chavannes. Several days later an expedition from Le Cap defeats him and he is taken prisoner along with other leaders inside Spanish territory. This rising is answered by parallel insurgencies in the west, which are quickly put down by Mauduit. The ease of putting down the rebellion convinces the colonists that it is safe to pursue their internal dissensions…Ogé and Chavannes are tortured to death in a public square at Le Cap.
November: News of the National Assembly’s dissolution of the Colonial Assembly reaches Saint Domingue. The Patriots refuse to submit.
During the winter of 1790—91, the Vicomte de Blanchelande is appointed governor of the entire colony.
1791
March 2: Military reinforcements from France sail into Port-au-Prince, mutiny, and join the Patriots.
March 4: The royalist forces of the Regiment Port-au-Prince change sides and Blanchelande flees the town. Mauduit is killed, castrated by a woman among the Pompons Rouges, his mutilated body paraded through the streets. In the following days, the royalists are overthrown all over the west, and the Pompons Blancs are disarmed. Blanchelande and the remnants of the government establish new headquarters in Le Cap and a new standoff begins on this basis. The Maltese ruffian Praloto controls a new democratic goverment at Port-au-Prince. The remains of the local royalist opposition, mostly country planters unable to flee their habitations, establish a center at Croix Les Bouquets, the main town of the Cul de Sac plain in the western section.
April: News of Ogé’s execution turns French national sentiments against the colonists. Ogé is made a hero in the theater, a martyr to liberty. Planters living in Paris are endangered, often attacked on the streets.
May 11: A passionate debate begins on the colonial question in the French National Assembly.
May 15: The French National Assembly grants full political rights to mulattoes born of free parents, in an amendment accepted as a compromise by the exhausted legislators.
May 16: Outraged over the May 15 decree, colonial deputies withdraw from the National Assembly.
June 30: News of the May 15 decree reaches Le Cap. Although only four hundred mulattoes meet the description set forth in this legislation, the symbolism of the decree is inflammatory. Furthermore, the documentation of the decree causes the colonists to fear that the mother country may not maintain slavery. Re Article 4 of the March 28 decree, the French National Assembly says that it originally meant to declare the political equality of free-born mulattoes, because the “rights of citizens are anterior to society, of which they form the necessary base. The Assembly has, therefore, been able merely to discover and define them; it finds itself in happy impotence to infringe them.”
The colonists rise against this news. Governor Blanchelande is alarmed by rumors of colonial receptivity to an English intervention.
July 3: Blanchelande writes to warn the minister of marine that he has no power to enforce the May 15 decree. His letter tells of the presence of an English fleet and hints that factions of the colony may seek English intervention. The general colonial mood has swung completely toward secession at this point.
Throughout the north and the west, unrest among the slaves is observed. News of the French Revolution in some form or other is being circulated through the vodoun congregations. Small armed rebellions pop up in the west and are put down by the maréchaussée.
August 9: A new Colonial Assembly forms at Leogane to oppose the May 15 decree, and sets a meeting for August 25.
August 11: A slave rising at Limbé is put down by the maréchaussée.
August 14: A large meeting of slaves occurs at the Lenormand Plantation (where Macandal had been a slave) at Morne Rouge on the edge of the Bois Caiman forest. A plan for a colonywide insurrection is laid. The h?ngan Boukman emerges as the major slave leader at this point. The meeting at Bois Caiman is attended by slaves from each plantation at Limbé, Port-Margot, Acul, Petite Anse, Limonade, Plaine du Nord, Quartier Morin, Morne Rouge, and others. The presence of Toussaint Bréda is asserted by some accounts and denied by others.
In the following days, black prisoners taken after the Limbé uprising give news of the meeting at Bois Caiman, but will not reveal the name of any delegate even under torture.
August 21: Blancheland arrests slave suspects in a conspiracy against Le Cap and takes precautions to secure the city against rebellion.
August 22: The great slave rising in the north begins, led by Boukman and Jeannot. Whites are killed with all sorts of rape and atrocity; the standard of an infant impaled on a bayonet is raised. The entire Plaine du Nord is set on fire. By the account of the Englishman Edwards, the ruins were still smoking by September 26. The mulattoes of the plain also rise, under the leadership of Candi.
August 23: Fugitives from the Plaine du Nord begin to reach Le Cap. That morning an expeditionary force of regulars and militia sets out under command of Thouzard and is turned back by the rebel slaves. For the next while no further expeditions are attempted by the whites.
Blancheland goes to work fortifying the heights against a land attack. Elsewhere the mountainous borders of the Plaine du Nord are fortified to prevent the rebels from reaching the Department of the West—these lines will not be broken until 1793.
There follows a war of extermination with unconscionable cruelties on both sides. Le Cap is covered with scaffolds on which captured blacks are tortured. There are many executions on the wheel. During the first two months of the revolt, two thousand whites are killed, one hundred eighty sugar plantations and nine hundred smaller operations (coffee, indigo, cotton) are burned, with twelve hundred families dispossessed. Ten thousand rebel slaves are supposed to have been killed.
During the initial six weeks of the slave revolt, Toussaint remains at Bréda, keeping order among the slaves there and showing no sign of any connection to the slave revolt.
In mid-August, news of the general rebellion in Saint Domingue reaches France. Atrocities against whites produce a backlash of sympathy for the colonial conservatives, and the colonial faction begns to lobby for the repeal of the May 15 decree.
September 24: The National Assembly in France reverses itself again and passes the decree of September 24, which revokes mulatto rights and once again hands the question of the “status of persons” over to colonial assemblies. This decree is declared “an unalterable article of the French Constitution.”
Late in the month, the Englishman Edwards arrives in Le Cap with emergency supplies from Jamaica, and is received as a savior with cries of “Vivent les Anglais.” Edwards hears much of the colonists’ hopes that England will take over the government of the colony.
October: By this time, expeditions are beginning to set out from Le Cap against the blacks, but illness kills as many as the enemy, so the rebel slaves gain ground. The hill country is dotted with both white and black camps, surrounded by hanged men, or skulls on palings. The countryside is constantly under dispute with the rebels increasingly in the ascendancy.
In France this month, a more radical Legislative Assembly convenes, alarming conservative colonists further. One hundred thirty-six new Jacobin members are seated in the Legislatif that meets on October 1. This body will set itself against the appeals for arms and aid made by both the Civil Commission and Blanchelande. Radicals in the Legislative Assembly suggest that the slave insurrection is a trick organized by émigrés to create a royalist haven in Saint Domingue. The arrival of refugees from Saint Domingue in France over the next few months does little to change this position.
October 24: A party of whites in the hill camps, including the procurator Gros, are captured by Jeannot’s forces and brought to Grande Rivière, where many are killed by slow tortures, day by day.
November: Early in the month, news of the decree of September 24 (repealing mulatto rights) arrives in San Domingue, confirming the suspicions of the mulattoes.
Toussaint arranges the departure of the family of Bayon de Libertat from Bréda, then rides to join the rebels at Biassou’s camp on Grande Rivière. For the next few months he functions as the “general doctor” to the rebel slaves, carrying no other military rank, although he does organize special fortifications at Grand Boucan and La Tannerie. Jeannot, Jean-Fran?ois and Biassou emerge as the principal leaders of the rebel slaves on the northern plain—all established in adjacent camps in the same area.
November 14: News of the death of Boukman in skirmishing around Le Cap arrives at the black camps around Grande Rivière.
A short time later, Jeannot is executed for his atrocities by the other black leaders and the white prisoners are brought to the camp of Biassou, where they receive somewhat better treatment.
November 21: A massacre of mulattoes by petit blancs in Port-au-Prince begins over a referendum about the September 4 decree. Polling ends in a riot, followed by a battle. The mulatto troops are driven out, and part of the city is burned.
For the remainder of the fall, the mulattoes range around the western countryside, outdoing the slaves of the north in atrocity. They make white cockades from the ears of the slain, rip open pregnant women and force the husbands to eat the embryos, and throw infants to the hogs. Port-au-Prince remains under siege by the mulatto forces through December. As at Le Cap, the occupants answer the atrocities of the besiegers with their own, with the mob frequently breaking into the jails to murder mulatto prisoners.
In the south, a mulatto rising drives the whites into Les Cayes, but the whites of the Grand Anse are able to hold the peninsula, expel the mulattoes, arm their slaves and lead them against the mulattoes.
November 29: The first Civil Commission, consisting of Mirbeck, Roume, and Saint-Léger, arrives at Le Cap to represent the French revolutionary government. Immediately on their arrival, the commissioners announce the swift arrival of military reinforcements from France.
December 10: Negotiations are opened with Jean-Fran?ois and Biassou, principal slave leaders in the north, who write a letter to the Commission expressing hopes for peace. The rebel leaders’ proposal asks liberty only for themselves and a couple of hundred followers, in exchange for which they promise to return the other rebels to slavery. As these negotiations proceed, plans develop to surrender the white prisoners. But when news of the leaders’ planned betrayal leaks to the black masses, they move to kill the prisoners instead. The whites are saved by Toussaint’s intercession and brought safely to Saint Michel plantation.
December 21: An interview between the commissioners and Jean-Fran?ois takes place at Saint Michel Plantation, on the plain a short distance from Le Cap.
Toussaint appears as an adviser of Jean-Fran?ois during these negotiations, and represents the black leaders in subsequent unsuccessful meetings at Le Cap, following the release of white prisoners. But although the commissioners are delighted with the peace proposition, the colonists want to hold out for total submission. Invoking the September 14 decree, the colonists undercut the authority of the Commission with the rebels and negotiations are broken off.
In the aftermath of this failure, the black insurgents strike against Le Cap. They break through the Eastern Cordon and sack and burn the Plain of Fort Dauphin. Negroes and mulattoes of La M?le revolt and take the Cordon of the West from the rear, massacring a large camp of refugees.
Also during this time occurs a widening breach between the Commission and the Colonial Assembly. The commissioners wish to claim dictatorial authority, while the radicals in the Colonial Assembly begin trying to get rid of them altogether. The Le Cap radicals begin to seek support outside the Assembly, among the petit blancs of the town.
1792
January 11: The September decree is reaffirmed by the Legislative Assembly in France.
January 25: Governor Blancheland writes that the recalcitrance of the Legislative Assembly in sending military aid “is reducing the people to absolute despair.” In France, the Jacobins maintain their policy even though it is practically self-destructive—with people at home discontent over sugar and coffee shortages. In England, William Pitt jests that the French prefer their coffee “au caramel.”
February: Jacobins in France renew their attempts to repeal the September decree. Even conservatives in France begin to become impatient with the white colonial refusal to accept the mulattoes as political equals, given that the mulattoes themselves are unalterably opposed to black emancipation. A rejoinder from the colonists suggests that for the mulattoes political equality is meant as a step on the way to social equality, intermarriage, etc.
March 30: Mirbeck, despairing of the situation in Le Cap and fearing assassination, embarks for France, his fellow commissioner Roume agreeing to follow three days later. But Roume gets news of a royalist counterrevolution brewing in Le Cap and decides to remain, hoping he can keep Blanchelande loyal to the Republic.
April 4: In France there occurs the signing of a new decree by the Legislative Assembly, which gives full rights of citizenship to mulattoes and free blacks, calls for new elections on that basis, and establishes a new three-man Commission with dictatorial powers to enforce the decree and an army to back them.
April 9: With the Department of the West reduced to anarchy again, Saint-Léger escapes on a warship sailing to France.
May: War is declared between French and Spanish Saint Domingue.
May 11: News of the April 4 decree arrives in Saint Domingue. Given the nastiness of the race war and the atrocities committed against whites by mulatto leaders like Candi in the north and others in the south and west, this decree is considered an outrage by the whites. By this time, the whites (except on the Grand Anse) have all been crammed into the ports and have given up the interior of the country for all practical purposes. The Colonial Assembly accepts the decree, having little choice for the moment, and no ability to resist the promised army. The mulattoes are delighted, and so is Roume.
August 10: Storming of the Tuileries by Jacobin-led mob, virtual deposition of the king, call for a Convention in France.
September 18: Three new commissioners arrive at Le Cap to enforce the April 4 decree. Sonthonax, Polverel, and Ailhaud are all Jacobins. Colonists immediately suspect a plan to emancipate the slaves (which may or may not have been a part of Sonthonax’s original program). The commissioners are accompanied by two thousand troops of the line and four thousand National Guards, under the command of General Desparbés. But the commissioners distrust the general and get on poorly with him because of their tendency to trespass on his authority.
Unsure of his welcome, Sonthonax sends a fast ship ahead and gets news from Blanchelande before his arrival. Blanchelande reports fewer than fifteen hundred troops fit for duty against an estimated sixty thousand rebel slaves on the northern plain.
The Commission organizes a Jacobin Club for the petit blancs of Le Cap, who are chafing under virtual martial law imposed by royalist Colonel Cambefort. Soon the commissioners deport Blanchelande to France.
October 12: The commissioners dissolve the Colonial Assembly, and set up a Commission Intermédiaire composed of six whites, five mulattoes and one free black. Around this time, news of the August 10 capture of the king reaches Saint Domingue and freshens colonial fears of the commissioners and the Jacobin movement generally. The royalists of Le Cap, with strong support from Cambefort’s Regiment Le Cap and from two battalions of Irish mercenaries, begin to plot against the Commission, profiting from General Desparbés’ disaffection.
October 17: Fighting breaks out between the royalist troops and the Le Cap Jacobins. The Jacobins seize the arsenal, and Desparbés orders troops out against them. A face-off ensues between the mercenaries and the Le Cap regiment against the National Guard, the latter standing by the commissioners. Desparbés backs down and is sent along with Cambefort and other royalist officers to France as a prisoner. This defeat practically destroys the northern royalist faction.
October 24: General Rochambeau, expelled from Martinique which is now royalist-controlled, lands in Le Cap with two thousand men and is appointed to replace Desparbés as governor-general.
The Commission led by Sonthonax begins to fill official posts with mulattoes, now commonly called “citizens of April 4.” During this period, Rochambeau’s efforts against the rebels on the plain are frustrated by the need to keep troops in Le Cap to hold down dissension stimulated by Sonthonax. Sonthonax is alienating the petit blancs by creating a bureaucracy of mulattoes at their expense. In the end, Sonthonax closes the Jacobin Club and deports its leaders.
The Regiment Le Cap’s remaining officers refuse to accept the mulattoes Sonthonax has appointed to fill vacancies left by royalists who have either been arrested or had resigned.
December 1: Young Colonel Etienne Laveaux is sent to try to recall the disaffected Le Cap officers to the fold, but his efforts are ineffective.
December 2: The Regiment Le Cap, without cartridges, meets the new mulatto companies on parade in the Champ de Mars. When it’s discovered that cartridges (hidden under bread) are being supplied to the mulattoes, fighting breaks out between the two halves of the regiment and the white mob. The mulattoes leave the town and capture the fortifications at the entrance to the plain, and the threat of an assault from the black rebels forces the whites of the town to capitulate.
In the aftermath, Sonthonax deports the Regiment Le Cap en masse and rules the town with mulatto troops. He sets up a revolutionary tribunal and redoubles his deportations.
Laveaux and the Chevalier D’Assas mount an attack on the rebel slaves at Grande Rivière. By this time, Toussaint has his own body of troops under his direct command, and has been using the skills of white prisoners and deserters to train them. He also has gathered some of the black officers who will be significant later in the slave revolution, including Dessalines, Moise, and Charles Belair.
Toussaint fights battles with Laveaux’s forces at Morne Pélé and La Tannerie, covering the retreat of the larger black force under Biassou and Jean-Fran?ois, then retreats into the Cibao mountains himself.
December 8: Sonthonax writes to the French Convention of the necessity of ameliorating the lot of the slaves in some way—as a logical consequence of the law of April 4.
1793
January 21: Louis XVI is executed in France.
February: France goes to war against England and Spain.
Toussaint, Biassou and Jean-Fran?ois formally join the Spanish forces at San Raphael. At this point Toussaint has six hundred men under his own control and reports directly to the Spanish general. He embarks on an invasion of French territory.
March 8: News of the king’s execution reaches Le Cap. In the absence of Sonthonax, who’s traveling to the western department, Laveaux must hold the city under martial law.
March 18: News of the war with England reaches Le Cap, further destabilizing the situation there.
April: Blanchelande is executed in France by guillotine.
May: Early in the month, minor skirmishes begin along the Spanish border, as Toussaint, Jean-Fran?ois and Biassou begin advancing into French territory.
May 7: Galbaud arrives at Le Cap as the new governor-general, dispatched by the French National Convention which sees that war with England and Spain endangers the colony, and wants a strong military commander in place. Galbaud is supposed to obey the Commission in all political matters but to have absolute authority over the troops (the same intructions given Desparbés). Because Galbaud’s wife is a Creole, and he owns property in Saint Domingue, many colonists hope for support from him.
May 29: Sonthonax and Polverel, after unsatisfactory correspondence with Galbaud, write to announce their return to Le Cap.
June 10: The commissioners reach Le Cap with the remains of the mulatto army used in operations around Port-au-Prince. Sonthonax declares Galbaud’s credentials invalid and puts him on shipboard for return to France. Sonthonax begins to pack the harbor for another deportation, more massive than ever before. Conflicts develop between Sonthonax’s mulatto troops and the white civilians and three thousand-odd sailors in Le Cap.
June 19: The sailors, drafting Galbaud to lead them, organize for an assault on the town.
June 20: Galbaud lands with two thousand sailors. The regular troops of the garrison go over to him immediately, but the National Guards and the mulatto troops fight for Sonthonax and the Commission. A general riot breaks out, with the petit blancs of the town fighting for Galbaud and the mulattoes and the town blacks fighting for the Commission.
June 21: By dawn, the Galbaud faction has driven the commissioners to the fortified lines at the entrance to the plain. But during the night, Sonthonax deals with the rebels on the plain, led by the blacks Pierrot and Macaya, offering them liberty and pillage in exchange for their support. During the next day the rebels sack the town and drive Galbaud’s forces back to the harbor forts by nightfall. The rebels burn the city.
Sonthonax’s proclamation for the day states that “all slaves declared free by the Republic shall be the equals of all men, white or any other color. They shall enjoy all the rights of French citizens.”
June 22: Fifteen thousand more rebel slaves enter Le Cap from the plain. Galbaud empties the harbor and sails for the United States (Chesapeake Bay) with ten thousand refugees in his fleet.
That night, General Lasalle arrives from the west with a force of mulatto dragoons, but Sonthonax, keeping his promise to let the rebels from the plain plunder the town, refuses his request to intervene. Not until the evening of June 24 is Lasalle allowed to enter with a small force.
In the aftermath of the burning of Le Cap, a great many French regular army officers desert to the Spanish. Toussaint recruits from these, and uses them as officers to train his bands.
August 29: Sonthonax proclaims emancipation of all the slaves of the north.
This same day, Toussaint issues a proclamation of his own, assuming for the first time the name “Louverture.”
September 19: The British invasion begins. The English land nine hundred soldiers at Jérémie.
December: Toussaint, still fighting for the Spanish, occupies central Haiti after a series of victories.
1794
February 4: The French National Convention abolishes slavery.
In Saint Domingue, news of these events causes more and more mulat-toes to fall off from the Republic, so that Sonthonax and the commissioners, in Port-au-Prince, are forced into increasing reliance on black support.
By the spring of 1794, Toussaint has about four thousand troops under his command, the best-armed and disciplined black corps of the Spanish army.
May 6: Toussaint changes sides to join the French Republican force with his four thousand black soldiers, first massacring the white Spanish troops under his command. The disorganized Spanish soon withdraw from the territory in the north they’d occupied. Toussaint routs the other black leaders.
May 30: The English strike against Port-au-Prince. After their victory, the English ranks are decimated by an outbreak of yellow fever.
June 12: Sonthonax and Polverel are arrested by order of the French National Convention and shipped back to France.
By the end of the year, Toussaint has swept the Spanish out of the north and has driven the English back from the Cordon of the West, and a mulatto army under the command of the mulatto leader Rigaud has captured Leogane. Toussaint’s army is still growing.
1795
This year, Toussaint completely expels the Spanish from the French part of the island. The Spanish are already negotiating a peace with the French Republic.
September: News of the Peace of Basel reaches Saint Domingue. By this treaty, Spain cedes its part of Saint Domingue to the French, but deferring transfer “till the Republic should be in a position to defend its new territory from attack.”
After the conclusion of this treaty, Jean-Fran?ois retires to Spain. Most of his troops go over to Toussaint.
As the foreign threats are reduced, the possibilities of race war increase among different factions: free and slave mulattoes, free blacks of the ancien régime, and (sometimes, unreliably) the maroons—all allied against the slaves freed since Sonthonax’s proclamation, who are now led by Toussaint.
1796
March 20: The Le Cap mulattoes imprison Laveaux. Toussaint comes to Laveaux’s rescue with ten thousand troops.
April 1: Laveaux proclaims Toussaint lieutenant-governor of Saint Domingue. Toussaint makes his own pronouncement: “After God, Laveaux.”
May 11: The Third Commission arrives as emissaries of the Directory government in France. The chairman of the Commission is again Sonthonax, who has beaten the charges he’d been served with previously, purged himself of his Jacobinism and reincarnated himself as a Thermidorean. The Commission is backed by three thousand white troops commanded by Rochambeau.
During this year, Sonthonax’s policies increasingly show favor to Toussaint and the blacks and work to the disadvantage of the mulatto factions led by Antoine Rigaud and others. Toward the end of the year, Sonthonax and Toussaint collaborate in getting Laveaux out of the country by arranging his election as a deputy for Saint Domingue in the French legislature.
1797
May: Toussaint officially becomes commander in chief of all French armies in Saint Domingue.
August 20: Toussaint disposes of Sonthonax by electing him as a deputy to the French legislature, and brings in troops to speed his departure. Sonthonax struggles to intrigue his way out of this predicament, but can’t find any black generals willing to back him.
Toussaint sends a special envoy to the Directory to make the claim that Sonthonax suggested that they declare independence in Saint Domingue and set themselves up as kings. Toussaint then makes further assaults on the English, driving them back to M?le, a small bit of the west coast, and two forts on the Grande Anse.
1798
May 2: A treaty is concluded between Toussaint and British general Maitland, stipulating a complete British withdrawal from Saint Domingue. The treaty has a secret rider giving Britain trade rights in the colony, but Toussaint turns down a suggestion that Britain would recognize him as king of Haiti.
An effort by French emissary General Hédouville to negotiate a peace between Rigaud and Toussaint does not succeed.
October 20: Toussaint expels Hédouville by raising the cultivators of the north with a rumor that the general has come to restore slavery. When the ex-slaves reach Le Cap with Toussaint among them, Hédouville embarks for France, leaving behind an order for Rigaud to disregard Toussaint’s authority. This parting shot makes it increasingly difficult for Toussaint to continue displaying loyalty to the French Republic.
1799
As preparations for a war against Rigaud develop, Toussaint disposes of Raymond (the next to last member of the French Commission still on the island) by arranging his election as deputy to the French legislature. To have some sanction from French officialdom, he recalls Roume from the Spanish side.
April: War breaks out between Toussaint and Rigaud—“The war of knives.” Roume and Toussaint proclaim Rigaud a traitor to France. Toussaint assembles an army of ten thousand at Port-au-Prince.
June: Toussaint puts down the mulatto revolt in the Artibonite, then goes to Le Cap, sending Dessalines to M?le. This campaign is attended with much torture and massacre.
In the ensuing three months, Toussaint slowly pushes Rigaud back into the Grand Anse.
1800
March 11: Pursuing the war against the mulattoes, Toussaint invades the south. In this campaign, the men give up their guns for knives and teeth, so great is the race hatred.
July 5: Rigaud is defeated at Acquin. Roume and Vincent persuade him to give up the struggle.
July 31: Rigaud sails for Saint Thomas, while his corps of seven hundred mulattoes goes to Cuba.
August 1: Toussaint enters Les Cayes and pronounces a general amnesty. But he leaves Dessalines in charge of the south. Throughout the fall Dessalines, perhaps without Toussaint’s knowledge (“I told him to prune the tree, not uproot it”), systematically exterminates about ten thousand mulattoes—men, women and children.
October: Toussaint proclaims a system of forced labor on the plantations. Under this system, productivity and prosperity return to the colony. At this time, Toussaint begins to invite the white colonists back to manage their property, recognizing that their technical and management skills would speed the return of prosperity.
1801
January 28: Toussaint enters San Domingo City with his army and takes over the Spanish half of the island in the name of France.
July: Toussaint proclaims a new constitution for Saint Domingue, which makes him governor for life and gives him the right to name his successor. His acknowledgment of French sovereignty is merely nominal at this point.
In the fall, Toussaint sends the reluctant white Colonel Vincent to present the new constitution to Bonaparte in France.
October 1: The Peace of Amiens ends the war between England and France. Bonaparte begins to prepare an expedition, led by his brother-in-law General Leclerc, to restore white power in Saint Domingue.
November 25: Toussaint proclaims a military dictatorship.
1802
February: Leclerc’s invasion begins with a strength of approximately seventeen thousand troops. Toussaint, with approximately twenty thousand men under his command, orders the black generals to raze the coast towns and retreat into the interior, but because of either disloyalty or poor communications the order is not universally followed. Black general Christophe burns Le Cap to ashes for the second time in ten years, but the French occupy Port-au-Prince before Dessalines can destroy it.
In late February and March, the French forces pursuing Toussaint fight a number of drawn battles in the interior of the island, with heavy casualties on both sides.
April 1: Leclerc writes to Bonaparte that he has seven thousand active men and five thousand in hospital—meaning that another five thousand are dead. Leclerc also has seven thousand “colonial troops” of variable reliability, mulattoes but also a lot of black soldiery brought over by turncoat leaders.
April 2: Leclerc subdues the Northern Plain and enters Le Cap.
Early this month, the black general Christophe goes over to the French with twelve hundred troops, on a promise of retaining his rank in French service. But Toussaint still holds the northern mountains with four thousand regular troops and a great number of irregulars. Leclerc writes to the minister of marine that he needs twenty-five thousand European troops to secure the island—i.e., reinforcements of fourteen thousand.
May 1: Toussaint and Dessalines surrender on similar terms as Christophe. Leclerc’s position is still too weak for him to obey Bonaparte’s order to deport the black leaders immediately.
While Toussaint retires to Gonaives, with his two thousand life guards converting themselves to cultivators there, Dessalines remains on active duty. Leclerc frets that their submission may be feigned.
May: A severe yellow fever outbreak begins in Port-au-Prince and Le Cap at the middle of the month, causing many deaths among the French troops.
June: By the first week of this month, Leclerc has lost three thousand men to fever. Both Le Cap and Port-au-Prince are plague zones, with corpses laid out in the barracks yards to be carried to lime pits outside the town.
June 6: Leclerc notifies Bonaparte that he has ordered Toussaint’s arrest. Lured away from Gonaives to a meeting with General Brunet, Toussaint is made prisoner.
June 15: Toussaint, with his family, is deported for France aboard the ship Le Héros.
June 11: Leclerc writes to the minister of marine that he suspects his army will die out from under him—citing his own illness (he had overcome a bout of malaria soon after his arrival), he asks for recall.
This letter also contains the recommendation that Toussaint be imprisoned in the heart of inland France.
In the third week of June, Leclerc begins the tricky project of disarming the cultivators—under authority of the black generals who have submitted to his authority.
June 22: Toussaint writes a letter of protest to Bonaparte from his ship, which is now docked in Brest.
July 6: Leclerc writes to the minister of marine that he is losing one hundred sixty men per day. However, this same report states that he is effectively destroying the influence of the black generals.
News of the restoration of slavery in Guadeloupe arrives in Saint Domingue in the last days of the month. The north rises instantly, the west shortly afterward, and black soldiers begin to desert their generals.
August 6: Leclerc reports the continued prevalence of yellow fever, the failure to complete the disarmament, and the growth of rebellion. The major black generals have stayed in his camp, but the petty officers are deserting in droves and taking their troops with them.
August 22: En route to the Fort de Joux, Toussaint reaches Besan?on.
August 24: Toussaint is imprisoned at the Fort de Joux in France, near the Swiss border.
August 25: Leclerc writes: “To have been rid of Toussaint is not enough; there are two thousand more leaders to get rid of as well.”
September 13: The expected abatement of the yellow fever at the approach of the autumnal equinox fails to occur. The reinforcements arriving die as fast as they are put into the country, and Leclerc has to deploy them as soon as they get off the boat. Leclerc asks for ten thousand men to be immediately sent. He is losing territory in the interior and his black generals are beginning to waver, though he still is confident of his ability to manipulate them.
As of this date, a total of twenty-eight thousand men have been sent from France, and Leclerc estimates that ten thousand five hundred are still alive, but only forty-five hundred are fit for duty. Five thousand sailors have also died, bringing the total loss to twenty-nine thousand.
October 7: Leclerc: “We must destroy all the mountain Negroes, men and women, sparing only children under twelve years of age. We must destroy half the Negroes of the plains, and not allow in the colony a single man who has ever worn an epaulette. Without these measures the colony will never be at peace…”
October 10: Mulatto general Clervaux revolts, with all his troops, upon the news of Bonaparte’s restoration of the mulatto discriminations of the ancien régime. Le Cap had been mostly garrisoned by mulattoes.
October 13: Christophe and the other black generals in the north join Clervaux’s rebellion. On this news, Dessalines raises revolt in the west.
November 2: Leclerc dies of yellow fever. Command is assumed by Rochambeau.
By the end of the month the fever finally begins to abate, and acclimated survivors, now immune, begin to return to service. In France, Bonaparte has outfitted ten thousand reinforcements.
1803
March: At the beginning of the month, Rochambeau has eleven thousand troops and only four thousand in hospital, indicating that the worst of the disease threat has passed. He is ready to conduct a war of extermination against the blacks, and brings man-eating dogs from Cuba to replace his lost soldiery. He makes slow headway against Dessalines in March and April, while Napoleon plans to send thirty thousand reinforcements in two instalments in the coming year.
April 7: Toussaint-Louverture dies a prisoner in the Fort de Joux.
May 12: New declaration of war between England and France.
June: By month’s end, Saint Domingue is completely blockaded by the English. With English aid, Dessalines smashes into the coast towns.
October: Early in the month, Les Cayes falls to the blacks. At month’s end, so does Port-au-Prince.
November 10: Rochambeau flees Le Cap and surrenders to the English fleet.
November 28: The French are forced to evacuate their last garrison at M?le. Dessalines promises protection to all whites who choose to remain, following Toussaint’s earlier policy. During the first year of his rule he will continue encouraging white planters to return and manage their property and many who trusted Toussaint will do so.
December 31: Declaration of Haitian independence.
1804
May: In France Bonaparte becomes emperor on May 18, 1804.
October: Dessalines, having overcome all rivals, crowns himself emperor.
1805
January: Dessalines begins the massacre of all the whites in Haiti.
Another Devil’s Dictionary
abolition du fouet: abolition of the use of whips on field slaves; a negotiating point before and during the rebellion
acajou: mahogany
affranchi: A person of color whose freedom was officially recognized; most affranchis were of mixed blood but some were full-blood Africans
agouti: groundhog-sized animal, edible
ajoupa: a temporary hut made of sticks and leaves
à la chinois: in the Chinese manner
allée: a lane or drive lined with trees
Les Amis des Noirs: an abolitionist society in France, interested in improving the conditions and ultimately in liberating the slaves of the French colonies
ancien régime: old order of pre-revolutionary France
aristocrates de la peau: aristocrats of the skin. Many of Sonthonax’s policies and proclamations were founded on the argument that white supremacy in Saint Domingue was analogous to the tyranny of the hereditary French nobility and must therefore be overthrown in its turn by revolution.
armoire: medicinal herb for fever
asson: a rattle made from a gourd, an instrument in vodoun ceremonies, and the h?ngan’s badge of authority
atelier: idiomatically used to mean work gangs or the whole body of slaves on a given plantation
au grand seigneur: in a proprietary manner
bagasse: remnants of sugarcane whose juice has been extracted in the mill—a dry, fast-burning fuel
baguette: bread loaf
banza: African instrument with strings stretched over a skin head; fore-runner of the banjo
Baron Samedi: vodoun deity closely associated with Ghede and the dead, sometimes considered an aspect of Ghede
bête de cornes: domestic animal with horns
bienfaisance: philosophical proposition that all things work together for good
bois bander: tree whose bark was thought to be an aphrodisiac
bossale: a newly imported slave, fresh off the boat, ignorant of the plantation ways and of the Creole dialect
boucaniers: piratical drifters who settled Tortuga and parts of Haiti as Spanish rule there weakened. They derived their name from the word boucan—their manner of barbecuing hog meat.
cachot: dungeon cell
caciques: Amerindian chieftains of precolonial Haiti
calenda: a slave celebration distinguished by dancing. Calendas frequently had covert vodoun significance, but white masters who permitted them managed to regard them as secular.
canaille: mob, rabble
carré: square, unit of measurement for cane fields and city blocks
casques: feral dogs
les citoyens de quatre Avril: Denoting persons of color awarded full political rights by the April 4 decree, this phrase was either a legal formalism or a sneering euphemism, depending on the speaker.
clairin: cane rum
colon: colonist
commandeur: overseer or work-gang leader on a plantation, usually himself a slave
congé: time off work
Congo: African tribal designation. Thought to adapt well to many functions of slavery and more common than others in Saint Domingue.
cordon de l’est: eastern cordon, a fortified line in the mountains organized by whites to prevent the northern insurrection from breaking through to other departments of the colony
cordon de l’ouest: western cordon, as above
corps-cadavre: in vodoun, the physical body, the flesh
coup poudré: a vodoun attack requiring a material drug, as opposed to the coup à l’air, which needs only spiritual force
coutelas: broad-bladed cane knife or machete
Creole: Any person born in the colony whether white, black, or colored, whether slave or free. A dialect combining a primarily French vocabulary with primarily African syntax is also called Creole; this patois was not only the means of communication between whites and blacks but was often the sole common language among Africans of different tribal origins. Creole is still spoken in Haiti today.
crête: ridge or peak
Damballah: vodoun deity associated with snakes, one of the great loa
déshabillé: a housedress, in colonial Saint Domingue apt to be very revealing. White Creole women were famous for their daring in this regard.
dokté-feuilles: leaf-doctor, expert in herbal medicine
Erzulie: one of the great loa, a vodoun goddess roughly parallel to Aphrodite. As Erzulie-gé-Rouge she is maddened by suffering and grief.
enceinte: pregnant
esprit: spirit; in vodoun it is, so to speak, fungible
faience: crockery
fatras-baton: thrashing stick. Toussaint bore this stable name in youth because of his skinniness.
femme de confiance: a lady’s quasi-professional female companion
femme de couleur: woman of mixed blood
fleur-de-lis: stylized rendition of a flower and a royalist emblem in France
gens de couleur: people of color, a reasonably polite designation for persons of mixed blood in Saint Domingue
gérant: plantation manager or overseer
Ghede: one of the great loa, the principal vodoun god of the underworld and of the dead
gilet: waistcoat
giromon: medicinal herb for cough
gombo: medicinal herb for cough
gommier: gum-tree
grand blanc: member of Saint Domingue’s white landed gentry, who were owners of large plantations and large numbers of slaves. The grand blancs were politically conservative and apt to align with royalist counterrevolutionary movements.
Grand Bois: vodoun deity, aspect of Legba more closely associated with the world of the dead
grand’case: the “big house,” residence of white owners or overseers on a plantation. These houses were often rather primitive despite the grandiose title.
grand chemin: the big road or main road. In vodoun the term refers to the pathway opened between the human world and the world of the loa.
grenouille: frog
griffe: term for a particular combination of African and European blood. A griffe would result from the congress of a full-blood black with a mulatto or a marabou.
griffone: female griffe
gros-bon-ange: literally, the “big good angel,” an aspect of the vodoun soul. The gros-bon-ange is “the life force that all sentient beings share; it enters the individual at conception and functions only to keep the body alive. At clinical death, it returns immediately to God and becomes part of the great reservoir of energy that supports all life.”*13
guérit-trop-vite: medicinal herb used in plasters to speed healing of wounds
habitation: plantation
herbe à cornette: medicinal herb used in mixtures for coughing
herbe à pique: medicinal herb against fever
homme de couleur: man of mixed blood; see gens de couleur
hounsi: female vodoun acolytes
h?nfor: vodoun temple, often arranged in open air
h?ngan: vodoun priest
Ibo: African tribal designation. Ibo slaves were thought to be especially prone to suicide, believing that through death they would return to Africa. Some masters discouraged this practice by lopping the ears and noses of slaves who had killed themselves, since presumably the suicides would not wish to be resurrected with these signs of dishonor.
intendant: the highest civil authority in colonial Saint Domingue, as opposed to the governor, who was the highest military authority. These conflicting and competing posts were deliberately arranged by the home government to make rebellion against the authority of the metropole less likely.
Island Below Sea: vodoun belief construes that the souls of the dead inhabit a world beneath the ocean that reflects the living world above. Passage through this realm is the slave’s route of return to Africa.
journal: newspaper
la-place: vodoun celebrant with specific ritual functions second to those of the h?ngan.
lantana: medicinal herb against colds
Legba: vodoun god of crossroads and of change, vaguely analogous to Hermes of the Greek pantheon. Because Legba controls the crossroads between the material and spiritual worlds, he must be invoked at the beginning of all ceremonies.
les Invisibles: members of the world of the dead, roughly synonymous with les Morts et les Mystères.
liberté de savane: freedom, for a slave, to come and go at will within the borders of a plantation or some other defined area, sometimes the privilege of senior commandeurs.
loa: general term for a vodoun deity
loi du quatre Avril: decree of April 4, 1792, from the French Legislative Assembly, granting full political rights to people of color in Saint Domingue.
loup-garou: in vodoun, a sinister supernatural entity, something like a werewolf
macandal: a charm, usually worn round the neck
macoutte: a straw sack used to carry food or goods
main-d’oeuvre: workforce
Ma?t’Carrefour: vodoun deity closely associated with Ghede and the dead, sometimes considered an aspect of Ghede
ma?t’tête: literally, “master of the head,” the particular loa to whom the vodoun observer is devoted, by whom he is usually possessed (though the worshiper may sometimes be possessed by other gods as well)
mal de Siam: yellow fever
malnommée: medicinal herb used in tea against diarrhea
mambo: vodoun priestess
manchineel: jungle tree with an extremely toxic sap
Mandingue: African tribal designation. Mandingue slaves had a reputation for cruelty and for a strong character difficult to subject to servitude.
manicou: Caribbean possum
marais: swamp
maréchal de camp: field marshal
maréchaussée: paramilitary groups organized to recapture runaway slaves
maroon: a runaway slave. There were numerous communities of maroons in the mountains of Saint Domingue, and in some cases they won battles with whites and negotiated treaties that recognized their freedom and their territory.
mauvais sujet: bad guy, criminal
ménagère: housekeeper
les Morts et les Mystères: the aggregate of dead souls in vodoun, running the spectrum from personal ancestors to the great loa
moulin de bêtes: mill powered by animals, as opposed to a water mill
mulatto: person of mixed European and African blood, whether slave or free. Tables existed to define sixty-four different possible such ad-mixtures, with a specific name and social standing assigned to each.
négociant: businessman or broker involved in the export of plantation goods to France
nègre chasseur: slave trained as a huntsman
noblesse de l’epée: French aristocracy deriving its status from the feudal military system, as opposed to newer bureaucratic orders of rank
Og?n: one of the great loa, the Haitian god of war. Og?n-Feraille is his most aggressive aspect.
ouanga: a charm, often worn round the neck
paillasse: a sleeping pallet, straw mattress
pariade: the wholesale rape of slave women by sailors on slave ships. The pariade had something of the status of a ritual. Any pregnancies that resulted were assumed to increase the value of the slave women to their eventual purchasers.
parrain: godfather. In slave communities, the parrain was responsible for teaching a newly imported slave the appropriate ways of the new situation.
patois: dialect
Patriots: name assumed by Jacobin factions in Saint Domingue; see also Pompons Rouges.
pavé: paving stone
petit blanc: member of Saint Domingue’s white artisan class, a group which lived mostly in the coastal cities and which was not necessarily French in origin. The petit blancs sometimes owned small numbers of slaves but seldom owned land; most of them were aligned with French revolutionary politics.
petit marron: a runaway slave or maroon who intended to remain absent for only a short period—these escapees often returned to their owners of their own accord
la petite vérole: smallpox
petro: a particular set of vodoun rituals with some different deities—angry and more violent than rada
pois-gratter: itching pea, an abrasive plant
Pompons Blancs: members of the royalist faction in post-1789 Saint Domingue; their name derives from the white cockade they wore to declare their political sentiments. The majority of grand blancs inclined in this direction.
Pompons Rouges: members of the revolutionary faction in post-1789 Saint Domingue, so called for the red cockades they wore to identify themselves. Most of the colony’s petit blancs inclined in this direction.
poteau mitan: central post in a vodoun h?nfor, the metaphysical route of passage for the entrance of the loa into the human world
pwas? (Creole): fish
quarteronné: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood white with a mamelouque
rada: the more pacific rite of vodoun, as opposed to petro
rada batterie: ensemble of drums for vodoun ceremony
ramier: wood pigeon
ratoons: second-growth cane from plants already cut
redingote: a fashionable frock coat
sacatra: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood black with a griffe or griffonne
salle de bains: washroom
sang-mêlé: a particular combination of African and European blood: the result, for instance, of combining a full-blood white with a quarteronné
serviteur: vodoun observer, one who serves the loa
siffleur montagne: literally, “mountain whistler,” a night-singing bird
tafia: rum
ti-bon-ange: literally, the “little good angel,” an aspect of the vodoun soul. “The ti-bon-ange is that part of the soul directly associated with the individual…. It is one’s aura, and the source of all personality, character and willpower.”*14
tisane: infusion of herbs
vévé: diagram symbolizing and invoking a particular loa
vod?n or vodoun: generic term for a god, also denotes the whole Haitian religion
yo di: they say
zaman: almond
z’étoile: aspect of the vodoun soul. “The z’étoile is the one spiritual component that resides not in the body but in the sky. It is the individual’s star of destiny, and is viewed as a calabash that carries one’s hope and all the many ordered events for the next life of the soul.”?15
zombi: either the soul (zombi astrale) or the body (zombi cadavre) of a dead person enslaved to a vodoun magician