Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (20 page)

c h a p t e r f o u r

Fire in the Cane

Onapril10,1784,aballoonroseoverthethrivingsugarcane

fields south of Le Cap. A crowd—which included the colony’s

governor—watched as it rose to 1,800 feet and then descended

slowly to the ground. The men responsible for this spectacle were emulat-

ing scientific pioneers across the Atlantic who, the year before, had sent

the first balloon in history into the sky. As they read about this triumph in the newspapers of Saint-Domingue, many in the colony were taken with

the same excitement for the new machines that was gripping France. A co-

lonial government clerk named Beccard had made a few attempts to send

up small balloons, achieving his first success in late March 1784. Mean-

while he had begun building a larger balloon with several other men,

among them a man named Odeluc, the
procureur,
or administrator, of

three plantations owned by the marquis de Gallifet. Gallifet was far away,

living off the profits from his plantations in Paris. In his absence, Odeluc

offered one of the plantations he managed as a site for the balloon experi-

ment. So it was that the first large balloon to fly in the Americas went up

over a thriving sugar plantation. As they watched the balloon ascend, noted

Moreau de St. Méry, the “black spectators” could not stop talking about

“the insatiable passion” men had to “exert power over nature.” They were

perhaps thinking of their own condition. Odeluc may have been a scientific

man, but he was also a slave driver.1

The balloon “revolved slowly as it ascended,” allowing the crowd to

see the decorations painted on it. The coats of arms of the governor, the

intendant, Beccard, and Gallifet were prominently displayed. Along-

side them were allegorical figures representing chemistry, physics, air, and

fire—figures whose form we can only imagine, since no image of them was

left behind—presumably meant to celebrate the triumph of science over

nature: the laws that governed the movement of physical objects; the prop-

erties of the elements that could be combined, sometimes explosively, by

humans; the versatility of the air, which when heated to the right tempera-

ture could produce a movement that had always been thought impossible.

On that day, as they watched the spinning, rising balloon, the spectators

probably could not imagine that the final element, fire, would within a few

years transform everything around them.

“Your houses, Monsieur le Marquis, are nothing but ashes, your belongings

have disappeared, your administrator is no more. The insurrection has

spread its devastation and carnage onto your properties.” With these words

the marquis de Gallifet learned of the destruction wrought on his planta-

tions by the August 1791 slave insurrection. The writer of the letter, Millot, owned a neighboring plantation that had suffered a similar fate. Writing

from Le Cap, he described an “immeasurable” devastation and lamented

that the colony, “once flourishing,” now was nothing more than “ashes and

rivers of blood.” A few weeks later Gallifet received more details from one

of his surviving managers, Pierre Mossut, who had carried a telescope to a

hill outside Le Cap to survey the damage. The plain around the planta-

tions, wrote Mossut, contained nothing more than “slaves, ruins, and the

most complete devastation.” Gallifet’s plantation, once a centerpiece of the

thriving sugar economy of Saint-Domingue, had become a camp for an

army of slave insurgents.2

Founded in the early eighteenth century by a colonial governor, the

Gallifet plantations were so famous by the second half of the century that

to describe something sweet, people in Saint-Domingue said “as sweet as

Gallifet sugar.” And to describe utmost happiness, they said “as happy as a

Gallifet negro” (although the question remains: “Who said this, the plant-

ers or the slaves?”). One visitor to Gallifet’s three main plantations in 1779

described hygienic slave quarters built with masonry and tile roofs (in con-

trast to the typical mud and thatch huts). Aqueducts brought water not

only to the sugar mills but also to the hospitals, gardens, and slave quarters.

He described Odeluc as “knowledgeable, wise, and thoughtful” as well as

humane.3

But Odeluc’s job meant that he had one priority: producing as much

sugar as possible. “How can we make a lot of sugar when we work only six-

teen hours [per day]?” he wondered in a 1785 letter. The only way, he con-

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[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

“Révolte des Nègres à St. Domingue.” Engraving of the 1791 uprising. The original caption asserted that the “contradictory decrees” of the National Assembly regarding the colonies led to “all the horrors of a civil war.”
Courtesy of the
Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

cluded, “was by consuming men and animals.” Of the 808 slaves on the

Gallifet plantations in January 1791, there were almost none older than

sixty, and a small percentage were over forty. “It seems that the happy

slaves of Gallifet did not tend to live very long.” Of a group of 57 African

slaves brought to the plantation in February 1789, 12 were dead within a

year. Birthrates were low, and one-third of the children born on the planta-

tions soon died. In 1786 there was an “extreme dryness,” and winds blew

so hot they cracked furniture and shattered glasses. In 1788 there was

drought again, and it was worse in 1790. Sugarcane production suffered,

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and with it Gallifet’s profits, but most of all the slaves. Their numbers de-

creased over the decade, but the amount of land cultivated did not. They

were simply worked harder. The slaves on the smallest of the three planta-

tions, La Gossette, were the worst off. In 1789 20 of them escaped into the

woods for two months, demanding the replacement of their manager.4

In August 1791 a series of nighttime meetings of slaves took place in the

northern plain. Some of the Gallifet slaves attended, and decided to join in

the mass insurrection that was being planned. On the night of August 21

the manager of La Gossette, Pierre Mossut, was awakened by a group of

slaves who announced that they were “coming to talk to him” and who then

attacked him. Mossut was wounded in the arm but fought back and man-

aged to escape. He sent word to the main Gallifet plantation, and soon

Odeluc and several other whites arrived at La Gossette. The next morning,

accompanied by a judge from Le Cap, they interrogated slaves and ex-

tracted a worrisome confession: there was a plan afoot to start “a war to the death against the whites.” The slave overseer of the plantation, Blaise, was

identified as one of the ringleaders. Blaise, however, was nowhere to be

found.5

That night, slaves rose up on several plantations in the nearby parish

of Acul. A band led by a slave named Boukman “spread like a torrent”

through the parish. On one plantation, “twelve or fourteen of the ringlead-

ers, about the middle of the night, proceeded to the refinery,” where they

seized “the refiner’s apprentice, dragged him to the front of the dwelling-

house, and there hewed him into pieces with their cutlasses: his screams

brought out the overseer, whom they instantly shot. The rebels now found

their way to the apartment of the refiner, and massacred him in his bed.”

These slaves were soon joined by a large troop from two neighboring plan-

tations, and together they burned the entire plantation to the ground. The

only person they spared was the plantation’s surgeon, whom the slaves took

with them, “with the idea that they might stand in need of his professional

assistance.” From there the insurgent band attacked surrounding planta-

tions, and by early the next morning all but two of the plantations in the

parish had risen in revolt.6

During the morning of August 23 the revolt spread from Acul to the

neighboring parish of Limbé. A troop of nearly 2,000 slaves went from

plantation to plantation, killing whites, burning houses, and setting cane

fields alight. In parishes farther east, meanwhile, slaves rose up on several plantations. Much of the northern plain was soon engulfed by the rebel-94

av e n g e r s o f t h e n e w w o r l d

[To view this image, refer to

the print version of this title.]

Painting of the northern plain burning during the August 1791 insurrection. The unknown painter was looking from above the town of Le Cap. The ash and smoke

from the burning cane fields covered the sky for days.
Private collection.

lion. “The fire, which they spread to the sugarcane, to all the buildings, to their houses and
ajoupas
[huts], covered the sky with churning clouds of smoke during the day, and at night lit up the horizon with aurora borealis

that projected far away the reflection of so many volcanoes, and gave all

objects a livid tint of blood.”7

Many whites fled the region, but at the La Gossette plantation Odeluc,

Mossut, and a small detachment of National Guard troops prepared to

confront the insurgents. As soon as they arrived, however, the soldiers

threw down their weapons and fled through the cane fields toward Le Cap.

“We were attacked by a horde of assassins, and could offer only meager re-

sistance,” wrote Mossut. “After the first volley, we took refuge in flight.”

Odeluc, weighed down by his boots and his age, was surrounded by insur-

gents and killed. Mossut, however, escaped when a domestic slave of the

plantation appeared and presented him with a horse.8

Some masters and overseers successfully fought back, sometimes aided

by loyal slaves. The conspiracy, however, had involved slaves from through-

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out the region, and the bands of insurgents often found supporters ready

and waiting, and welcomed eager new recruits. The majority of slaves on

the Robillard plantation, for instance, joined the group of insurgents who

arrived on August 25. The owner had fled, but the driver of the plantation,

who refused to take part in the insurrection, was killed. Robillard’s house

and the lodgings of several slave artisans and the driver were set alight. The slaves preserved their own quarters, however, as well as “two large tables to take their meals.” They also smashed to pieces all the sugar-manufacturing

equipment on the plantation. Indeed, throughout the region insurgents

destroyed “not only the cane fields, but also the manufacturing installa-

tions, sugar mills, tools and other farm equipment, storage bins, and slave

quarters; in short, every material manifestation of their existence under

slavery and its means of exploitation.”9

On the morning of August 23 a man rode into Le Cap on a barebacked

horse, shoeless, hatless, a sword in his hand. “To arms, citizens, our broth-

ers are being slaughtered and our properties are being burned; all the

slaves of the plain are advancing with fire and iron in hand!” “At first everyone thought he was crazy,” but they gathered around him, asking ques-

tions, and soon came to believe him. Refugees from the northern plain

were soon pouring into Le Cap. The town’s officials issued an order pre-

venting all ships in the harbor from leaving—to keep the sailors around for

the defense of the town, and to ensure that there was somewhere for the

inhabitants to go if it failed. They fortified the roads and passes and placed troops and cannon around the edges of the city. They also began punishing

slaves they suspected of complicity in the revolt. “Above 100 negro prison-

ers” were “shot in the burying place” during two days in late August. Soon

“six gallows” were erected in one square, flanked by a wheel “to put the

poor devils to torture, as they are brought in.” One man proposed that all

the masters in the town hand over their male domestic slaves, who would

be placed in preventive custody on ships in the harbor. “The streets were

deserted” in Le Cap, though “at times one saw brigands pass by in chains

on their way to execution, and wounded soldiers who were being taken to

the hospital, or fearful people carrying aboard the vessels their most prized possessions.” In the distance there could be heard “the rumbling of burning fires and the explosions and whistling of cannon,” but the war was ev-

erywhere: “One feared being slaughtered by one’s servants.”10

Several rebel attacks on the town were turned back from the fortified

positions. But from their camps outside the city, insurgents taunted the

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soldiers. They were camped “one league” away, but they frequently ap-

proached “in numbers to bid defiance. Many of them are killed by our can-

non. They, notwithstanding, come up unarmed.” Estimated as 2,000 strong

on August 23, by August 27 the insurgents were “reckoned 10,000 strong,

divided into 3 armies, of whom 700 or 800 are on horseback, and tolerably

well armed,” though the rest were “almost without arms.” An army was

gathering on the plain, and there seemed no way to stop it.11

“There is a motor that powers them and that keeps powering them and