Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (34 page)

“would have no limits but the ocean.”21

Polverel explained that loyal “cultivators”—that is, the plantation

slaves—also deserved rewards. While those whose masters were still in the

colony would remain slaves, those whose masters had fled, but who never-

theless had continued to work on their plantations, were declared free.

Since those who worked the land were “first to whom nature had destined

its fruits,” they would also be granted the “right of property” and receive a portion of their master’s plantation. The offer of land was extended to

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other groups: those who had fled their plantations because of the “cruelty

of their masters” or through the encouragement of the “chiefs of the re-

volt,” but were tired of “their life of vagrancy”; those who were “already enjoying independence” in the mountains under Spanish control, but wished

to return and “cultivate a happy and fertile land and live under the laws of

equality.” In addition to land and freedom, “all Africans and descendants

of Africans” who fell within these categories would enjoy all the rights of

“French citizens.”22

Polverel’s proclamation provided no details about how and when land

would be distributed. The plantations belonged “in common” to the “uni-

versality” of the “warriors” and eligible “cultivators,” but as long as the

war continued they would remain “undivided.” They would be broken up

only once victory was assured. In the meantime, everything produced on

the Republic’s plantations—where the now-free cultivators were ordered

to remain and “fertilize the soil with their labor”—would be divided

up among the workers and the “warriors.” They would receive different

amounts according to their age, gender—women received half as much as

men—and rank in the hierarchies of the army and the plantation. The free-

ing and payment of former slaves were themselves radical steps, and the

deferred promise made by Polverel had dramatic implications: when the

war was over, fields of cane and coffee were to become homesteads, and

slaves independent farmers.23

Since the beginning of the revolution, rumors of imminent emancipa-

tion had circulated continually in the colony. In June 1793 one such rumor

had reached the insurgent camps: the leader Pierrot, who a few weeks later

would join the Republic, heard that the French (as well as the Spanish and

English) were advocating a general emancipation of the slaves. By August

1793, with the power of the planters all but smashed, the slave insurgents

fighting for Spain steadily advancing across the colony, and the plantation

economy at a standstill, the possibility of emancipation was closer than

ever. Many in Le Cap—including many whites—were openly clamoring

for it. A white official drew up a petition on behalf of the colony’s slaves demanding “the Rights of Man” and “general liberty.” Although a symbolic

“tree of liberty” had been planted recently during the ceremonies of July

14 in Le Cap, it complained, there was still slavery in the land. “Are we not men?” the petition asked. “Say one word,” it asked Sonthonax, “and Saint-Domingue will be happy and free.” A few days later the municipal govern-

ment of Le Cap declared that, in a colony haunted by the “ashes” and

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“piles of dead” created by slavery, it was time to grant the “cultivators of

Saint-Domingue” the “Rights of Man.” Their rights could not be denied

them by any power, whether “human” or “divine.” Those “expatriated”

from Africa by Europeans and brought to this new country wanted it to be-

come their own. They wished to be “recognized and free and French!”

Granting their wish would save the colony: France would “acquire thou-

sands of soldiers, and the land an infinity of cultivators”; the nation would still receive “rich products” that were “even more valuable” because they

came from “free hands.”24

On August 24, at an open meeting in Le Cap, 15,000 “souls” voted in fa-

vor of the emancipation of the slaves of the north. Finally, on August 29,

when Sonthonax issued a decree that began “Men are born and live free

and equal in rights,” all who were “currently enslaved” in the Northern

Province were declared free. They would “enjoy all the rights attached

to the quality of French citizenship.” Slavery had been abolished in the

richest region of Saint-Domingue, on the plains out of which the revolt of

1791 had emerged, in the mountains that had served as “boulevards of lib-

erty” to the insurgents. The specter of liberty that had loomed over Saint-

Domingue for years, haunting and taunting masters and slaves, had be-

come a reality.25

“General Liberty has just been proclaimed in the island,” an elated

insurgent allied to the Republic, Bramante Lazzary, announced to his

“brothers in revolt” in the north. They must all swear loyalty to France and

“march under its flag,” the Republican tricolor, whose red, white, and blue

symbolized the “reunion of the three colors.” “Our flag makes clear that

our liberty depends on three colors: black, mulatto, and white; we are

fighting for these three colors.” All the races of Saint-Domingue were to

form “one family” and fight those who “are against our liberty.” Against the

“aristocrats and the Spanish” who flew the white flag of royalism, who

wanted “only the white,” and who hoped for a return to the “old order,” all

should rally and proclaim: “No, we are French,” and “we want to live free

or die.”26

In the next months Polverel followed suit, though more gradually, in the

west and south. Having already freed many of the slaves in the regions un-

der his control with his August proclamation, in early September Polverel

announced to those who were still enslaved that that they should wait pa-

tiently for the imminent “day when you will finally be permitted to enjoy

the Rights of Man.” A few weeks later he freed state-owned slaves and—in

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an effort to maintain some peace between former masters and former

slaves in the new order—invited whites “penetrated with the principles of

liberty and equality that form the foundation of the French Republic” to

emancipate their own slaves. His proclamation made that clear there was

ultimately little choice in the matter: “the slavery of a single individual

is incompatible with the principles of the Republic.” Finally, on October

31, Polverel decreed that all “Affricains & Affricaines” (African men and African women), as well as all descendants of Africans—and all those who

were to arrive in the colony or to be “born there in the future”—were

“free” and “equal to all men.” They would enjoy “all the rights of French

citizens and all the other rights pronounced” in the Declaration of

the Rights of Man. The Declaration itself was translated into Creole and

posted and distributed so it would be accessible to all. All men over eigh-

teen were to present themselves to the local administration, where after

taking an oath they would receive a printed declaration of their French cit-

izenship.27

“You will no longer be the property of another; you will be your own

masters, and you will live happily,” declared Sonthonax. But, as Polverel

had, he demanded that they show themselves worthy of this gift of free-

dom by “forever rejecting indolence and banditry.” They were required to

remain on their plantations, where they would be paid for their work. Do-

mestics would be paid yearly salaries, while plantation workers as a group

were granted one-third of the goods produced on the plantation each year.

This portion was divided up unequally, with drivers receiving the largest

shares, followed by male cultivators, then women (who received two-thirds

of what men received), and finally children. Though required to stay on

their plantations for at least a year, the ex-slaves could be moved for rea-

sons of “incompatibility of character”—a judgment presumably to made by

the manager or property owner—or at the request of the other workers on

the plantation. After a year they could request a transfer to another planta-

tion. But except for service in the army—an option open only to men—

there was no provision for those who wanted to leave the plantations, to go

into the mountains to settle their own land, or to depart for the cities. Any men who were not either soldiers or property owners and any women

found “errant” would be imprisoned.28

Sonthonax did not offer any land to the ex-slaves. And the redistribution

of property promised by Polverel, at first deferred, eventually vanished

completely from the rules he put in place. In the end, the commissioners

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did not even make a small concession that certainly would have been ap-

preciated by former slaves—granting them official ownership of the gar-

den plots they had farmed as slaves. Polverel, however, did go further than

Sonthonax in assuring plantation laborers some control over their labor. He

gave them the right to participate in the selection of managers and to elect

their drivers in plantation assemblies. Women—banned from voting in po-

litical assemblies of Saint-Domingue, as they were France—were given

the right to vote in these elections. Polverel also gave the cultivators six

months to move to a new plantation if they wished. Polverel’s regulations

promised a dramatic transformation meant to turn plantations once oper-

ated through a brutal hierarchy into farms worked by salaried workers and

run with their active participation.29

During the coming years, ex-slaves in Republican-controlled areas would

struggle to expand the limited freedom they had been given. The British

would soon occupy much of the colony and would reestablish slavery as

they went. Nevertheless, everything had changed for Saint-Domingue, for

France, and in some sense for slaves and masters everywhere. A step for-

ward had been taken, one that shaped the debates and struggles over slav-

ery that engulfed the Atlantic world during the next decades.

There was no precedent for what had happened. The small-scale, grad-

ual elimination of slavery launched earlier in several U.S. states had

opened the way for what Sonthonax and Polverel did in 1793. But the

scope of emancipation in Saint-Domingue was massive in comparison. The

colony had until recently boasted the most profitable plantation regions in

the world, and the slaves freed in 1793 made up the vast majority of the

population. And although they did place conditions on the liberty they de-

creed, Sonthonax and Polverel did not provide for any period of transition

between slavery and freedom. In this omission they disregarded the argu-

ments of the great abolitionists of the day, such as Condorcet, who be-

lieved strongly that slavery could be extinguished only through a gradual

process. In decreeing a universal and immediate emancipation, they cre-

ated an example that would be both celebrated and vilified, held up by

some as a model of uncompromising and principled action, and denounced

by others as an example of the dangers of giving liberty to slaves who were

not ready to be free.

Perhaps the most radical part of their proclamations was the granting

not just of liberty but also of citizenship to the slaves. The new order was, in principle, to be based on uncompromising equality. Race was to have no

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place within it. This, too, was a dramatic challenge, not only to the patho-

logically stratified society of Saint-Domingue, but to the forms of democ-

racy that reigned in the Americas and in Europe. The promise of 1793—a

transracial citizenship in which ex-slaves and ex-masters would live to-

gether as political equals—was a great step forward, indeed in many ways

out of its time. Undermined and attacked almost immediately, it pro-

duced in later years eloquent defenders of the principle that all people, of

all races, were equal in rights. Distorted and eventually destroyed during

the next decade, it nevertheless lingered as a fleeting possibility, one that would not find its home again in the Americas for many years.

The abolition of slavery gained new recruits for the commissioners, but

it also helped solidify the opposition of many whites—and many free peo-

ple of color—to the Republican regime. And the most important insur-

gent leaders—Jean-François, Biassou, and the as-yet-elusive figure named

Toussaint—remained steadfastly loyal to the Spanish, choosing the auton-

omy they had carved out for themselves over an alliance with a Republic

whose fate seemed uncertain. Throughout September and October they

advanced steadily across the north and west under the banner of the Span-

ish king.

And then another conquest began—that of the British. In late Septem-

ber 600 redcoats disembarked at Jérémie, on the edge of the Southern

Province, and were greeted by residents crying “Long live the English!” In

the Northern Province the French officers in control of the naval fort at

Môle Saint-Nicolas, “the Gibraltar of the Antilles,” handed it over without