Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (52 page)

been tied down in Europe. It also rendered the British willing to allow a

major military force to cross the Atlantic without hindrance.

In his 1802 letters to Prime Minister Henry Addington, James Stephen

examined the potential impact of French policy in Saint-Domingue on

Britain’s colonies. In doing so he presented a remarkably lucid and pre-

scient account of the real objectives and consequences of Leclerc’s mis-

sion. Some in Britain, Stephen noted, “speak of St. Domingo as a revolted

colony, that, like the United States of America, has renounced its alle-

giance to the parent state, and is therefore to be reduced by force to its for-252

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

mer dependence.” Such observers pointed to the treaties Louverture had

made with Great Britain and the United States as a tacit declaration of in-

dependence. Louverture’s diplomacy and his recent constitution certainly

demonstrated his bold political autonomy. But, as Stephen seems to

have understood, his constitution had also strongly affirmed that Saint-

Domingue was a part of France. Though he probably could have done so

successfully, Louverture had not in fact declared independence, and he

seems to have still believed that the colony would, and should, remain tied

to France.6

Another theory about the expedition, Stephens noted, was that it was

the result of a conflict between “the Constitution lately framed” by

Louverture and the “military government” of France’s ruler, Bonaparte,

and was essentially a “contest of power” between “the Consul of St.

Domingo, and the Consul of France.” There was much to support this

interpretation, even though the conflict was of relatively recent date. After assuming power, Bonaparte resolved to send a military force to Saint-Domingue, and in early 1801 he began organizing an expedition of sev-

eral thousand soldiers. At the time, however, the aim of the mission was

not to attack Louverture. Indeed, in March of that year Bonaparte pro-

moted Louverture to the rank of captain-general of Saint-Domingue, which

meant that he would be the “commander-in-chief” over any French officer

sent with troops to the colony.7

Bonaparte’s opinion of Louverture, however, began to shift when news

arrived of his takeover of Spanish Santo Domingo. The consul believed

that this occupation, while allowed by the 1795 treaty between France and

Spain, should have been carried out only under his orders. Bonaparte re-

scinded his promotion of Louverture and indeed took him off the list of

those who were to be maintained as officers in Saint-Domingue. Many of

the proplanter advisers whom Bonaparte had placed in the Colonial Minis-

try encouraged him to eliminate Louverture as a first step to rebuilding the

colonial economy. In September 1801 the officer François Kerverseau,

who had served in Saint-Domingue, wrote in an official report that the Re-

public should “examine whether, after having laid down the law for all the

monarchs of Europe,” it was appropriate for it to “receive laws from a rebel

negro in one of its own colonies.”8

Bonaparte’s suspicions of Louverture were cemented when, in October

1801, General Charles Vincent presented him with Saint-Domingue’s 1801

constitution. The second consul, Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, re-

t h e t r e e o f l i b e r t y

253

called that Bonaparte determined at that point that he must sent a mission

to end Louverture’s “state of rebellion against the Republic.” “The indigna-

tion of the first consul was extreme,” wrote another contemporary. “The

conduct of Toussaint Louverture struck him as an attack on the author-

ity and dignity of the Republic.” Bonaparte wrote more diplomatically

in the letter he gave to Louverture’s sons that the new constitution, which

“included many good things,” also contained “some that are contrary to

the dignity and the sovereignty of the French people, of which Saint-

Domingue is only a part.” Louverture had suggested to the consul that

he send emissaries back to the colony to discuss the terms of the constitu-

tion. Bonaparte, however, did not send a “negotiator.” Instead, “he sent an

army.”9

In his instructions to General Leclerc, Bonaparte set out a three-stage

plan for destroying Louverture’s regime. It depended on force, but also

on ruse. On his arrival, Leclerc was to rally support in Spanish Santo

Domingo, as well as make contact with the “negroes” who were “enemies

of Toussaint” in the region of Môle, where Louverture had suffered re-

peated challenges to his authority. André Rigaud and his comrade

Alexandre Pétion, exiled since their defeat by Louverture a few years be-

fore, were invited to join the expedition with a similar goal in mind:

the French hoped they would help mobilize sectors of the population of

free people of color, who they rightly assumed still resented Louverture.

(Once in Saint-Domingue, Leclerc realized that Rigaud was a liability

and deported him, though Pétion remained in the service of the French

for many months.) Even as he sought out counterweights to Louverture’s

authority in the colony, Leclerc was also to approach the governor, along

with those whom Bonaparte singled out as his most dangerous partisans—

Moïse (whose death was not yet known in Paris) and Dessalines—and

make sure they were “treated well.” If they behaved and ceded power to

Leclerc, Louverture and his officers would be exiled from the colony but

would retain their ranks in the French army. If they resisted, they would be

declared “traitors” and pursued until the French had “their heads” and had

“disarmed all their partisans.” Once their submission or destruction was as-

sured, Leclerc was to carry out the coup de grâce: “On the same day we

must, in all points of the colony, arrest all suspicious men who hold posi-

tions, of no matter what color, and deport at the same instant all the black

generals whatever their habits, their patriotism, and the services they have

254

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.]

Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc, 1802.
Cour-

tesy of the Huntington Library.

rendered.” “Do not allow any blacks having held a rank above that of cap-

tain to remain on the island,” Bonaparte commanded.10

“Rid us of these gilded negroes,” Bonaparte wrote to Leclerc in July

1802, “and we will have nothing more to wish for.” He was “counting on”

his brother-in-law to deport “all the black generals” to France by Septem-

ber 1802. “Without this,” Bonaparte noted, “we will have done nothing,

and an immense and beautiful colony will always remain a volcano, and will

inspire no confidence in capitalists, colonists, or commerce.” The stakes

were enormous, insisted Bonaparte. “Once the blacks have been disarmed

and the principal generals sent to France, you will have done more for the

commerce and civilization of Europe than we have done in our most bril-

t h e t r e e o f l i b e r t y

255

liant campaigns.” A Polish officer setting out for service in Saint-Domingue

in 1803 identified the purpose of the mission with more cynicism when he

wrote that he was being sent to “fight with the Negroes for their own

sugar.”11

Bonaparte’s government presented the expedition to Saint-Domingue

as “a crusade of civilized people of the West against the black barbarism

that was on the rise in America.” In his instructions to Leclerc, Bonaparte

noted that “the Spanish, the English, and the Americans also are dismayed

by the existence of this black Republic,” and encouraged him to impress

upon administrators in other Caribbean colonies the “common advantage”

to the “Europeans” of “destroying this rebellion of the blacks.” The French

minister of foreign relations, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, ar-

gued in his correspondence with the British that it was “in the interest of

civilization in general to destroy the new Algiers that is being organized in the center of America,” and that the Leclerc mission deserved the support

of all “states that have colonies and commerce.” This was in part simply a

shrewd diplomatic strategy, since France’s ability to send this expedition

depended on the acceptance, if not support, of the other major Atlantic

powers. But it also reflected a broader sentiment that the new society that

had developed in revolutionary Saint-Domingue was a profound threat to

the European colonial system as a whole. The British government con-

curred. Henry Addington, the prime minister, declared that the “interests

of the two governments is exactly the same—to destroy Jacobinism, es-

pecially that of the blacks.” After his arrival in Saint-Domingue Leclerc

summed up the sentiment of many in French government circles when he

declared, “it is here and at this moment that it will be determined whether

Europe will conserve its colonies in the Caribbean.”12

“The French nation will never place shackles on men it has recognized as

free,” Bonaparte explained Leclerc’s instructions. The “political goal” of

the mission in the “French part” of the island was to “disarm the blacks”

and to make them “free” cultivators. But this did not mean Bonaparte re-

jected slavery. In the Spanish part of the island (where Bonaparte wrongly

assumed Louverture had abolished slavery), the goal was to disarm the

blacks and return them to slavery. And in Martinique, which the British

had occupied since 1794 but which was to be returned to France once

peace was negotiated, the whites, Bonaparte announced, “need not fear

the liberation of the slaves.” Such assurances were to be made privately, as

256

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

a public declaration to this effect might have incited revolt in other colo-

nies. But they make clear that, by late 1801, Bonaparte’s regime had de-

cided on a major shift in colonial policy: France would once again accept,

and even embrace, the existence of slavery in its empire. The tricolor

would no longer signify freedom.13

The new policy, as James Stephen noted, would be difficult to enforce.

Not far from Martinique was the island of Guadeloupe, where the French

had abolished slavery in 1794. Could France really administer one island in

which all people were free, and another a short distance away where the

majority were enslaved? “To maintain two such opposite systems in islands

within sight of each other, would be not more preposterous than impracti-

cable.” Were the French simply naive? Stephen thought not. “The true,

though unavowed purpose of the French government in this expedition,”

he concluded, “is to restore the old system of negro slavery in St. Domingo,

and in the other colonies wherein it has been subverted.”14

The promises made by Bonaparte’s regime, Stephen suggested, were

simply part of this strategy. Knowing that an open announcement of the re-

turn of slavery would incite mass insurrection, the governors of France

were declaring they respected liberty so that they could position them-

selves to destroy it. Stephen believed that, at first, this strategy would succeed. “The towns and forts on the coast of St. Domingo will probably be

conquered with great facility” and indeed would perhaps offer “no resis-

tance.” “Toussaint may submit,” he continued, and in any case it would be

“an easy game for the Generals of the French army to avail themselves of

the discord said already to prevail among the negroes of that Colony, or to

scatter the seeds of new dissensions, so as to gain over some of their most

powerful leaders, and considerable bodies of their troops.” Indeed, “by

specious promises of a well regulated freedom,” Stephen concluded, “a

general submission to the authority of the Republic may be speedily ob-

tained; and thus the whole work may appear to be at once accomplished.”

The plans laid out in Bonaparte’s instructions to Leclerc—which Stephen

could not have known about—presented precisely this scenario, with one

exception: they assumed that once the submission and deportation of the

major officers were accomplished, the war would be over.15

Stephen, however, noted that it would only “appear” to be so. “It is

when the true design shall be avowed,” wrote Stephen, “or begin to un-

fold itself: when the negroes shall discover, that not to the fasces of

the Consul only, but to the whip of the driver, their submission is de-

t h e t r e e o f l i b e r t y

257

manded, when the master shall take possession of his estate, and the bell

and the loud report of the driver’s whip, announcing the approach of

dawn, shall summon again to the field,” that the tide would begin to

change. The French would learn what the British already had, that there

was a “difference between subduing the coast, and ruling the interior, of

this extensive Island; between gaining the chiefs, and coercing the new

formed people.”16

Stephen was familiar with Louverture’s labor codes and understood

that the freedom of the ex-slaves had been extremely limited. Neverthe-