The Haitian Revolution

Toussaint L'Ouverture, Nick Nesbitt

• Publisher: Verso
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781788736572
• eBook ISBN:
  9781788736589
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early Modern History
• Index: History

Toussaint L'Ouverture was the leader of the Haitian Revolution in the late eighteenth century, in which slaves rebelled against their masters and established the first black republic. In this collection of his writings and speeches, former Haitian politician Jean-Bertrand Aristide demonstrates L'Ouverture's profound contribution to the struggle for equality.

1

PROCLAMATION

29 August 1793

Toussaint Bréda issued this, his first public proclamation, from Camp Turel. It announced both his adoption of the name L’Ouverture and his alignment with the cause of general liberty that would soon radicalize the French Revolution to include blacks within the compass of the Rights of Man and Citizen. His formulation of the relation between liberty and equality is radical and uncompromising: liberty and equality are inseparable, and to achieve them will require subordinating a plurality of competing demands within a unified struggle to destroy plantation slavery.

Brothers and Friends,

Remember the brave Ogé,¹ dear comrades, who was killed for having defended the cause of liberty! Yes, he died: but those who were his judges are now his defenders. I am Toussaint L’Ouverture; perhaps my name has made itself known to you. You know, brothers, that I have undertaken this vengeance, and that I want liberty and equality to reign in St-Domingue. I have worked since the beginning [of the revolt] to make that happen, and to bring happiness to all. Unite yourselves to us, brothers, and fight with us for the same cause. […] You say that you are fighting for liberty and equality? Is it possible that we could destroy ourselves, one against the other, and all fighting for the same cause? It is I who have undertaken [this struggle] and I wish to fight until it [liberty] exists […] among us. Equality cannot exist without liberty. And for liberty to exist, we must have unity.

2

LETTER TO BIASSOU

15 October 1791

In autumn 1791, two months after the beginning of the uprising, Toussaint left his home at the Bréda plantation to join the forces led by Biassou. Toussaint already addressed Biassou as an equal at this stage, and from the tone of this letter seems already to have achieved a level of authority at least equal to that of the other leaders, Dutty Boukman and Jean-François. The letter refers to a planned attack on Cap Français that never took place.

Grande Riviere

15 October 1791

To M. Biassou, brigadier of the King’s Army at Grand Boucan

My very dear friend

In keeping with the request I just made of the Spanish and daily awaiting the thing I asked for, I beg of you to wait until we are in a better state before going on to what you have the kindness to write me about. I have too much of a wish to go, but in all the habitations I would like to have crowbars in order to have the rocks of the mountains of Haut du Cap fall to prevent them [the slave-owners’ forces] from approaching us for I think they have no other means without exposing their people to a slaughter. I ask that you make sure with the spy you have sent to have him clearly explain where the powder works are in Haut du Cap so we can succeed in taking the powder works. Thus, my friend, you can see whether I took precautions in this affair, and you can tell this to Bouqueman [Boukman]. As for Jean François he can still go in a carriage with his ladies, but he hasn’t done me the honour of writing to me for several days. I am very surprised by this. If you need tafia [rum-like liquor] I will send you some when you’d like, but try to use it sparingly. The troops must not be given this so they won’t get out of hand. Send me a few barrows for I need them to transport wood to put up the cabins at the tannery for my people.

I ask you to assure your mother and sister of my humble respect.

I have the honour, my dear friend, of being your very humble, obedient servant.

General Doctor

3

LETTER TO THE GENERAL
ASSEMBLY FROM BIASSOU,
JEAN-FRANÇOIS AND
TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE

July 1792

This extraordinary document, signed by Toussaint in the name of his fourteen-year-old nephew Belair, was written by the leaders of the slave revolt to the colonial assembly in St-Domingue and the national commissioner Roume. After failed negotiations six months before, the letter testifies to an early and rapid radicalization of the revolution to encompass the call for general liberty based on the logic of indivisible, universal human rights.

Gentlemen,

Those who have the honour to present you with these memoirs are a class of men whom up to the present you have failed to recognize as like yourselves, and whom you have covered in opprobrium by heaping upon them the ignominy attached to their unfortunate lot. These are men who don’t know how to choose big words, but who are going to show you and all the world the justice of their cause; finally, they are those whom you call your slaves and who claim the rights to which all men may aspire.

For too long, gentlemen, by way of abuses that one can never too strongly accuse of having taken place because of our lack of understanding and our ignorance — for a very long time, I say — we have been victims of your greed and your avarice. Under the blows of your barbarous whip we have accumulated for you the treasures you enjoy in this colony; the human race has suffered to see with what barbarity you have treated men like yourself— yes, men — over whom you have no other right except that you are stronger and more barbaric than we; you have engaged in [slave] traffic, you have sold men for horses, and even that is the least of your shortcomings in the eyes of humanity; our lives depend on your caprice, and when it’s a question of amusing yourselves, the burden falls on men like us, who most often are guilty of no other crime than to be under your orders.

We are black, it is true, but tell us, gentlemen, you who are so judicious, what is the law that says that the black man must belong to and be the property of the white man? Certainly you will not be able to make us see where that exists, if it is not in your imaginations — always ready to form new [phantasms] so long as they are to your advantage. Yes, gentlemen, we are free like you, and it is only by your avarice and our ignorance that anyone is still held in slavery up to this day, and we can neither see nor find the right that you pretend to have over us, nor anything that could prove it to us, set down on the earth like you, all being children of the same father created in the same image. We are your equals then, by natural right, and if nature pleases itself to diversify colours within the human race, it is not a crime to be born black nor an advantage to be white. If the abuses in the Colony have gone on for several years, that was before the fortunate revolution that has taken place in the motherland, which has opened for us the road which our courage and labour will enable us to ascend, to arrive at the temple of liberty, like those brave Frenchmen who are our models and whom all the universe is contemplating.

For too long we have borne your chains without thinking of shaking them off, but any authority which is not founded on virtue and humanity, and which only tends to subject one’s fellow man to slavery, must come to an end, and that end is yours. You, gentlemen, who pretend to subject us to slavery – have you not sworn to uphold the French Constitution? What does it say, this respectable constitution? What is the fundamental law? Have you forgotten that you have formally vowed the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which says that men are born free, equal in their rights; that their natural rights include liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression? So then, as you cannot deny what you have sworn, we are within our rights, and you ought to recognize yourselves as perjurers; by your decrees you recognize that all men are free, but you want to maintain servitude for 480,000 individuals who allow you to enjoy all that you possess. Through your envoys you offer liberty only to our chiefs; it is still one of your maxims of politics to say that those who have played an equal part in our work should be delivered by us to be your victims. No, we prefer a thousand deaths to acting that way towards our own kind. If you want to accord us the benefits that are due to us, they must also shower onto all of our brothers …

Gentlemen, in very few words you have seen our way of thinking – it is unanimous and it is after consulting everyone to whom we are connected in the same cause that we present to you our demands, as follows.

First: general liberty for all men detained in slavery.

Second: general amnesty for the past.

Third: the guarantee of these articles by the Spanish government.

Fourth: the three articles above are the basis and the sole means to achieve a peace that would be respected by the two parties, and only after they are approved in the name of the Colony and M. the Lieutenant Général, and when the National Civil Commissioners have agreed to present this approval to the king, and to the National Assembly.

If, like us, you desire that the articles above be accepted, we will commit ourselves to the following: first, to lay down our arms; second, that each of us will return to the plantation to which he belongs and resume his work on condition of a wage which will be set by the year for each cultivator who starts work for a fixed term.

Here, gentlemen, is the request of men who are like you, and here is their final resolution: they are resolved to live free or die.

We have the honour to be, gentlemen, your very humble and obedient servants.

Biassou, Jean-François, Belair

4

LETTER TO GENERAL LAVEAUX

18 May 1794

Toussaint refused to rally to the French republican cause until the French abolished slavery in February 1794. In this his first letter to the French general, Toussaint accounts for his previous decision to fight on with the Spanish forces until May.

Marmelade, 18 May 1794

Toussaint L’Ouverture, General of the Western Army, to Etienne Laveaux, interim Governor General

[…] It is true, General, that I have been led into error by the enemies of the Republic and humanity, but what man can flatter himself to have avoided all the traps of evil men? In truth, I fell into their nets, not without knowing what I was doing; you will remember that […] my goal was only that we unite to combat the enemies of France and to bring an end to an internal war among the French of this colony. Unfortunately for all concerned, the paths toward reconciliation that I suggested were rejected. My heart bled and I shed tears over the unfortunate fate of my country, foreseeing the misfortunes that would follow, and in this I was not mistaken. Fatal experience has shown the truth of my predictions.¹

At the time, the Spanish offered me their protection and freedom for all those who fought for the cause of kings. Having always fought to achieve this same liberty, I accepted their offer, seeing myself abandoned by the French, my brothers. But a somewhat late experience opened my eyes to these perfidious protectors. Having perceived their treachery, I saw clearly that they intended for us to set upon each other to diminish our number and to enchain those who remained to return them to their former slavery. No, never would they achieve their infamous goal! And we will have revenge on these contemptible beings in our turn in every way. Let us unite forever, therefore, and, forgetting the past, let us seek henceforth only to crush our enemies and to avenge ourselves against our treacherous neighbours.

It is true that the national flag flies over Gonaïves and its surroundings, and that I have routed the Spanish and emigrants from the area. But my heart is broken to contemplate the event that occurred against a few unfortunate whites who were victims in this affair. I am utterly unlike many others who witness scenes of horror in cold blood. I have always held humanity in common to all, and I suffer whenever I cannot prevent evil. There were also a number of uprisings in the workshops, but I rapidly returned things to order and all are working as before.

Gonaïves, Gros-Morne, the canton of Ennery, Marmelade, Plaisance, Dondon, Acul, and all of Limbé are under my orders, and I count four thousand armed men in these areas, without counting the citizens of Gros-Morne, who number six hundred. As to war munitions, I am entirely bereft, having consumed them in the various attacks that I made against the enemy. […]

Salvation in the fatherland,

Toussaint L’Ouverture

5

LETTER TO LAVEAUX

7 July 1794

By the summer of 1794, Spanish and British forces still occupied territory in the east, but the republican forces had defeated the Spanish in the west of St-Domingue. In July, Toussaint L’Ouverture defeated the rebel leader Jean-François, who was still siding with the Spanish.

Marmelade

Toussaint L’Ouverture, General of the Western Army, to Etienne Laveaux, interim Governor General of the French section of St-Domingue

I write to share with yo...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• Suggested Further Reading
• Chronology
• Note on the texts
• 1. Proclamation, 29 August 1793
• 2. Letter to Biassou, 15 October 1791
• 3. Letter to the General Assembly from Biassou, Jean-François and Toussaint L’Ouverture, July 1792
• 4. Letter to General Laveaux, 18 May 1794
• 5. Letter to Laveaux, 7 July 1794
• 6. Toussaint L’Ouverture to his brothers and sisters in Varettes, 22 March 1795
• 7. Letter to Jean-François, 13 June 1795
• 8. Letter to Dieudonné, 12 February 1796
• 9. Letter to Laveaux, 20 February 1796
• 10. Letter to Flaville
• 11. Address to soldiers for the universal destruction of slavery, 18 May 1797
• 12. Letter to Laveaux, 23 May 1797
• 13. Letter to the French Directory, November 1797
• 14. Bonaparte’s letter to St-Domingue, 25 December 1799
• 15. Proclamation on Labour, 1800
• 16. Self-portrait, 1801
• 17. Letter to Napoleon on the 1801 Constitution, 16 July 1801
• 18. Anti-corruption proclamation, 9 Thermidor, year 9 (29 July 1801)
• 19. Haitian Constitution of 1801
• 20. Letter from Napoleon to Toussaint, 18 November 1801
• 21. Proclamation, 25 November 1801
• 22. Napoleon’s analysis of Toussaint from St Helena
• 23. Letter to Dessalines, 8 February 1802
• 24. Letter to Napoleon from on board the Heros, 12 July 1802
• 25. Letter to Napoleon from Fort de Joux, 17 September 1802
• 26. Memoir of Toussaint L’Ouverture
• Notes