Read Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution Online
Authors: Laurent Dubois
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
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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
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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
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[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
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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
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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-