Royalism and the Origins of the Haitian Revolution, 1763-1806.”

Home , Americans in Haiti, Dutty Boukman, Georges Biassou, History of Haiti, Macaya, Order of Saint Louis

ABSTRACT

Keywords: Haitian Revolution, Royalism, Haiti, Caribbean, Hispaniola, Authoritarianism

Using newly discovered sources from Spanish and French archives, “Subjects of the King: Royalism and the Origins of the Haitian Revolution, 1763-1806,” re-examines the social, political, and cultural history of the Haitian Revolution. Specifically, I explore the royalist origins of the August 1791 slave revolts in the French colony of Saint

Domingue that sparked the famous 1791-1804 Revolution. In addition to tracing the movements of multilingual border crossers of uncertain loyalty, I document a royalist counterrevolutionary movement that sought to destroy the republican ideals of the French

Revolution and restore Louis XVI to the throne. The current scholarly consensus posits that important causal factors in igniting the revolts were French Republicanism and

Enlightenment-era abolitionism. I do not refute these claims, but I contest their centrality, filling a historiographical void by pointing to royalism, a venerable phenomenon with

African as well as European roots, as a counterintuitive emancipatory model. I show that

Saint Dominguan revolutionaries were part of a long-entangled history on the shared island of Hispaniola within which African descendants acted as pivot points between the two colonies, often crossing the border and manipulating both French and Spanish institutions. In doing so, they fashioned a multifaceted royalist viewpoint that paradoxically depended on monarchical articulations of rights and freedoms. Ultimately, my study calls upon scholars to rethink the way in which the enslaved in Saint Domingue conceptualized freedom, challenging the assumption that royalism was a rigid historical counterpoint to Enlightenment ideals.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DEDICATION

On April 23, 2010, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods

Act was signed into law by the then governor of the State of Arizona. The law, simply known as “SB 1070,” allowed law enforcement officers to attempt to determine the immigration status of an individual wherever there was a “reasonable suspicion” that the person was undocumented. Sometime after the law passed, I was pulled over by a

Maricopa County sheriff’s deputy who asked me for my social security number and grilled me on my work and education. My fear from this encounter soon turned into anger and I decided that I should perhaps become an immigration attorney. I took the LSAT and got into a few programs, but the law schools never got back to me regarding funding.

Around the same time, a good friend of mine had told me about a Master’s program in

Caribbean Studies with which I could study overseas. I applied, and after speaking with the director and now dear friend and mentor, José Buscaglia, it was clear that I had a good chance at full funding. Excited at the prospects, I made the decision to pursue the

Master’s at The State University of New York at Buffalo.

The Master’s program at SUNY Buffalo introduced me to the works of C.L.R.

James, Aimé Césaire, and Edouard Glissant. My interest on the Haitian Revolution soon followed, and I wanted to find out everything I could about what had transpired in that colony that was once called the “Pearl of the Antilles.” José Buscaglia, whom we affectionally (and still, despite his insistence not to) call “Profe,” taught me a multitude of things, including Spanish paleography. He helped me make sense of, transcribe, and translate archival records in the General Archive of the Indies (AGI), as well as understand that I needed to continue this research and get a Ph.D. For that, and everything else I thank you, Profe. I also thank Dalia Muller, for introducing me to the

ii works of Laurent Dubois and Ada Ferrer, and for opening my eyes to the possibilities of history as a profession. Looking back now and, to use Glissant’s term, I can say that this dissertation in many ways has its rhizomatic base at Buffalo.

Tulane University gave me an opportunity to further pursue what started in

Buffalo, and I’m especially grateful to The Stone Center for Latin American Studies and the History Department. I also thank the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for kindly funding multiple research trips to Spain and France. Other institutions and centers which have funded my research deserve recognition: the Schomburg Center for Research in

Black Culture in Harlem, New York; the John Carter Brown Library in Providence,

Rhode Island; the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware; the Tinker

Foundation; the U.S. Department of Education; and the Fulbright U.S. Student Program for research in Spain. I am also grateful to all of the staff and faculty at the Instituto de

Historia in the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas in Madrid, Spain, particularly Consuelo Naranjo-Orovio who has seen this work grow through the years. I thank the library staff at the Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos in Seville, Spain, for providing me with a space to work after long hours at the AGI. I also wish to thank the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at the Hutchins Center at Harvard University for the invitation to participate in the Mark Claster Mamolen Dissertation workshop; I particularly want to thank Vincent Brown for his crucial commentary on chapters three and four of the dissertation, as well as Alejandro De La Fuente and George Reid Andrews for their insight. Many thanks to Cécile Vidal who welcomed me at the École des hautes

études en sciences sociales while I was conducting research in Paris, and who was kind enough to offer up her time and thoughts. Lastly, I thank the Center for Latin American

iii and Caribbean Studies at NYU, for providing me with the resources necessary in finishing this work; with special thanks to Ada Ferrer for acting as my sponsor.

Friends and colleagues have inspired me, helped me grow, and seen this project blossom into fruition. I apologize for any omissions. First, I want to thank my family from home: Adam, Reena, Tawni, and Amanda. My SLU crew: Tom, Sajana, Danny-B, and Dan Shafer. To Elizabeth Polcha, Andres Pletch, Peter Haffner, Joseph la Hausse de

Lalouvière, Fernanda Bretones Lane, and Brenna Casey for all of their comments, feedback, and willingness to share insights during the research and writing stage of the dissertation. To my Fulbright family, J.J. Mulligan Sepulveda, Casey Lynch, Mary Clare

Freeman, and Dillon Webster, thank you guys for such a great year in Spain.. I’m thankful to the “Austin crew,” Ernesto Mercado-Montero, Adrian Masters, and Chloe

Ireton, for their friendship, generosity, and inspiring work. To Chloe: I believe that our time at the JCB together and what you had to say about my work was in many ways a turning point in my project and my overall self-confidence; thank you, hermana. In New

Orleans/Tulane, I thank Mira Kohl, Christina Leblanc, and Miranda Stramel for their friendship and solidarity. I also thank Jimena Codina, Katy Henderson, Vanessa

Castañeda, Mike and Alicia Zapata, Laurence Mahe, Andrew Dafoe, Ezra Spira-Cohen, and Mart Trasburg for their camaraderie. A special thanks to Xosé ‘Pepe’ Pereira Boán,

Boris Martin, Antonio Jiménez Morato, Aroldo Nery, Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Sarmiento Panez, and Handy Cuellar, for the endless conversations, dinners, and laughs over drinks; but most importantly, for helping me understand the true meaning of brotherhood.

My dissertation has benefited from the rich commentary from professors such as

Alyssa Sepinwall, Marilyn Miller, Marlene Daut, John Garrigus, Renee Soulodre-

LaFrance, Erica Johnson, Ernesto Bassi, David Wheat, Grete Viddal, and Jane Landers.

At Tulane, I’d like to thank Justin Wolfe, for helping me look at the bigger picture of

Royalism and what it means when thinking about questions of freedom and democracy.

A special thank you to James “Jimmy” Huck, Edie Wolfe, and everyone at the Stone

Center for their intellectual mentorship, overall patience, and guidance through the years.

They gave me an opportunity seven years ago, when no one else would and, here we are.

I have to give a special thanks to the members of my committee, for their countless letters, feedback, and goodwill. To Laura Rosanne Adderley, thank you for never letting me lose sight of that history from below in my project and for teaching me to conceptualize it within the African Diaspora. To Emily Clark, thank you for teaching me the multifaceted methods of Atlantic History and pushing me to ‘zoom out,’ when needed. To Guadalupe García, I am grateful to you for teaching me about the insidiousness of power, how to focus on close readings, and of the role of space when thinking about slave revolts in the Caribbean. Finally, to Kris Lane: thank you for the countless conversations, the rigorous methods training, your patience, generosity, endless letters, archival solidarity (and the numerous café’s con leche), and for generally teaching me how to become a better historian. I am indebted to you for sharing your expertise and guiding me through this long but enriching process. My relationship with you has strengthened my belief in the humanities, and in believing that my work matters.

My work has taken me to various cities in the United States, Haiti, France, and

Spain. Along the way I have learned two new languages, taken many train (and bus) rides, spent long days in the archives, and spent time away from family. Even though the last seven years have not been without countless hours of solitary work, the one constant

v source of support and love in my life has been my family, both by blood and marriage.

My family from Sonora, Mexico, have always cheered me on from afar and I owe a great gratitude to all of them – los quiero a todos. I also thank my Tio Armando for all of the stimulating conversations, to Mando for his unwavering love, and to Brenda for her example and inspiration. My in-laws, the Walsh’s, Booses, and everyone in between, what an amazing group of people I married into. Thank you to Tia Koko and Tio Jake. To my mother-in-law, Patti: thank you for all of your trips to the Bronx to help us get through this year. To my father-in-law, Lester: this might be the longest paper you’ll ever read, boss. Lastly, I was so lucky to meet the Walsh matriarch, my dear friend and confidant: Violet Walsh—a true Acadian in every right—tu me manques, grand’mère.

My brothers Enrique and Esteban inspire me every day and are some of the hardest working people I know. Enrique and Jenn: your perseverance and how you are raising Samuel and Ezekiel is inspiring. Esteban: I hold your drive and determination in very high esteem, not to mention the fact that you are such a talented and committed teacher. But perhaps only two other people have my brother’s beat in the realm of hard work: our mother Ana, and father, Luis. Ellos vinieron a este país con la esperanza de brindarnos una vida mejor y me gustaría pensar que lo que hemos logrado es un verdadero testimonio de lo que alguna vez se entendió como el “sueño americano.” Justo cuando estaba recibiendo múltiples rechazos de los programas de doctorado, mi madre hizo un pacto con la Virgen de Guadalupe de que dejaría de comer harina por la duración de mi programa si me aceptaban en alguna parte. Poco después, Tulane llamó y mi madre lleva ya siete años sin comer harina. Ama: si tengo algo que mostrar durante estos

últimos años, es que al menos puedes volver a echarte una tortilla sobaquera, por lo

vi menos con queso fresco y chile verde, ‘pal antojo. Esta tesis se la dedico en primer lugar a mi Ama y Apa, por todos los sacrificios que han hecho por mí.

This work is also dedicated to asylum seekers, dreamers, and immigrants all over the world who like my parents, made the very difficult decision to leave their homes. I may not have become an immigration lawyer as I thought back in 2010. But in the last year and a half I worked as an Asylum Officer for the U.S. Government, hearing the firsthand accounts of asylum seekers from around the globe, and making extremely difficult but impactful decisions on a day-to-day basis. I am glad I pushed myself to do this work since I have helped people in ways I never imagined. I thank my ZNK colleagues.

Lastly and most importantly, this work is dedicated to the two people in this world who drive me to be better at everything. Elise and Marcos, without you two this project simply would not be where it now stands. Elise, you taught me how to truly love, sacrifice for others, and push myself to the limits. Thank you for being my main inspiration and for your unwavering patience in all of the time that we had to spend apart due to research. As you very well know, this project has been constructed through multiple trips to Madrid, Seville, Paris, Aix-en-Provence, and New York. But, it began to take hold in New Orleans which, largely due to you, I can now call home. I told my mother right before I left for Tulane that I thought I’d meet a woman there, but now I know I was wrong: I met my life companion, who just so happens to be an extraordinary human. I love you, Elise. Marcos, differently than your mother, yours is a love I cannot really explain, I just thank you for being such a happy baby who was always willing to go on long walks in Manhattan with mommy so that I could write. As I told your mother on the night you were born, you are the best gift anyone has ever given me.

vii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements and Dedication ...... ii – vii Table of Contents ...... viii Cast of Characters ...... ix – xii List of Abbreviations ...... xiii Timeline ...... xiv – xv

CHAPTERS

Introduction ...... 1 – 27

Chapter 1: Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: The Bourbon Dynasties, Reform, and the Fashioning of a “Harmonious” Island ...... 28 – 67

Chapter 2: An Entwined Borderlands: “Good Order,” Rayanos and Free People of Color on the Eve of the Revolution ...... 68 – 107

Chapter 3: To Burn One’s Nation: Loyalist Collusion and Towards a Better Understanding of the August 1791 Revolts ...... 108 – 167

Chapter 4: The Contingency of Allegiances: African Kingdoms, Vasallos del Rey, and the Creation of An (Other) Empire ...... 168 – 222

Epilogue: From Monarchs to Emperors: Authoritarianism and the Perplexing Legacies of the Haitian Revolution ...... 223 – 237

Bibliography ...... 238 – 252

Biography ...... 253

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Ailhaud, Jean-Antoine: arrived as part of the second civil commission from France and after a month abandoned his co-commissioners Sonthonax and Polverel.

Armona, Matías de: career soldier for Spain appointed to Havana in the late 1770’s.

Azlor, Manuel de: Governor General of the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo from 1759 to 1771.

Bautete, Manuel: British captive from Martinique who was granted sanctuary in Santo Domingo.

Bellecombe, Guillaume-Léonard de: the Governor General of the French colony of Saint Domingue from 1781 to 1785.

Biassou, Georges: one of the initial leaders of the August 1791 revolts. Vied for control with Jean-François and was a member of Carlos IV’s auxiliary troops. Eventually exiled to Spanish Florida.

Blanchelande, Louis-Philibert-François Rouxel de: governor of Saint Domingue from 1790 to 1792.

Bongard, Jean-Baptiste: Free black insurgent who gave rousing speech near town of Ouanaminthe months after the August 1791 revolts.

Bongars, Alexandre-Jacques: royal intendant of Saint Domingue from 1782 to 1785.

Bullet, Jeannot: one of the initial leaders of the August 1791 revolts. Known for his brutality against the whites. Eventually executed on orders of Jean-François.

Cabrera, Joaquín: Spanish border commander stationed at the southern colonial border in the south and west.

Cambefort, Joseph Paul Augustin: colonel of the Regiment of Cap-François. Staunch royalist who was charged as a counterrevolutionary.

Caradeux, Jean-Baptiste de: planter who was a member of the ‘patriot’ factions that negotiated with free-coloreds from western province.

Chavannes, Jean-Baptiste: free man of color who, along with Ogé, waged 1790 revolt for free-colored rights.

Christophe, Henri: key leader in the Haitian Revolution and crowned Henry I, King of Haiti years after the 1804 independence.

Dessalines, Jean-Jacques: key leader of the Haitian Revolution and independence. First ruler of independent Haiti and named Emperor Jacques I of Haiti in 1804.

Dutty, Boukman: one of the initial leaders of the August 1791 revolts. Believed to have been a vodou priest. Killed months after the 1791 insurrection.

Gálvez, Bernardo de: military commander of Spanish armies in the Caribbean. Viceroy of New Spain between 1785 and 1786.

García, Joaquín: governor of the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo from 1785 to 1786 and then again from 1788 to 1801.

Grégoire, Abbé: white French abolitionist who published books on racial equality. Influential member of the Society of the Friends of the Blacks.

Hédouville, Gabriel Marie Theodore Joseph de: agent sent to Saint Domingue to replace Sonthonax. Clashed with Louverture.

Heredia, Andrés de: Spanish commander stationed at the northern colonial border.

Hyacinthe (Jacinto): insurgent leader who tried to negotiate with Governor García of Santo Domingo, claiming he was a maroon.

Lacroix, François-Joseph-Pamphile de: French general who was sent as part of the Leclerc expedition to Saint Domingue to reestablish slavery.

Laguardia, Juan: Spanish or French guard, captured by the French authorities at Saint Domingue.

Lavastida, Joseph: British captive from Martinique who was granted sanctuary in Santo Domingo.

Laveaux, Étienne de: French republican General who was governor of Saint Domingue from 1793 to 1796. Supported Toussaint Louverture.

Louverture, Toussaint: one of the initial leaders of the August 1791 revolts. Most well- known leader of the Haitian Revolution. Imprisoned by orders of Napoleon Bonaparte after drafting first constitution of Saint Domingue in 1801.

Luzerne, Cézar-Henri, Comte de la: Governor of Saint Domingue between 1786 and 1787.

Macaya: slave insurgent who joined insurgent leaders Jean-François and Georges Biassou.

Marbois, François Barbé de: Royal intendant of Saint Domingue from 1785 to 1789.

Mazarade, Alexandre de Vincent de: interim governor of Saint Domingue from 1787- 1788.

Mussé, Claude Michel Louis Milscent de (aka: Milscent Créole): white planter born in Saint Domingue who led free colored men as chasseurs in hunting down slave runaways. Later became a journalist and abolitionist.

Ogé, Vincent: prominent free man of color who waged revolt in 1790 for free-colored rights and equality.

Papillon, Jean-François: one of the initial leaders of the August 1791 revolts. Vied for control with Georges Biassou and was a member of Carlos IV’s auxiliary troops. Eventually exiled to Cádiz.

Peinier, Louis-Antoine Thomassin, Comte de: governor of Saint Domingue from 1789 to 1790.

Pétion, Alexander: first President of the Republic of Haiti from 1807 to 1818. Known as one of Haiti’s founding fathers, along with Louverture, Dessalines, and Christophe.

Plessis, Thomas-Antoine Mauduit du: Colonel at the Regiment of Port-au-Prince. Also fought in the American Revolutionary War.

Polverel, Étienne: French lawyer and aristocrat also sent with the second civil commission from France to suppress the slave revolt in Saint Domingue.

Portillo y Torres, Francisco de: Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Santo Domingo from 1788 to 1798.

Raimond, Julien: prominent free man of color who went to Paris to fight for free- colored rights. Fought in Battle of Savannah during American Revolutionary War.

Rigaud, André: leading free man of color and military leader and general during the Haitian Revolution. Aligned himself with revolutionary France and followed in the example of Julien Raimond and Vincent Ogé.

Riqueti: Free black insurgent who attempted to negotiate with General Cabrera of Santo Domingo. Donned a mysterious cross on his blue uniform.

Rouvray, Laurent-François Lenoir, Marquis de: one of the wealthiest planters of Saint Domingue before the French Revolution. Member of the Order of St. Louis and the Society of the Cincinnati.

Saint-Méry, Médéric Louis-Élie Moreau de: lawyer and writer born into creole family in Martinique in 1750. Famous for writing extensively about both Saint Domingue and

Santo Domingo. One of the most frequently cited sources on the history of Haiti prior to the Revolution.

Sonothonax, Léger-Félicité: French abolitionist and Jacobin part of the second civil commission sent to Saint Domingue from France. Was the de facto ruler of Saint Domingue between 1792 and 1795.

Tousard, Anne-Louis de: lieutenant-colonel of the Cap-François regiment in charge of the eastern part of the north province.

Vásquez, Josef: key negotiator with the 1791 insurgents for the Spanish government of Santo Domingo. Was himself a mulatto and had relationships with Biassou and Jean- François.

xii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ADLA Archives Départmentales Loire-Atlantique, Nantes, France

AGI Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain

AGS Archivo General de Simancas, Simancas, Spain

AN Archives Nationales, Paris, France

ANOM Archives Nationales d’Outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence, France

CD Correspondance au depart, Archives Nationales, Paris, France

CMSM Collection Moreau de St Méry, Archives Nationales d’Outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence, France

COL Comité des Colonies, Archives Nationales, Paris, France

ETO Estado, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain

FM Fonds Ministériels, Archives Nationales d’Outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence, France

HLM The Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware

JCB The John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island

MP Mapas y Planos, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain

SGU Secretaría de Estado y del Despacho de Guerra, Archivo General de Simancas, Simancas, Spain

SD Audiencia de Santo Domingo, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, Spain

xiii

TIMELINE 1763 | End of the Seven Years’ War. Major turning point in the Atlantic world characterized by major reforms. 1772 | French regulation to restore order, known as “regalement du police.” Criminalized slaves’ activities and barred them from carrying weapons and/or conducting business. 1785 | French regulation introduced based on the Code Noir, which cut back on the ability of planters in Saint Domingue to treat their slaves inhumanely. 1789 | Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen declared by the National Assembly. The free people of color of Saint Domingue begin mobilizing for equal rights. 1790 | The colonial assembly of Saint Marc meets and declares that free people of color are not their equals. (October): Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes’ rebellion (December): Ogé and Chavannes are extradited back to Saint Domingue from Santo Domingo. 1791 | Ogé and Chavannes are publicly executed in Cap Français in February. (May): National Assembly decrees full rights for free people of color [born to free parents]. (August): Slave revolt in the northern province of Saint Domingue (November): First civil commission arrives in the colony. 1792 | Thomas-Antoine Mauduit is lynched by radical mob in Port-au-Prince and governor Blanchelande is driven out; he flees to Santo Domingo (March). (April): decree by Legislative Assembly ends racial discrimination in the colonies. (September): Second civil commission arrives in the colony. France is declared a republic. 1793 | By May, the Spanish conclude their allegiance with Jean-François and Georges Biassou, making them and their troops ‘auxiliaries’ of Carlos IV. (August): Commissioner Sonthonax abolishes slavery in the north. 1794 | By February, the French republican government declares emancipation for slaves

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in all of its colonies. (July): Toussaint Louverture turns on the Spanish and sides with republican French. 1795 | Spain signs Treaty of Basel with France in July, transferring Santo Domingo to the French. (December): Jean-François and Georges Biassou are exiled from Hispaniola. 1796 | Louverture’s power grows. (May): Sonthonax returns to colony with a new civil commission. (October): Boca Nigua revolts in Santo Domingo. 1797 | Sonthonax helps Louverture consolidate his power, but Louverture forces Sonthonax out of the colony. 1798 | Théodore Hédouville replaces Sonthonax in March and clashes with Louverture. By fall, Hédouville is also forced out and the British withdraw from the colony. 1799 | War of the South breaks out between Louverture and André Rigaud. (December): Napoleon Bonaparte seizes power late in the year. 1800 | Louverture assumes control of Saint Domingue after defeating Rigaud 1801 | Louverture marches into Spanish Santo Domingo and by July signs a constitution that makes him governor for life. 1802 | Napoleon sends his brother-in-law Emmanuel Leclerc to Saint Domingue to reinstitute slavery. By summer, Louverture is deported to France. By fall, Jean-Jacques Dessalines unites with Alexander Pétion. 1803 | Bloody campaign against France’s expeditionary troops and by the end of year, the French are returned to France. 1804 | Haitian independence is declared. Dessalines is proclaimed Emperor Jacques I of Haiti. 1806 | Emperor Jacques I of Haiti is assassinated and country is split into two – the north and the south. Pétion establishes a life-long presidency and Henri Christophe a Kingdom in the North. 1811 | Christophe is proclaimed King Henry I of the Kingdom of Haiti.

Introduction

On July 6, 1776, a man named Jean-Marie le Bourdais issued a brevet de grâce, or pardon request, to Saint Domingue’s secrétaire d’état (colonial councilor and secretary).1 Bourdais hoped King Louis XVI would accept the request, returning him to the protection of the French monarchy. The brevet detailed how Bourdais had been put in charge of his absentee brother’s plantation around 1755. During these years, Bourdais engaged in a serious dispute with the plantation's sugar refiner, a man named Rouzier.

Allegedly, during the dispute Rouzier feared that Bourdais would “excite the blacks” and decided to put him in the stocks, a “humiliating treatment” according to the document, and a “punishment in the colonies typically reserved for slaves.”2 Bourdais was released by a local militia and, at the first opportunity to exact vengeance, severely injured

Rouzier with a pistol shot to the head. Rouzier died from his injuries the following day and Bourdais was sentenced to death on April 26, 1756. Fearing for his life, Bourdais fled to the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo and spent the next twenty years living in exile.

In 1776, Bourdais decided he wanted to return to “la patrie,” his homeland. In addition to asking the French king to pardon him for murder, Bourdais asked for the full return of his goods and status in Saint Domingue. He expressed a desire to be freed from what he called “civil death.”3

1 Archives Nationales de Outre-Mer (Hereafter ANOM), Colonies (Hereafter: COL), Série A (Hereafter: A), 15 F 261, (6 July 1776).

2 Ibid., [Original French: il auroit excite les nêgres . . été un traitement ignominieux qui ne seroit reserve dans les colonies pour chattier les esclaves.]

3 Ibid., [Original French: de la mort civile.]

While we do not know the final outcome of Bourdais's case, his predicament raises questions about the nature of monarchical rule on a distant Caribbean island where plantation slavery was the dominant socio-economic system. It also points to the ways in which the colonial border in Hispaniola enabled retreat and escape. The porosity of the border between Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo was an important fact of pre- revolutionary life in Saint Domingue, as well as during the Haitian Revolution and in the years that followed. Moreover, the colonial frontier facilitated transcolonial networks linking the French and Spanish, often affording subjects of the French crown in Saint

Domingue certain protections on the Spanish side, as Bourdais’ petition demonstrated.

By contrast, Bourdais's desire to return to the shelter of the French crown after an absence of some years suggests that French Saint Domingue could also offer its subjects certain privileges and protections. Even more importantly, these types of petitions were not limited to white French colonists, which Bourdais most likely was. They were also part of a broader system of governance in both Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo that made it possible for Africans and African descendants to make use of the law and religious institutions and customs in order to gain rights and freedoms. Within such a system, a distant king provided African and African-descendant subjects in Saint

Domingue and Santo Domingo with a potent arbiter of justice and guarantor of freedom in the face of despotic colonists who otherwise monopolized brutal and racialized violence.

A glimpse of the king’s alleged authority in Saint Domingue comes from a 1785 report by the Chamber of Agriculture at Cap-Français or, Le Cap, as it was more commonly known. The report detailed an encounter between black and white inhabitants

of Saint Domingue’s northern port town thus: “on Rue Royale, a man told a group of

Negroes making a noise in front of his house to go away. He received the reply, ‘The street doesn’t belong to you; it belongs to the king’!”4 Taken literally, this phrase suggests that the power of the French monarchy was entrenched in the minds of Africans and African descendants in Saint Domingue. Perhaps it was. And while Bourdais’ brevet was based on a personal dispute and could be read as merely self-serving, it nevertheless demonstrated his presumed desire to be a “subject of the king,” in this case the French king.5 Such seemingly old-fashioned appeals to and understandings of monarchical authority and ideas of kingship are at the very core of this dissertation. Throughout the documentary record, I find Haiti's famous black rebels looking backward in time and sideways across the Spanish border, even as they looked forward to an uncertain future.

The Black Royalists

My interest in royalism in the Haitian Revolution was piqued by what struck me as a paradoxical stance by Saint Domingue’s black revolutionaries. In August of 1791, the insurgents set the colony ablaze, shouting “Long live the King!” and “I burn my nation!”6 My initial desire was to try and understand what upholding the throne of the very king whose colony had enslaved them in the first place may reveal about the ideological dispositions of former slaves who decided to fight not for a French Republic,

4 ANOM, F3/126, fols. 408-410. Chambre d’Agriculture report, 2 June 1785, cited in: David Patrick Geggus, “The Slaves and Free People of Color of Cap Français,” in Jorge Cañizares- Esguerra, Matt Childs and James Sidbury (eds.), The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 115-135 [119-120].

5 I borrow John Thornton’s use of the expression. (See: John Thornton, “I Am the Subject of the King of Congo”: African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution,” Journal of World History, 4:2 (October 1993), 181-214).

6 AGI, Santo Domingo, 1029, N. 4, (1791)

but for a dying monarchy. Moreover, what did it mean that the majority of the African descended insurgents from 1791 decided to fight for Carlos IV of Spain following the public beheading of Louis XVI?

The first step in answering such questions required reorienting Haitian revolutionary debates. I felt I had to step back from French, British, and American- centered interpretations to sketch a broader framework that included the Spanish Empire as well as West and Central Africa. In doing so, I sought to trace royalism as a relevant political force running through the Haitian Revolution. This demanded a more complex or broader characterization of royalism than what scholars have traditionally argued: that it was the exact opposite of Republicanism, i.e., slavish devotion to a monarch. Not everyone has taken such a hard view. For example, Laurent Dubois has argued for reading the presence of “ideologies such as ‘royalism’ and ‘Republicanism’ not in terms of their European meanings, but those gained in the colonial context.”7 In my case, this context encompasses all of colonial Hispaniola, an island with a deeply entwined history linking French Saint Domingue and Spanish Santo Domingo. The relevant context includes a porous borderland marked by a constant back-and-forth flow of peoples, commodities, and ideas. The context was also of an island in which the overwhelming presence of African slaves—particularly from the Kongo—meant that many if not most inhabitants understood politics within the framework of kingship (and queen-ship), either divine or divinely sanctioned. Central African kingship or royalism was not the equivalent of Bourbon absolutism, French or Spanish, but it was shot through with

7 Laurent Dubois, “Our Three Colors’: The King, the Republic and the Political Culture of Slave Revolution in Saint-Domingue.” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 29:1 (Spring 2003), 83-102 [84].

deference and hierarchy. Thus it is through this comparative or wide-angle lens that I attempt to examine the complex and varied phenomenon of royalism within the Haitian

Revolution.

My goal is to demonstrate how tumultuous times still called for certain shared principles and perspectives, with royalism serving as a multi-faceted touchstone.

Following Dubois, my dissertation will attempt to analyze the political culture behind royalism and monarchical tendencies by focusing on the “complicated choices the slaves made.”8 In using the term royalism, I do not intend to assume that royal families and lineages were trans-geographic historical concepts that meant the same thing to, say,

Spanish soldiers on Hispaniola, gens de couleur (free people of color) from Saint

Domingue, and recently arrived slaves coming from disparate socio-political contexts of

West or Central Africa. On the contrary, I assume they were different. Indeed, one of the challenges of this work is that royalism is too often treated as a Eurocentric expression that not only excludes Africa and African-descended peoples, but that also mystifies modern readers.

In order to better grasp eighteenth-century royalism as a flexible but meaningful ideology, I find David Armitage’s two-part definition useful. Armitage calls ideology a

“programmatic sense of a systemic model of how society functions,” and “a world-view

8 Dubois, “Our Three Colors,” 93. Dubois asserts that analyzing the political culture of the insurgents in dichotomies that pit Republican and Royalist traditions simplifies and obscures slaves’ choices. While I agree with this statement, I believe that if we reframe the history of royalism in Saint Domingue in both a local context (i.e. sharing the island with Spanish Santo Domingo), and a more Atlantic perspective (i.e. Slaves who only knew monarchical systems of governance in Africa), then we can begin to fully explore how royalism and monarchical thought were intertwined with notions of rights and freedoms.

which is perceived as contestable by those who do not share it.”9 In this sense, royalism as an ideology fits neatly into the narrative of the Haitian Revolution (as it might in other contexts), but I find Marcela Echeverri’s conceptualizations of royalism in this era to be more useful and precise for my purposes. Echeverri claims that royalism in late-colonial times signified “a primary pole of the ideological, military, and political spectrum in

Spanish America.”10 To Echeverri, “liberalism and monarchism were not necessarily antithetical and reform and revolution were deeply connected in the Spanish World.”11

Furthermore, Echeverri sees the politics of royalism as “socially embedded” and “deeply tied” to legal frameworks and to the ways in which monarchical structures in the Spanish empire “provided all Spanish vassals with legal identities that ultimately granted them rights and protected their interests, particularly through the mediation of the crown.”12

One could say that royalism in the transitional years of the late eighteenth century was a malleable ideology, one that would maintain its appeal when set against a more rigid and ultimately alien republicanism.

I ground my dissertation in these concepts of malleable, enlightened royalism and inter-imperial mobility, set within a shifting historical context, a bifurcated island. I specifically identify the ways in which loyalty to a king was one of the primary modes of political engagement throughout Hispaniola both before and after 1791. I argue that

9 David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 4.

10 Marcela, Echeverri’s, Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution: Reform, Revolution and Royalism in the Northern Andes, 1780-1825 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 9.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

Africans and African descendants in Saint Domingue deployed a blend of royalist ideas rooted in an abiding faith in authority, hierarchy, and patronage to fashion a composite understanding of rights and freedoms. They drew from this composite toolkit to contest and elaborate new notions of enlightenment and nationalism. My dissertation follows

Echeverri’s example, defining royalism as “a dynamic process” through which Africans and African descendants in Saint Domingue engaged in the “reinvention and negotiation of their rights and obligations” at the crossroads of “local and imperial contexts.”13

An Entwined Loyalty

This dissertation is also a story of the Haitian Revolution as seen from the perspective of the Spanish Empire. I contend that Africans and African descendants’ ideological formulations of royalism were not limited to the shifting political and intellectual landscapes within Saint Domingue and suggest that they also understood nearby Spanish Santo Domingo’s legal, political, and religious structures. Similarly, some of the main leaders of the Haitian Revolution were also informed by intellectual debates that extended beyond local circumstances and into the circum-Caribbean and

Atlantic worlds. Yet, by “zooming in” on Hispaniola's colonial frontier, I demonstrate that Saint Domingue’s Africans and African descendants were able to not only cross the border into Spanish territory for leisure or business, but also to develop social networks that helped shape how they understood their places and possibilities within the entire island of Hispaniola. I show that chronic border crossers had an acute awareness of

Spanish practices and often also proclaimed loyalty to the Spanish monarchs. In focusing on “revolutionaries” whose allegiances were forced to shift and harden because of

13 Ibid., 16.

unforeseen circumstances, I assert that people from Saint Domingue became pivot points between empires and sometimes destabilized supposedly inflexible structures. Spanish policy and material assistance were often wanting or ambivalent, but by adjusting our focus to the level of individuals whose personal and community destinies were in question due to rapidly shifting contexts, I show that no choice was easy and often people did things that are not easily understood from our vantage point. The border represented multiple dualities: it was a place of hope and misunderstanding, escape and entrapment.

Perhaps no other character in the Haitian Revolution represented a more perfect dualisme than Toussaint Louverture. As it happens, my dissertation began as a project about Louverture’s involvement in the August 1791 slave revolts in the northern plains of

Saint Domingue. I had come across documents in the Spanish archives that implicated

Louverture as a member of a royalist conspiracy in which counterrevolutionaries sought to eliminate radical republican and secessionist colonists.14 The records described

Louverture as a pious Catholic who had been chosen to lead a movement that sought to restore the absolute power of France’s Louis XVI. It painted Louverture as an intermediary between the conservative planter class of Saint Domingue and the slave masses. Yet, the document turned out to be a forgery and quite possibly an invention by

Louverture in an attempt to, later on, write himself back into the early stages of the

Revolution. Despite this deceit, however, the idea that privileged intermediaries such as

Louverture may have conspired with conservative planters struck me as not entirely implausible. After all, the notion of arming one’s own slaves was not foreign to most

American slave societies at this time or before. Indeed, at various times and to varying

14 I cover this material at greater length in chapter four.

degrees, British, Dutch, French, and Spanish slave owners resorted to arming their own slaves in times of great upheaval, especially amid foreign attacks. David Brion Davis asked the crucial question: “why would the master class ever dream of supplying such inherent enemies with arms?”15 One explanation was through what legal scholars termed

“the doctrine of necessity.”16 In other words, self-preservation and survival were paramount.

It is important not to conflate royalism with loyalism, but it is worth looking elsewhere in the revolutionary Atlantic world for examples of pragmatic slave armament and its various meanings. Maya Jasanoff and Brendan McConville provide examples of armed slaves in their works on British loyalists in the American Revolutionary War.17

Jasanoff claims that “loyalism cut right across the social, geographical, racial, and ethnic spectrum of early America . . for the half million black slaves in the thirteen colonies, the revolution presented a striking opportunity when British officers offered freedom to slaves who agreed to fight. Twenty thousand slaves seized this promise.”18 How appealing then was loyalism (shaded by a widely shared royalist ideology) amid the

Haitian Revolution? Perhaps loyalism offered, to use Jasanoff’s words—the chance to put

15 David Brion Davis, “Introduction” in Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age, editors Christopher Leslie Brown and Philip D. Morgan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 1.

16 Ibid., 3.

17 Brendan McConville, The King’s Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America, 1688-1776 (Chapel Hill: Published for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, Virginia, by the University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 3. Maya Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011). Another important study is: Ruma Chopra, Choosing Sides: Loyalists in Revolutionary America (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield Press, 2013).

18 Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles, 8.

a “different stamp on the world.”19 If so, it is possible that in addition to emancipatory republicanism the Haitian Revolution bequeathed to the rest of the Atlantic World a complex, if authoritarian, royalism.

In a curious coincidence, the aforementioned Jean-Marie le Bourdais, murderer on the lam in Santo Domingo, turned in his brevet two days after the Second Continental

Congress issued the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in

Philadelphia. The choice had been made to abandon royalism as a corrupt ideology.

Seventeen years later, French revolutionaries executed their nation's monarch, Louis

XVI. Regicide was no longer simply metaphorical. As is well known, both of these revolutions ushered in a new era of constitutional republics and provided new models of governance in the Atlantic world, soon touching off violent independence movements throughout the Spanish Americas. And yet, it is often forgotten that Simón Bolívar, one of the most well known of South American independence fighters, drew inspiration from

Haiti, which adopted monarchy, rather than revolutionary France or the fledgling United

States.

Republic & Kingdom

In 1815, in search of aid for his struggling independence movement in greater

New Granada, Bolívar visited Alexander Pétion in the Republic of Haiti. In an effort to repay Pétion’s support, Bolívar added the abolition of slavery to his independence platform. He called Haiti “the island of free men.”20 Pétion’s Republic of Haiti, which

19 Ibid., 11.

20 Laurent Dubois, Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, 1st ed. (New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt, 2012), 60.

ruled the southern half of the former colony of Saint Domingue, offered both practical and inspirational support to the initiatives of Bolívar in South America. But Pétion was not the only significant political player in newly independent Haiti.

Following the January 1, 1804 declaration of independence, Jean-Jacques

Dessalines famously declared: “I have saved my country. I have avenged America.”21 In recognition of his heroism, Dessalines was named first head of state of the first modern black nation in the Americas.22 Later that year, he established the First Empire of Haiti.

Dessalines' reign was short, and after he was assassinated in 1806 the country split in two. The southern part of Haiti became a republic under the control of Pétion, and the northern region was declared a kingdom under the rule of Henri Christophe. Once a subordinate of Dessalines, Christophe declared himself king and remarked he was the

“first monarch crowned in the New World.”23 Not everyone in Haiti was happy with this situation, and as Laurent Dubois put it, the young nation “again found itself in a civil war.”24

The schism between Pétion and Henri I provides a useful conceptual framework with which to understand a broader dichotomy within the historiography of the Haitian

Revolution. One of the first things one notices is that narratives of republicanism are pitted against practices rooted in the Old Regime. In other words, even though the Haitian

21 Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambrdige: Harvard University Press, 2004), 301.

22 David P. Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 207.

23 Ibid., 61.

24 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 303.

Revolution ostensibly marked a break with the French and Spanish monarchies, "feudal" and Old Regime tendencies remained. A closer look reveals more complications. As

Michel-Rolph Trouillot noted, in some ways, Pétion’s republic represented a more creole and mixed-race elite class than that of creole or African-born blacks.25 It was not racially democratic. Henri Christophe’s kingdom in the north, conversely, symbolized a continuation of monarchical rule, which critics deemed as “inherently risible.”26 Why risible? Because Henri I's kingdom went against the revolutionary tide for those on the left and for those on the right because he had no viable genealogical claim to any Haitian throne. Nevertheless, a closer reading of both Pétion's and Henri Christophe's regimes demonstrates that they were not as different as they first appeared. Both were rooted in authoritarian principles in which, whether you were a king or a president, you had a lifetime appointment. Participatory democracy was not yet on the table. This is the story of the Haitian Revolution I wish to tell, one in which Old Regime practices did not end with the early transition to new systems of governance.

Even so, the seemingly ideological split between kingdom and republic alludes to the conundrum proposed by Michel-Rolph Trouillot of a “war within a war,” in which black Creoles are at odds with African-born former slaves.27 Although Trouillot situated his analysis within the context of the final two years before independence (1802-1803),28

25 Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 38.

26 Dubois, Haiti, 63.

27 Trouillot, Silencing the Past, 37.

28 Ibid., 40. Trouillot explains that in the war for independence against the French forces of Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc (Napoleon Bonaparte’s brother in law), there was also another

it in some ways informs broader historiographical debates which have sought to explain the history of the Haitian Revolution, to free it from apparent contradictions. As the following section shows, questions of class and race were often the focus of debates that attempted to center the legacy of the Haitian Revolution within the broader Atlantic histories of slave emancipation and independence.

Writing the Revolution

The historiography of the Haitian Revolution is deep and contentious, interwoven with the broader history of pre-revolutionary Saint Domingue. Contemporaneous writers of colonial Saint Domingue such as Méderic-Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry to a degree laid the foundation by describing the many aspects of slave society. Later, authors of the nineteenth century wrote histories of Haiti that publicized the Haitian Revolution, an important project since, as Robert Taber notes, the revolution was an event that “slaveholding and imperialist neighbors wanted to ignore.”29 Thomas Madiou and Beaubrun

Ardouin were key contributors, although some saw them as members of a “French- oriented mulatto school” that “wrote histories to serve the interests of Haiti’s mulâtre ruling class.”30 Twentieth-century histories of Haiti and the Haitian Revolution took a sharp new turn, although some scholars ended up rehabilitating the Old Regime. A leading French historian, Gabriel Debien, wrote carefully researched studies based on

war that was being fought between black Creoles (natives of the island, or of the Caribbean) and “bossales”—African-born former slaves who were largely from the Congo.

29 Robert Taber, “Navigating Haiti’s History: Saint-Domingue and the Haitian Revolution,” History Compass 13:5 (2015), 235-250 [236].

30 Ibid.; David P. Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006), 70. See: Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti (Port-au-Prince: Courtois, 1847-1848) and Beaubrun Ardouin, Études sur l’histoire d’Haïti (Paris: Dezobry et Magdelaine, 1853-1860), reprinted, F. Dalencour, ed., 11 vols. in 1, (Port-au-Prince: Dalencour, 1958).

archival materials about slave life in Saint Domingue. Debien’s work offered a vivid look at plantation life from the viewpoint of Saint Domingue’s planters.31

Most twentieth-century scholars of the Haitian Revolution had other aims. They longed to explain the independence of the former French colony through the lens of the

French Revolution, often paying much attention to the towering figure of Toussaint

Louverture.32 This trend was solidified by one of the Caribbean’s leading historians,

C.L.R. James, whose monumental work The Black Jacobins stood from its first publication in 1938 until the 1980s as “the most important book in English on the Haitian

Revolution.”33 James’s work was all the more important in light of the fact that Haiti’s history was “long ignored by Western historians,” including prominent Marxist historians.34 The Black Jacobins not only helped to prove that the Haitian Revolution deserved a place in the pantheon of Atlantic revolutions but, in doing so, it also paved the way for an anticolonial literature that helped to shape the direction of future studies.35

Aimé Césaire, for instance, raised consciousness about the Haitian Revolution among

31 Gabriel Debien, Les colons de Saint-Domingue et la Révolution (Paris: Colin, 1953) and Les esclaves aux Antilles Françaices (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles) (Basse-Terre, Guadeloupe: Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1974).

32 C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1963); Aimé Césaire, Toussaint Louverture, la Révolution française et le problème colonial (Paris: Club français du livre, 1961).

33 Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, “Beyond The Black Jacobins: Haitian Revolutionary Historiography Comes of Age,” The Journal of Haitian Studies 23:1 (2017), 4-34 [5].

34 Sepinwall, “Beyond the Black Jacobins,” 6. It is well known, for example, that Eric Hobsbawm The Age of Revolution: Europe, 1789-1848 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962) only made three passing mentions of the Haitian Revolution in his study.

35 James, The Black Jacobins, 11.

mid-twentieth-century French intellectuals.36 For all of their achievements, however, the works of James and Césaire, according to Alyssa Sepinwall, essentially presented the

Haitian Revolution “as an adjunct to European history.”37 James had proposed, after all, that slaves in Saint Domingue were “black Jacobins.”38

In the long shadow of James and Césaire, works on the Haitian Revolution have shifted to another kind of story, a history of mass rebellion “from below” turned revolution.39 In this story figures such as Toussaint are not as prominent. Carolyn Fick’s history of the rural slave masses and marronage, as well as Jean Fouchard’s The Haitian

Maroons have helped to put popular black culture at the forefront of the Revolution.40

Other scholars have focused on marronage and vodou to paint a picture of pre- revolutionary Saint Domingue, providing more likely causal factors for the great slave revolt of 1791.41 Scholars have also critically debated the Haitian Revolution’s role in

36 Sepinwall, “Beyond the Black Jacobins,” 10.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid., 14.

39 This is the intent of and the book title of Carolyn Fick’s pioneering study The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution From Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990).

40 Ibid. Jean Fouchard, The Haitian Maroons: Liberty or Death, trans E. Faulkner Watts (New York: Blyden Press, 1981).

41 On the centrality of the August 1791 revolts, marronage, and voodoo: Yves Benot, “The Insurgents of 1791, Their Leaders and the Concept of Independence,” in The World of the Haitian Revolution, ed. Geggus and Fiering (Indiana University Press, 2009), 153-171; Pierre Pluchon, Vaudou, sorciers, empoisonneurs: De Saint-Domingue à Haïti (Karthala, 1987). On pre- revolutionary Saint Domingue and the importance of free people of color: John D. Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Dominuge (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006); Garrigus, “Thy Coming Fame, Ogé! Is Sure”: New Evidence on Ogé’s Revolt and the Beginning of the Haitian Revolution,” in Assumed Identities: The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World, eds., Garrigus and Christopher Morris (Texas A&M University Press, 2010), 19-45; Garrigus, “Vincent Ogé Jeune (1757-91): Social Class and Free Colored Mobilization on the Eve of the Haitian Revolution,” Americas 68, no. 1 (July 2011): 33-62; Stewart R. King, Blue Coat or

shaping western democratic and abolitionist ideals. Others have examined the shifting socio-political circumstances and imperial rivalries faced by the French colony of Saint

Domingue, and some scholars have gone so far as to propose that French revolutionary ideals of citizenship, democracy, and human rights took on various articulations in the

Caribbean colonies and that, paradoxically, traveled across the Atlantic and influenced people in the metropolis.42 Historians have also analyzed the profound impact of the revolution within broader histories of the Americas and the Atlantic world.43

The role of royalism in the Haitian Revolution has long been the subject of contentious debates, perhaps because it did not match the revolutionary ideals of, say, a traditional Marxist reading. In many ways, C.L.R. James’ The Black Jacobins set this precedent, or expectation. My project thus offers a fuller understanding of what David P.

Geggus has called the “Church and King” rhetoric of Saint Domingue’s insurgents,

Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue (University of Georgia Press, 2001).

42 Seminal works include, James, The Black Jacobins (1963); David P. Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, (Indiana University Press, 2002); Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: the Story of the Haitian Revolution, (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004) & A Colony of Citizens: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Jeremy D. Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery, (Cambridge University Press, 2010).

43 Julius Scott, “The Common Wind: Currents of Afro-American Communication in the Era of the Haitian Revolution” (Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1986); David Patrick Geggus and Norman Fiering, eds., The World of the Haitian Revolution (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009); David Patrick Geggus, The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2001); Ada Ferrer, Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014) and “Speaking of Haiti: Slavery, Revolution, and Freedom in Cuban Slave Testimony,” In The World of the Haitian Revolution, edited by David Patrick Geggus and Norman Fiering (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009); Jane Landers, Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010); Julia Gaffield, Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World: Recognition after Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

which James glossed over in his search for modern revolutionaries.44 Africanist John K.

Thornton’s work on Kongolese worldviews in Saint Domingue has perhaps provided the most insight into the topic of monarchical thought and its potential influence.45 Scholars now generally agree that the insurgents of 1791 had complex incentives to embrace royalism. One such incentive was the rumor that the King of France had granted slaves three free days a week, but that his decree had been suppressed by greedy planters. But this is not much to go on, and it appears baldly pragmatic to support such a monarch. The

"real" royalist history of the Haitian Revolution has yet to be written. I argue that the notion that the August 1791 slave revolts were actually a counterrevolutionary conspiracy, as one scholar put it, “should not be dismissed out of hand.”46 My research contributes to both of these aspects of Haitian revolutionary history, arguing that collusion between loyalist white colonists and royalist free black intermediaries ultimately helped stimulate the general slave revolts of 1791. What they did not expect, of course, was the result they got: an independent black nation.

Some scholars have recently focused on representing the relationship between

Africans and African descendants in Saint Domingue with France’s Ancien Régime at the dawn of the revolution.47 While such scholarship is important, I also draw from works that point to the ways in which black subjects within the Spanish Empire were able to

44 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 12; Dubois,

45 Thornton, “I Am the Subject,” (1993).

46 Philippe R. Girard, “The Haitian Revolution, History’s New Frontier: State of the Scholarship and Archival Sources,” Slavery & Abolition 34:3 (November 2012), 485-507 [494].

47 For their understanding of the French laws, I am informed by Malick Ghachem’s The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

navigate judicial structures in order to secure freedom and rights for themselves. Legally pluralistic societies where multiple judicial structures intersected are especially significant, and understanding the mechanics of appeal and adjudication for enslaved and free people of color is essential to understanding Spanish Santo Domingo in particular.

Hispaniola's division created spaces within which African descendants could put their understandings of the law into practice.

The situation was of course not static, and the era of the Bourbon reforms, especially after the Seven Years War, accelerated legal and social upheaval throughout

Spanish America.48 I argue that the island of Hispaniola prior to the Haitian Revolution was no different. People of African descent, especially those living near the borderlands, understood the laws of the French and the Spanish. The documentary record on the

Spanish side is thus of special interest here, and I contribute something new to Haitian revolutionary scholarship by presenting the 1790 Spanish fact-finding mission (sumaria)

48 See: Herman Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640 (Indiana University Press, 2003); Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 2002); Sherwin K. Bryant, Rachel Sarah O’Toole, and Ben Vinson III, eds., Africans to Spanish America: Expanding the Diaspora (University of Illinois Press, 2012); Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (University of Illinois Press, 1999); Ben Vinson III, Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico (Stanford Univeristy Press, 2003); Rebecca Scott, Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2005); Sue Peabody, “Free Upon Higher Ground:” Saint-Domingue Slaves’ Suits for Freedom in U.S. Courts, 1792-1830,” in Geggus and Fiering, The World of the Haitian Revolution, 261-283; Cristina Soriano, “A true vassal of the King”: Pardo literacy and political identity in Venezuela during the Age of Revolutions.” Atlantic Studies, 14:3 (2017): 275-295 and Tides of Revolution: Information, Insurgencies, and The Crisis of Colonial Rule in Venezuela (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, Diálogos Series, 2018); Allan J. Kuethe and Kenneth J. Andrien. The Spanish Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century: War and the Bourbon Reforms, 1713-1796 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); David T. Garrett, “His Majesty’s Most Loyal Vassals”: The Indian Nobility and Tupac Amaru Hispanic American Historical Review, 84:4 (November 2004), 575-617 and “En lo remoto de estos reynos”: Distance, Jurisdiction, and Royal Government in late Habsburg Cusco” Colonial Latin American Review, 21:1 (April 2012), 17-43.

behind the arrest of prominent free men of color Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste

Chavannes, as well as other Spanish documentation that reveals the important actions of border crossers and sanctuary-seeking Africans and African descendants.

My dissertation also joins a broader effort by historians to understand so-called entangled histories in the Atlantic world during the Age of Revolutions, histories whose subjects did not fit established categories and whose trajectories escape standard narratives. My project is informed by scholarship that situates African descendants as primary actors in shaping the geo-politics of the revolutionary Atlantic era. Such works illustrate slaves and African descendants’ evasion of rigid colonial boundaries, navigation of interimperial and transimperial networks, creating an intellectual history that challenges European concepts of modernity.49 I build upon this literature and investigate how Africans and African descendants in Saint Domingue forged sovereignties for themselves by drawing on capacious social, political, and religious structures within an

49 Eliga H. Gould, “Entangled Histories, Entangled Worlds: The English-Speaking Atlantic as a Spanish Periphery,” The American Historical Review, 112:3 (June, 2007), 764-786; Matt D. Childs, The 1812 Aponte Rebellion in Cuba and the Struggle Against Atlantic Slavery (The University of North Carolina Press, 2006); Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution & Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804 (University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Ada Ferrer, Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2014); Sibylle Fischer, Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and The Cultures of Slavery in the Age of Revolution (Duke University Press, 2004); Jane Landers, Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions (Harvard University Press, 2010); Gary B. Nash, The Unknown American Revolution: the Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America (Viking Press, 2005). More recent works by Nessler, Eller, Yingling, and Ulrickson have provided important insights into the need to fashion an islandwide understanding of the events that shaped the struggles for freedom in Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo during the Age of Revolutions and the post-independence period. See: Graham T. Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom: Revolution, Emancipation, and Reenslavement in Hispaniola, 1789-1809, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016); Charlton W. Yingling, “The Maroons of Santo Domingo in the Age of Revolutions: Adaptation and Evasion, 1783-1800,” History Workshop Journal 79 (Spring 2015), 25-51; Anne Eller, We Dream Together: Dominican Independence, Haiti, and the Fight for Caribbean Freedom (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016); Maria Cecilia Ulrickson, “Cultivators, Domestics, and Slaves: Slavery in Santo Domingo Under Louverture and Napoleon, 1801-1803,” The Americas 76:2 (April 2019), 241-266.

entangled world dominated only in name by the French, Spanish, and British empires.

These empires were in flux, often showing their fragility. For instance, Saint Domingue after the Seven Years War saw the rise of anticlericalism, the weakening of Christian religious instruction, and the suppression of the Jesuit Order, whose priests (cures des nègres) had been accused of providing protection and asylum to slaves. Spanish America also experienced such trends, but the so-called Bourbon Reforms fell far short of the radical moves of the French Revolution.50 My project thus interrogates how, shortly after the 1791 revolts, insurgent leaders such as Jean François Papillon and Georges Biassou began negotiating with a Spanish priest named Josef Vásquez in hopes of gaining the support of the Spanish colonial government for their counterrevolution.51 I argue that

Christian Spaniards like Vásquez must have appealed to the black revolutionaries, who were disillusioned with the French church, distrusted the British, and whose royalism was informed by an unwavering loyalty to the Catholic faith.

My dissertation also frames royalism within West and Central African cultural, political, and religious traditions. Historians and anthropologists have drawn vivid portraits of the ways in which African worldviews may have been transmitted to the New

World, and how cultural practices that emerged in the Atlantic context were blended with several origins.52 As part of my transimperial approach to the Haitian Revolution, I probe

50 Sue Peabody, “A Dangerous Zeal”: Catholic Missions to Slaves in the French Antilles, 1635- 1800,” French Historical Studies 25, no. 1 (2002): 53-90.

51 AGI, Santo_Domingo 1030, N.390, F.546, Year 1792.

52 James Sweet, Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770 (Chapel Hill, 2003); Jason R. Young, Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic Religion in Kongo and the Lowcountry South in the Era of Slavery (Louisiana State University Press, 2007); Ras Michael Brown, African-Atlantic Cultures and the South Carolina Lowcountry

studies of Christian Africa in the eighteenth century and investigate how Roman Catholic and other religious frameworks may have influenced the ideologies or mindsets of Saint

Domingue’s African descendants. My contribution is twofold. First, by focusing on

Christianity in Saint Domingue, my project adds to already existing evidence that suggests African political and military ideologies influenced black revolutionaries.53

Second, focusing on Christian and royalist Africa provides another point of view to complement a long-standing historiographical tradition that centers cultural and religious frameworks in Saint Domingue within the study of Vodou.

Methodology and Chapters

In striving to produce a truly Atlantic history of how African descendants from various traditions could have been united under the banner of royalism, I have necessarily taken up a multi-sited archival methodology that explores records across various repositories in Spain, France, and the United States. Utilizing a holistic approach that traces individuals’ lives through different institutions of colonial governance, my work is held together by core questions regarding the ideological nature of power and resistance within a changing political and transimperial context. How did people of diverse backgrounds and interests hang together through thick and thin? What changed and what seemed to stay the same? Was it possible to unite in armed struggle while maintaining a plurality of royalist views? My dissertation is not simply a political and intellectual

(Cambridge University Press, 2012); Cécile Fromont, The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo (OIEAH/University of North Carolina Press, 2014).

53 John K. Thornton, “I am a Subject of the King of Kongo: African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution,” Journal of World History IV (1993): 181-214.

history of the concept of royalism. It is also a broader exploration of the legal and cultural histories of African descendants before and during the Revolution.

My story is told in four chapters. The first two chapters establish the context and the next two home in on the crux of events. Chapter one, “Worlds Together, Worlds Apart:

The Bourbon Dynasties, Reform, and the Fashioning of a ‘Harmonious’ Island,” examines the formation of the imperial polities of Santo Domingo and Saint Domingue on the island of Hispaniola. I provide a brief introduction to the European conquest and colonization of the Spanish and then French settlements. I also trace the process by which

Spain, through the Treaty of Ryswick (1697), ceded the western third of the island to the

French. I then present archival cases of rebellion conspiracies organized by slaves in

Saint Domingue as early as 1720. I also show that there was already by this time a network of trans-border interaction. Slaves and free residents of Saint Domingue recognized the Spanish side of the island as a safe haven from harsh French legal frameworks. I analyze the rise of the eighteenth-century Bourbon dynasties of France and

Spain, and their entrance into the Seven Years’ War with Great Britain. In the aftermath of the Seven Years’ War, crucial decrees were issued, opening a new period of reform in the colony of Saint Domingue – the Réglement du Police. Here, I introduce the notion of harmony between these “sister” colonies. Effectively, these measures were a means by which Spain and France sought to protect themselves from British intervention. This period also witnessed the so-called Bourbon Reforms in colonial Spanish America, which impacted life in Santo Domingo directly, and on Saint Domingue indirectly. By the 1780s we begin to see the regulation of slave society in Saint Domingue by a number of reforms and regulations implemented under the Code Noir. Malick Ghachem argues that this

regulation was read by many of the enslaved in Saint Domingue as a sort of royal judgment of oppressive slaveowners on the part of the French King.54

Chapter two, “An Entwined Borderlands: ‘Good Order,’ Rayanos, and Free People of

Color on the Eve of the Revolution,” analyzes the real and rising fear of a general slave insurrection that permeated Hispaniola by 1790 if not before. Amid these fears, the notion of “good order” was introduced to frame reform measures. New regulations in

Saint Domingue had much to do with the massive influx of Congolese slaves who, incidentally, had considerable military experience back on the African continent. This chapter illuminates how despite the intense work done by officials and planters in Saint

Domingue to maintain an ideal of “order” (i.e. prohibiting slaves from bearing arms and selling sugar cane, criminalizing nighttime dances known as kalendas), and the work done by colonial slave runaway hunters (or militias known as chasseurs)—that resistance continued, evident in part in rising rates of marronage. As the chapter shows, suppression and flight enabled formation of intra-colonial networks, causing the border between the two colonies to be permeated. One of the characters introduced in this chapter, Claude

Milscent de Mussé, was a lieutenant in charge of a chasseur militia, which was made up mostly of free men of color.55 I then shift gears to examine how the explosion of the

French Revolution and the National Assembly in Paris altered the ways in which rights and grievances were beginning to be fought over in Saint Domingue. To this end, free people of color took a central role in calling for equal rights with colonial whites. I analyze the cases of Vincent Ogé and Jean Baptiste Chavannes, both free men of color

54 Ghachem, The Old Regime, 262.

55 I return to Mussé in the following chapter.

who attempted to lead a revolution of their own after the colonial assembly organized at

Le Cap in the north of Saint Domingue denied their rights. The work of John Garrigus is vital to understanding this episode, but he did not consider important material about Ogé and Chavannes housed in the Spanish archives. Following Graham Nessler’s lead, I analyze the Spanish court trial that eventually resulted in Ogé and his men’s extradition from Santo Domingo back to Saint Domingue. Of the many fascinating pieces of information we learn from Ogé’s trial in Santo Domingo is his use of the term rayano (a borderlands person or "line crosser" - from the Spanish raya). I posit that men of Ogé’s social standing had established durable economic, social, and kinship networks on the

Spanish side of the border.

The next two chapters focus on the contested chain of events that ended with

Haitian independence. Chapter three, “To Burn One’s Nation: Loyalist Collusion and

Towards a Better Understanding of the August 1791 Revolts,” attempts to formulate a new interpretation of a lingering conundrum for scholars of the Haitian Revolution: the possibility of a loyal and royalist counterrevolutionary plot as the spark that set off the watershed 1791 slave revolts. I analyze accounts from the Spanish archives in order to show that from the onset, correspondence between free black revolutionaries and Spanish colonial authorities in Santo Domingo featured rhetoric focused on religious faith, the king (or rather, both the French and Spanish kings), and the burning of nations (an allusion to radical republican factions in the colony). I then conduct an investigation of

Spanish intelligence reports in which white royalists were alleged to have collaborated with the rebel leaders in order to restore Louis XVI’s power. For instance, two men by the names of Monsieur de Rouvray and Monsieur de Cambefort are mentioned in an

interrogation testimony as having instigated the revolts from the beginning. I analyze

Rouvray’s personal writings, as well as the interrogations of various soldiers working under Cambefort right before many of them were deported to Paris to be put on trial.

Another French colonist mentioned in Spanish diplomatic correspondence is

Claude Milscent de Mussé, whose role, I believe, has been misunderstood. I analyze the defense memoirs Mussé wrote when he was on trial to be executed in Paris for counterrevolution. Another of the accused was Anne-Louis de Tousard, a planter whose defense testimony is also revealing. Finally, I offer a new analysis of the actions of slave rebels who show up in the Spanish record. The documents include an impassioned speech made by a man identified as Juan Bautista Bongard along with court testimonies from others—some of whom invoke the vengeance of Ogé.

Chapter four, “The Contingency of Allegiances: African Kingdoms, Vasallos del

Rey, and the Creation of (An) Other Empire,” examines the vital role of West and Central

African practices and theories of kingship—specifically those brought from the Kongo— and also details Spanish imperial support for the royalist rebel forces during the war against the French Republic and the British. This chapter analyzes the critical roles of some of the major movers of the Haitian Revolution, such as Georges Biassou, Jean

François, and Toussaint Louverture. I analyze the role of Catholic priests as intermediaries, as well as Spanish reactions to a black army that claimed to be willing to fight for their king (Carlos IV). Religious symbols such as crosses are also analyzed in light of prevailing European vs. African monarchical thought. In a material turn, this chapter briefly examines the role of Spanish flour in keeping Louverture’s and the other leaders’ armies alive and on campaign. This chapter also analyzes the August 27, 1793

slave emancipation in the North and the subsequent volte-face of Louverture. We follow him as he leads his well-nourished, powerful army back to the French side where the

Treaty of Basel was eventually signed. By 1796, competitors Biassou and Jean François were exiled.

This final chapter ends with my reinterpretation of the role of Louverture. I believe he was the initial leader behind the royalist plot of 1791. I present evidence that suggests

Louverture was in communication with certain colonial factions of the white royalist minority and that he did in fact conspire to lead a royalist movement. With the understanding that said claims may have been a pragmatic way for Louverture to write himself back into the revolutionary story—and thus a forged machination on his part—I call for a reassessment of Louverture’s legacy, and what his actions might mean when describing the struggle for freedoms and rights in the Haitian Revolution.

I conclude with a brief synopsis of the study, followed by closing thoughts on the legacy of an entangled royalism turned imperialism. To this end, I briefly analyze the

1804-1806 First Empire of Haiti ruled by Jean Jacques Dessalines up until his assassination, which was followed by the division of the empire into a northern Kingdom ruled by Henri Christophe (Henri I) and a Southern Republic headed by Alexander

Pétion. I argue that the year 1806 marks the conceptual closure of monarchical debate in

Haiti, not neglecting the fact of the establishment of a Second Empire in 1849. In sum, if we look at the ways in which independent Haiti's first leaders conceptualized their form of governance, we may ask if they were unprecedented or in line with broader Atlantic trends. For example, were Henri I or Pétion in any way like Spanish America's early authoritarian rulers or caudillos? How does our understanding of the legacy of the

Haitian Revolution change when viewed as a movement that in large part privileged authority, kingship, and hierarchical power structures? Laurent Dubois suggested that

Pétion and Henri I’s respective rules were not so different. I go a step further to say that

Haiti was fated to choose among kings.

Chapter One

“Worlds Together, Worlds Apart: The Bourbon Dynasties, Reform, and the Fashioning of a “Harmonious” Island.

On July 25, 1782, the governor of the French colony of Saint Domingue,

Guillaume-Léonard de Bellecombe, along with Intendant Alexandre-Jacques Bongars, wrote a letter to don Bernardo de Gálvez. Gálvez, military commander of the Spanish armies in the Caribbean and governor of Louisiana was, at the time, in the northern port city of Cap-Français (Le Cap).1 In their letter, the French royal bureaucrats expressed worry and dissatisfaction over their detention of a “Spanish guard on board a French vessel.” Apparently, their objection was not only that a Spaniard captained a ship into their port, but also that said Spaniard pretended the ship was Spanish. The man had presumably been detained near Port-au-Prince, the colonial administrative center at the time. It appeared that the French officers had already reported this case to the Spanish commander. Nonetheless, they indicated to Galvéz that the prisoner, one “Juan

Laguardia,” was an impostor who pretended to be both French and the ship’s owner, something the administrators felt “broke their laws.” Even so, Bellecombe and Bongars stated that this prisoner deserved [legal] “consideration” as someone residing within the realms of the king of France. They further asserted in their letter that the detained vessel was in every legal sense French, and that Laguardia had produced a bill of sale. It was not enough, as the French administrators then wrote that they demanded that Laguardia show them the official sale permission or authorization, which he proved unable to do.

1 Gálvez would become, in 1785, the Viceroy of New Spain. James A. Lewis, “Las Damas de la Havana, el Precursor, and Francisco de Saavedra: A Note on Spanish Participation in the Battle of Yorktown,” The Americas, Vol. 37 N.1 (July 1980), p. 83- 99.

Bellecombe and Bongars then stated that “[the law] disproves that M. La Garde is

French,” here beginning to refer to Laguardia by the French version of his name. They said they had not seen any evidence that La Garde had been baptized or educated in

France. According to the administrators, under French law a baptismal record verified a person’s “state,” or status. They described La Garde as a man of “versatile” qualities who had a Spanish name and dealt with the Spanish in their language but who, when pressed, switched and “resumed” speaking French, as well as having the “qualities of being”

French. Exasperated, the French officers then explained that Laguardia had presented a request in Spanish to the officer whom Gálvez himself had commissioned to serve as interrogator, and that Laguardia also signed off on the document as “Juan Laguardia.” By contrast, the French administrators indicated that in the contents of the request Laguardia maintained that he was French, and that he had also written a plea to the French judge in

French ending with the signature of “La Garde.” This latter request, according to

Bellecombe and Bongars, informed them of a matter that left them “significantly afflicted.” Because of this, they claimed, they were forced to notify the French crown, as well as to justify their communication to Gálvez.

Three days later, on July 28, 1782, a seemingly irritated and defensive Gálvez responded to the French administrators. As for their claims that Laguardia had broken

French laws, Gálvez stated that he “did not think so.” He asserted that perhaps Laguardia had violated some physical or jurisdictional boundaries, but as for the moral implications of the case, it was not worth insisting on this point. In other words, Gálvez seemed to believe that Laguardia had not intended to cross into French territory. The Spanish commander then asserted that a Spanish guard had been following him and his crew on a

Spanish ship, and that the so-called French impostor was also a Spanish prisoner and thus also possessed of certain (Spanish) legal rights. When responding to the statement that the king of France was the master of his realms, Gálvez expressed shock that Bellecombe would even utter such a statement as if to imply that he (Gálvez) was somehow not aware. Gálvez responded that Bellecombe well knew the great respect he had for his sovereign majesty, expressing his disappointment in Bellecombe for having suggested otherwise. Gálvez continued by saying that even though his veneration and respect for the

French king would never waiver, this did not mean he would change his mind on

Laguardia. He stated that neither a flag nor the alleged “quality” of pretending to be

French could fix Laguardia with such an identity. In other words, Gálvez posited that wearing a mask or providing a false name did not fundamentally alter who a person was.

Gálvez also responded to the claim that the vessel was French by pointing out that within

Spain’s laws it was in fact Spanish, since no theft nor “usurpation” had occurred to negate the crown’s rights to its property.

Later in his letter, with a hint of false naiveté, Gálvez assured the French administrators that he “doubted that a Spanish officer currently in service would board any ship that was not the property of the Spanish monarch.” As for the claims that the ship Laguardia traveled in belonged to France, Gálvez assured Bellecombe and Bongars that it did not; the new proprietor was actually a different “impostor” who had deceived

French authorities and had brought packages for him from Caracas. Gálvez admitted that this charlatan had managed to coax him into receiving orders for new Spanish expeditions with provisions drawn from Spanish suppliers. Gálvez then addressed the matter of Laguardia’s baptismal record by stating that such a document is nothing but a

“proof of religion,” while admitting that it “almost but not always” indicated one’s

“quality” (status), and one’s age and place of birth. He noted that for instance one might be born in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), but not be Turkish. Gálvez added that individuals who were part of the Régiment of Dillon and baptized in Ireland were in fact

English subjects, especially in the event they became prisoners of war and the British king decided their fates and charged them with having served the French. Finally, Gálvez returned to Laguardia and posed the French administrators with the question of why he should believe them and the ramblings of an “impostor” over the truths that he had just outlined. Gálvez’s final statement was crucial: he told Bellecombe and Bongars that just as they planned to inform the French crown of the issue at hand that he, too, would inform the Spanish monarchy and allow both crowns to “compare” evidence amongst themselves and decide who would have the “advantage.”2

This puzzling exchange between some of the late-eighteenth century Atlantic world’s most powerful colonial administrators points to several conundrums that this dissertation seeks to address. First, these men’s exchange sheds light on the often tense but mutually beneficial relationship between the Bourbon monarchies of France and

Spain, here in an intimate, colonial frontier setting. More specifically, the overlapping but incommensurable perspectives of these French and Spanish administrators speak to a complex web of political and administrative entanglements between St. Domingue and

Santo Domingo on the eve of revolution. The constant push-and-pull between France’s and Spain’s overseas colonial administrators shows them vying for “advantage,” as

2 Archives Nationales (Hereafter: AN), Colonies (Hereafter: COL), Série C9A (Hereafter: C9A), 152 N.6, Year 1782.

Gálvez called it, as if this were a zero-sum game. The letters lay bare a polite but dead- serious struggle between allies for geopolitical control.

Gálvez’s statements are especially illuminating in that he touches on questions of loyalty to the Bourbon crowns of France and Spain, on issues of cross-border or physical demarcations on the island of Hispaniola, on the importance of the law in Laguardia’s case, and perhaps most crucially, on the ambiguous production of identity, with

Laguardia as test case. Galvez suggests that being born in one place does not—should not—determine one’s sense of identity or national belonging. While Gálvez had his own motives in this exchange, his “enlightened” understanding of national identity as fluid and necessarily malleable in the wide Atlantic world, is a keystone of this study. Much like the elusive Señor Laguardia/Monsieur La Garde, the central characters in this work more often than not had to wend their way through multiple imperial labyrinths. Whether challenged by legal or religious authorities or tested for cultural affinities, Atlantic border-crossers were at the center of the Atlantic’s revolutionary turn.

Laguardia, perhaps too neatly, represents the “Atlantic Creole” in the Caribbean in the latter half of the eighteenth century.3 By demonstrating linguistic adroitness and a general “way of being” within both French and Spanish frameworks, Laguardia shows us that he knew how to negotiate within a precarious Atlantic world. He also points to the potential benefits for people who might be able to fluidly shift their identity and sense of belonging. In this regard, Spain’s Gálvez seems to be more convinced than both French administrators who saw Laguardia’s bilingualism and biculturalism as threatening.

Whether or not Laguardia was a danger to French colonial interests, however, is not what

3 I use Jane Landers’ formulation of the term: Jane Landers, Atlantic Creoles in the Age of Revolutions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010).

concerns me. Instead, it is Laguardia’s ability to consciously present and represent himself in the interstices of both French and Spanish language and identity. Laguardia clearly spoke both languages fluently, and his ability to give the impression (whether it was true or not) that he belonged to both worlds (France and Spain) is critical.

Laguardia’s ambiguous case provides a useful conceptual tool for better understanding the intricacies of how people navigated the terrestrial and – in this case – maritime borderlands of the circum-Caribbean, and specifically the island of Hispaniola.

In this chapter, I argue that Spanish and French “ways of being” were integral to the fashioning of the island as perhaps the eighteenth century’s most important entrepôt between Europe and the Americas. Central to this notion were the major imperial reforms enacted by the Bourbon dynasties of Spain and France in their overseas colonies of Santo

Domingo and Saint Domingue. To this end, my central question revolves around the ways in which the different social groups within Saint Domingue understood the shifting administrative and legal processes through which both French and Spanish authorities functioned.

But perhaps more importantly, in an age that would see imperial competition between Britain, Spain, and France come to a critical junction, what did it mean for

France and Spain to share an entire island where imperial boundaries were alternately blurred and clearly defined? Finally, when viewed through the prism of a transimperial

Hispaniola, how does our understanding of both indigenous and African-descendent peoples’ lives change, if at all? I demonstrate that the colonial border, whether or not it was officially delineated, provided a space of ambiguity for all inhabitants of the island, from its African slaves to its colonial governor, and everyone in between. It was precisely

this two-way flow of peoples, ideas, material products, and value systems that unsettled those at the top of the socio-political hierarchy. Like Bellecombe and Bongars, they often felt the need to create a sense of “harmony” and order in the face of seeming chaos.

Others, like Gálvez, embraced this ambiguity when it could be used to advantage.

This chapter begins with a brief history of Hispaniola under the Habsburgs, then turns to the more salient Bourbon era, which began in 1700 with King Philip V. I analyze the violent settlement of the island by the Spanish, as well as the process by which the

French pushed the Spanish to recognize their control of the western part of the island. I show that this resulted in a colonial frontier through which people came into contact with one another, and often times contested imperial power. The border between French Saint

Domingue and Spanish Santo Domingo also became a place of refuge and opportunity for the island’s most vulnerable populations. This chapter analyzes how the Seven Years’

War ushered in a reformist period on the island in which Spain and France engaged in various treaties with each other. I argue that in their attempts to establish order and control, both French and Spanish reforms in fact paved the way for the tumultuous events that would follow in subsequent decades.

La Española: Born of Pillage and Revolt

The 1491 Capitulation of Granada by the last Muslim sultan, Boabdil, gave the

Christian forces of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I a mandate, or so they claimed.

The defeat of Iberia’s last caliphate heralded a new age of Roman Catholic Spanish hegemony, first on the Peninsula and soon after in the wider world. The first crown- sponsored explorers would set out to the “New World” in the following year and by

1494, the Treaty of Tordesillas divided the world into Spanish and Portuguese

hemispheres. Spanish conquistadors sailed to the Americas with promises of privileges and future royal favors and, in return, they were to carve out a vast empire for their

Spanish monarchs.4

A central, strategic location for this expansion in America was the island of La

Española or Hispaniola. “Little Spain,” called Ayiti or “mountainous land” by the original

Taino inhabitants, was in many ways born of pillage and revolt. It was a model colony and a stern object lesson. As Ida Altman has written, Hispaniola soon served as the principal “staging ground for Spanish conquest of the mainland.”5 Indeed, Hispaniola provided experts in bureaucratic and religious institutions, as well as an economic landmine in which gold and sugar, for instance, could be exported and exchanged to the mainland for products such as bread and indigenous slaves. The followers of Christopher

Columbus seized indigenous villages and the Taino retaliated by killing Spanish soldiers and burning down forts. In 1519, the literate and acculturated Taino chief Enrique launched the last major indigenous revolt, assisted by an unknown number of Africans.

Quickly routed, the rebels retreated to the Bahoruco mountains (see: Figure 2). From this natural stronghold, Enrique and his followers occasionally raided Spanish settlements for arms and tools.6

The sixteenth-century Spanish chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés

(1478-1557) described in his General and Natural History of the Indies (1535) the first

4 Matthew Restall, The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), p. 6.

5 Ida Altman, “The Revolt of Enriquillo and the Historiography of Early Spanish America,” The Americas, Vol. 63, No. 4 (April 2007), p. 587-614.

6 Ibid.

known slave revolt in Hispaniola. Perhaps motivated by the revolt of Enriquillo, in 1521,

Wolof-speaking slaves fled from Diego Colón’s sugar estate near the settlement of La

Isabela. The slaves had organized a regional rebellion on the Day of the Epiphany and were going to meet up with other slaves on different plantations. To lift their numbers, the rebels had stolen or incorporated other Indian and black slaves to their cause. By the third day of the revolt they went to another estate belonging to royal magistrate Alonzo

Suazo, where they killed between eight to ten Christians, all the while recruiting another

120 Africans to their force. According to the chronicler Oviedo, the rebels’ plan was to head west and attack the village of Compostela de Los Remedios de Azua, where they were hoping to recruit still more slaves to their cause. A Spanish witness raced back to

Santo Domingo to warn the city and rally its householders to fight in the name of

Santiago (the patron saint of Spain’s reconquest against the Moors). The Spanish militia attacked the rebels on horseback, severing many heads. One of the Spaniards involved created a coat of arms with the severed heads of six Africans bleeding from the throat.

Historian Jane Landers has argued that this was a continuation and obsession with the reconquest of the Moors and reminiscent of coats of arms that depicted the severed heads of Muslims.

The Spaniards would eventually capture and execute many of the rebels, believing the slaves’ Islamic beliefs had made them more prone to rebellion. As it happened, many of the slaves brought to Hispaniola in the early years were from the largely Islamic

Senegambia. The paranoia of the Spanish was evident as they believed, during the first three decades of the 1500s, that “radicalized” Wolof slaves corrupted more pacific slaves.

Oviedo himself mentioned that there were so many blacks on Hispaniola in his day that it

looked like Ethiopia (a generic term for Africa). By the 1540s, the Spanish became more concerned with the perceived racial imbalance on the island, which counted approximately 25,000-40,000 Africans and only around 1,200 Spaniards. The turn to sugar production, however, trumped these worries. By the 1560s, more than thirty sugar mills were in operation and the island’s demographics gave advantage to the maroons of the Bahoruco mountains. They continued to sack and burn mills.

To boot, throughout the sixteenth century, Spain faced an epidemic of piracy in its

Caribbean colonies, as well as religious and political dissent. This came to boiling point around 1586 when Francis Drake held the capital of Santo Domingo hostage for a month while sleeping in the cathedral. By the end of the century all of these issues, along with the Spanish conquest of Mexico, as well as the prevalence of runaway slaves, had caused the Spanish to rethink their settlement policies on Hispaniola. Vulnerable towns and plantations were forcibly abandoned after 1600, leaving space for foreign interlopers. By the early decades of the seventeenth century, Spain found itself fighting a losing battle with France for control of the northern coasts of Hispaniola and the strategic offshore island of Tortuga.7

By the mid-seventeenth century, the French controlled Tortuga and the Western section of Hispaniola. More than half of the slaves the French had working in the sugar cane fields were Central Africans and many of them escaped across the new and ill- patrolled colonial border towards Spanish territory. Some were presumably fleeing

7 Ibid. Also, I base much of this narration on Jane Lander’s lecture at Harvard University: “A View from the Other Side: Spanish Sources on the Slave Revolt in Saint Domingue, Nathan I. Huggins Lecture Series, Harvard University, March 2015, http://hutchinscenter.fas.harvard.edu/jane-landers-nathan-i-huggins-lecture-series-part-1-3. See also: Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999).

Huguenot planters as they sought and sometimes gained religious sanctuary. Spanish officials were motivated by their religious obligation to grant sanctuary to those seeking baptism in the so-called true faith. Many of these slaves preferred to run away and hide in the remote mountain highlands. The Spanish would, in 1662, finally send the Archbishop

Francisco de la Cueva Maldonado to peacefully reduce maroon families living in four different settlements in the Bahoruco mountains where Enrique had once reigned.

Spanish settlers in Santo Domingo feared a massive African influx, and, at the dawn of the eighteenth century began to patrol the countryside, again taking captured slaves to Santo Domingo for interrogations. One such slave, identified as “Busu,” could not speak Spanish or French but mentioned that as soon as he got off of the slave ship, he ran straight to the Spanish side. In the next decades, more Africans would slip through the porous borders of northern Hispaniola, as the escalating exploitation of the French would push them towards the Spanish side.8 Moreover, Spain’s abandonment of Santo

Domingo as a plantation economy was also an important factor. The end of a tumultuous seventeenth century marked a considerable spike in the French population of Hispaniola and, as Marc Eagle has noted, “contemporary Spanish observers . . thus had good reason to despair at the disastrous fortunes of Spanish Hispaniola and the rise of a French threat that could have far greater consequences than losses from pirate attacks.”9 Fearing that the island would fall into French hands, local elites in Santo Domingo developed their own proposals to address what they considered to be “the crisis of their times.”

8 Ibid.

9 Marc Eagle, “Restoring Spanish Hispaniola, the First of the Indies: Local Advocacy and Transatlantic Arbitrismo in the Late Seventeenth Century,” Colonial Latin American Review 23:3 (2014), p. 384-412.

Eventually, in 1697 with the Treaty of Ryswick, Spain officially recognized the longstanding de facto French presence on the island.10 The actions by the Spanish in

Santo Domingo, moreover, would become part of a “long tradition of offering advice to the Spanish king on how to improve his rule over his domains” – resembling reformers before them and setting the stage for reformers to come.11

Crossing the Central Island

Figure 1: Isla Española de Santo Domingo, de todas sus poblaciones asi españolas como fransessas, circa 1719 (Archivo General de Indias)12

10 Margarita Gascón, “The Military of Santo domingo, 1720-1764,” Hispanic American Historical Review 73:3 (1993): 431-452 [p. 433].

11 Ibid.

12 Archivo General de Indias (Hereafter: AGI), Mapas y Planos (Hereafter MP), Santo_Domingo, 129, Year 1719. This map demonstrates that already by the beginning of the eighteenth century, there is a line that shows the divide between the French and Spanish parts of Hispaniola.

On August 3, 1722, King Philip V of Spain, the first in a long line of Bourbon monarchs that continues on the throne today, issued a royal cédula (a monition with the force of law) in which he ordered the governor of the Spanish portion of Hispaniola to return a number of black slave fugitives who had run away from the French side. The

Spanish monarch addressed his captain-general in Santo Domingo by telling him that the

French ambassador has presented him – via the French King, Louis XIV, his grandfather

– with requests from the inhabitants of the bordering colony of French Saint Domingue.

The requests indicated that “their blacks who had deserted and retired within [the] said island [a reference to the Spanish colony] had been detained rather than returned.” The

French colonists argued the detention of their deserters had caused a considerable disfavor—or harm—to their colonies since they could no longer cultivate the soil

(presumably a reference to sugar or other cash-crop production). They continued by stating that they should prevent any “altercation between the two crowns, especially as the French attributed to the Spaniards the loss of their property.” The Spanish king closed his letter by reiterating, on behalf of the French people of Saint Domingue, that in order to “conserve the union between the two crowns, I have resolved to order and command you to return all the blacks who have deserted the French colonies within this city back to their jurisdiction.”13

13 Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (Hereafter: ANOM), Traduction de la cédule du roi d’Espagne qui ordonne au gouverneur de l’île espagnole de Saint-Domingue de restituer les nègres français fugitifs dans cette partie de l’île, Fonds Ministériels (Hereafter: FM), Premier Empire Colonial (Hereafter: COL), Série A (Hereafter: A), 25 N.135, August 3, 1722 [ANOM, FM, COL, A, 25 F. 135 N.92, 1722] [Original French : Que les negres qui leur apartiennent deserteurs et se retirens dans la d. isle et que vous les retenés au lieu de les renvoyer . . altercation entre les couronnes, d’autant que les françois attribuens aux Espagnols la perte de leurs biens . . conserver l’union entre les deux couronnes . . j’ay resolu de vous ordonner et mander . . de restituer tous les negres qui deserterons des colonies francoises dans cette ville et ysle et autres lieux de votre jurisdiction.]

This Spanish decree helps us to understand how local petitioning and action impacted imperial and monarchical decision-making in the metropole. In this case, what is even more striking is that the petitions were being presented to the Spanish monarch on behalf of the French landowners of the island of Hispaniola, albeit through the mediation of both the French ambassador and the King. While it is obvious the French slave owners made their requests because they were losing money by losing their slaves, what is not so clear is if they intended for their requests to be ultimately handled as they were by the

Spanish king. In the letter, Philip V makes references to continued complaints by the

French slave owners to their king in France, but there is no indication that they intended for their complaints to be heard by the Spanish sovereign. This confusing chain of command suggests a much more intertwined system of empire on the island of

Hispaniola. Concluding that the French landowners simply assumed the petition would be made to the Spanish monarch since the slave runaways had ended up in Spanish territory is, I believe, too simple a solution.

What if the French slave owners viewed their requests to their king in France as part of a broader system of monarchical governance in which petitions to the French king, especially those dealing with transimperial affairs, were in fact also handled by the

Spanish monarchy and colonial administration on the island? In other words, might the

French enslavers have viewed potential administrative or legal changes and/or frameworks on the island as part of a system in which the French and Spanish monarchies were inextricably linked? In order to better explore these questions, I turn to the borderlands between Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo, broadly construed. This

way, we can try understand what the implications were with regard to two of Europe’s most powerful monarchies ruling one Caribbean island.

Scholars of Atlantic history have suggested that we view the ocean not as a space that separates territories, but as one that brings the various geographical regions together.

One historian has described the Atlantic Ocean as “highways merging different economies, creating new cultures, or even pollinating revolutionary movements.”14 The creation of new networks on either side of the Atlantic would not have been possible without the actions of people on the move. Individuals on both sides of the Atlantic made new contacts and carried ideas back and forth. The ocean acted as a bridge and it was through this link that people not only developed new methods of communication, but also how they made sense of their distant counterparts’ worldviews. Still, the Spanish, French,

British, Dutch, and others at various points in time decided to carve out pieces of the

Americas to claim as integral parts of their empires. From Virginia and Georgia to

Jamaica and Barbados, to Louisiana, Saint Domingue, Martinique, and Guadeloupe,

British and French slave colonies grew to become some of the most lucrative human- commercial enterprises in the history of the Americas. Their profits helped build still larger empires.15

14 Kenneth Banks, Chasing Empire Across the Sea: Communications and the State in the French Atlantic, 1713-1763 (Montreal: McGill Queens University press, 2003): 8.

15 See: Banks, Chasing Empire Across the Sea (2003); Matthew Restall, The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009); Christian J. Koot, Empire at the Periphery: British Colonists, Anglo-Dutch Trade, and the development of the British Atlantic, 1621-1713 (New York: New York University Press, 2011); Alison Games, Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999); Daniel Usner, Indians, Settlers and Slavers in a Frontier Exchange Economy: The Lower Mississippi Valley Before 1783 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992).

Perhaps one of the most important works in Atlantic history is Paul Gilroy's The

Black Atlantic. In it, Gilroy fashions a new understanding of how occupying the space between absolutist discourses, specifically with regard to nationalist and racist ones, is central to modern cultural history and criticism. For Gilroy, “ethnically absolutist discourses orchestrate political relationships so that these identities appear to be mutually exclusive.” This occurs at the point which Gilroy calls the “fatal junction,” where the concept of nationality meets the concept of culture. One must, according to Gilroy, occupy the space between these absolutist and seemingly mutually exclusive narratives through what the author calls “routes,” or the black bodies that forcefully made the transatlantic voyage from Africa to the Americas. It is precisely within this space, as well as through its occupation, that Gilroy situates the need to transcend the boundaries of nation-state or any other category of modernity. For instance, when looking at hybridity and intermixture, Gilroy asserts it is “not the fusion of two purified essences but rather a meeting of two heterogeneous multiplicities that in yielding themselves up to each other create something durable and entirely appropriate to troubled anti-colonial times.”16

At first glance, the maritime nature of Gilroy’s black Atlantic may seem like an odd comparison with Hispaniola’s colonial borders. Yet, Anne Eller recently referred to the Dominican-Haitian border as the “center island” of Hispaniola.17 I think it is still the case that, in its colonial context, the border between Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo

16 Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double-Consciousness (London and New York: Verso, 1993), 1, 144.

17 Anne Eller, “Raining Blood: Spiritual Power, Gendered Violence, and Anticolonial Lives in the Nineteenth-Century Dominican Borderlands,” Hispanic American Historical Review 99:3 (2019), 431-465. I borrow this term from Eller at various parts of this work.

illuminates many of the intercultural and transimperial formations that occupied Gilroy. It is nonetheless still important to take into account Haiti's proximity to other circum-

Caribbean entrepots. With this in mind, I propose that we zoom in on the colonial border of Hispaniola, but also on the flow of peoples coming to the island from neighboring

Caribbean islands. By tracing the various complicated linkages forming on the island, “a more enabling past on which to build a better future for Hispaniola might be unveiled.”18

Keeping the broader lens of Atlantic history in mind, zooming in on “colonial contact zones” will help to better articulate the ways in which said spaces were characterized by conflict and violence, but also by collaborative linkages, commerce, and challenges to the dominant colonial discourses of Hispaniola’s eighteenth century.19

Seeking Spanish Refuge

18 Maria Cristina Fumagalli, On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015), 2.

19 Ibid., 23, 91.

Figure 2 : Carte de l’isle de Saint Domingue, circa 1760 (John Carter Brown Library)20

On May 30, 1768, the Spanish governor of Santo Domingo, Manuel de Azlor, made official, through the testimony given to him by the fiscal (akin to a municipal attorney) of the town of San Felipe de Puerto de Plata, the decision to grant freedom to two black fugitives who had arrived in Santo Domingo from the island of “San

Christoval” (colonial St. Christopher and present-day St. Kitts and Nevis). The attorney explained that the two men, named Joseph Lavastida and Miguel Bautete, had been captured and enslaved by the British after their seizure of the French colony of

Martinique during the last years of the Seven Years’ War (1757-1763). The British, it appears, took both men from Martinique after the French ceded control of the island, transporting Lavastida and Bautete to the island of St. Christopher. The Spanish lawyer noted that the French did not “[re]claim” the men despite the terms of the 1763 Treaty of

Paris. Thus, he proposed, these men were under the “irrevocable” dominion of the

British. His main point was that had these unfortunate captives made their escape from the British during a time of war along with the French seeking to reclaim them, then perhaps it would be correct to return them to their “masters” in Martinique. But, Azlor argued, precisely because the preliminary peace of November 3, 1762, had been signed between the Spanish, French, and British, the possibility of sending Lavastida and

Bautete back to Martinique was nullified. In his view, the British had no legal claim to

20 The original is housed in the John Carter Brown Library under the title of “Carte de l’isle de Saint Domingue.” This map shows a more clearly demarcated border that has shifted considerably to the east. The visual is striking as it is clear that the French territory—in a matter of about 50 years—expanded quite exponentially.

the former slaves and even further, it was not acceptable for “infidels to have dominion over the faithful.”21 Following Spanish rules of amnesty, according to the attorney’s report when Lavastida and Bautete fled St. Christopher in 1763 and arrived at the northern shores of Santo Domingo, they did so with “aims of becoming Christians.”

Although one may wonder if they had been baptized as Catholics in Martinique, apparently not.

Aside from their capture and forced removal from Martinique, and their escape to

Santo Domingo in 1763, we know next to nothing about the lives of Lavastida and

Bautete. We know that they were slaves in Martinique and of their supposed intention to flee to Santo Domingo. Once in San Felipe de Puerto de Plata, it took the men about two years before they were baptized as Roman Catholics. The chief magistrate of the town,

Don Esteban Padilla, took both men in and described their arrival as follows:

“Around the years of [17]63, we found on these coasts two blacks from Guinea who spoke the French language and claimed to have escaped from a British ship that had come close to the shore. They had become prisoners during the capture of Martinique by the British and upon arriving at this city these blacks procured—after having suffered hardship in the mountains—a passport, which they intended to use to get to Le Cap and present themselves to the General of that [French] nation.”22

21 AGI, Audiencia de Santo Domingo 1101, Gobierno, Negros y Desertores Franceses Refugiados, N.7, Año: 1768. [Original Spanish: de que se deduce que estos negros como tomas en la Guerra por los yngleses a los franceses haviendose refugiado en esta ysla…y en su consecuencia volver a su primer estado y considerarse de bajo de la potestad de los antiguos Amos Franceses de la Martinica . . Assi sucederia efectivamente si su fuga se huviera verificado en tiempo de la Guerra y se reclamasen, pero como vinieron a qui el año de 63 selebrada ya la paz haviendose firmado los preliminaries en 3 de Noviembre de 62, murio por este acto . . No pudieron derogar ni ahogar el derecho de los Yngleses, no siendo incompatible, que los Ynfieles tengan dominio en los Fieles, segun la Doctrina mas solida.]

22 Ibid. [Original Spanish: se hallaron en estas costas, dos negros de Guinea, los que hablaban la lengua Franceza y dixeron se havian escapado de un barco yngles que se havia arrimado a hazer agua a estas costas, por ser prisioneros en la toma que hizo dicho yngles de la Martinica y llegados a esta dicha ciudad dichos negros procuraron luego que combalecieron de las

The attorney of San Felipe asked other prisoners of war on the northern coast of Santo

Domingo for witness testimonies and, after receiving corroboration, determined that those morenos23 should be taught the rudiments of the faith. Azlor then indicated that both Lavastida and Bautete wanted to receive baptism and that they held steadfastly onto the law of “Christ our father.” Their religious fervor was then verified by the priest of

San Felipe who certified, in both of their baptismal records, that he “solemnly baptized”

Miguel who was a “free adult” of about thirty-eight years. The priest details how he applied oil on Bautete, after having examined him on the Christian doctrine and practices of the “holy Catholic faith.” The priest found Bautete to be “well instructed” in the doctrine and eager to receive the holy sacrament. He pointed out that Antonio de la Luez and María de Hizales were present at the baptism, acting as Bautete’s godparents, with

Carlos de Gusmán and Diego Monaga serving as his witnesses. All four of the other individuals present at Bautete’s baptism were, according to the priest, local parishioners.24

Azlor ended his declaration by adding that Lavastida and Bautete “deserved all of the protection of his majesty for their heroic piety, and inseparable character to the throne of Spain.” He ordered the main authorities of the city to “put [them] in the home of an

necesidades que pasaron en el monte, pasaporte, para pasarse al Guarico y presentarse al general de aquella Nacion.]

23 Typically a person of dark complexion and often used to refer to people with African ancestry.

24 Ibid. [Original Spanish: yo el cura ynterino, baptizé solemnemente a Miguel Adulto Libre como de edad de treinta y ocho años, al que tambien pusse olio y chrisma, al que antes examine la doctrina christiana y rudimentos de nuestra santa fe catholica en los que le halle bien instruido y con deseo de resevir este Santo como necessario sacramento fueron sus padrinos Antonio de la Luez y Maria de Hizales, a los que hize saver el parentesco fueron testigos Carlos de Gusman y Diego Monaga todos vezinos de esta parroquia.]

honorable settler who would watch over their instruction in the tenets of the holy faith and make them comply with their obligations as Christians; and for them to work and cultivate the land in order to sustain themselves.”25 The attorney then recommended that given all of the circumstances [lived by] “the blacks Joseph Lavastida and Miguel

Bautete” . . “they be given protection and their freedom declared, for now.”26 Not only did these two former slaves become Roman Catholics, but approximately five years after setting foot on Spanish soil they became, ostensibly, free.

I am hesitant to deduce that the two fugitives in this account were given their full freedom, for as Ann Twinam has demonstrated “free castas in Spanish America endured a brutal institutionalized discrimination.”27 Moreover, the fact that Azlor specifies that their freedom is “for now” implies that perhaps those two “blacks” might still be short of becoming full vassals, or subjects of Spain. Yet, the longstanding questions of the

Tannenbaum debate are still relevant.28 Surely, the case of Lavastida and Bautete—and specifically their religious conversion—at least demonstrates that they gained some level of “moral status,” and possibly even a “legal persona.”29 It certainly demonstrates that

25 Ibid. [Original Spanish: ellos merecerán toda la proteccion de su Magestad por su heroica piedad, caracter inseparable del trono de España . . que los ponga en la casa de algun vezino honrrado que cuide de su instruccion en los ministerios de nuestra santa fe haziendolos cumplir con las obligaciones de christianos y de que trabagen y cultiven la tierra para sustentarse.]

26 Ibid. [Original Spanish: de todas las circunstancias de los negros Joseph Lavastida, y Miguel Bautete . . que se les puede amparar y declarar por aora su livertad.]

27 Ann Twinam, Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015), 40.

28 Frank Tannenbaum. Slave and Citizen: The Negro in America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946).

29 Ibid., 117-118.

Santo Domingo's Spanish authorities were willing to grant Lavastida and Bautete the right to work and cultivate land for their own subsistence. While it is difficult to know whether or not these men would have been victims in an agricultural society in which exploitation by Spanish colonists was not uncommon, it is safe to say that they were in a position that was not only in their favor, but that was perhaps better than whatever options they might have had upon reaching French Saint Domingue. Santo Domingo had developed a largely rural and subsistence-based economy with a relatively strong peasantry made up of former slaves and their descendants.30

The act of seeking a safe haven in Spanish lands by African descendants in the circum-Caribbean was, as Jane Landers’ work has demonstrated, an important phenomenon which can be traced back to the middle of the seventeenth century, and perhaps even earlier.31 Moreover, Landers has shown that various factors such as marriage status, religious standing, militia service, godparenting, and patronage networks offered people of African descent opportunities to “work” the Spanish system and find ways to become active creators of their own destinies.32 People of African descent in

Spanish Florida were able to navigate various social structures in order to gauge their emancipatory scope. They shrewdly manipulated political disputes and were able to respond to complicated demographic constraints in their search for autonomy. Africans and African descendants in Spanish Florida understood both European and Native

30 Richard Lee Turits, Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo regime, and Modernity in Dominican History (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 25-27.

31 Landers, Black Society, 1999.

32 Ibid.

American socio-economic systems, making sensible decisions in order to better their standing in society.

More broadly, scholars have shown that the medieval Iberian law code known as the Siete Partidas (1256-1265) set the foundation for Spanish American bureaucrats’ inclination towards granting liberties to bonded vassals. For instance, Twinam states that

“at least in theory [the Spanish code] portrayed slavery as a despised state that the bonded naturally would and should try to alter.” It further stated “servitude is the most vile thing in the world” while “liberty is the most dear and most esteemed.” Evangelization was a means by which the Spanish Bourbons fashioned a type of “soft” power over people on the fringes of empire. Partly due to the fact that there were various motivations to adopt

Christianity, there was a constant push and pull in which African descendants and

Spaniards vied for autonomy and control. Even though Catholicism gave slaves a social existence beyond the confines of slavery, these privileges were often, as Herman Bennett has shown, severely limited. Matthew Restall, for instance, explains that “at least outwardly” Africans in Yucatecan society adopted Christianity, since its “rituals and institutions provided them admittance into local society.” In the case of colonial Quito, we know that “Africans and African-descendants who would escape servitude, became cultural and political brokers who marshaled religious and Spanish royal discourses to mediate between the royal state and its local Afro-Amerindian and Indian subjects.”33

Sue Peabody has demonstrated that the French Code Noir allowed an enslaved woman to

33 Twinam, Purchasing Whiteness, 85. Herman Bennett, Colonial Blackness: A History of Afro- Mexico (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009); Restall, The Black Middle, 235. Sherwin Bryant, Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing through Slavery in Colonial Quito. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014).

gain her freedom and legitimate offspring if a white man married her in a Catholic church. Charlton W. Yingling’s work on maroons in Santo Domingo illustrates that

“while coinciding with Spanish interests, the choice made by the Maniel maroons was strategic, and corresponded with the actions of maroons in Jamaica, Colombia and elsewhere who also pragmatically rejoined colonial society with legal protections for their earned free status.”34

In an age when the Seven Years’ War pushed France, Spain, and England to effectively exist in a state of constant military and geopolitical strategizing, it was

Africans and African descendants in the circum-Caribbean and especially on the island of

Hispaniola that understood the actions they needed to take in order to survive. Thus, similarly to the ways in which Jane Landers analyzed Spanish colonial rule in Florida within the broader history of the United States, I situate the history of Haiti not only within the broader circum-Caribbean and Atlantic World, but also within the island-wide story of Hispaniola. By doing so, we are better able to analyze stories like those of Joseph

Lavastida and Miguel Bautete, which are strong examples of how Africans and African descendants on the island of Hispaniola were adept at negotiating even the most precarious of situations. These men must have understood their options, and their Spanish

“protectors” may have also benefited although it’s unclear how. The fact that they were so quick to establish, or give the impression of, some sort of unwavering loyalty and

“inseparable” character towards the Spanish crown is important, because it shows that

34 Sue Peabody, “Négresse, Mulâtresse, Citoyenne: Gender and Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1650-1848,” in Gender and Slave Emancipation in the Atlantic World, eds. Pamela Scully and Diana Paton (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005). Charlton W Yingling, “The Maroons of Santo Domingo in the Age of Revolutions: Adaptation and Evasion, 1783-1800,” History Workshop Journal 79 (Spring 2015): 25-51 [31].

they likely were aware of the geopolitical stakes within which they were embroiled. That

Spain and France were at war with England I do not believe was lost on Lavastida and

Bautete. David P. Geggus has written about how the international vying for power between the British, Spanish, and French would invariably “interact with domestic struggles throughout the Caribbean as slaves rebelled for freedom, pardos and mulattos sought privileges of whiteness, and elites reacted to maintain domination.”35 I believe that

Lavastida and Bautete are good examples of what it meant to be an Atlantic Creole during this time tumultuous time.

Despite the fact that the three colonial powers were in competition with each other, the attorney who pushed to grant Lavastida and Bautete their freedom spoke in a voice that implicitly, if not explicitly, marked clear boundaries between the British way of life and the Spanish. He went so far as to call the British “infidels,” while calling the two former slaves “faithful.” But, to what degree was the Spanish bureaucrat lumping the

Spanish way of life with the French, if at all? I contend that he did so to some degree, but that if we take the interaction between the two fugitives and the Spanish in their totality, we can see more articulable links. For example, the Spanish mentioned that Lavastida and Bautete spoke French and that their intentions were to present themselves to the

French authorities of Saint Domingue, since they had produced a passport. How and why they were able to come up with a passport is an important question, since it would appear that Lavastida and Bautete had come to the island of Hispaniola with practically nothing.

Also, what prompted these men to declare to the Spanish their intentions to travel to

35 David P. Geggus, “Slavery, War, and Revolution in the Greater Caribbean, 1789-1815,” in A Turbulent Time: the French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean, eds. David Barry Gaspar and David Patrick Geggus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 5.

French Saint Domingue? And why was this plan so quickly reversed? By giving the impression that they were headed for French territory, I believe Lavastida and Bautete were being calculating and careful to seek aid from the Spanish first in order to avoid any possible negative reactions. Instead, by perhaps masking their transfer to Saint Domingue and quickly making it evident they wanted to be instructed in the Catholic faith,

Lavastida and Bautete were able to—whether genuinely or not—win favor with the

Spanish authorities of Santo Domingo. What is important is that while enslaved in

Martinique, as prisoners of war in St. Christopher, or at sea, the evidence strongly suggests that these men had some sense of how their lives might change as Catholic converts living in a Spanish colony. These men effectively went from being slaves in the

French colony of Martinique, to prisoners of the British, to seemingly free men in

Spanish Santo Domingo—all in a span of five years.

French attitudes towards the Spanish fluctuated during the middle to latter half of the eighteenth century. By the early 1750s and before the onset of the Seven Years’ War, the French generally saw the benefits of commerce with the Spanish. In a 1752 register of

Ancien-Régime (Old Regime) commerce booklets, there is a note that lists assorted shops in Saint Domingue that proposed to engage in business and trade with the Spanish. It specifically mentions that commerce undertaken by land between Spanish Santo

Domingo and Le Cap still presented a means by which well-executed trade may provide precious advantages.36 Clearly, while colonial competition was ever present, there was

36 Archives Départementales de la Loire-Atlantique (Hereafter: ADLA), Série C (Hereafter: C), Commerce de traite avec Saint-Domingue, 1696-1788, Juin 1752 [ADLA, C, Juin 1752]. [Original French : Enrigistré sur le livre des mémoires – Magasins bien assortés proposés pour faire le commerce avec les Espagnols. En fin le commerce qui se faire par terre de la partie de St. Domingue Espagnolle, au Cap nous presente encore un moyen pour lui avec aux un commerce bien fair y voilà les avantages precieux.]

also space for collaboration, interchange, and mutual understanding. However, the Seven

Years’ War disrupted the relationship between Saint Domingue and Spanish Santo

Domingo.

Reforms

The Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) marked a major turning point in the history of the Americas and the Atlantic world. Two generations before this, Spain's shift from the

Habsburg to Bourbon monarchies signaled critical changes in economic and political policies towards “new world” territories. This shift led to the much-studied Bourbon

Reforms and marked a major expansion of Spanish royal power at the expense of vested interest groups, both domestic and foreign. By the mid-eighteenth century, royal power was becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Spanish king. The Concordat of 1753, for example, dramatically increased the king’s “patronage power” over church appointments throughout the empire.37 The pace of consolidation sped up still more during reign of Charles III (1759-1788), which has been described as a period of “intense enlightened reform.”38 In the context of marriage reform, for example, Steinar Saether’s work shows that colonial governments and politics in practice functioned as a series of

37 Allan J. Kuethe and Kenneth J. Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century: War and the Bourbon Reforms, 1713-1796 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 4.

38 Steinar A. Saether, “Bourbon Absolutism and Marriage Reform in Late Colonial Spanish America,” The Americas, 59:4 (April 2003), 475-509 [477]. Some of Charles III most influential enlightened and absolutist bureaucrats were: Pedro Rodriguez Campomanes, Manuel de la Roda, Ricardo Wall, José Moñino (Conde de Floridablanca), Grimaldi, Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolsea Jiménez de Urrea (Conde de Aranda), Manuel Ventura Figueroa, and Pablo Olavide.

negotiations between the Crown and its subjects overseas. Marriage laws in Spanish

American societies, for instance, appeared to some reformers “medieval,” and this was

“incompatible with the new absolutist and enlightened view of monarchy propagated by the Bourbon state.”39 In sum, the Bourbons viewed the king as “the ultimate father,” and the monarchy organized by a “patriarchal hierarchy” in which the “duty of all subjects was to obey their King like their fathers.”40

Gabriel Paquette’s focus on the “Caroline ideology” is important because it organizes the period of reform in the Bourbon monarchy into three fundamental pillars.

The first, “regalism,” granted the state supreme power. This is evident in Spain’s relationship with the Catholic Church. The second, "political economy,” focused on the general welfare and enrichment of the Crown. The Bourbon reforms, in this vein, increased trade and brought in more royal revenue through commerce. The third,

“international prestige and power,” came into full focus during the Seven Years’ War when Spain vied for hegemony with but lost to the British.41 The loss to the British meant the Spanish were, from that point forward, in constant danger to British intervention.

There was an increasing sense amongst Spanish reformers, then, that their interests resided not necessarily in European battlefields, but rather they began to look more to the

Atlantic and its overseas territories.42 The period after the Seven Years’ War forced the

39 Ibid., 477.

40 Ibid., 509.

41 Gabriel B. Paquette, Enlightenment, Governance, and Reform in Spain and its Empire, 1759- 1808 (Surry: Palgrave-MacMillan, 2008).

42 John Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 1700-1808 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 156.

Bourbon monarchy to rationalize their colonial governments in order to strengthen defenses and bolster imperial finances. Such changes resulted in a reorganization of military establishments and royal monopolies. Most importantly, however, the reforms generated inter-colonial strife and alliances that shaped the character of Spain’s overseas territories and colonial reactions to the new policies. Dramatic tax hikes, for instance, revived the latent notion of “bad government” among colonial inhabitants. Yet, despite the flow of ideas and written material, a lively and full public sphere only slowly emerged in the eighteenth-century Spanish Atlantic.43

The question of whether the reforms caused or sped up revolutionary movements can perhaps be better understood via the example of the indigenous rebellions in the

Andes. For instance, the works of John Fisher, Ward Stavig, and Steve J. Stern teach us that if you take the Bourbon Reforms as analytical departure points, it is possible to identify ways in which the reforms help to understand the actions of “ordinary peoples in new situations and new sets of relations.” Stavig argued that the newly enforced labor and tax policies were a major cause of indigenous grievances. At the same time, though,

Andean peoples understood they had to politically maneuver the colonial system in ways that would avoid their demise. There was a constant need for people to readjust their strategies and test the new structures of colonial power. Stern views these “innovative political engagements of the state by the peasants” as fundamental, yet subtle forms of resistance that we should view as not necessarily dualistic, but rather as a way in which peasants in the Andean world learned to adapt to a changing government. 44

43 Kuethe and Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic, 9-11.

44 John R. Fisher, Allan J. Kuethe, and Anthony McFarlane, eds., Reform and Insurrection in Bourbon New Granada and Peru (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990); Ward

While studying how subaltern populations adapted to the shifting geopolitical circumstances of the Atlantic world is important, taking into consideration the actions and aims of elite groups in Spanish American societies is also valuable. Patricia Marks’s research on Lima focuses on bureaucrats, merchants, and the military, and how the “very idea of legitimate governance” changed with the reform period. The reforms set merchants against the viceroy’s (representatives of the state), which caused critical ruptures within trade institutions. There was subsequently (still in the case of Lima) a joining of forces by the colonial army and the elite merchants against the viceroy who often was willing to open colonial ports to foreign trade. This caused the societies experiencing these radical changes to not only call the ruling elite into question, but it also helps to better understand how the seeds of revolts can be sown.45

In the context of Hispaniola, it is important to understand the Spanish American

Bourbon Reforms in Santo Domingo in conjunction with Saint Domingue and the various reforms instituted in the French colony during this time period. In Santo Domingo, where society was dominated by officers, “military posts were the chosen, and probably the only readily available vehicle for elite control.”46 This tradition of military service, whether through regular or militia units, dominated the insular scene in Santo Domingo dating back to the beginnings of the eighteenth century. This was partly due to the fact

Stavig, The World of Túpac Amaru: Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial Peru (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), xxiii; Steve J. Stern, Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th centuries (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987).

45 Patricia Marks, Deconstructing Legitimacy: Viceroys, Merchants, and the Military in Late Colonial Peru (University Park: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014): 1.

46 Gascón, “The Military of Santo Domingo,” 433.

that Santo Domingo had a land frontier with a foreign colony, French Saint Domingue.

Even though the 1697 Treaty of Ryswick had split the island between the French and the

Spanish, the colonial border had yet to be precisely demarcated. As Gascón has argued,

“the boundary was no more than a ‘line of tolerance’.” This line, or raya, always required a military presence, especially since there was an “habitual preoccupation with the British menace, ever present in Jamaica.”47 As the previous sections have shown, despite the often tense relationship between the French in Saint Domingue and the Spanish in Santo

Domingo, such tensions were typically alleviated by the looming specter of British overreach in Hispaniola, which became more pointed after the Seven Years’ War.

The foundational framework for the law of slavery in France’s colonies was the

Code Noir (Black Code) of 1685. Promulgated by Louis XIV, the Code Noir defined the conditions and structures of slavery in the French colonial empire. In colonies like Saint

Domingue, it restricted the activities of Africans and African descendants, it instituted

Roman Catholicism as the official religion, and expelled all Jews from French colonies.

Tyler Stovall once described the code as “one of the most extensive official documents on race, slavery, and freedom ever drawn up in Europe.”48 The code not only regulated the lives of slaves in Saint Domingue, but it furthermore served as a source of legal authority and as “the locus of an ongoing contest over how best to manage relations

47 Ibid. I will explain in more depth the importance of the word raya (line) in the next chapter. Also, see the map in Figure 2 for a better visual of the “line” (marked in red).

48 Tyler Stovall, "Race and the Making of the Nation: Blacks in Modern France," In Michael A. Gomez, ed. Diasporic Africa: A Reader (New York: New York University Press 2006).

between white planters, free people of color, and slaves.”49 Indeed, while the law of slavery unquestionably sought to legitimate planter hegemony over slaves, it was not the only function of the code. As was the case in Santo Domingo under Spanish law, through

French Code Noir, free people of color and slaves in Saint Domingue had some ability to make appeals to law and legal authority.50 Similar to how Africans and African descendants sought ways to utilize Christianity to their advantage, and specifically the institutional frameworks of the Catholic Church, in Spanish colonies, the Code Noir in

France’s overseas territories laid many of the foundations for the ways in which leaders of the Haitian Revolution would exact their revenge on the colony’s slave owners. As

Christopher Leslie Brown has remarked: “the story of the Code Noir ultimately becomes one about the instrumental and strategic roots of certain key strands of antiracist and antislavery thought.”51

Malick Ghachem outlines various legal reforms in Saint Domingue that are relevant to this inquiry. On October 23, 1775, for example, an ordinance issued by the administrators of Saint Domingue described the issue of collecting manumission taxes of

Africans and African descendants who enjoyed certain freedoms, calling this “more of fact than of law.”52 Ghachem notes that the ordinance allowed masters to manumit their

49 Malick Ghachem, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 15.

50 I will explore in more detail how African and African descendants utilized Spain’s legal frameworks in Spanish Santo Domingo in the next chapter.

51 As cited in Ghachem, The Old Regime, 17. See: Christopher Leslie Brown, Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006).

52 Cited in Ghachem, The Old Regime, 115. See: “Ordonnance des Administrateurs,” October 23, 1775, LC, 5:610.

slaves for free, and in various ways, but in exchange for some sort of military or militia service.53 Thus, one can see the link here between the ways in which military and militia service in both Santo Domingo and Saint Domingue were at the center of social mobility and attaining freedom, respectively. Moreover, there was a second provision, which also allowed manumission in exchange for ten consecutive years of similarly exemplary service “behind the free people of color who manned the fugitive slave police.”54 By doing so, enslaved people in Saint Domingue could not only gain their freedom, but also begin to gain social mobility and see themselves as more closely associated with the free people of color who had traditionally manned the militias.

In 1777, the superior council of Le Cap issued a decision in which they outlined the concern for the “police of slaves,” which required “manumitted mulattos and blacks to register their freedom with the court clerks.”55 In November 1777, the Conseil

Supérieur of Le Cap this time nullified the freedom that had been granted to a mulatto woman and her daughter by the Spanish government in Santo Domingo. Ghachem argues that this was undoubtedly due to the fact that the colonial government of Saint Domingue wanted “to put an end to the efforts of slaves to seek their freedom by crossing the border to the Spanish side of the island.”56 In 1784 and 1785, the French monarchy sought to drastically diminish the unrestricted actions of plantation managers to punish their slaves

53 Ibid., 115.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., 117.

56 Ibid., 118.

by implementing the Code Noir. One of the major motivations on the part of colonial administration was that the free black population was growing. In many ways, Saint

Domingue’s growing free black population would prove instrumental in the events that would transpire on the eve of the Haitian Revolution. Not surprisingly, the colonists in

Saint Domingue greeted the new legislation with “near universal contempt.”57

It was not only actions on-the-ground by Africans and African descendants in

Saint Domingue that forced French officials to change legislation and introduce new reforms, but the actions many of these individuals took were inextricably linked to either similar practices in Santo Domingo, or with the very act of attempting to make it across the so-called raya, or line. In other words, similar to the ways in which actions by subaltern populations in the Andes and other parts of Spanish America pushed the

Spanish Crown to react, enslaved and disenfranchised people in Saint Domingue found ways to affect French colonial policy and legislation, while simultaneously forging new realities for themselves. We will discuss in more detail the flow of people across the border in the next chapter, but as the cases analyzed in this chapter have demonstrated, the desire to make it across to Spanish territory was marked, and people in Saint

Domingue, whether fleeing slavery or seeking to engage in business, often crossed the

“line.”

While colonists in Saint Domingue were for the most part staunchly against many of the reforms, the enslaved population of Saint Domingue saw the reforms in the Code

Noir as a form of benevolence on the part of the French King. Much like the Spanish legal system portrayed the king as the ultimate father, slaves in French Saint Domingue

57 Ibid., 119.

thought the regulation of their masters’ conduct was a way through which their king was defending them, or taking care of his vassals. Yet, Ghachem argues that this was not the case. The French crown was in fact afraid of a possible slave insurrection and decided to take measures they thought would reduce the risk of a general revolt. As Ghachem posits:

“the ministry’s new found sense of egalitarianism was informed by the realization, long in the making, that discriminatory laws weakened ‘the strongest barrier against any rebellion of the enslaved’ (in the words of one administrator).”58 Indeed, Saint

Dominguan administrators saw manumission as politically expedient and, in so doing, they felt they could contain the menace of slave resistance. Furthermore, a November

1784 ordonnance allowed slaves in Saint Domingue the right to complain about their masters’ treatment and conditions of their work.59

Amidst the turmoil of these reforms, French and Spanish colonists continued to engage in trade and commerce with each other. In the early 1770s, both colonies engaged in a series of negotiations related to commerce and the flow of animals, goods, and people in and out of their jurisdiction. For instance, on February 13, 1773, the French colonial administration discussed a legal case between two plantation owners in Saint

Domingue seeking to import 2,000 Spanish mules from the coasts of Cumaná and

Caracas. The French administrators informed both men that the king of Spain had had the good grace to permit the extraction of the mules off the coasts of South America and they

58 Ibid., 117, 118, 120.

59 David P. Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).

explained that the conditions of the Spanish monarch were that they shake hands.60 A few months later, around April 16 of the same year, the same departmental administrators got news that the Spanish crown had proposed a “provisional convention” to serve as a base between both crowns, so that both may have a “definitive trade” [agreement] in Europe.61

While the reforms generated great discontent among the slaveholding class in

Saint Domingue, the enslaved population also saw changes in their everyday lives. For instance, in 1772, a Réglement de Police was passed by the French crown that severely curtailed the movements and activities of not only the enslaved in Saint Domingue, but also of free people of color and of free blacks. Given slaves’ state of unfreedom, it is hard to imagine making their lives any more difficult, but these police regulations did just that.

Among the approximately eighteen different articles regarding colonial life, this administrative regulation elucidates many of the concerns that both administrators and planters had throughout the eighteenth century in Saint Domingue. Elaborating on the

Code Noir, the regulations prohibited slaves from bearing arms and engaging in group assemblies. It also criminalized what they called les danses de nuit ou Kalendas

(nighttime dances, or Kalendas) for both slaves and free people of color. It barred slaves from selling products such as sugar cane while, at the same time, punishing (through

60 AN, Correspondance au depart (Hereafter CD), Série B, 145 N.16 & 18. Year 1773. [Original French: concernant l’extraction de 2,000 Mulets Espagnols . . ils sont prévenus que le Roy d’Espagne a bien voulu permettre l’extraction, pour les Isles du Vent, des Mulets des Côtes du Cumana et de Caraque, sous les conditions a l’extraction desquelles il leu ren prescript de tenir la main.]

61 AN, CD, Série B, 145 N. 51-52. Year 1773. [Original French: que la Cour d’Espagne desire aujourd’hui . . une convention provisoire qui puisse servir de Basse au traité définitif que les deux cours doivent faire en Europe.]

fines) the slaves’ masters and persons who bought the cane. Indeed, all sectors—from grand blancs, to petit blancs, to gens de couleur libres, to negres libres—were subject to some sort of punishment with the 1772 regulation.62 Of course, slaves suffered the most egregious punishments, while slave owners got the lightest.63

At the root of these regulations was a desire by the French crown to restore “good order” after the tumultuous years of the Seven Years War. In a 1790 account, an administrator from Spanish Santo Domingo would recall how “convenient” it was for both of the colonies on Hispaniola to “celebrate the authority of the two monarchs” and where they had various treaties with each other.64 Yet, leading up to the middle of the eighteenth century, tensions due to French encroachment on Spanish Santo Domingo mounted as the French consolidated their sugar producing colony at high speed and negotiated the ever-fluctuating boundary, or raya, between them and the Spanish. The

Seven Years’ War marked a turning point for the colonies in some ways since they entered into various treaties in which they sought to work together against British

62 By late-eighteenth century Saint Domingue, the population was home to some 400,000 slaves, along with one of the largest free populations of color in the Americas. This group numbered nearly 30,000, which was just below the white colonist and planter class, who were slightly over that mark. Within these two sectors, however, there were important class distinctions. For instance, within the free people of color, free mulattos – otherwise known as affranchis – often had a higher status than the other group – the free blacks; as a whole, this class nonetheless acted as an intermediary force between the slaves and whites. The whites themselves were divided into what were known as grand blancs – typically rich planter elite – and petit blancs – the lower- and middle-class whites who often worked as plantation managers, shopkeepers, tradesmen, etcetera. Notably, the mulatto class, often through militia service – were able to amass considerable wealth and lands, often surpassing that of the petit blancs.

63 John Carter Brown Library (Hereafter: JCB), De Par le Roi. Réglement du police. Du 19 Juin 1772 (Port-au-Prince, 1772).

64 AGI, Santo Domingo 1028, N. 2, P. 2, Año: 1790. [Original Spanish: lo conveniente a una ysla que es inmediata a la parte Española/Francesa y que celebran authoridad de los dos monarcas donde habia unos tratados de policia.]

hegemony. The Spanish and French even implemented, through their Bourbon monarchical regimes, very similar reforms in Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo.

The Spanish, for their part, sought to strike a balance since they entered into pacts with the French Monarchy against England. On the one hand, the Spanish needed to maintain good relations with the French monarchy. On the other hand, and as we will see in the coming chapters, the issue of people seeking refuge on Spanish lands became increasingly more difficult as the period of reforms was followed by eventual revolt and revolution at the close of the century. For the French, it was clear that they needed the

Spanish as both a politically strategic ally, but also as a key trading partner.

Conclusion

Recalling the correspondence between French Governor Bellecombe and Spanish

Captain-General Bernardo de Gálvez that opened this chapter, it is clear that both men understood the high stakes for Hispaniola following the Seven Years War. Cooperation would not come easy. In one of his many letters, Bellecombe gave an account of skirmishes and fights that broke out between Spanish and French troops in Le Cap.

Apparently, three of four French officers got into physical altercations with about eight to ten Spanish officers who attacked the French with rocks. Bellecombe then went on to detail how he and Gálvez met in order to try and put an end to the dispute by establishing

“a mixed guard of fifty men commanded by a captain and lieutenant alternatively by both nations.” Bellecombe argued that the “two nations” would thus establish “harmony,” which was advantageous since both nations had “a common cause.” Bellecombe stressed in his final line that this “at the very least” would help maintain “good order.”65

65 AN, COL, C9A, 152 N. 9, Year 1782. [Original French: Nous sommes aussi convenus d’établir une garde mixte de cinquante hommes commandés par un capitaine et un lieutenant des deux

The irony of attempting to place French and Spanish colonial enterprises under the umbrella of “good order” is palpable. The island of Hispaniola in the eighteenth century was a central staging ground for military sorties, peaceful navigation, illegal contraband, and slave rebellions. The conflicted history of the island shows us that from the first moments of contact between European and indigenous peoples to Haiti’s

Declaration of Independence in 1804, cycles of violence and resistance were the norm.

As a hybrid, split colony, Hispaniola was born of “pillage and revolt.” Tracing this long colonial trend toward “violent schizophrenia” is fundamental to understanding how the island’s subaltern populations, both on the part of its native inhabitants and later through its African slaves and African-descendants, shaped imperial governance. As Sherwin K.

Bryant has eloquently stated: “the enslaved body, reclaimed from the disorienting

Atlantic, inspected, baptized, and branded with the king’s brand, served as a vivid and gripping reminder of the ways that power ordered society and, therefore, the ways that society must order itself.”66

As we move forward with the history of the island, issues related to colonial border networks and various forms of resistance take center stage. Reactions to the

Bourbon reforms led, as we will see in the next chapter, to movements that would have lasting implications for the history of the Haitian Revolution. I will illustrate how resistance and the creation (and transgression) of various types of “order” amongst the island’s subaltern populations ushered in a new era of change—different from top-down

nations alternativement . . établir l’harmonie qu’il seroit si avantage de voir regner entre les troupes de deux nations qui son ten ce moment cause commune au moins nous maintient le bon ordre.]

66 Bryant, Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage, 149.

imperial reforms. One of the many articulations of resistance, only briefly covered in this chapter, was marronage, or the act of running away, most often from the plantation. This multifaceted action, as the next chapter shows, created spaces for subaltern peoples to build an orderly world for themselves, but not of the kind that colonial authorities wanted. The colonial border officially dividing Hispaniola into Spanish and French halves was a site of colonial anxiety and opportunism, of violence and exchange, and of a constant flux of peoples and ideas.

Chapter Two

“An Entwined Borderlands: “Good Order,” Rayanos and Free People of Color on the Eve of the Revolution.”

Figure 3: Map of Hispaniola, circa 1770.1

In chapter one we saw how in the first decades of the sixteenth century the

Bahoruco mountains provided a safe haven for the indigenous Taíno as they fled Spanish oppression. These mountains, located in the center of the island of Hispaniola and along the southern part of the border between Saint-Domingue and Santo Domingo, lie approximately 200 kilometers west of the Spanish capital of Santo Domingo. They are important because for the two centuries following the revolt of Enriquillo, they served as

1 JCB, Map Collection, C-8205 (1770). Carto bibliographic notes: “This map states that the frontier was traced in 1770, even though the process of surveying didn’t begin until august 1771. In fact, this map was probably drawn after 1777, since the marking of the frontier only began in February of 1776; the definitive treaty fixing the boundary limits was not finalized until August 1776 and was ratified in June 1777. (Information provided by David Geggus).”

a critical sanctuary for maroons who were either victims of cruel French plantation owners and Spanish slave catchers or, as we will see, runaways who were granted amnesty by both the French and Spanish.2 This chapter will demonstrate how the border of Hispaniola provided a place to which Africans and African descendants could flee, as well as somewhere where they could engage in negotiations with colonial authorities or contest colonial authority altogether. In the eighteenth century, attempts by French and

Spanish authorities to establish order through their various reforms and ordinances tended to generate more violence. Thus, this chapter analyzes the rise of militia service and the proliferation of slave hunters and free people of color using both French and Spanish sources.

One of the most important sources for understanding Saint Domingue society before the revolution is that of Médéric Louis-Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry.3 A lawyer and writer, Moreau de Saint-Méry was born to a creole family in Martinique in 1750 and had become, by the mid-1790s, an exile in Philadelphia. He was a onetime resident of Saint

Domingue who wrote in astounding detail about the French colony. Moving between law and history, and from environment to economy, Moreau de Saint-Méry composed what

Laurent Dubois has called “a classic Enlightenment project,” a chorographic account of

2 Yingling, “The Maroons of Santo Domingo,” 26.

3 Méderic Louis-Élie (M.L.E) Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de l’isle Saint-Domingue, 3 vols. (Philadelphia: Chez l’auteur, 1797). Of the many lessons in Moreau de Saint-Méry’s work, we should mention that in this context “creole” refers to someone who was born in the colonies— effectively, in the Americas.

both Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo.4 It is, according to James Sweet, “the most authoritative and most frequently cited source on the history of Haiti prior to the

Revolution.”5 For our purposes, Moreau de Saint-Méry is especially valuable since he wrote extensively about marronage.

Breaking the “Order”

Throughout the eighteenth century, enslaved people would break permanently with the world of the plantation by escaping to the mountains, swamps, or other backlands to form or join maroon bands; this was known as grand marronage.

Conversely, petit marronage was the practice of short-term absences through which the enslaved visited friends, family, and went to gatherings or the market without permission.6 According to Dubois, “administrators did what they could to prevent such illegal mobility” and “those who left the plantations, even to go to markets on Sundays, were required to carry a pass from their masters permitting them to do so.” Such passes, however, were “easy to counterfeit” and slaves often figured out ways to create these false passports, moving within the colony at will.7

Slave mobility within Saint Domingue is key as the latter decades of the 1700’s

(specifically the ten-year span between 1780 and 1790) saw the arrival of over 200,000

4 Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 8-10.

5 James Sweet, “New Perspectives on Kongo in Revolutionary Haiti,” The Americas, 74:1 (January 2017), 83-97 [83].

6 Jason Daniels, “Recovering the Fugitive History of Marronage in Saint Domingue, 1770-1790,” Journal of Caribbean History, vol. 42:2 (December 2012), 123; Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 53; Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description, vol. 1, 163, 183.

7 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 52. I cover the topic of forged documents in greater detail in the following chapter.

Africans to Saint Domingue.8 In the five to six year span between 1783 and 1788 alone, we know from a governor of Saint Domingue around that time, Cézar-Henri, Comte de la

Luzerne, that a total of 144,150 slaves arrived in the colony.9 James Sweet posits that of the newly arrived slaves during this time period over 112,000 of them were from Central

Africa, specifically the region spanning the Kongo and Angola. Moreover, Sweet notes that these figures are “roughly the same as those for the previous 20 years combined.”10

Not only was this the peak of the slave trade to Saint Domingue, but it thus created a massive rise in the numbers of slaves who escaped their plantations. Sweet suggests that as “labor demands increased and the number of Africans rapidly increased, abuses on plantations mounted.” As we saw in chapter one, not even the ordinances and reforms instituted by the crown during the 1770s and 1780s were enough to curtail violence against the enslaved.11 These decades, as I have argued, marked a strong shift in slaves’ attitudes towards any semblance of a “benevolent” master they may or may not have held. Some may have transferred this idea of benevolence onto the French King for issuing some ameliorative ordinances in the colony. As this section shows, however, slaves were likewise willing to be vassals of the Spanish monarch in his lands, assuming it meant winning some sort of reprieve.

8 Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. www.slavevoyages.org, accessed November 14, 2019.

9 JCB, La Luzerne, “Mémoire Envoye le 18 Juin 1790 au comité des rapports de l’Assemblée Nationale,” in Papiers Relatifs au Comte de Peynier, Chef D’Escadre, June 18, 1790.

10 Sweet, “New Perspectives on Kongo,” 92.

11 Ibid.

Scholars of the Haitian Revolution have long debated marronage as both “the expression of a freedom impulse in the enslaved individual” and as a “tool for negotiating small concessions to improve the daily life of the enslaved.”12 In the context of Anne

Eller’s conceptualization of the colonial border as a “central island” within Hispaniola, we know that a number of enslaved people either created their own, or joined maroon communities that “dotted the landscape of the colonial frontier.”13 More broadly, scholars have also wrestled with the idea that marronage was a major causal factor in the revolts of 1791 (which are covered in the following chapter). However, whether or not the act of running away helped stimulate the 1791 slave revolts, or if it was, as David Geggus argues, an “alternative to rebellion, a safety-valve that helps explain the remarkable absence of slave revolts in eighteenth-century Saint Domingue,” is not central to this chapter.14

Instead, I follow the analysis of Laurent Dubois and his view of marronage

(specifically small-scale resistance) as ways in which enslaved populations were able to

“sustain a culture of autonomy,” as well as varying levels of connectivity amongst

12 Daniels, “Recovering the Fugitive History,” 123.

13 Ibid.

14 For works that view marronage as a precursor to revolt, see: Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution From Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990); Jean Fouchard, The Haitian Maroons: Liberty or Death, translated from French by A. Faulkner Watts (New York: E.W. Blyden Press, 1981); Edner Brutus, Révolution dans Saint- Domingue (Paris: Editions du Panthéon, 1973); For works that de-emphasize the impact of marronage, see: Gabriel Debien, “Assemblées Nocturnes d’Esclaves a Saint Domingue, 1786 (Night-Time Slave Meetings in Saint Domingue),” translated by John Garrigus, Des Annales historiques de la Révolution 208: 273-284 (1972); Yvan Debbasch, “Le Maniel: Further Notes,” in Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, ed. Richard Price Third edition (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 74.

different plantations.15 But more pointedly, I am interested in how marronage not only connected slaves in Saint Domingue with other plantations within the French colony, but also how enslaved people from Saint Domingue crossed the colonial border into Spanish territory and established relationships with both runaway slaves within Santo Domingo, and with the Spanish colonial government itself. In other words, how did this movement of peoples destabilize the concept of good order or, as Ghachem calls it (in a later context), la république bien ordonnée?16 As Dubois has noted, sometimes even non- fugitive residents of Saint Domingue themselves would tell runaway slaves the way to

Spanish Santo Domingo.17 By looking at maroon communities in Santo Domingo and those relationships with slaves from Saint Domingue, Charlton Yingling demonstrates that we can view these safe havens as “microcosmic embodiments that reflected wider contentions over race, slavery, religiosity, and state.”18

15 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 54-55.

16 Ghachem, The Old Regime, 9.

17 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 52.

18 Yingling, “The Maroons of Santo Domingo,” 27.

En Los Límites de Ambas Coronas

Figure 4: Plano del valle en el que estavan acampados los esclavos de España y Francia, en las montañas de Bauruco, a mediados de mayo de este años, [English: Depiction of the valley in which the slaves from Spain and France were camped, in the mountains of Bahoruco, around the middle of May of this years [sic], Year: 1785, (Archivo General de Indias, Spain).19

Around the Spring of 1784, the governor of Spanish Santo Domingo Don Joaquín

García wrote to the president of the appellate court of Santo Domingo regarding a proposed new legal framework for the governance of slaves.20 Based on the Código

Negro Carolino of 1768 (the Black Code of the Spanish overseas colonies), and with which the Spanish sought to emulate the wealth of French Saint Domingue, the 1784 revision also aimed to strengthen racial hierarchies.21 Moreover, Spain’s black code

19 AGI, Mapas y Planos (Herafter MP) Santo_Domingo, “Plano del valle en el que estavan acampados los esclavos de España y Francia en las montañas de Bauruco, a mediados de mayo de este año,” N.516, Year 1785.

20 AGI, Santo Domingo 946-B, “Carta de D Joaquín García, Teniente del Rey a los presidentes y decano de la Real Audiencia de Santo Domingo, sobre la redacción de un código de leyes y ordenanzas para el gobierno económico, politico y moral de los negros de esta isla,” 14 Marcha 1784.

21 Turits, Foundations of Despotism, 37-38. For a study on how the Código sought to order slave society by race, that is, to make slaves working in plantations those with black skin color, see:

illustrated the ways in which—as Graham Nessler has argued—“certain legal and customary barriers to a master’s absolute control over a slave had emerged.”22 This included the involvement of local officials who defended slaves in legal cases, which included self-purchase and self-ownership by making payments.23 Such practices

“became inscribed” in both local regulations such as the 1784 Código Negro, issued by authorities in Santo Domingo, and a royal cédula (decree) governing slavery promulgated five years later [in 1789].24 Similarly to what happened in Saint Domingue, the reaction by plantation owners in Santo Domingo was negative. And yet, what was important to

García was that slaveowners acted in a way that benefited the economic development and security of the territory. García knew there were large numbers of slaves in the mountains without any restraint imposed on them by their masters. This was not only a problem for the “public good,” it also reduced plantation output and helped shelter maroon slaves.25

Moreover, because the new regulations created such friction between landowners’ dominion within the colony and the colonial administration, slaves were forced to utilize legal institutions in Santo Domingo to ensure that they could attain certain rights such as

José Buscaglia, “El poder, la ideología y el terror en el Mar de las Antillas,” ed. José Antonio Piqueras in Historia de las Antillas, vol. 5 (Madrid: Doce Calles, 2014), 475-517.

22 Graham T. Nessler, An islandwide struggle for freedom: revolution, emancipation, and reenslavement in Hispaniola, 1789-1809 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina press, 2016), 177. On the question of coartación, or the self-purchase in order to gain freedom, see (for the case of Cuba): Alejandro De la Fuente, “Slaves and the Creation of Legal Rights in Cuba,” Hispanic American Historical Review Vol. 4, N. 87 (Pittsburgh, 2007): 659-692.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 José Luis Belmonte Postigo, “Las dos caras de una misma moneda. Reformismo y esclavitud en Santo Domingo a fines del periodo colonial,” Revista de Indias Vol. 74, N. 261 (2014), 452- 482 [457].

buying their own freedom. These strategies, according to Postigo, were consistently deployed on the part of slaves—whether it was under Spanish or, later, French domination.26

Ultimately, and largely due to planter opposition, neither the 1784 nor the 1789 ordinances were implemented in Santo Domingo.27 A year later, around November 16,

1785, a map believed to have been drawn by Lorenzo Núñez (see Figure 4), was part of a series of communications by French and Spanish commissioners to the authorities of

Santo Domingo. Remitted by Antonio Ladrón de Guevara, the map provides a detailed sketch of the mountains of Bahoruco. It is a striking depiction of the extensive Bahoruco

Valley and mountain range. Yet, the more pressing purpose of the map is to show how

“slave deserters from Spain and France” had established clandestine settlements in the valley, tucked away between those mountains, revealing yet another of the anxieties

Spanish administrators sought to address with their various ordinances. One can assume that because the maroon community represented both Spanish and French slaves, and given the number of slaves the French colony had received in the preceding decades, that it was likely a cosmopolitan group of people from different regions of Africa mixed with creole slaves born in various parts of the island. Carolyn Fick, when talking about petit marronage and in the context of the various meetings the slaves held prior to the 1791 revolts, shows that slaves had established “an incredibly vast network” with which the

26 Ibid., 478.

27 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 257 [footnote n. 46].

interaction of various different elements was possible. She shows that these elements were African but also creole.28

The 1785 map offers a ‘bird’s-eye’ view of the maniel, or slave refuge, in which slave runaways had built huts made out of leaves and other foliage. The map is extremely detailed and provides seemingly plausible approximations of the size and scope of the settlements. It details approximately 39 huts and shows where in the valley they were located—specifically in close proximity to the ocean and the various lagoons that surround the Bahoruco mountains. It also points out that the maroons had built one cabin on top of a hill from which one could “see the ocean.” Anne Eller’s work shows that escaping into the highlands of the so-called ‘central island’ of Hispaniola was a common practice amongst slaves “from the first years of Spanish colonialism.” Moreover, Eller attests to the fact that frustrated Spanish authorities would often call such refuges manieles, which “became the prototypical title in the Americas for communities escaped from slavery.”29 In their description of the map, the Spanish (in a frustrated tone) admitted to failing to penetrate the encampment of those “fugitives” during their various incursions into the mountains. They stated that the runaways both “made fun of” the

Spanish troops, and also “longed” for a “civil and Christian” life.30

28 Fick, The Making of Haiti, 95.

29 Eller, “Raining Blood,” 433.

30 AGI, MP, Santo_Domingo, “Plano del valle,” N.516, Year 1785. [Original Spanish: Esclavos desertores de España y Francia . . rancho en una pequeña loma . . de la cual se ve la mar . . las diferentes empresas que se han intentado contra aquellos fugitivos, sin fruto alguno; hacienda burla de nuestras tropas . . todos aquellos individuos que anelan reducirse a vida civil y Christiana.]

As we saw in the previous chapter, the prospect of converting to Catholicism offered enslaved people from outside of Hispaniola the opportunity for social mobility and freedom within the island. Similarly, fleeing to the highlands also afforded maroons from both Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo the opportunity to engage with Spanish authorities and gain certain freedoms and privileges. For instance, according to correspondence between the interim governor of Saint Domingue, M. de Reynaud, and the intendant M. de Vaivre, we know that in the mid-1770s a number of maroons from

Saint Domingue came into contact with the Spanish. In a letter from Port-au-Prince dated

18 May 1775, Reynaud informed Vaivre that after examining earlier correspondence between the previous French and Spanish colonial governments, it was clear that the

Spanish governor, the Count of Solano, had refused to return “black maroons” [to the

French colony]. In fact, Reynaud stated that, according to a “trustworthy person,” the

Spanish governor had actually sent a general skilled at “secretly recruiting” the maroons.

This general, whose surname might have been Las Carenas, would arrive “daily from the borderlands” and the “interior” and give account of maroons engaging in certain actions for them [the Spanish] “on the condition that they would be well treated and nourished.”31

Yingling’s work demonstrates that these deals and negotiations between the

Spanish and maroons from Saint Domingue were not rare and that they steadily increased as the 1791 revolts approached. Indeed, “maroon leaders at Maniel negotiated with the

31 AN, “Concernant les limites et discutions avec les Espagnols,” COL, C9A, 143 N. 14, Year 1775. [Original French: Que le réfus du general Espagnol de restituer les negres marrons . . une personne de confiance . . avois ordre de lapart du general Espagnol . . les plus adroits sécrétement en récrües . . il leu ren arrive journellement des frontiers, et de l’ynterieur qu’ils ont soin de répartir a divers particuliers à condition qu’ils seront bien traités et bien nourrir.]

Spanish for cultivable land by agreeing to be baptized by the trusted creole priest Juan

Bobadilla.”32 By fleeing slavery and establishing themselves in the sanctuary of the

Bahoruco mountains, maroon communities from both Saint Domingue and Santo

Domingo were able, through multifaceted negotiations, to become subjects of the Spanish crown and achieve a certain degree of ‘good order’ for themselves. This was an ideal sought by French administrators who continually pushed for reform rather than violence.

Thus, Yingling’s claim that “the state extended beyond urban bastions of power and into unfamiliar geographies to initiate new subjects through rituals of popular royalism and piety that constituted a proselytic colonialism,” is critical.33 Spaces like the maroon settlements in the Bahoruco mountains provided maroons from Saint Domingue with opportunities to adapt but also to evade what Yingling called “basic stitchings” of

Spanish power.34

The evidence strongly suggests that the encampments drawn in the 1785 map are linked to the maroon communities with which both the French and Spanish colonial administrations signed a treaty in the same year. Dubois asserts that this treaty was signed

“with a group of more than 100 maroons living in [the] frontier region of Bahoruco” and that said treaty “granted them amnesty and liberty in return for their promise to pursue any new runaways in the area and hand them over to the authorities.”35 It does seem likely that the maroons who found sanctuary in the Bahoruco mountains around the mid

32 Ibid., 31.

33 Yingling, “The Maroons of Santo Domingo,” 27.

34 Ibid., 30.

35 Dubois, Avenger of the New World, 54.

1780’s both adjusted to and avoided basic elements of Spanish and French colonial power. However, this had a paradoxical effect on slaves’ abilities to engage in marronage in Saint Domingue. Geggus states that such a “closing frontier” made it more difficult to become a successful rural maroon. The Maniel treaty of 1785 gave a certain number of maroons already in the highlands their autonomy in exchange for their help in capturing and turning over other runaway slaves, therefore limiting marronage for others in captivity.36 In this manner, the colonial border of Hispaniola at once opened new opportunities for mobility while simultaneously closing others; it was a true site of contestation. The fact that African and African descendant peoples negotiated and entered into agreements with both colonial governments, however, did not sit well with other factions on the island. Planters and white colonists, particularly in Saint Domingue, denounced such actions. They believed, according to Dubois, that the only way to deal with rebel slave communities was “to destroy them.”37

Intrépide et Entreprenant

36 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 74.

37 Dubois, Avenger of the New World, 54.

Figure 5: “The mode of training Blood Hounds in St. Domingue, and of exercising them by Chasseurs” Source: John Carter Brown Library, Providence, Rhode Island.38

One of the individuals in Saint Domingue who dedicated most of his life to

“destroying” slave runaways was Claude Michel Louis Milscent de Mussé. A white planter born in Saint Domingue, Mussé led a band of mostly free colored men, known as chasseurs, in hunting down slave runaways. He was likely trained in the use of blood hounds in order track down runaway slaves. As depicted in an 1805 engraving (Figure 5),

Mussé likely filled slaves’ clothes with meat and showed them to caged and starving dogs; the engraving is very explicit and also shows gun-wielding chasseurs and dogs in the background running after maroons in the hills. In 1790, Mussé was a voting member of the Provincial Assembly of the North in Cap-Français and later on, he became

38 JCB, Archive of Early American Images (hereafter: AEAI), “The mode of training blood hounds in St. Domingue, and of exercising them by Chasseurs,” (London, 1805).

Commander of the Patriotic Militias in the Grande Rivière. Around June 1791, Milscent renounced his name ‘Mussé’ and adopted the name of “Milscent-Créole.” He fervently denounced the abuses committed against free people of color at the time of the revocation of the May 15 decree, which (as we will cover in the following chapter) granted free coloreds born to free parents the right to participate in political assemblies. Milscent-

Créole was known for his radical Jacobin views and would eventually take up a career as a journalist in Paris, joining the Société des Amis de la Constitution de Angers and where he also founded the journals Le Creuset and La Revue du Patriote, which became the official organ of the Jacobin Club. Milscent-Créole would eventually become a committed abolitionist.39

An article written by Mussé around 31 October 1791 would make it difficult to guess that he would ultimately support the emancipation of slaves. Writing from Angers,

France, Mussé recalled the significance that establishing equality between whites and free people of color had with regards to preserving slavery in Saint Domingue. Addressing all

“French patriots,” Mussé refers to Saint Domingue as his “native country” and speaks at great length about his work in the colony and the services he rendered there. He claimed that his services were connected to the events troubling the colony at that moment. He wanted the French patriots to know that free people of color alone could have brought an

39 For more on Mussé, see: Giulia Bonazza, “Le créole patriote (1792-1794): un ponte tra due rivoluzioni,” Società e Storia, 151 (June, 2016), 33-64; Alexandra Tolin Schultz, “The Créole Patriote: the Journalism of Claude Milscent,” Atlantic Studies/Global Currents 11:2 (2014), 1-20; Yves Benot, La Révolution française et la fin des colonies 1789-1794: Paris (1987).

end to the troubles in Saint Domingue, if only they had been treated like true men and citizens.40

Mussé discusses the role of black maroons throughout the history of Saint

Domingue by narrating the stories of some important maroon leaders. First, he talks about a “fearless and enterprising” fugitive named Polydor who in 1703 got a band of black maroons together and massacred whites with impunity within their houses. Mussé wrote about how the authorities at the time marched in vain trying to capture Polydor and that it was not until seven years later that one of Polydor’s own people assassinated him.

Three years later in 1706, according to Mussé, there was another black maroon named

Chocolat who was even more bold than Polydor, and just as willing to commit atrocities.

Apparently, the troubles caused by Chocolat and his band lasted nearly twelve years, until he drowned in the Limonade River (in northern Saint Domingue). Perhaps the most well-known of maroons was François Makandal, whom Mussé claimed was skillful at capturing the trust and spirits of his fellow blacks. Mussé insisted that Makandal’s followers practiced the “greatest fanaticism” and that they truly believed that Makandal had been sent from the heavens to free them. Makandal, however, was different from other maroons. He employed a technique that Mussé claimed was much more difficult to guard against: poisoning.

Maroon bands who escaped into the mountains were likewise very difficult to fight and track. Mussé claimed that up until the mid 1770s the situation in Saint

Domingue with regard to maroon bands was relatively stable, but that afterwards it

40 JCB, Claude Michel Louis Milscent de Mussé, Sur Les Troubles de Saint-Domingue, (Paris, 1791), 1-2. [Original French: Au Patriote François . . pays natal].

became increasingly difficult to navigate because he was no longer allowed to enter jurisdictions that were not his own. This point, he argued, was not lost on the “blacks” who went on to form three considerable maroon bands in different towns throughout the northern plains of Saint Domingue. Around the year 1790 and while a deputy of the provincial assembly in the northern province, Mussé indicated “murmurs” (rumors) had spread that a “considerable force of blacks” who were well armed with “guns and cannons” were part of a “general insurrection” in the colony.41 Mussé claimed he was tasked with looking into this force and that his search led him to find a small maroon band of about thirty individuals who were armed with machetes and pruning hooks.

Mussé described having requested “only fifty mulattos” from the assembly in the north to carry out his mission, but that he was instead given 600 men. This caused alarm in the colony and, as Mussé claimed, allowed the blacks enough time to de-camp after finding out. Mussé petitioned the assembly to cut back his detachment, but they did not concede.

He offered to attack the thirty maroons with 100 mulattos, but the assembly again refused. Mussé claimed that it was not until the “disarmament of the free men of color” that he understood the true motive behind the assembly’s refusals. Presumably, Mussé felt that the possibility of a general insurrection would put many free people of color in harm’s way which, at least it appeared to Mussé, was what the assembly wanted.42

41 According to Laurent Dubois: “property-owning whites . . jumped at the opportunity to gain local control over economic policy, and lost no time grabbing political power . . committees (in Saint Domingue) created provincial assemblies in the north, west, and south that declared war against the ‘ministerial despotism’ of the colonial governor and the Colonial Ministry in Paris. The assembly of the Northern Province granted itself full legislative and executive power and in early 1790 reopened the Conseil Supérieur of Le Cap, whose closing by the royal government in 1787 had enraged many planters.” See: Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 78.

42 Mussé, Sur Les Troubles, 4-5. [Original French: Intrépide et entreprenant . . plus grand fanatisme . . les négres ne l’ignoroient pas: il s’en forma trois bandes considérables. . le bruit se

Mussé’s account is important not so much because he talks about the history of maroon bands on Hispaniola, but rather for four fundamental reasons. First, he corroborates what we know about the reforms and ordinances that were passed in the early 1770s that limited the movements of slaves, free people of color, and free blacks in the colony. Yet, what is interesting is that he claimed—as a white colonist himself—that his ability to enter into other jurisdictions to hunt slave runaways was also restricted. This shows that the reforms indeed dissatisfied most all socio-economic and racial classes within Saint Domingue. Second, Mussé's account mentioned that maroon bands would meet up with other maroons who had fled towards the Spanish region in order to trade and meet with blacks on other plantations. He stated that maroon bands openly took food from the dwellings on the border and that militias had limited success in attacking them.

This resulted in maroons successfully being able to kill many whites, of both Spanish and

French background. Thus, Mussé is, albeit unintentionally, describing the importance of cross-border networks for maroons from Saint Domingue with Spanish Santo Domingo.

Third, it is important that Mussé is willing to admit that rumors in the colony tended to be blown out of proportion. For example, he shares the story of how as an officer for

Governor Reynaud, he was tasked with finding and capturing a certain maroon band. In spite of the fact that he was able to successfully kill the band’s chief, capture fourteen maroons, and leave nine on the battlefield, Mussé admits that the rumor arrived in Le Cap that he had killed 200 blacks and captured more than 100. This demonstrates that often

répandit tout-àcoup qu’il y avoit dans le morne du Cap un attroupement considérable de nègres, bien pourvus de fusils, canons, etc. qui formoit le noyau d’un soulèvement général de nègres de la colonie . . je ne demandai que cinquante mulâtres . . ce n’est que depuis le désarmement des hommes de couleur libres, que j’ai su pénétrer les vrais motifs de ce refus]. On Makandal, also see: Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 51-52.

fabricated rumors—as shown in the following chapter—were a powerful tool of control and manipulation. Finally, in his account Mussé is adamant about the critical role that free people of color played in his incursions against maroons. To Mussé, free people of color worked under his command and were essential to helping him capture maroons.

Yet, and perhaps more importantly, Mussé appeared to genuinely believe that these

“mulattos” were the key to preserving the very institution of slavery and avoiding a general slave insurrection.43

A Shift in Attitudes

Militia service in the French colony of Saint Domingue was a common practice for free people of color. As early as 1699, the colony’s north province established its first nonwhite militia in the port city of Cap-Français (present-day Cap-Haïtien). By the

1720s, the first mulatto militia was created in Dondon Parish, south of Le Cap and near the border with Spanish Santo Domingo and, in 1779, the colonial governor Charles d’Estaing created the first volunteer militia units mustered for an expedition to support

British colonial rebels at the Battle of Savannah in the U.S. War for Independence. What might militia service mean for free African descendants who had, throughout the first half of the eighteenth century, enjoyed relatively fair treatment within an otherwise deeply stratified colonial society?44 And what does this direct military engagement tell us about

43 Ironically, and as I cover in the next chapter, Mussé would himself be accused of counterrevolution and leading the slave insurgents of 1791.

44 For a review of free colored militia service in Saint Domingue, see: John D. Garrigus, “Vincent Ogé ‘jeune’ (1757-91): Social Class and Free Colored Mobilization on the Eve of the Haitian Revolution,” The Americas 68:1 (July 2011), 38. Also: M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises de l’Amérique sous le Vent, vol. 3 (Paris: Quillau. Mequignon jeune, 1784)

the ways in which free people of color in Saint Domingue conceptualized their standing and place in colonial society? Finally, with the French colonial context in mind, in what ways might our understanding shift when we view free African descendants’ standing within an island-wide colonial framework that includes their engagement with Spanish

Santo Domingo?

The prospect of joining a militia unit in colonial Saint Domingue was, early on, a rare path to freedom for non-free persons. For people of color (of mixed African and

European descent) who were born free, as well as free blacks or affranchis who attained their freedom, however, militia service was a method by which they could ascend in the social hierarchy. Questions of duty, citizenship, and honor reflected the confidence that these colonial intermediaries (meaning that they bridged the world between whites and black slaves) had in changing their social statuses by way of military service. This stands to reason, as scholars have shown that the free colored population in Saint Domingue enjoyed privileges that other slave societies in the Americas did not. The example of militia service was but one way for free African descendants to gain a respectable footing in colonial society. For instance, free people of color in Saint Domingue were found in various trades. They were midwives, surgeons, goldsmiths, shopkeepers, and small- business owners.45 Historians have generally asserted that despite the Black Code of

1685, which regulated slavery (and abuses) in French colonies, free people of color in

Saint Domingue enjoyed a sort of second-class citizenship. Yet, more recent works by

45 Dominique Rogers, “On the Road to Citizenship: The Complex Route to Integration of the Free People of Color in the Two Capitals of Saint-Domingue,” in The World of the Haitian Revolution, eds. David P. Geggus and Norman Fiering (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 65-78 [67].

scholars such as Dominique Rogers, Stewart R. King, and especially John D. Garrigus, reveal that the primary evidence points to less generous conclusions .46

These historians have shown that free African descendants in Saint Domingue exercised citizenship in ways that, according to today’s conceptualizations of rights and liberties, would not put them on or near equal footing with the white members of colonial

Saint Dominguan society. However, if one is to mine the notarial and juridical records of the era, it becomes evident that citizenship and belonging in colonial Saint Domingue took on many different meanings for the free population of color. Within military and civil society, these colonial intermediaries engaged in constant everyday negotiations, court trials, and appeals. And thus, by the late 1780s, free people of color in Saint

Domingue represented not only one of the largest populations of free coloreds in the

Americas but had also been able to amass considerable wealth in the French colony, often surpassing that of some white members of society. In fact, amassing credit and money enabled some of these free men of color to “whiten” themselves by way of their prosperity—perhaps explaining in part Mussé’s affinity for free men of color.47

Though for most of the eighteenth century free persons of color in Saint

Domingue exercised their legal and citizenship rights both within military and civil society, the situation began to change during the two decades of reform following the end of the Seven Years’ War. Whereas free people of color had, since the end of the seventeenth century, gained considerable standing in colonial society and been

46 Ibid.; John D. Garrigus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006) and Stewart R. King, Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2001).

47 Garrigus, “Vincent Oge,” 45.

considered Monsieurs and Sieurs (titles more or less meaning “Sir,” often reserved for white gentlemen), this period marked a dramatic shift in racial ideologies towards free people of color. Soon they began to be known instead by their alleged racial classification. For instance, notaries began to record the adjectives mulâtre libre or quarteron libre (meaning free mulatto or free quadroon) after a free person's name. Of note is Mussé’s own characterization of his chasseurs as simply “mulattos.” Yet, this shift in racial attitudes did not preclude the free people of color from also engaging in these more color-conscious ideas, as they also marked clear distinctions between themselves and slaves. In contrast to, say, the one-drop rule in the United States, colonists in Saint

Domingue in fact did not necessarily scorn wealthy free persons of color. Prior to the

1760s, race in Saint Domingue was imagined not by ancestry, but by “social class and to some extent gender.”48 This shift, due in large part to the Bourbon reforms, signaled the beginning of a new era of conceptualizing race and citizenship in Saint Domingue. As

Garrigus has argued, the economic and legal rise of gens de couleur (people of color) within Saint Domingue led white planters to redefine their own identities as directly opposing people of color and thus to promulgate more blatantly racist ideologies.49

Scholars have pointed out that while France’s legal institutions allowed people of color to have public identities, we should not confuse this with Frank Tannenbaum’s view that

Roman Law sheltered slaves from racist prejudice.50

48 Garrigus, Before Haiti, 18.

49 Ibid., 11.

50 Ibid.

Nonetheless, it is precisely within this dichotomy that the experience of free people of color is so important. On the one hand, free people of color exercised their legal rights in French Saint Domingue. On the other hand, they fashioned their identities within the island of Hispaniola by transcending the colonial border separating Saint Domingue from Santo Domingo. The cases of two prominent free men of color well known within the historiography of the Haitian Revolution, Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes, help to better understand these issues. While scholars have shown the important roles that these two men played in destabilizing colonial society in the year prior to the slave revolts of 1791, the primary documentation within the appellate courts of Santo Domingo has not been sufficiently examined. There are a few works that utilize this evidence51, but

I aim for a fuller, multi-dimensional analysis, asking pointed questions not only about the nature of the free-colored class throughout Hispaniola, but also how Spanish ideas about rights and freedoms may have influenced free colored men from Saint Domingue. To shed this new light on Ogé and Chavannes, I present some primary material that I believe will help to explain the broader implications of their cases.

Aline Helg has argued that the actions of free people of color in Saint Domingue helped inspire free colored revolts throughout Spanish America and that, similar to what would become the “black spectre” of the Haitian Revolution, this early group created a

“spectre of pardocracia,” instilling fear into white populations all over the Hispanic

51 Nessler (2016) and Melania Rivers Rodríguez, “Los Colonos Americanos en la Sociedad Prerrevolucionaria de Saint Domingue. La Rebelión de Vicente Ogé y su Apresamiento en Santo Domingo (1789-1791), Memorias. Revista Digital de Historia y Arqueología desde el Caribe 2:2 (2005), 1-23.

Caribbean.52 This work, along with others treating the wider regional impact of the

Haitian Revolution in the circum-Caribbean region have been fundamental in terms of fashioning a new, Revolutionary Atlantic narrative.53 While undoubtedly important and crucial for understanding the entangled nature of these paradigm-shifting events during the Age of Revolutions, my project offers a modified narrative that takes greater account of intertwined relationships within the island of Hispaniola. That is, can we talk of a

‘specter’ of the (reformed) Spanish Empire ascendant on the island of Hispaniola?

Admittedly, I place great analytical weight on the Spanish perspective in this section. I do this for three reasons. First, my primary sources are mostly from Spanish archives.

Second, I have found that works about African descendants in the Spanish Empire have helped me to formulate critical questions that seem to have escaped scholars focused on the French or Haitian sides of Hispaniola alone. If I am to properly illuminate ideological and identity formation among free people of color from Saint Domingue, I must attend seriously to the Spanish role in that narrative - with the understanding that 'Spanish' is here an umbrella term.

52 Aline Helg, “Simón Bolívar and the Spectre of “Pardocracia”: José Padilla in Post- Independence Cartagena, Journal of Latin American Studies 35:3 (August 2003), 447-471 [448].

53 David P. Geggus, ed. The Impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2001); Alejandro E. Gomez, Le spectre de la Révolution noire. L’impact de la Révolution haïtienne dans le monde atlantique, 1790-1886 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013); Sue Peabody, “Free upon higher ground”: Saint-Domingue Slaves’ Suits for Freedom in U.S. Courts, 1792-1830,” in The World of the Haitian Revolution, eds. David P. Geggus and Norman Fiering (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 261- 283; João José Reis and Flávio dos Santos Gomes, “Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution in Brazil, 1791-1850, in The World of the Haitian Revolution, eds. David P. Geggus and Norman Fiering (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 284-314; Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall, “The Specter of Saint-Domingue: American and French Reactions to the Haitian Revolution,” in The World of the Haitian Revolution, eds. David P. Geggus and Norman Fiering (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 317-338; and Ada Ferrer, Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

As the previous chapter demonstrated, the many legal reforms enacted by the

Bourbon dynasties of both France and Spain were fundamental in shifting the ways in which subjects of colonial societies understood their place within these imperial dominions. Ideas of race, citizenship, and political ideologies began to take on radically different meanings. For instance, royal reforms regulating the inhumane treatment of slaves in Saint Domingue’s plantations were understood by the enslaved populations of

Saint Domingue to mean that the French King Louis XVI defended their interests against their oppressive masters. Ghachem has pointed out that “insofar as the ordinances communicated a royal judgment that the planters and their representatives had exceeded the proper limits of their authority over slaves, that message managed to reach the slave community in at least one form.”54 In truth, these colonial reforms by the French crown were not benevolent gestures aimed at providing the slave population with rights and liberties, but instead a premeditated attempt by metropolitan interests to avoid a general slave insurrection that could potentially destroy the colonial enterprise. In this the reformers were prescient. Still, as Ghachem shows, mid-to-late eighteenth century changes in colonial governance allowed not only slaves but also free people of color to view the monarchy (or the person of the king) as a potential defender in their struggles for freedom and (eventually) equal rights. This all takes on a much more complex meaning with the explosion of the French Revolution in 1789.

When the events of 1789 in Paris began to be reported in the French colonies, some people were understandably worried and others, newly hopeful. In Saint Domingue, poor whites or petit blancs began to utilize the language and rhetoric of the Declaration

54 Ghachem, The Old Regime, 262.

of the Rights of Man, becoming increasingly radicalized and attacking the white planters

(as well as free people of color) of Saint Domingue’s elite classes. The radical ideas of

Republican France and of the National Assembly were surprisingly quick to have an impact on France’s dominions and to shape the ways in which people thought about natural rights and freedoms.

Saint Domingue's free people of color, angry at the increasing racial discrimination they suffered in the previous few decades, seized the opportunity to travel to the metropole and demand restoration of their status prior to when they were known as

“mulattoes” or “quadroons” but simply “Sir.” One prominent man of color, Julien

Raimond, led this push for the rights of the free coloreds in revolutionary Paris. Raimond was of one-quarter African ancestry and was a wealthy indigo planter. He would, by

1784, move to France in order to persuade the council at Versailles to outlaw colonial racism. Raimond would argue that instead of basing hierarchical structures on skin color, the metropolitan government should regulate legal status according to property and wealth. Eventually, the general grievances of men like Raimond were answered, first in

May of 1791, then with an April 4, 1792, decree in which political rights would be granted to free blacks and free people of color. While Raimond’s political struggles in

France and the fact that this news arrived in the colony helped push this movement for equal rights, he was not alone. Two other men, Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste

Chavannes, demonstrated that direct action in the colony and its borderlands was perhaps just as important as events and pleas before authorities in Paris

“He Loves Liberty and He Knows How to Defend It”

Figure 6: Engraving of Vincent Ogé55

On October 17, 1790, some years after Julien Raimond reached Paris, Vincent

Ogé and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes arrived in Saint Domingue at almost the same time.

Ogé had been in Paris gradually petitioning for the rights of free people of color, although we now know his first intention was to pay his way out of economic debts. Chavannes, by contrast, had been living in Spanish Santo Domingo.56 Although both men were of one-quarter African descent (meaning one out of four grandparents was African), as well as benefiting from the coffee business, they differed from each other in three main ways.

First, while Ogé had essentially made a life out of being a businessman and broker of coffee and expensive houses, Chavannes was a sergeant in the free colored militia that served at the Battle of Savannah in the War of American Independence in 1779. Second,

55 AGI, “Mapas y Planos, Estampas, “Retrato grabado de Vicente Ogé sedicioso mulato de Santo Domingo,” N. 30 (2), Year 1790.

56 For Ogé’s complex reasons for going to Paris, see: Garrigus, “Vincent Ogé,” 46. Garrigus, though, does not provide details about Chavannes’ stay in Santo Domingo.

Ogé was one of the wealthiest free men of color in colonial Saint Domingue and was often in higher social positions than many whites in the colony. By contrast, Chavannes was not especially wealthy and identified more with the poorer people of color of Grand-

Rivière. And lastly, in contrast to Ogé, Chavannes and his followers had an assertive political disposition. Unlike the wealthy Ogé, they based their claims not necessarily on property, but on their record of militia service. 57

John Garrigus has shown that contrary to the generally held belief that these men acted in unison to uphold the rights of all free colored classes, what the primary evidence actually reveals is that apart from a strong camaraderie, there was nonetheless a difference in the way each man articulated his political aims and tactics, as well as their geographic itinerancies. For instance, Ogé, unlike the other prominent libre de couleur

Julien Raimond, who went in order to expressly petition for the racial equality of free coloreds, left Saint Domingue for Paris in the late 1780s to cement his high status in the colony and thus—in his view—to achieve a certain level of whiteness. For Chavannes, the evidence is a bit murkier. We know, for instance, of his one trip to Santo Domingo, before both he and Ogé ended up seeking asylum there in the fall of 1790. We also know that Chavannes lacked Ogé's class standing and that he had to rely on his militia service for whatever respect it might command.

Yet, in their return to Saint Domingue around October of 1790, they came together pursuing the same cause. Ogé arrived from Europe donning a traditional military uniform and carrying with him various copies of engravings of his portrait in silhouette with the motto “He loves liberty and knows how to defend it” (Figure 6), where he is

57 Ibid., 54.

wearing a cross resembling the order of Saint-Louis (the highest military honor in

France).58 Interestingly, Ogé’s face is quite clearly depicted in a powdery white fashion and there are moles or skin tags that are used to accentuate the whiteness of his face. This depiction was of a very different Ogé than the money-chasing businessman who had left for France the year prior. As Garrigus states, “his actions suggest that he sought to import the Revolution’s concept of the citizen-soldier back to Saint Domingue, where officials had long discussed the connection between patriotism and military service.”59 Perhaps this is why the reunion with Chavannes went so smoothly, since Chavannes had fashioned himself within this citizen-soldier (or loyal subject-soldier) framework for decades. But the radical whites in Saint Domingue, and concretely in the political assemblies, had very different ideas than some of the abolitionists and critics of slavery that Ogé met in France (Thomas Clarkson and the Marquis de Lafayette, for instance).

For Chavannes, Ogé’s return meant that the campaigns for inclusion that he and his forces had been waging against the racist white assemblies of the northern plains, and for which he had fled at least once to Santo Domingo, now had a spokesman who could perhaps frame the movement within a more ‘revolutionary’ discourse. We know that

Ogé, at the onset, really had very little interest in fighting for the rights of all free people of color. Yet, his return to the colony (and indeed his self-aggrandizement) likely, and ironically, had a potentially radicalizing effect on him. Perhaps also aiding his self- realization was the fact that Chavannes had assembled nearly 300 men for their fight.

This is not to say that Chavannes and his men were fighting for radical republican or

58 Ibid., 52.

59 Ibid., 51.

abolitionist ideals, but simply to mention that they saw great potential in an armed struggle to win back their rights as honorable gentlemen and military men of Saint

Domingue. They no longer wanted to be classified as “mulattoes” or “quadroons.”

Ogé and Chavannes as Rayanos

Shortly after reaching Saint Domingue, Ogé and Chavannes met up at Chavannes’ plantation in Grande-Rivière (near Dondon in the north of Saint Domingue). By mid

October of 1790, both Ogé and Chavannes had written to the governor and to the provincial assembly of the north to enact the new voting regulations decreed in Paris, which were quite ambiguous regarding free people of color.60 The decree had been passed by the National Assembly on March 8 of that same year and granted free citizens

“without distinction” (meaning all races) their inclusion into the various political assemblies formed in the colony, as well as conceding them political and thus voting rights. This would of course pose problems of interpretation back in the colony.61 Indeed, influential whites in Le Cap refused to grant free people of color entry into their assemblies and soon after Ogé’s and Chavannes’ petitions, they sent white soldiers to the

Grand-Rivière to arrest Ogé. Chavannes’ men protected Ogé and Chavannes himself led a militia through the parish disarming white planters.62

Ogé had essentially been branded an outlaw for his political machinations.

According to Pamphile de Lacroix, a French general who witnessed these events

60 Laurent Dubois and John D. Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford St. Martin’s Press, 2006), 75-78 (Cited in Garrigus’ “Vincent Oge,” 58).

61 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 87-88.

62 Garrigus, “Vincent Ogé,” 58.

firsthand, white members of the western province’s Saint Marc assembly had declared flatly they would never share political power with a “bastard and degenerate race.”63

Allegedly, Ogé had stated that he had warned many of the colonists he was expecting support from Paris, but Garrigus has shown that this was likely a tactic used by Ogé to see if the whites would negotiate. Another report states that at some point Ogé threatened to “play the other side of the coin,” an allusion to the possibility of raising a general slave revolt.64 But, it is more likely that said plan was Chavannes’ suggestion, and that it was refused by Ogé, since we know Ogé tended to be the more conservative of the two. This remains conjectural, but by late October 1790, Ogé, Chavannes, and their approximately

300 men - for reasons that are still not clear - dispersed into the mountains. Around

November 1790, Ogé and many of his men were apprehended by Spanish authorities and subsequently extradited back to the French colony. On February 6, 1791, Ogé,

Chavannes, and dozens of other free men of color who had joined in taking up arms for their rights, were brutally executed in Cap-Français’ public square by being broken on the wheel.65

This is the standard narrative of Ogé and Chavannes’ revolt in Haitian Revolution historiography. Most of the literature relies on primary printed material from Cap-

Français, and some of the most recent work has provided new and important details from the notarial archives in France.66 However, we know almost nothing about the details of

63 Cited in Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 86.

64 Garrigus, “Vincent Ogé,” 59.

65 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 88. 66 In addition to Garrigus’ “Vincent Ogé,” he has also written “Thy Coming Fame, Ogé! Is Sure”: New Evidence on Ogé’s Revolt and the Beginning of the Haitian Revolution,” in Assumed

what occurred on the Spanish side of Hispaniola’s border while these men were held in custody by authorities for almost a month. Moreover, if much of the groundbreaking research on race, citizenship, and the free population of color in Saint Domingue relies so much on the French legal records of Ogé and Chavannes’ court testimonies and interrogations, what must we make of the legal records left behind in the Spanish archives from the case that eventually saw these African descendants extradited back to

Saint Domingue? What do these records reveal about the ambitions and pretensions behind the movement these free men of color led? And what can the process of testifying before Spanish lawyers and royal authorities uncover about the wider implications of political, intellectual, and social exchange between subjects of both the French and

Spanish colonies? In response to these questions, I will present and analyze a substantive portion of the 1790 sumaria or fact-finding mission and legal testimony.67

The judicial records housed in the Archive of the Indies provide key insight into the ways in which Ogé and Chavannes understood Spanish law. Moreover, the rich detail of the primary evidence illuminates that for years people like Ogé, Chavannes, and other men of color—both free and enslaved—were able to navigate through various social structures and, as Jane Landers has put it in referring to frontier dwellers in eighteenth- century Spanish Florida: “adeptly manipulate a variety of political contests as well as the demographic exigencies [of colonial authorities].”68

Identities: The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World, eds., Garrigus and Christopher Morris (Texas A&M University press, 2010); and King (2001).

67 AGI, SD 1028, N. 12, F.13, Year 1790. 68 Landers, Black Society, 3.

It was around December of 1790 when, fleeing towards the capital city of Santo

Domingo, Ogé and his men were taken into custody by authorities near the town of San

Juan de la Maguana. Interestingly, the lawyers in the case stated that there was no struggle or clash at the time of their arrest. Simply, Ogé and his troops “laid down their arms.”69 Perhaps this is suggestive of their main motivation for fleeing towards the

Spanish side: seeking royal asylum. This strikes me as the only reason why a military unit that had just taken up arms would so easily capitulate, but I also believe it shows what both leaders knew about the possibilities provided to refugees by the Spanish legal system. It appears Ogé and his company were optimistic of their prospects.

However, once the testimony began, it was clear that the Spanish governor, Don

Joaquín García, was distrustful of Ogé and his “brigands.”70 García seemed guarded about Ogé and Chavannes’ accusations against the white planters who had formed the provincial assembly at Saint Marc. The lawyers in the trial, however, were less reactionary and acknowledged that Ogé and Chavannes had the right to a fair trial with room for litigation.71 During that litigation and, when asked for general background information (i.e., occupation, marital status, etc.), Ogé and Chavannes said something that seemed to have a profound effect on the lawyers. They proclaimed themselves rayanos and fronterizos (borderlands persons or frontiersmen) and that even though they had been born on the French side of the border, they frequently traveled to and from the

69 Ibid.

70 Ada Ferrer’s most recent study Freedom’s Mirror shows that this was a common term to refer to the African descendant insurgents of the Haitian Revolution, which is intriguing given that the revolution had not yet ‘officially’ started. 71 AGI, SD 1028, F.10.

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dividing line and into Spanish territory (corroborating accounts from French archives that point to Chavannes’ trips to the Spanish side). When the men were asked why it was that they traveled into Spanish territory, Chavannes responded that he often met at his cuñado’s (brother in law's) house near the Hincha region (further into Spanish territory), while Ogé stated he would “hunt” and “sometimes his mother would buy beef from a man named Juan Andújar.”72

If the testimony can be trusted, and none of these claims seems outlandish, these free men of color had time for leisure activities in Spanish territory, were engaged in business transactions, built commercial networks, and even had familial relations. When asked if they had ever recruited any free men of color or blacks from the Spanish territory, Chavannes responded they had had five “Spanish mulattos” who had been soldiers with them in the Grand Rivière, but that these soldiers eventually deserted Ogé’s forces.73 So in addition to their political, patronage, and economic links across the border, it appears they also developed quasi- or paramilitary networks. Their political rhetoric during the testimony was unwavering; they explicitly condemned British imperial ambitions and were loyal to the Bourbon Catholic monarchies of France and Spain.

Throughout their testimony, they continuously warned the lawyers of “Jewish” and

“Protestant” seditious sympathizers in Saint Domingue who threatened to destroy the monarchy.74 These claims were clearly intended to win emotional support from a conservative Catholic audience, and may have been proposed by the defense.

72 Ibid., F. 196-97.

73 Ibid., F. 63-66. 74 Ibid., F. 390.

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Governor García was not convinced. He accused the men of being usurpers and counseled legal authorities to send them back to Saint Domingue immediately. The defendants' lawyers did not share his opinion, and they in fact seemed quite convinced of

Ogé and Chavannes’ statements. One of the lawyers, Don Vicente Antonio Fauna, summed up after the written testimonies with a series of extraordinary remarks. On the one hand, he said, the “mulattos have been born next to us and under the same climate and influences [unlike] that of the foreigners [a reference to the British occupiers], whom they do not know, with whom they have never conversed, and whose customs, treatment, and legislation they have much less experience with than with ours, which they have frequented since their infancy.”75 At this point, Fauna seemed to lean towards clemency.

He added that other families had come to Santo Domingo's borders because they had

“seen with their very own eyes the humanity with which our legislation treats all of its vassals, with no distinction of social status nor qualities,” which may have been a reference to birth, condition, or color. Fauna pushed the rhetoric even further by stating that “even though nature makes us black and white, we are sons of the same human species, and we are invigorated by the same spirit.”76 Despite Fauna and other lawyers’ attempts to avoid “blood on their hands,” the ruling to extradite Ogé and Chavannes passed.77

75 Ibid., F. 13. [Original Spanish: han nacido al lado de nosotros, y bajo de un mismo clima é influencias; que al de los extranjeros, a quienes no conocen, con quienes no han conversado y de cuyas costumbres, trato, y legislación no tienen la experiencia, que de la de nosotros con quienes se han frecuentado desde su infancia.] 76 Ibid., F. 14. [Original Spanish: han visto por sus propias personas la humanidad con que mira y protege nuestra legislación a todos los vasallos, sin distinción de estados, ni de calidades.” And, avnque la naturaleza hace de sus hijos negros y blancos somos hijos de una propia especie, y nos anima un mismo espíritu].

77 Ibid, F. 17.

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The Spanish legal record of the Ogé and Chavannes affair not only raises significant questions about free people of colors’ understanding of Spanish law and of the geopolitical stakes at play, but they also provide crucial insight into how African descendants from Saint Domingue may have understood their unique place in the borderlands of Hispaniola. In other words, Ogé and Chavannes’ legal testimony uncovers the networks they had created as frontiersmen with Spanish groups and individuals, and sheds light on an overlooked aspect of the Haitian Revolution, one that speaks not of proto-national aspirations but rather to notions of fluidity and border spaces as sites of negotiation, identity formation, and contestation. This is where it gets messy.

Scholars of Afro-Latin American history have traced the ‘black’ experience throughout the Spanish Empire. Twentieth-century scholars like Fernando Ortiz and

Gilberto Freyre wrote about African cultural survivals and how to incorporate African descendants into the nation-state. Pioneering studies by Frank Tannenbaum and Eric

Williams swerved in other directions by exploring the differences between slave societies, race relations, and capitalist investments and outcomes.78 It was not until the late 1970s to early 1990s that historians seriously engaged analyses of slave life, law, and plantation complex frameworks. More recently, historians have analyzed the ways in which African and African descendant peoples have developed acute understandings of colonial and imperial apparatuses. Specifically, scholars have pointed to how black subjects within the Spanish Empire could navigate imperial and colonial structures to

78 The pioneers: Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization (New York: Knopf, 1956); Fernando Ortiz, Los Negros Esclavos (La Habana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1916) and Cuban Counterpoint, Tobacco and Sugar (New York: Knopf, 1947); Tannenbaum, Slave and Citizen, (1947); Eric Williams, Capitalism & Slavery (University of North Carolina Press, 1944).

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secure freedom and rights for themselves. Perhaps more importantly, scholars have sought to situate African-descended people within their own narratives, not simply because they may inform our understanding of colonial processes, but because of the centrality of their stories within the development of Spanish American societies.

Of special significance here are works on legally pluralistic societies where multiple judicial structures intersected. These geographic areas (often frontiers) created spaces within which African descendants put their understandings of the law into practice. What makes the historiography perhaps the more significant is that scholars have shrewdly demonstrated how African descendants were able to engage in such mobility, possibilities, and circumventions, while faced with colonial and imperial power structures that privileged racial superiority and control. Undoubtedly, the violently stratified and racialized hierarchical structures of colonial societies made it even more difficult for African descendant populations throughout the New World to forge their own communities. Nevertheless, historians have made critical methodological strides in unveiling the voices of those marginalized by colonial powers. They have done so while elucidating the complicated ways and various social structures, in and by which, African descendants throughout the Spanish empire could create for themselves otherwise unattainable opportunities.79

79 Works I have found especially useful in thinking about how to frame the experience of African descendants from Saint Domingue within a Spanish Imperial perspective include: Herman Bennett, Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570-1640 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003) and Colonial Blackness: A History of Afro-Mexico (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009); Ilona Katzew and Susan Deans- Smith, editors, Race and Classification: The Case of Mexican America (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009); Sherwin Bryant, Rivers of Gold, Lives of Bondage: Governing through Slavery in Colonial Quito (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014); Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Sherwin K. Bryant, Rachel Sarah O’Toole, and Ben Vinson

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Thus, in presenting the extradition case of Saint Domingue’s free people of color, my research bridges the gap between the dichotomies that force us to study different colonial dominions through imperial lenses. Building on work by scholars of the Haitian

Revolution, which largely relies on French primary material, I shift the debate—and our focus—to the border of Hispaniola and thus the Spanish Empire. Similarly to my utilizing of Anne Eller’s “central island” formulation, I also propose that we look at the border of

Hispaniola as what David Gutiérrez coined a “third space.” That is, something which we cannot see as “separate bounded and bordered national binary spaces,” but rather as locales that “capture the porosity of political borders.”80 This third space, I argue, helped to establish networks for African descendants from Saint Domingue that not only exposed them to Spanish legal systems, but also allowed them to develop ideological frameworks that were rooted in a monarchical tradition deeply entrenched in both the

French and Spanish sides of the island.

Conclusion

III, eds., Africans to Spanish America: Expanding the Diaspora (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012); Jane Landers, Black Society in Spanish Florida (1999); Ben Vinson III, Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003); Michele Reid-Vazquez, The Year of the Lash: Free People of Color in Cuba and the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic World (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2011); Maria Elena Díaz, The Virgin, the King, and the Royal Slaves of El Cobre: Negotiating Freedom in Colonial Cuba, 1670-1780 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002); Matthew Restall, The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009); Rebecca Scott, Degrees of Freedom: Louisiana and Cuba after Slavery (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005); Ann Twinam, Purchasing Whiteness: Pardos, Mulattos, and the Quest for Social Mobility in the Spanish Indies (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015); James F. King, “A Royalist View of the Colored Castes in the Venezuelan War of Independence,” Hispanic American Historical Review 33, no. 4 (1953): 526-37; Aline Helg, Liberty and Equality in Caribbean Colombia, 1770-1835 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004) 80 David Gutiérrez, “Migration, Emergent Ethnicity, and the ‘Third Space’: The Shifting Politics of Nationalism in Greater Mexico,” Journal of American History 86, no. 2 (1999): 2.

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In this chapter, I have analyzed the ways in which marronage in late eighteenth- century Hispaniola challenged imperial desires for order and harmony. Specifically, cross-border networks between Saint Domingue and Spanish Santo Domingo and a particular focus on maroon communities in the highlands of the Bahoruco mountains allow for a deeper understanding of the ways in which the actions of Africans and

African descendants from Saint Domingue took center stage. In other words, the actions of maroons throughout the island of Hispaniola and in that “third space” of the colonial border help to reveal rising colonial tensions over Bourbon reformism (both French and

Spanish). Tensions arising from marronage influenced wider debates over citizenship, race, and a white colonial desire to re-establish some semblance of order. For instance, maroon destabilization in the colony of Saint Domingue was met with militias made up of white colonists like Milscent de Mussé, who commanded free men of color in his troops. The actions of men like Mussé, and his insistence on the critical role of free men of color in quelling marronage, illuminate the broader debates emanating from both the metropole and the colonies. We see, for instance, the extent to which attitudes towards maroons or fugitive slaves and free men of color shifted and how these attitudes fed broader anxieties and insecurities about a general slave insurrection.

Moreover, tracing the itinerancies of two African descendants from Saint

Domingue into Santo Domingo, Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes, has allowed me to frame this ‘third space’ as both a literal and conceptual space of negotiation and analysis. As we have seen, both religion and the law played important roles in the ways in which people envisioned their travels into this third space. As such, scholars of the

Haitian Revolution need to explore many of the questions that arise out of Saint

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Domingue by incorporating the Spanish Atlantic world. This chapter has attempted to address questions about how certain African descendants in Saint Domingue were able to fashion their identities through an interconnected Atlantic network that not only included voyages to Paris or Savannah, but also the closer and much shorter trip to the border region with the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola. I have attempted to show that Africans and African descendants conceptualized the political, intellectual, and military aspects of their society by moving back and forth between the frameworks of France’s Old Regime and nascent revolutionary government, and also within the fast-shifting world of late-Bourbon Spanish imperialism.

The individuals presented in this chapter not only created new identities and carved out new political spaces as opportunities arose, but in doing so, they also shaped the ways in which the events of the Haitian Revolution unfolded (as seen in the next chapter). This chapter provides case studies that can help open a broader dialogue regarding the legacy of marronage and free people of color in the Haitian Revolution, as it elucidates the circumstances under which they lived on the frontiers, traveled into

Spanish territory, and developed crucial networks with Spanish politicians, military personnel, religious figures, and everyday people. The borderlands between the two colonies provided spaces within which African descendants from Saint Domingue would open interstices for themselves and ultimately have control over their own destinies.

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Chapter Three

“To Burn One’s Nation: Loyalist Collusion and Towards a Better Understanding of the August 1791 Revolts”

For both Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes, waging an armed struggle against an entrenched class of white colonists was ultimately a losing exercise. Yet it was no less necessary for that. Both of these insurgents, as free men of color, threatened the core of a society that sought to disenfranchise them with racial rhetoric after they had succeeded according to the old rules, which rewarded economic success and military service. Despite their wealth and status, and light color (both were only one-fourth

African descent, or quarteron in the colonial French), Ogé and Chavannes were still seen as non-white. In an increasingly racialized Saint Domingue, they were relegated to a layer well below the pinnacle of Saint Domingue’s social pyramid. We also know that the option to “play the other side of the coin” or to arm the slave masses as Ogé had threatened was probably more appealing to Jean-Baptiste Chavannes. Curiously, democratization seemed to fuel racial retrenchment. The increasingly radical and autonomous whites in Saint Domingue erected political assemblies throughout the colony and chose to separate themselves racially from free men of color who frequently (and somewhat ironically) had more money and property than they did. The rumors that Jean-

Baptiste Chavannes had attempted to persuade Ogé to arm the enslaved people of Saint

Domingue in their cause against the colony’s whites should not be dismissed as a pie-in- the-sky plot. Indeed (and as we will see later in this chapter), David Geggus has asserted

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that some of the free black survivors of Ogé’s October 1790 uprising would appear nine months later in the August 1791 revolts.1

Scholars of the Haitian Revolution have remained divided as to how

“revolutionary” the August of 1791 revolts really were. Since C.L.R. James’s classic account of the revolution, historians have offered different interpretations as to how what began as a general slave insurrection in August 1791 culminated in the first independent state in Latin America in 1804. Prominent scholars have interpreted the pivotal slave insurrection of 1791 as either (1) a revolutionary and mass movement with strong links to the French Revolution; (2) a rebellion of mixed ideologies in which the Rights of Man and Republicanism were not mutually exclusive with the authority of the king; or (3) as a sequence of revolts rooted in late Ancién Regime monarchical reformism. Scholars have argued for the importance of marronage and vodou as catalysts for the 1791 revolts, while others have elucidated the key role played by free people of color in leading up to that moment. Historians have also pointed to the military and political experience in

Africa of insurgents of 1791 and how such experiences, specifically those prominent in

West and Central Africa, were manifested in the Saint Domingue revolts.2

1 David Geggus, The 1791 Uprising, Nathan I. Huggins Lecture Series (Part 2 of 3), Harvard University, February 2016, http://www.dubois.fas.harvard.edu/david-geggus-nathan-i-huggins- lectures-part-2-3 [accessed July 2017].

2 James, The Black Jacobins, 89; Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 107; Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 65. For the importance of marronage and vodou, see: Fick, The Making of Haiti, (1990); for the centrality of free people of color, see: King, Blue Coat, (2001) and Garrigus, Before Haiti, (2006); for the importance of African traditions see: John Thornton, “I Am the Subject of the King of Congo”: African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution,” Journal of World History, 4:2 (October 1993), 181-214; for a more recent study, see: Christina F. Mobley, The Kongolese Atlantic: Central African Slavery & Culture from Mayombe to Haiti. Dissertation, Duke University. Retrieved from: https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9951, 2015.

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As we have seen, the events in Paris of 1789 ushered in a wave of social and political upheaval in Saint Domingue, which was followed by the demands of the free people of color and the eventual and failed armed rebellion by Ogé and his followers.

This period, as Geggus has aptly put it, “seethed with uncertainty and rumor” and the various political factions in the colony debated the direction Saint Domingue should take.

For instance, “radicals talked of secession” and “conservatives of counterrevolution.”

Moreover, “since 1789, false rumors of a slave emancipation decree had circulated in the colony and several other parts of the Caribbean. A new wave of such rumors began early in 1791 and may have become mixed up with the news of the May 15th decree granting political rights to free coloreds born of free parents.”3 This decree resulted in a violent reaction by radical whites who had spoken of secession and pushed the free men of color to take up arms in the South and West regions of the colony. By early August of 1791, news arrived in the colony of Louis XVI breaking with the Revolution in Paris and his flight to Varennes; not long after, a new Colonial Assembly dominated by radicals met in

Léogane (in the West) and then adjourned on August 9th, planning to reassemble in the northern port town of Cap Français (Le Cap) on August 25th.4 Even though white colonists and planters did fear an insurrection by slaves, they perhaps did not—or could not—imagine what loomed. Carolyn Fick provides a helpful summary of this moment:

“Although a few might have foreseen the dangers ahead, most generally assumed that slavery was as inviolable as it was enduring. It had lasted over two hundred years. Slave rebellions had occurred in the past, and marronage had been a constant plague. But the revolts were always isolated affairs, and maroon bands were invariably defeated along with their leaders. For the planters, there was no reason to believe that slave

3 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 84.

4 Ibid.

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activity was any different from what it had been in the past. They would soon learn, but only by the raging flames that within hours reduced their magnificent plantations to ashes, how wrong they were.”5

On August 14, 1791, slave drivers and other members of the “slave elite” met on the Lenormand de Mézy plantation in the Plaine du Nord parish near the Morne-Rouge

(Red Mountain). The main purpose of the meeting was to finalize plans for a rebellion and mass uprising. By August 22, 1791, the largest slave insurrection in the history of the

Americas set the northern plains of Saint Domingue ablaze, with slaves marching from one plantation to the next.6 Over the course of the following months, the slave insurrection spread through the north and gained organization. By September 1791, the

National Assembly in France annulled the May 15 decree and by November, Port-au-

Prince in the western province was burned in fighting between white radicals and free coloreds; around this time, the first civil commission to restore order arrived in the colony.7 Through March of 1792, the slave rebellion “spasmodically spread in west and south,” and by September of the same year the second civil commission to restore order arrived in the colony.8 During the fall of 1792, the new civil commissioners formed an alliance with the free coloreds and began the process of deporting white conservatives as

5 Fick, The Making of Haiti, 87-88.

6 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 87: Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 97-98.

7 David Geggus, The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2014), xxxv. JCB, Saint-Domingue, Proclamation des commissaires nationaux-civils, Amnistie générale, invitation à la paix, et rappel des Emigrans (Cap-Haïtien, 1791).

8 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, xxxv. JCB, Saint-Domingue, Proclamation. Au nom de la Nation (Cap-Haïtien, 1792).

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well as radicals.9 In France, the Republic was declared, effectively abolishing the monarchy.

Revolutionary Conundrums

This all sounds like an unstoppable revolutionary tide and yet, what do we make of what David Geggus has recently called “the mystifying royalist posture” of the insurgents?10 How do we read primary accounts that speak of whites fighting alongside the black insurgents of August 1791 in Saint Domingue? What can we do with descriptions that speak of dead bodies with ‘odd-looking’ fingernails, which after being cleaned and examined were found to be of white insurgents who had painted themselves black with some sort of charcoal? How should we read accounts that speak of the rebel armies intentionally firing cannons over the heads of the royalist armies who were sent to crush their very insurrection? Can we believe allegations from multiple persons in influential positions seeking to maintain their status within a deeply stratified society, especially when they were made during a time of social turmoil and of shifting political allegiances? What was at stake for those who (Spanish authorities wondered in a state of bewilderment) went to such lengths as to arm their own slaves in their own defense or, even worse, had decided autonomously to fight alongside the “brigands” and “bandits?”11

When the radical French Jacobin government began the process of deporting hundreds of so-called counterrevolutionaries from Saint Domingue to be put on trial in Paris around

1794, what can we infer from the various interrogation reports and justification memoirs

9 Ibid., xxxv.

10 Geggus, The 1791 Uprising, (2016).

11 The Spanish colonial term for the rebels ranged from brigantes to vandidos.

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that many of these people left behind? Were they willing to maintain their loyalty to their monarch even with the sight of a guillotine in Paris’s Place de la Révolution? And finally, what might the possibility of collusion between loyal white royalist forces, free people of color, and free blacks in the August 1791 slave revolts of Saint Domingue do to disrupt our cherished understandings of the Haitian Revolution as a whole? If indeed the revolutionaries of August 1791 undertook their movement as a defense of the very monarch (or system of governance) that had enslaved them in the first place or, in defense of Ogé and Chavannes, how does this change the way we think about the cis-

Atlantic quest for freedom, nation, citizenship, and liberalism?

By focusing on these core questions, as well as analyzing some of the

Revolution’s discrete stages in their own terms, I argue that broader assessments of the

Revolution can obscure important facts. Viewing the Haitian Revolution through a

“modern” and “revolutionary” lens perhaps makes it all the more difficult to understand the idea of freedom under a new monarch. As the present and next chapter will show, for the insurgent leaders of 1791 egalitarian options may not have seemed tenable, and the absence of a “guiding monarch” perhaps seemed unnatural. Moreover, the possibility of claiming allegiance to a competing monarch was likely a means to other ends.

Ultimately, in this chapter I hope to propose new questions about the events that set off the Haitian Revolution.

Racial Equality or a Centralization of Colonial Power?

The brutal public executions of Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes in the main square of Le Cap that took place on on February 25, 1791, sent shockwaves through the colony and marked the beginning of one of the most tumultuous years in the history

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of Saint Domingue. Ogé became a martyr for many of the free people of color that fought alongside him, as well as to some free black insurgents who—as we will see later in this chapter—claimed to have waged their struggle in part to avenge the famous ‘mulatto.’12

As Carolyn Fick has noted, “as a reminder of the written and unwritten laws of white supremacy for all to see, their heads were cut off and exposed on stakes, Ogé’s on the road leading to Dondon, and Chavannes’s on the one leading to Grande-Rivière.”13 One of the great ironies of this harsh punishment and horrific display is that these were the cruel consequences of the ambiguous March 8, 1790 decree that was designed to leave to the white colonists “the merit and option of exercising an act of generosity toward mulattoes and free blacks, an act which would inspire in them sentiments of affection and gratitude and establish the most perfect harmony among the different classes composing the population.”14

And yet, Ogé’s execution was also well known in Paris and many in the metropole had grown bolder in their open hostility against what they called the

“aristocrats of the skin”—notably, the increasingly powerful white Jacobin (radical) band.15 Indeed, the strides that Ogé had made near the end of 1790 in Paris’s National

Assembly would not be in vain. Other prominent free men of color such as Julien

12 As has previously been made clear, Ogé and Chavannes were not mulatos, but quadroons (of one fourth African descent) and likely would not have allowed people to address them in either of those terms.

13 Carolyn E. Fick, The Making of Haiti, 83. Chavannes was from Grand-Rivière and Ogé was from Dondon.

14 Fick, The Making of Haiti, 84. [Original quote in Gabriel Debien, Les Colons de Saint-Domingue passes à la Jamaique, Bulletin de la Société d’histoire de la Guadeloupe, n. 26, 4ème trimestere, 1975, 194]

15 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 88.

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Raimond, along with white French abolitionist ally Abbé Grégoire, would continue the revolutionary activism of the free-colored class in Paris. Raimond invoked his service in the colonial militia and his bravery at the Battle of Savannah during the American

Revolutionary War. Men like Raimond and Grégoire argued “that free men of color were capable and deserving of Republican citizenship.”16 In late spring of 1791, Maximilian

Robespierre would adhere to the demands of the free men of color from the French colonies and famously state: “we will sacrifice to the colonial deputies neither the nation nor the colonies nor the whole of humanity . . . I ask the Assembly to declare that the free persons of color be allowed to enjoy the rights of voting citizens.”17

Ogé had sought common ground with white planters all of his life and in 1789 he had even met the Club Massiac in Paris (a wealthy planters’ club) and addressed them in the following eerily prophetic words: “if my project is adopted, I propose to go and carry it out myself, to watch over the public safety, under your orders. If I risk my personal interest, my life itself is a sacrifice that I owe to the public good, and I make it willingly.”18 Any doubt or ambiguities left behind by the March 8, 1790 decree for which

Ogé had given his life could now be crushed. The May 15, 1791 decree thus not only marked an important turning point in the history of Saint Domingue, but made its legal

16 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 67.

17 Fick, The Making of Haiti, 85. [Original quote: in Maximilien Robespierre, “Oeuvres de Maximilien Robespierre, ” eds. M. Bouloisea, G. Lefebvre, A. Soboul, 10 vols. (Paris: PUF, 1930-1967), 7:362-63. Fick clarifies that although Robespierre was a champion of free men of colors’ rights, he was no abolitionist.] Maximilien Robiespierre (1758-1794), was a lawyer and dominant figure in the subsequent Reign of Terror of 1793-1794.

18 Original source: Motion faite par M. Vincent Ogé, jeune à l’Assemblée des Colons [Paris, 1789], 1-2, 5-7. Cited in David Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 47.

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details very clear: it was to grant political rights only to those who had been born of free parents, affording those members of colonial society the right to enter into the existing colonial assemblies in Saint Domingue who, for their part, had only just been granted these quasi-autonomous privileges.

The white colonists both in Paris and back in Saint Domingue were furious. The backlash against the news that the National Assembly had granted anyone born to two free parents political rights and access to the colony’s assemblies was felt almost immediately. As Fick asserts, “it was not the few hundred mulattoes and free blacks included in the law that the planters feared. The entire social and economic structure of the colony, slavery itself, and the precious fortunes tied to it were at stake. To allow even a few mulattoes to vote would immediately open the whole question of those mulattoes still in slavery or born of only one free parent, and from there the abolition of slavery would be but one step away.”19 Accordingly, many of the members of white political assemblies in the colony did not acknowledge the May 15th decree and refused to allow entrance to the free men of color. There was an unusually common “front of white solidarity and white supremacy” upon the return of many of the representatives who had gone to Paris to attack the revolutionary colored activists.20

It is natural that Fick refers to this solidarity front with the term ‘unusual’ as the colony’s whites had, with the onset of the French revolutionary events in Paris, begun to quarrel and vie for local control and status almost immediately. One event that shook the colony happened almost immediately after the March 8, 1790 decree, when the assembly

19 Fick, The Making of Haiti, 85.

20 Ibid.

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at the western port-town of Saint-Marc had declared that they would not share their political gatherings with the free men of color. Increasingly posing a secessionist challenge to the colonial authorities, the assembly at Saint-Marc, after having asserted virtual independence from France by passing a colonial constitution on May 28, 1790, came under attack by the orders of Governor Louis-Antoine Thomassin, Comte de

Peinier, who ordered the regiments of Le Cap (in the north) and of Port-au-Prince (in the south) to converge at Saint-Marc (in the west) and disperse the assembly around July

1790.21 One of the results of this dispersal, however, was that eighty-five of the deputies of Saint-Marc were able to seize a French warship stationed in the colony named the

Léopard. These eighty-five deputies would play an important role in the counter-protests against the men of color at the National Assembly, as well as constantly agitating the colonial order. The Léopardins, as they would come to be called, “presented a challenge to the compromise between planter and merchant interests” . . and their presence in

France “publicized the political chaos in Saint-Domingue.”22 The Léopardins may have been at the intersection of the varying colonial interests being debated in Paris’s National

Assembly between the years of 1789 and 1790, but their impact—I argue—is part of a broader series of events that will lead us to a better understanding of what was to unfold in the coming years.

21 Jeremy D. Popkin, “The French Revolution’s Royal Governor: General Blanchelande and Saint Domingue, 1790-92,” The William and Mary Quarterly 71:2 (2014), 207.

22 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 86.

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The “First” White Death

The “refugee” group of eighty-five deputies who had embarked on the Léopard and arrived in Paris undoubtedly rubbed shoulders with various radicalized groups in the metropole.23 One of the least talked about episodes among the events that preceded the

August 1791 slave revolts was the assassination of Le Chevalier Thomas-Antoine

Mauduit du Plessis, Colonel at the Regiment of Port-au-Prince (at the time the administrative capital and one of Saint Domingue's main ports) and apparently an energetic and “convinced royalist.”24 Colonel Mauduit had fought at the Battles of

Brandywine and Germantown during the American Revolutionary War as a major and aide to Henry Knox, a military officer of the Continental Army and later the first United

States Secretary of War.25 The United States Congress apparently made him a brevet lieutenant colonel, and George Washington held him in high esteem for his zeal and bravery.26 Mauduit was also “familiar” to Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de

Lafayette.27 In Saint Domingue, he was known for having led the regiment of Port-au-

Prince against the assembly at Saint-Marc and was one of the main officers under the

23 Popkin, “General Blanchelande,” 210.

24 Jacques Cauna, “La Révolution à Port-au-Prince (1791-1792) Vue Par Un Bordelais. In: Annales Du Midi: Revue Archéologique, Historique Et Philologique De La France Méridionale, Tome 101, N.185-186 (1989) : 169-200. Original French: un homme énergique et royaliste convaincu.

25 George Washington, et al, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799 (U.S. Govt. Print Off, 1931), 334. On Henry Knox, see: Ron Chernow, Washington: a Life (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 444.

26 Ibid.

27 James Alexander Dun, Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America (Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), 31

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newly appointed Governor Louis-Philibert-François Rouxel de Blanchelande who had replaced Governor Peinier that fall of 1790. Colonel Mauduit essentially filled the role of both mayor and military commander at Port-au-Prince.28

Realizing he was in charge of an unstable situation in the colony, Governor

Blanchelande reached out to authorities in Paris asking, with regards to the colonial assemblies, if he “should . . recognize them as constitutional? Should I let stand their frequent incursions into the different branches of the powers that have been recognized up to now as the only legitimate ones?”29 The metropolitan government, knowing of the still precarious situation in the colony and sensing that the new governor might be in need of a helping hand, sent two new military units, the regiments of Artois and Normandy, to increase the power of the colonial government’s military. The colonial garrison normally consisted of two permanent colonial regiments stationed in Port-au-Prince, which was under the charge of Colonel Mauduit, and Le Cap, which at that moment was under the command of Laurent François Le Noir, le Marquis de Rouvray (more on Rouvray later in the chapter). This “backup” for Governor Blanchelande, though, would backfire. As a contemporary white French colonist described it: “Blanchelande and Mauduit, acting no longer with restraint proceeded hastily towards the colonial counter-revolution, when the

28 [Gabriel] Mr. Gros, An Historick Recital, of the Different Occurrances in the Camps of Grande-Reviere, Dondon, Sainte-Suzanne, and Others, from the 26th of October, 1791, to the 24th of December, of the Same Year (Baltimore: Samuel and John Adams, 1793), 84-86. Accessed at the John Carter Brown Library in Providence, Rhode Island.

29 Quoted in Popkin, “General Blanchelande,” 210. Blanchelande was referencing the white political assemblies. [Original: Archives Nationales, Blanchelande to Fleurieu, Nov. 29, 1790, D XXV 46, d. 429.]

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arrival of the regiments of Artois and Normandy interrupted their projects. They in vain took every measure to prevent the landing at Port au Prince.”30

As soon as the two regiments arrived at Port-au-Prince in the spring of 1791, as

Popkin states: “rather than bolstering Blanchelande’s authority...the newly arrived soldiers and sailors virtually destroyed it.”31 Likely having been in prior contact with members of the former assembly at Saint-Marc and now known as the Léopardins, these soldiers arrived in the capital with a revolutionary spirit, calling assemblies and bringing news from France. For their part, the local whites and self-titled “patriots” welcomed these men enthusiastically and soon began to spread false rumors that “the National

Assembly had reversed its decree of October 12, 1790, which had approved of the dissolution of the Colonial Assembly, and they succeeded in turning the new arrivals against the military commander of the West Province, Colonel Thomas-Antoine

Mauduit.”32 Seeing that the recently arrived help had been completely won over by the local white “patriots,” Governor Blanchelande took swift action and tried to generate an escape plan from the capital when a mob of angry white soldiers and sailors assembled.

30 Gros, An Historick Recital, 84. [syntax and punctuation altered for clarity] Gabriel Gros had been taken prisoner by the insurgents around October 1791 and offered an account of the events of 1791. His descriptions were published first in Cap Français in July 1792, then reedited both in the United States and France in 1793. For more on Gros, see: Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 83-86; Popkin, “General Blanchelande,” 217. According to Dubois, Gros’ account was “compelling and believable, and on the whole the volume and variety of evidence about the presence of royalist symbols among the insurgents is impressive, and greater than that regarding republican symbols” . . Gros “confidently concluded that ‘the revolt of the slaves is a counterrevolution’.” See: Laurent Dubois, “Our Three Colors’: The King, the Republic and the Political Culture of Slave Revolution in Saint-Domingue,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 29:1 (Spring 2003), 83-102 [90-91].

31 Popkin, “General Blanchelande,” 210.

32 Ibid.

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He failed in his attempts to calm them down and Mauduit evidently told him: “your life and mine are in great danger; all is lost, I have no more hope of restraining these tigers.

Look out for yourself; I will see to my own safety.”33 Governor Blanchelande managed to escape, but Colonel Mauduit would not have the same luck, being cut to pieces by his own soldiers in the capital. Blanchelande would head towards the main port city of Cap-

Français (Le Cap), where he would admit his shortcomings and his decision to allow for the election of a new Colonial Assembly in order to assist him in restoring order.34

Similarly, in his contemporaneous account, Gabriel Gros recalled the incident:

“They [a reference to the patriots arriving from France] having just come from a country of liberty, and animated by patriotism, the generous defenders of their country, could not stifle their indignation, after they learned the situation of the citizens; they reproached the regiment of Port au Prince, for having executed the tyrannical plans of government, and refused to associate with them. The citizens, enraged at being deceived by their colonel, determined to take vengeance of him, which they did, by cutting off his head, after obliging him to give satisfaction for profaning his colours.”35

Blanchelande eventually fled to the Spanish part of the island. Indeed, Mauduit was marked as “allied” with those who had a sense of loyalty to the Old Regime and his death

“served as an example” to those who wanted to “stop the rapid progress of the

33 Quoted in Popkin, “General Blanchelande,” 211. [Original: Blanchelande to navy ministry, Mar. 13, 1791, D XXV 46, d. 430, Archives Nationales (Paris)]

34 Ibid.

35 Gros, An Historick Recital, 85.

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revolution.”36 As one scholar put it, Mauduit was the “personification” of the counterrevolution.37

But why is the attack on Port-au-Prince, along with the death of Colonel Mauduit so important? Why is it that this episode has not been highlighted within the historiography of the Haitian Revolution? Jeremy D. Popkin has done much to shed new archival light on the career of Saint Domingue’s “royal” Governor Blanchelande (which I cite at length in the previous paragraphs), but even Popkin’s article falls short of explaining the importance of Mauduit’s death during the buildup to the events that preceded the August 1791 slave revolts. Furthermore, Popkin fails to provide information about Governor Blanchelande’s crossing into “Las Caobas” (sometimes spelled ‘Las

Cahobas’) in Spanish territory before arriving at Le Cap. Thus, it is important to further analyze Spanish colonial correspondence that sheds new light on this episode, as well as raising pertinent questions which will be important moving forward.

Writing the Spanish governor Don Joaquín García from Las Caobas as early as

March 6, 1791, it is safe to assume that Governor Blanchelande arrived in Spanish territory within a matter of a few days after the attacks on Port-au-Prince, which in the

Spanish record is listed as having happened on March 2, 1791.38 Blanchelande was just northeast of Port-au-Prince and west of the Valle de Banica, which made up one of the

36 Federal Gazette June 2, 1791 (Philadelphia), in: Dun, Dangerous Neighbors, 38.

37 Ibid., 38.

38 According to Jeremy D. Popkin, the attack actually happened on March 4, 1791 and was detailed in the newspaper of Port-au-Prince, the Gazette de Saint-Domingue, as “this beautiful day.” See: Popkin, “A Colonial Media Revolution: The Press in Saint-Domingue, 1789-1793,” The Americas 75:1 (2018), 3-25 [p. 14].

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main centers of cattle production in colonial Santo Domingo. This border town of Las

Caobas was founded in the 1760s and was directly south of the border town of San Rafael de la Angostura (both along the northern frontier between Saint Domingue and Santo

Domingo), which during the mid-eighteenth century was largely made up of French colonists and families that originated from the Canary Islands.39 Interestingly, San Rafael was on the Spanish side of the border with the town of Dondon, which was where

Vincent Ogé lived—who we now know had created quite extensive familial, military, and commercial networks throughout this area. Nonetheless, the Spanish account of the attack on Port-au-Prince provides some intriguing details, suggesting the event may have played out differently.

Blanchelande first corroborates that the two ships arrived with regiments from

Normandy and Artois, but the account takes a different turn when he states that these recently arrived soldiers were the ones to have “seduced” the colonial regiment at Port- au-Prince. As we saw, Popkin’s account from the French archives is quite the opposite of this: that the radical whites at Port-au-Prince won over the multitude of soldiers who had just arrived from France. Blanchelande states that it was a man calling himself

“Commander Caradeux” who first called an assembly at the main church of Port-au-

Prince. It is my contention that this so-called Caradeux is Jean-Baptiste de Caradeux, who would go on to become one of the major masterminds behind some of the treaties that his “patriot” and independence-seeking faction would sign with leading free-colored

39 Rosario Sevilla Soler, “Santo Domingo, Frontera Francoespañola. Consecuencias de la Presencia Francesa en la Isla Española,” Revista de Indias N.4 (1990), 163-185 [183].

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groups from the western province.40 Apparently, Caradeux had also “previously armed his own plantation slaves” and created the “Company of Africans” which he recruited among “urban slaves.”41 According to the French Governor, Caradeux had connections with the National Assembly and had been ordered to come to the colony to “put into practice the ideas of independence.”42 What ensued, however, is a much different account of the seemingly cowering Colonel Mauduit and Governor Blanchelande, both hiding in the government building and attempting to escape (one of them successfully) out the back door.

In the Spanish record, Blanchelande stated that after calling a general assembly at the church, Mauduit arrived on the scene and was greeted by Caradeux. Mauduit, donning a white royal cockade, demanded to know the meaning of said assembly.

Caradeux informed Mauduit that he was welcome to come join, but not before removing the white royalist cockade, to which Mauduit replied (roughly) “that he had sworn an oath to that badge [or symbol] and was not at liberty to remove it.” Caradeux asked

Mauduit a second time, at which point Mauduit replied that “nobody would take off his cockade without also removing his head.” One of Caradeux’s officer’s proceeded to, with no further questions from any of the parties involved, remove “his head with a swing of his backsword.”43

40 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 105.

41 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 136. According to Dubois, Caradeux eventually left the colony, bringing a considerable number of his slaves with him to the United States.

42 AGI, Santo Domingo 1029, N. 30 (1791) [Original Spanish: traer pensamientos de Yndependencia que los ponga en practica]

43 Ibid.

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This episode is rich in detail and does well to outline how knowledge comes to be produced differently when we shift our perspective from one imperial archive to another.

In the French accounts, we get the sense that Blanchelande was the victim of a group of usurping local radicals who were threatening the very stability of the colonial enterprise—perhaps yet another hint at the fact that he needed help from the metropolitan government. But in the Spanish account, we come away with the impression that maybe it was outside agitators who had come to the island to stir up trouble, likely a way to win favor with the neighboring Spanish authorities. Yet, I am less interested in how these modes of historical production varied given their archival provenance, than with what this literally meant on the ground for Blanchelande and his seemingly loyal monarchists.

Indeed, as Gros indicated in his account when referring to Mauduit, among those loyal to the slain commander were also “the negroes on the plantations,” who cried out that their

“father Mauduit had assured them, that the King allowed them three days out of the week.”44 In a world where it was commonplace for non-white bodies of slaves and free men of color to be used as examples when they dared to rebel against the colonial system,

Mauduit’s death marked, in my estimation, an important turning point.

I read the Mauduit episode as a foreshadowing or warning of what radical republican factions were capable of undertaking in the colony and the added alarm it must have caused the rest of Saint Domingue’s colonists, not to mention the possibility of

[Original Spanish: Que habia jurado a aquella divisa, y no se la podia quitar . . que nadien se la quitaria la cucarda sin la caveza . . y sin más replica se las quito ambas un oficial de un golpe de sable].

44 Gros, An Historick Recital, 84. Note that Gros uses the term “negroes” here as a proxy for slaves (See: Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 83).

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collusion between loyal monarchists such as Mauduit and the 1791 insurgents. Indeed, as early as August of 1790, the General Assembly of Saint-Marc was already accusing

Mauduit of being part of a larger complot in the colony to instigate a counterrevolution by “ruining Saint Domingue.”45 In fact, it was allegedly later revealed that Mauduit had been “in league” with the Spanish crown.46 In sum, Colonel Mauduit may not have been the first white colonist to die as a result of political turmoil in the colony, but he was one of the first to be publicly shamed and a very real example of what would (and could) happen if one was a white royalist openly proclaiming loyalty to the Bourbon Crown of

France. Mauduit proved to the rest of the white royalists in Saint Domingue that they, too, could be executed and publicly displayed on pikes if they were not in line with the shifting tide of the revolutionary politics of the time.47 Whether you were a radical patriot of a nascent French Republic, or loyal to Louis XVI, white colonists in Saint Domingue did have one thing in common: they all ultimately feared a general slave revolt. The slave revolt would come, but not before the white royalists in Saint Domingue came to realize that their very own (white) country mates were also willing to do away with everything they had built in the name of a new nation.

45 JCB, “Extrait des registres de l’Assemblée Générale de la partie française de Saint-Domingue: Séance du deux août mil sept cent quatre-vingt-dix,” In Papiers Relatifs au Comte de Peynier, Chef D’Escadre, (August 2, 1790) [Original French : le Colonel Mauduit . . décèlent le complot d’opérer en France une contre-révolution, par la ruine de Saint-Domingue.]

46 General Advertiser August 2, 1791 (“Address of the Municipality of Port-au-Prince, to the National Assembly”), in Dun, Dangerous Neighbors, 38.

47 Ibid. [Governor García reported that Blanchelande claimed the following: que su cabeza fue paseada por las calles (That his head was paraded through the streets)]

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Rumors, Conspiracies, and Scapegoats

Public executions like that of Colonel Mauduit were not uncommon for the non- white populations of Saint Domingue. Capital punishment was frequent in Hispaniola's brutal plantation regime and well before. Whether it was “Enriquillo” in sixteenth- century Santo Domingo, “Makandal” in eighteenth-century Saint Domingue, or Ogé and

Chavannes on the eve of the revolution, anti-colonial conspiracies took on various forms.

Whether they be armed uprisings, mass poisonings of both slave masters and/or their livestock, or mass flight into the mountains, people who engaged in any sort of anticolonial resistance were met with brutal repressive force. As Sara E. Johnson’s work on the transcolonial Americas demonstrates, black subjects in the revolutionary Caribbean were in a constant state of pressing and defending their boundaries. In seeking to hear these voices, Johnson’s work informs us of the ways in which colonial authorities attempted to reestablish their control over the bodies of enslaved subjects.48 One of the ways in which colonial administrators and slave owners accomplished this was through the use of dogs, often bloodhounds. Johnson asserts that “the use of dogs as a means of torture showcased the legal nonperson-hood and subhuman status of the colonized as a way of asserting planter control.”49 According to Johnson, this destruction, punishment, and effective disciplining of the rest of the slave population was made into a public spectacle and motivated residents of the city, both white and black, to relocate to neighborhoods far from those “accents of death.”50 What makes the time period between

48 Sarah E. Johnson, The Fear of French Negroes: Transcolonial Collaboration in the Revolutionary Americas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012).

49 Ibid., 25.

50 Ibid., 26.

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the onset of the French Revolution in 1789 and the slave uprisings of August 1791 in

Saint Domingue so interesting, though, is that we witness something unprecedented in the colony: the public executions by whites of prominent free men of color and of a prominent white man like Mauduit.

By murdering Mauduit, radical colonial agitators took political ferment in the colony to another level. But already as early as the fall of 1789, news of the creation of the National Assembly in France and the fall of the Bastille in July of that year had sent shockwaves throughout the various parishes of Saint Domingue. The royalist governor the Comte de Peinier and the royal intendant François Barbé de Marbois warned, on

September 25, 1789, that a “multitude of printed works” (about the events in Paris) had sparked in the colony a sort of “agitation.” The governor and the intendant wrote the metropolitan officials of the dire need to take all precautions necessary to stop this news from reaching the negres (the blacks). They further drove home the point that Les Amis des Noirs (The Friends of the Blacks, an abolitionist society in Paris) and their talk and writings about the emancipation of slaves posed the real risk of worsening the situation.51

The subject of l’affranchissement des negres or general slave emancipation would become one of the main rumors and points of contention between royalists and republican factions in the colony.52 The term “rumor” is necessary since, from 1789 onward, colonists in Saint Domingue witnessed an explosion of rumors of freedom decrees, and of various political conspiracies along with their supposed conspirators. As

David P. Geggus has written about slave societies more broadly: “the most striking

51 AN, Série C9A, 162, N.30, 1789. [Original French: une multitude d’imprimés . . qu’agitation]

52 Ibid.

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feature in the history of American slave revolts is the claim made by the majority of rebels and conspirators . . that they were fighting to seize a freedom already granted them by a distant central government, but which local officials and planters were refusing to implement. Sometimes it was a question of only three free days per week, sometimes of full emancipation.”53 Rumors, however, also had a “wide variety of sources (in recent political and legislative events) and had been circulating for years.”54 In writing about the circum-Caribbean, Lauren Derby has stated that “rumor, gossip, and banter have not received the systematic and sustained analysis they deserve as forms of popular knowledge production.” Derby’s work helps to explain the ways in which rumors that made it into the public sphere on the eve of the Saint Domingue revolution, could “give rise to historical events.”55

Certainly, the events of 1789 in metropolitan France had a particularly strong effect on the imaginaries of various colonists in Saint Domingue. Take for example the case of Madame de Rouvray (the wife of M. de Rouvray) who would, shortly after the insurrections of August 1791, claim that the revolts were “the direct result of the actions taken in metropolitan France by abolitionists” and that there were reports that claimed there were whites leading the slave insurgents in battle. She would write in September

53 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 62. The three free days per week rumor was likely made up by Mauduit to win over those “negroes” mentioned in Gros’s account.

54 David P. Geggus, “Print Culture and the Haitian Revolution: The Written and the Spoken Word,” Proceedings of The American Antiquarian Society 116 (2006): 299-316 [304].

55 Lauren Derby, “Beyond Fugitive Speech: Rumor and Affect in Caribbean History,” Small Axe 18:2 (2014): 123-140.

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1791 that along with the “150 slave insurgents her husband had killed . . was one white man who was carbonisé—covered in carbon [charcoal] as a kind of black-face.”56

Similarly, around September 1791 or a month after the insurrections in the northern plains of Saint Domingue, the Governor of Spanish Santo Domingo—Don

Joaquín García—received a report from one of his agents along the colonial border and near the French colonial town of Limonade describing the aftermath of a battle scene

(between colonists and black insurgents) in which the unnamed officer claims to have found, among the many dead (black) bodies, one that had odd-looking fingernails. Upon inspecting said body, the officer claimed to have realized it was a white man who had painted his body black with some sort of tizne (or carbon), and that they did not recognize the man.57 If reports such as the one by Madame de Rouvray and the aforementioned

Spanish account are true, then how do we begin to make sense of the notion that whites and blacks may have fought together in the insurgent forces of Saint Domingue? Do we simply consider them rumors, or give them evidentiary weight? Even if we opt for treating them as rumors—as Derby shows—such banter had real consequences. I propose that we do not, just yet, eliminate the possibility of mixed forces having existed, at least in some places. Indeed, this would have been a much different situation than, say, white colonial forces recruiting loyal slaves to fight with the colonial garrison in order to quell the revolts. If true, this is a case of whites and blacks fighting together on the side looking

56 Cited in Dubois’ Avengers of the New World, 103.

57 AGI, Santo Domingo 1030, N. 2, Folio 116 (1791) [Original Spanish: entre estos se hallo uno muerto que por las uñas sospecharon fuese blanco; le lavaron el tizne o tinta de la cara y hallaron que lo era, pero no le conocieron]

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to invert (or stop) the growing and popular new colonial order of radical republicanism.

Even so, these matters are never so dualistic.

What we do know is that the insurgents of August 1791 rose in the name of their king and the Catholic Church rather than in the name of a nascent republican nation. In fact, the recorded war cries that they shouted as they were lighting the northern plantations of Saint Domingue on fire were “long live the king” and “I burn my nation,” proclaiming loyalty to God and to the French Crown. In an intelligence report composed shortly following the revolts of 1791, Spanish authorities received a set of documents that provided intriguing information about the events happening on the other side of the colonial border. It appears that in the course of their reconnaissance of French lands,

Spanish border officers found a passport that the insurgents handed to people whose lives they spared and of which they, presumably, made a copy (Figure 2). The document reads:

“copy of the passport that the insurgents give to those whose lives they spare.” This is followed by four sections which read: 1) “In the name of God and of M. D. M,” 2) That which had exploited has been defeated, the iron is broken. Long live the King,” 3) “I. B.”

4) “M. N” (with a ‘J’ across the N). The explanation at the bottom reads: “the French interpret the first three letters to stand for the name of an inhabitant that they suspect schemes with and mobilizes the insurgents, his name being Milsan de Musé, and the four last letters to mean: je brule ma nation. This stands for: ‘I burn my nation’.” The awkwardly placed ‘J’ across the ‘N’ was possibly meant to be a correction of the misspelling and showed that the ‘I’ needed to be replaced. What is striking, furthermore,

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is that the man who goes by the name of Musé, and not the king, is mentioned in the same line with God.58

Figure 7: Copia del passe que dan los levantados a aquellos a quienes no hacen daño. En el nombre de Dios y de M.D.M. Lo que se presumio está vencido, la barra de hierro está rompida. I.B.M.N. Los franceses interpretan las primeras tres letras con el nombre de un habitante que sospechan hace maniobrar a los levantados y se llama Milsan de Musé, y las quatro últimas: je brule ma nation. Esto es: yo quemo mi nacion. Firmado: Joaquín García, Governador de Santo Domingo.

58 AGI, Santo Domingo, 1029, N. 4, (1791)

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Carolyn Fick has mentioned that, often times, slaves forged passes and passports in order to engage in small-scale marronage, even if they were minimally literate.59 Other historians such as Laurent Dubois and David Geggus have also agreed that forgeries during the Haitian Revolution were commonplace, especially in the form of safe-conduct passes; this was rooted in the “pass-system used by Saint Domingue slaveowners.”60 Yet, this particular document seems unlike a simple plantation “travel” passport. It reads more as a sort of political manifesto in which the person (or persons) diffusing the message contained therein wanted the recipient to know that they were staunchly royalist and followers of the Christian God. But what to make of this “Musé” whom the French suspected “mobilizes the insurgents?”

As we saw in the previous chapter, Milscent de Mussé was a committed leader of patriotic militias in Saint Domingue, mostly slave hunting bands called chasseurs, made up primarily of free colored men. He was also purportedly an ardent republican and thus, it should come as no surprise that someone like him would be accused of colluding with the insurgent slaves by the (likely) royalist forces of Saint Domingue. It is my contention that whoever was passing along intelligence or information to the Spanish authorities about Mussé was doing so in order to deliberately paint him as a counterrevolutionary.

59 Carolyn E. Fick, “The Saint Domingue Slave Insurrection of 1791: A Socio-Political and Cultural Analysis,” Journal of Caribbean History 25:1 (1991), 1-40 [6].

60 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 52; Geggus, “Print Culture and the Haitian Revolution,” 307. Geggus asserts that forged documents were used in the slave uprising. His specific reference to one with a “cryptic acronym” and the phrases “the iron rod is broken” and “Long live the king” would make it seem that it is the same one I present here. However, it is difficult to state with certainty since Geggus also indicates these types of passports were “certainly” used in “the rebel camps after the uprising broke out.”

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However, Mussé's track record simply does not match up with this picture of him as a staunch royalist. Even more, we know from the work of Alexandra Tolin Schultz that

Milscent was likely not even in the colony in the fall of 1791 and was instead in Paris.

Nevertheless, Spanish archives contain a few more reports about Mussé that offer embellished and unlikely details of his ideological stances. For instance, in news from

Dajabón (near the northern border between Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo) on

September 23, 1791, Don Andrés de Heredia, a leading Spanish commander in charge of one of the border entry posts, reported that there was an attack on the town of Dondon

(and its church) led by a white man who was very well known as “M.r Milsan” and that he asked the priest to take out all of the sacred ornaments and vessels so that they could burn down the church. It had allegedly been “profaned by the assemblies which had met therein.”61 The assumption here was that because he was a “staunch royalist” Mussé had to do away with the radical ideas that had profaned said church during meetings held there by radical members of near-secessionist colonial assemblies.

In another September 1791 exchange between Heredia and Governor García from

Santo Domingo, Heredia, in charge of defending the border, stated that “200 men from

Paris had come to tell the slaves that there should be no slavery and that one of the leaders was Milsant de Musè.” This man, according to the Spanish general, had gone to

Paris only to return and seek vengeance as well as protection for the mulattoes, whose rights were being violated by the Colonial Assembly in Saint Domingue.62 An October

61 AGI, Santo Domingo, 1030, N. 57 (1791) [Original Spanish: profanada por las asambleas que en ella se habian hecho]

62 AGI, Santo Domingo, 1029, N. 30 (1791)

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27, 1791 letter from San Rafael—the border town near Dondon—border commanders reported to Santo Domingo’s governor that “one of the insurgent blacks came close to our garrison saying that our troops and weapons would soon be in their favor, that his

General Mr. De Milsan came and went from Le Cap when he wanted.”63 Lastly, in a fantastical account, the Spanish Governor claimed that following the execution of Ogé and Chavannes, the “French mulattoes” solicited allies from France and that they subsequently “mobilized a multitude of negro slaves from the various camps by offering them freedom.” He added that shortly after the uprising they had a standing army of more than “10,000 men with 4,000 of them on horseback and under the command of a

Monsieur Melsi de Melsant, European officer of the Normandy regiment, and who proceeds by orders of his King, for his King, and with the inscriptions on his flag of

‘Long Live the Religion, Long Live the King, and Death to the Treasonous Nation’.”64

These sources should be approached with utmost caution as men like Mussé were often projections of colonial anxieties. He represented a fear that both French and

Spanish colonial authorities shared, namely, the notion that a white colonist—in this case

Milscent de Mussé—may have been responsible for calling and leading the slaves to arms. While this view surely erases the agency of the slave insurgents and their leaders it

63 AGI, Santo Domingo, 1030, N. 56 (1791) [Original Spanish: que un negro de los levantados se había acercado a nuestro guardia . . diciendo que presto nuestras tropas y armas serian en su favor, por gu General Mr. De Milsan entraba y salía quando quería en el Guarico.]

64 AGI, Santo Domingo, 1029, N. 12 (1791) [Original Spanish: hicieron sublevar una multitud de negros esclavos de las haciendas de campo francesas ofreciéndoles la libertad con lo que han logrado un pie de exercito de mas de diez mil hombres y quatro mil montados à cavallos al commando de Monsieur Melsi de Melsant, oficial Europeo del Regimiento francés de Normandia, que procede en aquellas hostilidades por orden de su Rey, y para su Rey; lo que comprueba el estandarte escarbolado por este partido con la inscripción de Viva la Religion: Viva el Rey: y muera la Nacion traidora]

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also, conversely, demonstrates that people like Mussé were sometimes scapegoats in conspiracies and plots that were in fact real.

As might be expected, Mussé called the allegations against him outrageous and in his justification memoir he assured readers that men who envied him had reasons to bring him down. He insisted that “wicked traitors” had accused him of precisely the evils that he had—for nearly twenty years—sought to prevent, mostly successfully. Here, Mussé referred to his work as the commander of the chasseurs. More importantly, Mussé highlighted one of the main points that he focuses on in his memoir: the notion that free people of color, in his estimation, were crucial to maintaining equilibrium between whites and blacks, thus keeping the colony from falling into what he called “a total subversion.”

Mussé speaks of his frustration with the upheavals plaguing the white populations in the colony and alludes to the idea that the slaves had to have been attentive to all of their movements. Furthermore, Mussé made it clear that he felt that the slaves must have been watching with pleasure the “impolitic” ordeals that the whites were going through in the colony. The slaves, he claimed, in wanting to break their chains had worked together “in the shadows of mystery” in order to realize this.65

In Mussé's estimation, the only solution to the stalemate were to first grant political rights to and utilize the free people of color (as he had his entire career as a

65 JCB, Claude Michel Louis Milscent de Mussé, Justification de M. Milscent, créole, a l’Assemblée Coloniale de S. Domingue, (Paris, 1791) [Original French: Et ils ont l’imbécille méchanceté de m’accuser précisément des maux que j’ai voulu prévenir, et don’t j’avais préservé ma patrie pendant près de vingt ans . . Je suis certain qu’il n’y a que les gens de couleur libres qui puissent conserver, entre nous et nos esclaves, cet heureux équilibre sans lequel, vous venez de le voir par leur impolitique désarmement, les colonies courent les risques d’une subversion totale . . L’esclave attentif à tous nos mouvemens, vit avec plaisir cette impolitique qui lui faisait entrevoir l’espoir de briser ses chaînes, et concerta dans l’ombre du mystere les moyens de le réaliser.]

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maroon hunter) and secondly, to give the enslaved in Saint Domingue hope of escaping their bondage for their good services. Mussé continues his defense by stating that the members of the colonial regime had accused him of colluding with the slaves because of the fact that, at the time of the insurrections, his mother’s life was spared at their plantation. To this he responded that the mercy shown his mother should not be a testimony to his crimes, but rather a testament to his glorious and authentic conduct. His line of reasoning was that it was unsurprising that the slaves would do his family no harm as they (specifically his mother) had always treated them (the slaves) “with humanity.”66

And yet, Mussé hunted slave runaways for a living and, as we have discussed, likely used blood-hounds to do so.67 Mussé was cognizant of the dangers of arming slaves in Saint

Domingue, writing at length about it in his work Sur Les Troubles de Saint-Domingue

(1792).68 This points to his ambiguous stance as a colonist who—irrespective of the feelings he professed for the nonwhite population—was still a slave owner. Milscent was guillotined on May 26, 1794, at the height of the Reign of Terror for the crime of having provided false testimony to the Revolutionary tribunal. It was said that the two presiding judges both had links with the colonies and were eager to dispose of a notorious troublemaker.69

66 Ibid. [Original French: Est-il étonnant après cela, que dans un moment où les esclaves se soulévent contre des maîtres dont ils supportaient avec peine le joug, ils aient reconnu dans ma mere une bonne maîtresse, qui ne les a jamais gouvernés qu’avec justice et humanité.]

67 I alluded to this with Johnson’s work The Fear of French Negroes (2012).

68 Mussé, Sur Les Troubles de Saint-Domingue, (Paris, 1792); See also: JCB, Milscent, Créole, Du Régime Colonial (A Paris: De l’Imprimerie du Cercle Social, rue du Théâtre-François, 1792).

69 Schultz, “The Créole Patriote,” 188.

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The Lost Royalists

It is clear that the case of Milscent-Créole provides us with no smoking gun revelations of someone who may have conspired with the slave insurgents of 1791.

Instead, it is my belief that the implausible and exaggerated accounts in the Spanish archives are rather quite telling of the intentions of people in Saint Domingue who may have wanted to cover their own tracks. In other words, I argue that Mussé’s story was very likely a diversion by other French colonists who had true counterrevolutionary intentions and desired to centralize colonial power, royal authority, and the influence of the church. It is no secret that the colonial authorities at Le Cap, before the arrival of the civil commissioners, fought to maintain order in the colony and the interests of the

French crown. For instance, we have seen the difficulties faced by the royalist governor

Blanchelande when he attempted (unsuccessfully) to hold all of the opposing ideological factions at bay, and how this took an extreme turn with the Mauduit affair.

Shifting our focus from the governor, I propose that we look instead towards four of his associates and trusted military officials. I first came across three of their names in a report from the Spanish colonial correspondence detailing the events of 1791 in Saint

Domingue and in which around November of 1791 one of the Spanish agents noted that there was a "free black" jailed at the Guarico, a.k.a. Le Cap. In the report, the agent mentions that upon having been interrogated, the imprisoned freedman had “declared that implicated in the insurrection were Mr. de Vincent, Mr. Cambefort, and Mr. Touzar.”

The prisoner further stated that there had been “no remarks whatsoever about the credit that these officials deserve” [for the revolts].70 While I do not suggest we take this source

70 AGI, SD, 1030, N. 2, F. 83 (1791) [Original Spanish: el negro libre preso en el guarico dicen ha declarado estan comprehendidos

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at face value, I find it somewhat odd and in-and-of-itself revealing that two out of the three men mentioned (Vincent and Cambefort) happen to be very minor if not absent figures within the historiography the Haitian Revolution. For his part, Anne-Louis de

Tousard, while a bit better-documented than the others, is still far from a central figure in the story of the revolution.

Alexandre de Vincent de Mazarade was the interim governor of Saint Domingue from 1787-1788, and would become, upon Governor Peinier’s arrival on August 22,

1789, second in command in the northern province.71 Joseph Paul Augustin Cambefort was a colonel of the Regiment at Le Cap and was in charge of Vincent’s post while the latter shared the main political and diplomatic duties of the colony with the royal intendant Marbois.72 Anne-Louis de Tousard was a lieutenant-colonel of the Le Cap

Regiment in charge of the eastern part of the north province.73 In sum, all three of these men were at various points in charge of high-level military and political matters within the colony, especially in the years leading up to and during the insurrections of 1791.

When the revolts broke out, Governor Blanchelande ordered these men to suppress the

en la sublevación Mr. de Vincent: Mr. Cambefort y Mr. Touzar que no se hado credito para la opinion que merecen estos oficiales]

71 AN, Série C9A, 163, N. 1 (Year 1789)

72 AN, Ibid., N. 12 (September 29, 1789)

73 See: JCB, Tousard, Lieutenant-Colonel Du Régiment Du Cap, A La Convention Nationale (Paris: De l’Imprimerie de N.H. Nyon, imprimeur rue Mignon, 1793). Also, Joseph Paul Augustin Cambefort’s, Mémoire Justificatif (Paris, 1793) was split into four parts. Parts I-III are in The Hagley Museum and Library (HLM), Wilmington, DE; Part IV is in the JCB as: Cambefort, Quatrième Partie Du Mémoire Justificatif (Paris, 1793).

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uprising, along with a fourth officer and brigadier in the colonial militia—Monsieur de

Rouvray—mentioned earlier and who was also stationed in the north province.74

As previously noted, I find it a bit surprising that neither Cambefort nor Vincent receive a single mention in either Geggus's Haitian Revolutionary Studies or Dubois's

Avengers of the New World. Both Tousard and Rouvray have lately enjoyed a bit more attention but they are still ancillary characters in the major works on the revolution. In

Malick W. Ghachem’s work on the complex continuities of France’s Old Regime and its customs within the Haitian Revolution, for instance, Vincent’s character comes under some scrutiny. Ghachem demonstrates the complicated process by which Vincent and the royal intendant Marbois worked their way through the volatile latter part of the 1780s, during which time various slaves brought charges of abuse against their masters. For instance, Ghachem cites how Governor Vincent and Marbois “reported to Naval Minister

César-Henri de la Luzerne on the ‘barbarities committed by’ a planter named Maguero against the slaves of his plantation.”75 In a surprising decision, Marbois and Vincent ordered the accused Maguero to be deported back to France on the next available ship, where he would be detained and barred from returning to Saint Domingue.

This type of action was consistent with the royal reforms in the colony that sought to curtail planter abuses against their own slaves. And as I have argued in prior chapters, this late Ancién Régime reformism should indeed be seen as equally important to the discourse of the French Revolution when talking about how we arrive at the 1791 slave

74 On Rouvray, see: Fick, The Making of Haiti, 74, and David Patrick Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 86.

75 Ghachem, The Old Regime, 182. Note: Ghachem states that La Luzerne had himself served as governor of Saint Domingue from April 1786 until November 1787, when Vincent was named his successor.

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revolts.76 Ghachem’s study does well to demonstrate how the legal dynamics of slavery had just as much to do with the roots of the Haitian Revolution as any knowledge of

French revolutionary discourse. There was a way in which royal edicts against planters’ brutalization of slaves weakened the very institution of slavery fundamental to their colonial enterprise.

Far from being a benevolent administrator, then, Vincent was instead worried about maintaining order and central authority in a colony in which the slave-to-master ratio was unparalleled anywhere else in the Americas. This tells us that he was indeed not only worried about the possibility of a slave insurrection, but actively engaged—through colonial law and policy—in processes that ensured the continuation of the Old Regime plantation system. This renders the notion that Vincent might have been involved in some sort of counterrevolutionary conspiracy leading up to the revolts of 1791 somewhat improbable. At the same time, however, he did have close ties with Colonel Cambefort or

Lieutenant-Colonel Tousard, both of whose actions are worth questioning and analyzing in terms of possible collusion with insurgent forces. Moreover, the situation between

1787 and 1788 (when Vincent was in power) was quite different from the rapidly shifting political circumstances that filled the two years between 1789 and 1791.

Situations change, as do circumstances. Vincent probably never expected to be faced with such extraordinarily difficult decisions, even though he was dealing with the political administration of France’s richest colony. Understanding individual decisions is never straightforward. David Geggus asked one of the central questions that still haunts

76 David P. Geggus, “Slave Resistance in the Spanish Caribbean in the Mid-1790s,” in A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean, ed. David Barry Gaspar and David Geggus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 131.

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any study of slave rebellions and/or revolutions: “why are people willing to risk their lives, at a certain moment but not before, in order to change the society in which they live?”77 Despite the fact that Geggus was referring to slave insurgency, I am confident that we can pose this same question to the white royalists of Saint Domingue. Why would men like Vincent, Cambefort, and Tousard, be willing to risk not only their lives, but the entire colonial apparatus upon which their fortunes rested? There is no straightforward answer to the question, but if we attempt an examination of their worlds, we might be able to provide some possibilities.

Vanished Monarchists

Cambefort and Tousard were accused of counterrevolution and deported to France in the fall of 1792.78 In a letter dated December 13, 1792, the French Minister of the

Navy wrote the Minister of War, giving an account of the arrival of the Lieutenant-

Colonel Tousard and his fourteen officers from the Regiment of Le Cap at the port of

Nantes. The letter states that these men left Saint Domingue on the 29th of October and by the 18th of December, the Minister of War responded that they must be kept at the Castle of Nantes until measures were taken to have them transferred to Paris.79 The revolutionary gendarmerie nationale (the revolution’s police force or national guard) would interrogate the deportees in a series of extraordinary proceedings in which their involvement or connections with Colonel Cambefort were probed.

77 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 53.

78 AN, CC9A, N. 8, (Year 1792)

79 AN, Ibid.

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The first interrogation, from February 8, 1793, is of a man named Bernard

Galibert who claimed that the extent of his familiarity with Cambefort was that the colonel was a counterrevolutionary who had disobeyed the orders of the civil commissioners. Galibert added he had never had any connection with this man as their principles were strongly opposed. In his testimony, Galibert goes on to denounce the

“dictator civil commissioner Sonthonax” for practices reminiscent of “the inquisition.”

He ends his account by asserting that the counterrevolutionaries “sought to destroy liberty” in the colony and they (the revolutionaries of Saint Domingue) “must not forget that they are French,” and state one more time the oath that they took in the colony to

“live free or die.”80

On February 14, 1793, the authorities undertook two more revealing interrogations. The first was of a man named Joseph Serre. The authorities asked him if he had ever served under the orders of Cambefort at the Regiment of Cap-Français and, thus, bearing weapons contre les citoyens (against the republican radicals). Serre responded that he did in fact know that Cambefort had taken up arms against the radicals on the 19th of October, 1792, but that he was no longer in that company. The interrogators followed up with a revealing query: “have you any knowledge that the planters themselves looked to mobilize the blacks and push them to take up arms against the class of citizens known as the ‘petit blancs,’ promising that if they did so they would grant

80 AN, Ibid. [Original French: j’ai connu Campfort pour un contre revolutionnaire; pour avoir désobéi à les orders des commissaires nationaux civiles; je n’ai jamais eu de liaison avec lui, mes principes etoient trop opposes . . par ordre du citoyen dictateur commissaire civil Sonthonax . . d’une maniere plustot a l’inquisition . . cherchoient a détruire . . ne nous ont pas fait oublier que nous sommes français; et nous sommes eu meme de repéter le serment que nous avons fait a St. Domingue de vivre libre ou mourir]

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them their liberty?” Serre answered that he did not know whether the grandes planteurs

(the large sugar plantation owners and most commonly staunch royalists) had anything to do with it, but that public opinion had it that it was actually the free people of color who had looked to persuade the blacks that the king had given them their liberty.81 The second person to be questioned in the report was a man named Benjamin Ceichel who happened to be a soldier in the National Guard. The interrogators asked him if he knew Cambefort, specifically about his principles or if he favored "the blacks." Ceichel responded that he did know Cambefort and indeed considered qu’il favorisait les négres (that he favor[ed] the blacks). Ceichel also stated that Cambefort’s Regiment at Cap-Français definitely took up arms against the patriotes (radicals).82

These accounts not only provide fascinating information about Cambefort’s apparent clashes with patriot or radical forces on the morning of October 19, 1792, but they force us to seriously consider the connections that Cambefort may have had with factions of the insurgent forces in an apparent attempt to salvage the power of the monarchy. To test this prospect, I propose that we take these reports and cross-examine them against a Spanish report offered by a free black insurgent named Jean Baptiste

Bongard. With this testimony the notion that Cambefort may have been involved with

Saint Domingue’s insurgents becomes more plausible.

81 AN, Ibid. [Original French: avez vous connoisance que les planteurs ayent cherché eux même a soulever les négres et a les porter a prendre les armes contre la classe des citoyens appelles petit blancs, parce que ceux ci voulaient les faiteons du décret qui a ceux dait la liberté aux esclaves? . . Qu’il ignore si les grandes planteurs ont fait parulle demarche qu’il sait seulement que l’opinion public m’etait seule compte des gens de couleur et que ceux ci chercheroient a persuader aux négres que le Roi les rendroit la liberte]

82 AN, Ibid.

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On October 25, 1791, in a plaza near the French border town of “Juana Méndez”

(Ouanaminthe), a free black named Juan Bautista Bongard gave a rousing speech to a crowd of white colonists and people of color from Saint Domingue. His feelings toward both groups were extremely hostile.83 It appears that Bongard was a former slave who had, two months prior, taken part in the August 1791 revolts.84 In his first line he refers to white sugar planters as “vile scum,” whom he claims knew well their “rights,” and did not want “to concede us [emphasis mine] three free days out of the week as the King had promised us.”85 Bongard continues his impassioned speech with, “well then, I warn you vile scum that your time has passed, you will no longer say: ‘captain, give this negro 100 lashes’ it is I from here on out that will give them to you. You know no God and no King

. . and you have attracted unto thyself all of the ills that are now plaguing you.”86

Bongard then directs his ire at Saint Domingue's free people of color, declaring:

“it is for you that we’re here, we came to avenge the death and murder of Ogé and

Chavannes . . but if you persist [to not comply] we will make you suffer the same fate as your fathers [white French colonists]. Come amongst us my friends, you still have time, but if you follow the machinations of this vile scum [the whites], you can await the most

83 The town is “Ouanaminthe” in French and “Wanamet” in Haitian Creole. Source of this speech is a Spanish intelligence report housed in: AGI, Santo_Domingo, 1030, N.2, F.60-62, Year 1791.

84 Bongard was likely “Jean-Baptiste’s” slave name and he was probably a slave on the Plantation of Bongard in the northeastern part of Saint Domingue. See: Gros, An Historick Recital, 7.

85 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Vosotros no haveis querido vil canallas de concedernos tres dias de la semana como el Rey nos lo havia prometido.]

86 Ibid., F. 60-61. [Original Spanish: pues bien, yo os prevengo vil canallas que vuestro tiempo ha passado [sic]; vosotros no direis mas: Capitan dadle 100 azotes a este Negro; soy yo de aquí adelante que os los hare dar. Vosotros no conoceis ni a Dios ni al Rey . . . y os aveis atraido bien los males que os suceden.]

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horrible of torments.”87 The climax of Bongard’s speech comes when he again turns his attention towards the whites and exclaims,

“It has been a long time since the National Assembly predicted what is happening to you, it is now I who tell you, we are sure of achieving our project [goals] and we have on our side General Blanchelande, Cambefort, and we are very well sustained by France; you all know that a part of the country is already ours, that we have possession of Limbé, Dondon, Port Margot, and of a large part of the plains of Le Cap, and that shortly we will march with torch in hand to the western and southern parts; it is I who tells you, and you can believe me, there will not be one white left in the colony; and I will only add that the first white I capture I would like to skin him alive and cover myself with his skin.”88

Bongard’s account is remarkable because it implies that free blacks may have had a more interconnected relationship with free people of color, as well as white colonists and royalist military factions during the August 1791 insurrections than the historiography hitherto indicates. When Bongard speaks to the idea that white planters knew their “rights” and that they did not want to concede them (former slaves) “three free days out of the week,” he is speaking directly to the assertion Geggus made that the rumors early in 1791 of slave emancipation were mixed up with news of the May 15th

87 Ibid., F. 61. [Original Spanish: es por vosotros que nosotros estamos aquí: nosotros venimos a vengar la muerte y el asesinato de Ogé y de Chavanne [sic] . . . pero si persistis nosotros os haremos sufrir la misma suerte que a vuestros padres. Venid entre nosotros mis amigos, todavia es tiempo, pero si segues los impulsos de esta vil canalla, podeis esperar los tormenos mas terribles.]

88 AGI, SD, 1030, N.2, F. 60-62, (Year 1791). [Original Spanish: hace mucho tiempo que la Asamblea nacional os ha predicho lo que os sucede hoy; soy yo que os lo digo; nosotros estamos seguros de lograr nuestro proyecto tenemos por nosotros al General Blanchelande, Cambefort, y nosotros estamos muy bien sostenidos de la Francia; vosotros saveis que una parte del pais es ya nuestras: que estamos en posesion del Limbé, del Dondón, de Port Margot, y de una grande parte del llano del Guarico, y dentro de poco nosotros iremos con la mecha en la mano a la parte del oeste y del sur; soy yo que os lo digo, y podeis creerme, no quedara un Blanco en la colonia; y os añado que al primer blanco que yo pille quiero desollarlo vivo, y cubrirme de su piel]

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decree granting “rights” to free coloreds born of free parents.89 The speech by Bongard is also important because of what we can infer of the relationship with the Spanish authorities. The enticing speech is contained in a transcript of an intelligence report from

Spanish border agents to the governor in Santo Domingo. Alarmed, in the report

Governor García reacts to the speech and declares that all previous accounts of black insurgents being “dispirited” can effectively be “denied.”90 I am less interested in Spanish reactions to the report, however, than I am in its subtler implications.

The first is Bongard’s relationship with Spanish border agents; namely, who traveled from Santo Domingo to the French side. There is a voice in the speech that acts as a chronicler of what transpired. For instance, this narrator indicated when Bongard turned to the whites and towards the people of color. The hidden "chronicler" also described friendly hand gestures Bongard made towards this latter group. Near the end of the speech, the narrator states that “making a grand courtly gesture, he [Bongard] told us it was time to eat [likely breakfast or lunch], but that he would come this evening with his troop to eat our supper.”91 We know that as early as September of 1791, García sent troops to all parts of the border in order to ensure the security of the Spanish colony.

Reporting to the crown in Spain details about the August 1791 insurrections,

Governor García wrote: “I have anticipated the defense of the border and all of our territory by calling the militias to arms.” He further stated that he was dispatching the

89 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 84.

90 Ibid., F. 58. [Original Spanish: parece que las noticias que se suministran de estar tan avatidos los negros no se compruevan.]

91 Ibid., F. 62. [Original Spanish: Y hacienda una gran cortesía nos dixo que era hora de comer, pero que el vendría a la tarde con su tropa a comer nuestra cena.]

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Brigadier and Lieutenant of the King, Don Andrés de Heredia, to the northern border near

“Dajabón” with instructions, as well as Coronel Don Joaquín Cabrera (and commander of the militia) to the border in the south and west.92 Not only does the record strongly suggest that the narrator is a Spanish agent or soldier most likely sent by Heredia into

French territory in order to gather intelligence, but the exchange with Bongard raises other significant questions.

Did the Spanish soldier and (presumably) his accompanying troop stay inside of the insurgent camp at Ouanaminthe or at a different post, perhaps somewhere closer to the Spanish border town of Dajabón? If, as the report states, Bongard later went to have dinner with—and provided by—the Spanish, what did they talk about at this gathering?

Was the dinner between the insurgent Bongard and Spanish agents an opportunity to negotiate some sort of military or diplomatic support? Scholars have shown that the

Spanish authorities acted quickly out of a desire to both guard against the looming insurrection seeping through their borders, and out of what appeared to be a balancing act in maintaining neutral diplomatic relations with French Saint Domingue.93

David Geggus has shown that “Spanish policy needs to be understood in the light of its long history of using black troops and of making treaties with maroon slaves, and

92 Archivo General de Simancas (hereafter: AGS), Secretaría de Estado y del Despacho de Guerra (hereafter: SGU), Santo Domingo, “Santo Domingo. Tropa e Incidencias,” LEG 7149, F.74, N.124, 1791. [Original Spanish: yo he prevenido la defensa de la frontera y todo nuestro territorio poniendo sobre las armas las milicias . . Al Brigadier Don Andres de Heredia Then.te de Rey de esta Plaza le he dado mis instrucciones y hechole pasar a Dajabon para que dirija las operaciones de la frontera del Norte: Al Coronel Don Joaquin Cabrera Comandante de Milicias, he puesto a sui cuidado la parte del Sur y Oeste tambien con instrucciones.] For early Spanish actions following the 1791 insurrections, see also: Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 34.

93 Nessler, An Islanwide Struggle, 34. Indeed, the “official” Spanish position at the outbreak of the revolts was one of neutrality.

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its desire to regain land lost to France in the seventeenth century.”94 Even though we know, per Geggus’s work, that Spanish officers met with the insurgents around August of

1793, what Bongard’s account elucidates is that they were indeed meeting much earlier

(soon after the outbreak of the revolts) and likely engaging in some sort of illicit trade or negotiations. Graham Nessler claims that although Spanish governor García “adopted a policy of official neutrality toward the neighboring colony,” that he nonetheless permitted

“the provision of assistance to the slaves-in-arms.”95

While Nessler does not provide direct evidence in support of the claim that the

Spanish were often “tacitly aiding the rebels,” I contend that later accounts (around

August of 1793) can help us make a stronger claim.96 For instance, on August 12, 1793,

Spanish commander Matías de Armona, a Cuban planter, wrote the following from the border to Governor García: “we wish to not give them [the insurgents] arms, nor munitions, but it is necessary and indispensable that we give [these] to them because it is the only recourse we have today. The risk we fear to this effect is one for later . . I make this known to you for my protection.”97 Thus, if a Spanish officer like Armona feared for what the insurgents may do to the Spanish ‘down the line’—specifically at a time when they were in fact fighting on the same side—then it is not unreasonable to deduce that

94 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 106.

95 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 34.

96 Ibid.

97 AGS, SGU, 6855, N. 52, 1793. [Original Spanish: Deseamos no darles armas, y municiones, y es forsoso y preciso el que se las demos por que es el unico recurso que temenos en el dia. El riesgo que tememos de ello es para mas adelante . . yo lo hago (presente) a V.S. para mi resguardo.]. According to David Geggus, commanders like Armona were offended by the insurgents’ “familiarity” (see: Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 109).

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those same fears must have played a role in illicit support for the insurgents, with or without the permission of Santo Domingo’s colonial government, mere months after the

1791 insurrections.98 Indeed, it is my belief that in its silences Bongard’s account says much about how the Spanish, through the likely unauthorized actions of border officers, aided the slave insurgents of 1791.

My second point on Bongard’s speech regards his use of the terms “rights” and

“freedoms” within an explicitly royalist and Christian context. His mention of “three free days per week” refers to a rumor that historians generally agree circulated in the colony in the years leading up to the Revolution, and as we saw with Geggus’s work it became mixed with the aforementioned granting of rights to free people of color. Whether or not

Bongard was sincere in calling out Church and King, I believe he understood that he needed to convince the Spanish that he and his troops were staunch royalists. If Spanish officers took premeditated measures during a time of social upheaval, so too could Saint

Domingue’s insurgents. This is not to suggest that Bongard predicted what was to come in the next month (the first civil commission sent from France), or in the fall of the next year (another civil commissioner). Yet, in times of tumultuous social change and a rapidly changing political and intellectual climate, it is important to keep in mind that revolutionary actors were always trying to stay abreast if not ahead of the next steps, alliances, and relationships that needed to be established.

This necessary forging of relationships and alliances constitutes my third point or concern. What can we make of the claim that Bongard and his troops were waging their war not only on behalf of God and the King of France, but also for the martyred free men

98 I will cover the “auxiliary” period of Saint Domingue’s insurgents fighting for Spanish Santo Domingo in the next chapter.

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of color Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste Chavannes? In the historiography of the Haitian

Revolution, much has been written about the roles of enslaved populations in accelerating the movement ‘from below,’ as well as the role that marronage or fleeing into the mountains played.99 As we have also seen, important works have outlined the role of the free colored population in destabilizing colonial society, which, some scholars claim, laid the foundations of the Revolution.100 But something that remains obscured in the standard narrative is the possibility that these two social (and racialized) classes, may have worked together more closely than previously assumed. Bongard’s speech certainly indicates that amongst the black insurgents there was a sense of camaraderie and debt to a movement that, a year prior, Ogé and Chavannes had themselves led. Of course, the black insurgents were not necessarily aware that Ogé and potentially even Chavannes owned slaves and that Ogé, at least, was equally or even more powerful than the white colonists Bongard threatened to “skin alive.” Moreover, perhaps the idea that Ogé and Chavannes were fighting for the rights of both free coloreds and slaves is consistent with the notion put forth by Geggus that the two causes became intertwined amid the early rumors of 1791.

As Garrigus has shown, Ogé’s “greatest single contribution to the gathering revolution was not his ‘rebellion’ but his death.”101

While it is necessary to continue to read these sources with extreme caution, it is notable that Cambefort is mentioned twice in Spanish intelligence reports. Perhaps more importantly, we gain access to the voices of the insurgents themselves. Furthermore,

99 Fick, The Making of Haiti, (1990).

100 Garrigus, Before Haiti, (2010).

101 Garrigus, “Ogé,” 60.

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Cambefort also wrote, much like Mussé, a justification memoir in which he defended himself against accusations of counterrevolution. One of the main arguments that

Cambefort stressed in his memoir was that colonial forces should negotiate with the insurgent blacks before using force against them. He claimed that advocating this position had directly led to his being accused of playing counterrevolutionary. In his memoir to the civil commissioners, Cambefort attached a series of letters in which he presented the aforementioned ideas. He expressed being well aware of the dangers inherent in negotiating with the insurgents, claiming that if the authorities accepted this idea they should try to make the negotiations as painless as possible, but all the while employing a severe and firm language. In other words, Cambefort sustained that French officials had to give the insurgents a time limit (a matter of hours) since anything longer would have given them time to burn all of the plantations and cane fields, as well as augmenting their audacity and establishing the means to plan an escape. Cambefort ended this portion of his memoir by stating that an essential operation, independent of all negotiations, was to seize the town of Ouanaminthe. There were, he claimed, three main reasons for this.102

The first reason for capturing Ouanaminthe was that it would deprive "the blacks" of the vast resources presented by their proximity to the Spanish and their communications to the sea. The second reason was that it would open an indispensable communication and supply line with the Spanish side of the island for provisioning

French butcher shops. Lastly, it would assist in reestablishing a considerable number of

102 JCB, Cambefort, Quatrième Partie du Mémoire Justificatif, “Extrait Analytique des Pièces Justificatives,” (1793), 69-71.

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properties on fertile ground, thereby reviving farming and commerce.103 The French colonial authorities were always well aware that the insurgents could establish solid relations with the Spanish next door, thus demonstrating that not only prominent free coloreds such as Ogé and Chavannes had access, but that the rebels could also access this porous line. As Dubois has stated, “the Spanish had an open market with the brigands

(the insurgents), who arrived with money, but also with dishes, jewels, furniture, and animals taken from plantations to buy supplies, as well as weapons and ammunition to supplement those they took on plantations or during battles.”104 This posed unique geopolitical challenges for people like Cambefort, who had much to lose and the arduous

(and perhaps paradoxical) job of crushing the insurrection.

Anne-Louis de Tousard was tasked with leading the charge against the insurrection in the eastern portion of the north province. Yet, his record is also shrouded in mystery as accounts not only implicate him in a royalist plot (as we have previously seen), but also because evidence strongly suggests he worked with both free black and free colored factions. In Cambefort’s third part of his Memoire, he wrote that among the accusations by the civil commissioners, one of them stated that the “Lieutenant-Colonel

Touzard [sic]” was also implicated, viewed with the same suspicions cast upon

Cambefort.105 Throughout his memoir, Cambefort mentions his partner Tousard as a

103 Ibid.

104 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 107.

105 HLM, Cambefort, Troisième Partie du Mémoire Justificatif, “Réflexions sur l’arrêté des commissaires, et sur leur letter à la convention nationale,” (1793), 30-42.

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soldier who bravely engaged the insurgents alongside him, as well as someone who always exemplified the valor worthy of a French soldier.

But the Spanish records provide, as we have seen, a different portrait. In official

Spanish correspondence we get a glimpse of Tousard’s battlefield activities. For instance, by late September and early October of 1791, reports from the Spanish authorities registered the activities of General Blanchelande, alongside the “captains Cambefort and

Tousard,” and their attacks on "the blacks" camped at the Gallifet Plantation near the

Petite-Anse. The attack apparently resulted in the deaths of about one hundred insurgents.

The report further elucidates that on the 28th and 29th of September, there were many fires on the Gallifet estates and that many of the blacks proceeded to decapitate two French envoys by the names of “Chacon” and “Peligre” who had been sent by Governor

Blanchelande. Lastly, and more to the point, the report asserts that the insurgents fired

“three cannons against Monsieur Tousard, which flew over their heads. The artillery soldiers were three whites who attempted to favor them. The enemy resisted for one more hour, after which they fled.”106

The above-mentioned account opens numerous possibilities for reinterpretation of this critical sequence of events. Did the three white artillerymen who missed Tousard’s forces on purpose do it because of some sense of racial solidarity with Tousard? Or was said favor part of a more complex and interconnected plot for this specific battle to end with few or no casualties? It is impossible to infer with full certitude the precise motives behind the insurgents’ and Tousard’s actions, but such a source poses the important

106 AGI, SD 1030, “Expedientes Sobre la Revolución y la Guerra de la colonia francesa de la isla de Santo Domingo,” N.2, F.46 (Year 1791). [Original Spanish: tres cañonazos contra Mr. Tousar [sic] cuyas balas pasaron por alto: los artilleros heran 3 blancos que procuraron favorecerlos. El enemigo resistio una hora despues de la qual huyo.]

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question of whether these were frequent occurrences during Tousard’s campaigns. To better answer such a question, it will be necessary to further delve into the rich sources by and about Tousard at the Hagley Library in Wilmington, Delaware.

The little-used Hagley sources provide evidence that Tousard was known to have mediated between colonial forces and free colored leaders, as well as with insurgent soldiers. Moreover, they show that he also sometimes fought alongside free coloreds, two of whom were Jean-Baptiste Marc and Cézar. Tousard's communications with both the free colored and insurgent factions are documented in a letter to Monsieur de Rouvray dated November 27, 1791. In this correspondence, Tousard makes reference to an agreement signed four days earlier by the free men of color of the northeast region. More importantly, he also outlines the details of the well-known (and failed) negotiations with the insurgents. Amongst the various demands, the insurgents specified that they wanted

“a full and complete pardon for all the officer corps [i.e. leaders] and the legal registration of their freedom,” “a general amnesty for all the slaves,” “freedom for the leaders to withdraw to wherever they wish, in a foreign country if they choose to leave,” and “the full enjoyment of the effects in their possession.” The insurgents went on to promise “that, if these conditions are met, they will immediately return the slaves to their duty and will leave it to the royal commissioners who are soon expected to decide their fate.”107

107 Cited in: Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 87. (Original source: HLM, Acc. 874, Anne-Louis Tousard to Laurent-François de Rouvray, 27 Nov. 1791)

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Figure 8: Lieutenant-Colonel Anne-Louis de Tousard, Source: Hagley Museum and Library

The marquis de Rouvray, it seems, was much less well-regarded amongst everyday residents of Saint Domingue. Spanish accounts show, for example, that residents of Le Cap asked whether Rouvray “did or did not have correspondence (or

‘intelligence’) with the blacks?” People in the towns, wrote the Spanish border commander Heredia, seemed to think that Rouvray had dealings with the insurgents.108

On October 19, 1791, reports from Dajabón posited that Blanchelande was restoring

Rouvray’s command in the Army of the East and that all of the troops of that party had been saddened by the news, swearing not to serve under the command of a general like him, and that they would rather “forsake” everything before taking orders from him. The

Spanish commented that this “will cause problems” as Rouvray is known to be “a very vengeful man.”109

108 AGI, SD, 1030, N.57, September 23, 1791 [Original Spanish: tenia o no inteligencia con ellos]

109 AGI, Ibid. [Original Spanish: de ir bajo el mando de tal General . . han protextado de desamparar todo antes que obedecerle . . un hombre muy vengativo.]

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The unpopular Rouvray would eventually solicit asylum in Spanish lands, only to be turned away by Governor García. He ended up in New York, from where he would again write García around August 25, 1793, stating he had been persecuted by the

Jacobin faction and their satellites. Rouvray claimed to be devoted to the sovereign

House of Bourbon (implying here both France and Spain) and that with García’s permission he would take the close to 600 “blacks who are still loyal to him in Saint

Domingue and move to Cuba.” Spanish authorities were mildly receptive to Rouvray's overture, but they were not fully convinced. García claimed that despite the fact that he was “very royalist,” he would ask the crown in Madrid how to proceed with Monsieur

Rouvray. The Minister of War would answer García’s call and state that they were unable to honor Rouvray’s request since the black auxiliary troops of the Spanish king were

“irreconcilable enemies” of the whites from Saint Domingue. Effectively and, not so surprisingly, the Spanish had chosen their own armed black troops from Saint Domingue over a white royalist and former planter who was now attempting to return to the

Bourbon crown’s royal dominions.110

The August 1791 Slave Revolts as “Double-Game”

Let us back up in time. As early as the 7th of August, 1789, the Comte de la

Luzerne and former governor of Saint Domingue (1786-1787), wrote then-governor

Comte de Peinier warning him of a looming project threatening the colony. He told

Peinier to ensure that he take all necessary steps to impede “the agents” from inciting further conspiracy. The threat sounded ominous but vague. More concretely and

110 AGI, SD, 1031, N. 167, (Year 1793). [Original Spanish : mui realista . . enemigos irreconciliables]

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significantly, Luzerne stated that he wanted Peinier to know in advance that the king would approve anything and trusted whatever measure that he deemed necessary to implement in the colony's defense. In other words, La Luzerne was giving Peinier the king’s advance “green-light” to use any means and precautions required to protect the colony.111 This looks to me like a veiled call for preemptive counterrevolution.

We know now that in the fall of 1789 and throughout the year 1790 Saint

Domingue witnessed a series of events that set the wheels of revolution and ultimately

Haitian independence in motion, but none of that could have been foreseen at this time.

And whether or not Peinier or, for that matter, any of his subordinates in the Regiment of

Cap-Français decided to heed La Luzerne’s call and concoct a colonial counterrevolutionary offensive, is impossible to say with certainty. Nonetheless, by examining the developments of August 1791 alongside other evidence presented in this chapter, I contend that a new working theory of the 1791 slave revolts deserves consideration. My aim is not to quarrel with other historians but rather to gain a better understanding of this watershed moment in the history of the modern world.

In his 1985 classic work, David Barry Gaspar wrote that “a rebellion cannot start from a situation of complete impotence.”112 There is no question that the leaders who took the reins of the August 1791 slave revolts were in positions of relative privilege.

These men were for the most part Creoles (or men born in the colony) who had positions

111 JCB, La Luzerne, “Copie de la letter écrite par M. le Comte de la Luzerne à M. le Comte de Peynier,” N. XXII, in Papiers Relatifs au Comte de Peynier, Chef D’Escadre, (August 7, 1789) [Original French : je vous annonce d’avance que le Roi approuvera tout ce que vous aurez cru devoir faire.]

112 David Barry Gaspar, Bondsmen and Rebels: Master-Slave Relations in Antigua (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), 256.

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such as slave-drivers and coachmen. They were able to travel between plantations, to

Sunday markets in the northern port town of Cap-Français, to weekend festivities, and to religious ceremonies.113 The ability to move was integral to the success of the 1791 insurrections. Even though historical accounts of the revolts vary, the ostensibly agreed- upon date and, according to Geggus, perhaps the most important to commemorate as an

“anniversary of national significance in Haiti,” is Sunday, August 14, 1791.114

This day marks the essential moment during which “slave-drivers, coachmen, and other members of the ‘slave elite’ from about 100 plantations . . gathered on the

Lenormand de Mézy estate, a large sugar plantation with at least 350 slaves that lay at the foot of the Red Mountain (Morne Rouge).”115 It is said that the meeting constituted, in many ways, “a revolutionary political assembly, where issues were discussed, points of view and differing strategies presented, where a final agreement was reached, and a call to arms issued.”116 At the same time, though, the meeting was not itself a secret, as colonists later wrote of the “pretexts” having to do with a “large dinner” that slaves were allowed to attend.117 Moreover, it is likely that at the meeting an announcement was made explaining that the king had passed a decree abolishing the use of the whip by masters, as well as giving slaves three free days out of the week. The critical "take-away" and lasting

113 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 78. Geggus critiques Carolyn Fick’s argument that “petit marronage” or small-scale slave flight from the plantations played a key role in organizing the 1791 insurrection.

114 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 92.

115 Ibid., 84.

116 Fick, “The Saint Domingue,” 5.

117 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 85.

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contention of the enslaved was that local masters and authorities flatly refused to implement the new reform. The slaves, apparently, had help on the way as “troops” were coming “to force them [the masters] to do it [implement the reforms].” 118

According to Geggus, the plans for rebellion unfortunately became known a few days later since there was a premature attempt made by slaves to burn the Chabaud

Plantation in Limbé Parish (See Figure 5 for a glimpse of the northern province shaded in dark green). As for what happened after the Lenormand meeting, historians disagree on the date during which the famous “Bois Caïman” ceremony took place. Some claim it was directly following the Morne-Rouge assembly and that it was a vodou event.119

Others assert that it took place approximately one week later and that the details are hard to parse since there were only three eyewitness accounts of the ceremony, the richest recorded by Antoine Dalmas.120

Here, I will follow David Geggus’s generally trusted timeline of this vitally important sequence of events. Geggus contends that the Bois Caïman ceremony happened on the evening of Sunday, August 21st, since Sunday was “the easiest day for slaves to hold a social gathering.”121 He suggests that the insurrections actually began on the

Monday night of the 22nd of August, which would mean that the slaves got slightly ahead of schedule (by at least one day). In terms of the level of strategic planning or

118 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 98. See also Ghachem’s work.

119 Fick, “The Saint Domingue,” 5.

120 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 87; Antoine Dalmas, Histoire de la Révolution de Saint-Domingue, 2 Vols. (Paris, 1814).

121 Ibid.

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coordination at the Bois Caïman meeting, Geggus refutes some historians’ claims that the event was highly organized, instead stating that the August insurrection, “for all its impressive dimensions, was anything but coordinated . . [that] the sequential way the rebellion spread during its first week from plantation to plantation, parish to parish, suggests a revolt that broke out prematurely.”122 Because the Colonial Assembly was to meet and reopen in Cap-Français on August 25th, it is very likely that the insurgents had wanted the insurrection to commence around that time to improve the chances of eliminating Saint Domingue’s political elite.

Perhaps more importantly, the “elites” meeting at the Colonial Assembly were the leaders of the colony’s radical party, meaning that it was the very men who had threatened to break with the metropole and secede, as well as the ones that the insurgents

“contemptuously” called les citoyens (or the citizens – an allusion here to the nascent republic or nation). These were, let us not forget, the same forces (if not literally, then at least ideologically) that had publicly killed Colonel Mauduit in Port-au-Prince’s public square and who in all likelihood propelled General Blanchelande to engage in some sort of calculated strategy with either Colonel Cambefort, Lieutenant-Colonel Tousard, and

Monsieur de Rouvray—or all of them—in order to come up with a plan of defense or attack.

Although he answers in the negative, Geggus has posed a question (or framed a riddle) of paramount importance: “if one accepts the theory that white counterrevolutionaries helped foment the insurrection, then this rationale [for a loyalist pre-emptive strike] is all the more compelling.” One of the insurgent leaders would later

122 Ibid.

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tell governor García of Spanish Santo Domingo that the Colonial Assembly would have declared independence if the slaves had not rebelled.”123

The four main leaders of the insurrection, Boukman Dutty, Georges Biassou,

Jean-François Papillon, and Jeannot, would variously and at different times declare a royalist ideological stance or allegiance. They never wavered or departed from an ardent church-and-king rhetoric. The torch was passed. Even though Boukman and Jeannot were eventually killed, Toussaint Louverture would step in to join Biassou and Jean-François as one of the three main insurgent leaders in the northern province of Saint Domingue.

These men were Creoles who had, by the time of the revolts, been freed. (A possible exception was Jean-François, who some said was a fugitive at the time of the uprising, but the evidence is not so clear.) These men were “elite” former slaves who enjoyed relative privileges on their plantations and certainly, being coachmen and drivers, had the ability to move throughout Saint Domingue's northern province. They surely would have known of the news coming in from Paris at the local taverns of Cap-Français, or while waiting for their plantation managers or owners while driving them to the different brothels and rum-houses in the port city. They surely would have seen or heard about the spontaneous (or carefully planned) speeches that people would shout regarding the alarming news coming out of France (all the while interrupting shows at the port city’s amphitheater). We know, for instance, that Colonel Cambefort once had to throw out a

123 Ibid., 88.

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screaming dissident at one of the amphitheater shows for spreading news that spoke of a

“general enlightenment” in France.124

Similarly, the leading protagonists of 1791, all African descendants, would have also been aware of the various royal reforms that had been implemented to shield slaves from their abusive masters during the 1780s. As Ghachem has noted, “insofar as the ordinances communicated a royal judgment that the planters and their representatives had exceeded the proper limits of their authority over slaves, that message managed to reach the slave community in at least one form.”125 Therefore, with the opportunities for mobility that Saint Domingue’s insurgent leaders had, they would have been quite up-to- date with developments in the metropolis and, likewise, of what may have been happening on the Spanish side of Hispaniola. By staking out a political stance or set of claims rooted in royalist thought, the Saint Dominguan insurgents of 1791 were not only fashioning their own ideologies, but they were also looking towards future collaborations encompassing the whole island, not just the Francophone half. In other words, if Saint

Domingue’s insurgents had—as I contend they did—the foresight to prepare themselves for that impending danger about which La Luzerne warned governor Peinier, I think it is reasonable to imagine that they must have also been preparing their next move. The failed negotiations with the governor and Colonial Assembly in November and then again with the civil commissioners in December of 1791 demonstrated, and I believe they knew it, that things were not headed in the right direction, that action must be taken.

124 AN, C9A, 163, N.1, Copie d’une letter ecrite par M. de Cambefort – colonel du regiment du Cap, a M. le General Vincent le 21 Septembre 1789. [Original French : illumination generalle.]

125 Ghachem, The Old Regime, 262.

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And yet, I believe the insurrection's leaders accomplished something extraordinary in the run-up to 1791. These men came up in a world of slavery but eventually gained their freedom and attained “elite” status among the many servants and slaves on the plantation. They knew the insular, quasi-noble world of the big planters as well as that of the more common tradesmen, fishermen, and “poor whites” who labored in the streets of Cap-Français. One can imagine a mix of resentments and affinities. I do not intend to propose that clever or powerful men like Cambefort, Tousard, Rouvray, or

Blanchelande manipulated the insurgent leaders into fighting their counterrevolutionary war against les citoyens and/or the free people of color in an effort to destroy republican radicalism in Saint Domingue. Rather, I prefer to suggest that the slave insurgents of

1791 had such a deep understanding of their situation and of the ideological forces at play in Saint Domingue that in weaponizing a royalist ideology—one rooted in an abiding faith in authority, hierarchy, and patronage—they were able to put themselves in a position that ultimately facilitated their dramatic and ultimately revolutionary entrance onto the stage of world history. Certain leaders, as we will see, likely played critical strategic and at times conspiratorial roles.126 As in all revolutions, nothing went quite as planned and both blame and praise were dished out in retrospect.

Conclusion

Foreshadowing what was to come, insurgents from Saint Domingue were known, by around October of 1791, to pass by Spanish guards near the colonial border, saying

126 As a quick note, I would like to mention that many of the insurgents had already come to the Americas with monarchical and royalist ideologies such as people from the Kingdom of the Kongo. This will be covered at great length in the following chapter, where I will engage the works of John K. Thornton, Linda Heywood, and Christina Mobley.

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that “soon [Spain] would come to the aid of their cause, and that the King of Spain would direct his orders in this matter.”127 What was prompting the insurgents to make such assertions? Could it have been that Spanish officers who had visited their camps in Saint

Domingue had made premeditated (and secret) promises of allegiance in exchange for the insurgents’ loyalty and assurances to fight for the Spanish monarch, should war break out? I contend that the circumstantial evidence presented in this chapter, combined with the material presented in the following one, point in this direction. Thus, in the same way that insurgents seized the moment in the convoluted lead-up to 1791, they also prepared to enter into another stage of what Graham Nessler has called their “islandwide struggle for freedom.”128 Unlike Nessler, I suggest that the struggle waged by the 1791 insurgents was not purely for freedom but also for a variety of political ends, some of them quite conservative—at least at first glance.

The royalist factions of Saint Domingue found themselves in the crosshairs of the

French Revolution as they sought to maintain colonial order. Men whose lives and fortunes depended on the plantation complex and the institution of slavery were suddenly faced with the real possibility of the destruction of their lives’ work, their families, and most disturbingly, their bodies. I do not think it is far-fetched to posit that any of the individuals presented in this chapter may well have sought out secret collusion with either free people of color, free blacks and insurgent slaves, or all of the above.

127 AGI, Santo_Domingo, 1030, “Expedientes sobre la Revolución y la Guerra de la colonia francesa de la isla de Santo Domingo,” N. 2 (Year 1791) [Original Spanish: los negros cada vez que pasan por nuestras Guardias se empeñan en decir que pronto auxiliaremos su causa, y que el Rey de España dirigira sus ordenes para esto.]

128 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, (2016).

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David Geggus has written about the difficulties of defining what exactly constituted a conspiracy in Saint Domingue's most uncertain moments of flux, its vespers of violence. He claims that most alleged conspiracies are best attributed to the

“imagination of nervous colonists” or to “slaves discussing fantasies of retribution.” And yet, Geggus admits (in the context of the broader Caribbean) it is “possible” he has

“overlooked conspiracies or small rebellions that contemporaries sought to cover up.”129 I propose that we seriously consider the royalist conspiracy in Saint Domingue as one in which the loyalties amongst conspirators, regardless of their sincerity or absolute devotion to turn words into actions, were shrewdly covered up by those who produced much of the written documentation of the era. It was in many cases expedient to do so.

As the next chapter will propose, conceptualizing such unlikely allegiances requires reframing rigid Old Regime and revolutionary political principles and allowing for greater contingency. Whether the array of possible affiliations in Saint Domingue on the eve of revolution were truly ideological or purely self-interested is not necessarily the crux of the matter, in other words. Certainly, I believe the different factions implicated in the 1791 revolts likely acted out of a combination of ideological and practical concerns, but this is not enough. What is perhaps more revelatory is how the contingency of allegiance drove and shaped the political terrain of the island of Hispaniola through the course of the early years of the Revolution. I am trying to capture lost elements of a revolution in the making.

I admit that my analysis has mostly focused on the voices of those who held considerable power. Their words constitute much of the surviving written record.

129 Geggus, “Slavery,” 5.

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Nevertheless, I have tried to flush out and highlight the views of those who did much of the heavy lifting, those persons who made the revolution, as Carolyn Fick noted, “from below.” Still, it is my view that the historical actors presented in this chapter, though powerful in their day, have been marginalized in the historiography, and that perhaps their records deserve a new and ‘fresh’ reading. Reopening these overlooked sources may provide a better understanding of what Saint Domingue’s insurgents thought they were doing on that Sunday, August 14th at the Lenormand de Mézy plantation.

Though idealistic, the 1791 insurgents were also forward-looking and pragmatic.

As the evidence presented in this chapter has shown, as early as the fall of 1791 they already had their sights set on allegiances forged within Spanish territory. Some of them had, like Ogé and Chavannes before them, been born close to the colonial frontier with

Santo Domingo and it was towards this border that they would work their way during the following year.

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Chapter Four

“The Contingency of Allegiances: African Kingdoms, Vasallos Del Rey, and the Creation of An (Other) Empire”

In an October 1791 report from an insurgent camp, Joaquín Cabrera, one of

Governor Garcia’s border commanders, captured a fascinating exchange he had with a mysterious “Ethiopian general” named “Riqueti.”1 Cabrera described his in-person meeting with the black insurgent to the Spanish administrators. He claimed Riqueti offered to give him sugar and coffee in exchange for gun powder and ammunition in order to continue the war in the name of God and opposition to the “white rebels” who were against “both majesties.”2 Cabrera claimed to have told Riqueti he was unable to honor his request; he also noted that Riqueti had two hundred men under his command, many of whom were black, some mulattoes, but all on horseback and properly armed.

Cabrera then described Riqueti’s uniform as blue, but expressed confusion at the cross stitched onto it, calling it “unfamiliar.”3

We know from eyewitness accounts that some of Saint Domingue's main insurgent leaders such as Georges Biassou and Jean-François, as we will see in this chapter, typically displayed the cross of the Order of Saint Louis, with which the Spanish

1 AGI, SD 1030, N. 73-74, Year 1791. Also, in colonial Spanish usage, Etiope or, “Ethiopian” was generally synonymous with black African, so I’m not taking Ethiopian in this case to literally mean a native of the Empire of Ethiopia, but rather a black insurgent leader from Saint Domingue.

2 Ibid, [Original Spanish: en contra de los rebeldes blancos a sus majestades.]

3 Ibid, [Original Spanish: un uniforme azul con cruz que desconozco.]

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were familiar.4 Thus, it bears asking how a military official of Cabrera’s rank, and an ostensibly devout Catholic who constantly thanked God in his letters, would not know the origin of a cross? The number of military orders was not large, and Spaniards by this time were fully familiar with all the French varieties. Was Cabrera insinuating at a new military order or dismissing what he viewed as an illegitimate appropriation? Cabrera finished his account by stating that the blacks who were under Riqueti’s command had beheaded the military commander from the Grand-Rivière near Dondon and placed his head where Vincent Ogé’s had previously been displayed; the insurgents allegedly also gave Ogé a proper burial.5

Cabrera’s account of the enigmatic Riqueti is consistent with the royalist dispositions most of the African descendants presented in this study have claimed.

Riqueti made no secret of his Christian affinities and thus the document strongly suggests that he, like Ogé, Chavannes, and Bongard before him, was also a Catholic royalist, or at least pretended to be one.6 Still, what to make of the mysterious cross on his blue

4 Gros, An Historick Recital, 62-64. The cross of St. Louis was a royalist medal and the Spanish often mentioned it in their correspondences. See: Philippe R. Girard, Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life (New York: Basic, 2016), 116.

5 AGI, SD 1030, N. 73-74, Year 1791. There’s no mention of Ogé’s body and thus they likely simply buried his head.

6 We know that Vodou was a syncretic religion that mixed elements of African religious practice with Roman Catholicism; specifically, we know that in Saint Domingue African religious practices included the traditions of the Fon and Yoruba peoples from the Bight of Benin, as well as those practices brought by the Kongo slaves who eventually became the majority within the French colony. (See: Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 43-45). Dubois asserts that religion “helped lay the foundation for the revolt that ultimately brought complete freedom to the slaves” (43). However, while I don’t refute this statement, I tend to frame my work within what Geggus’ assertion that “the principal actors in the 1791 revolts do not seem . . to have been religious leaders. Three of the five were fairly certainly secular leaders, and perhaps two were religious specialists. Probably all of them, moreover, were locally born Creoles, a group that . . included few vodouists . . Beliefs in the protection of talismans or the return of the soul to Africa were vehicles that carried the slave rebellion forward, but they did not cause it . . insofar as the black

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uniform? Was this simply an exercise by Riqueti in sartorial grandiosity and symbolism?

As we will see with many of the insurgent leaders presented in this chapter, the donning of extravagant military garb, as well as the use of military titles, was a common practice amongst the rebels. Nonetheless, what if there were alternate explanations for these

“other” crosses? How might we analyze the ways in which insurgents explained their revolution to the Spanish and, conversely, Spanish descriptions of their encounters with the insurgents?

This chapter proposes new approaches to such questions by analyzing the influence of West and Central African royalist beliefs on the insurgents. Moreover, in examining the slave insurgents’ proclaimed allegiance to Spain during the Haitian

Revolution, I will elucidate how Saint Domingue’s insurgents, especially the prominent leaders Jean François and Georges Biassou, not only deployed royalist symbols, but also sought to define their beliefs in monarchical authority as they vied for military and imperial sponsorship. This crucial period, known in the historiography as the period of

Carlos IV’s “auxiliary troops” was born of the war between Britain, France, and Spain.7

Scholars have shown that the Spanish crown’s own interests, which were then in stark contrast with the burgeoning republic in France, moved them to recruit and support Saint

Domingue’s insurgents, while the latter also adroitly navigated their way into an alliance with Spain.8 More recent work focuses on the centrality of understanding the Haitian

revolution expressed an attitude toward Christianity and the Catholic church, it was generally favorable.” (See: Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 78-80).

7 Jorge Victoria Ojeda, “Jean François y Biassou: Dos líderes olvidados de la historia de la Revolución Haitiana (y de España), Caribbean Studies 34, no. 2 (Jul – Dec 2006), 163-204.

8 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 153; Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 221. See also: Jorge Victoria Ojeda, “Jean François y Biassou,” (2006), Tendencias monárquicas en la

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Revolution and the history of Hispaniola from an island-wide perspective that includes

Spanish points of view.9 All of the aforementioned imperial powers at various times sought to win the insurgent slaves over to their respective ‘sides,’ but it was ultimately

Spain that became their ally during this period (approximately 1793 to 1795). This chapter provides another perspective on how Spain was crucial to the development of the

Haitian Revolution, both in material and ideological ways.

This next chain of events was largely set off by the proclamation of the French

Republic in September of 1792, and the subsequent beheading of Louis XVI in early

1793.10 France’s National Assembly had tasked three commissioners, Léger-Félicité

Sonthonax, Étienne Polverel, and Jean-Antoine Ailhaud, with “protecting the rights of the

‘citizens of 4 April’ and crushing the slave revolt” in Saint Domingue.11 Sonthonax and

Polverel in particular had “spoken out against slavery . . . and were bearers of a radical republicanism that was increasingly taking hold in France.”12 These men were part of the second civil commission sent from France (as we saw in the previous chapter), and arrived in Le Cap on the ship America around September of 1792 with 6,000 troops. With

revolución haitiana: El negro Francisco Petecou bajo las banderas francesa y española, (Mexico City: Siglo XXI Editores, 2005), “De reales promesas al olvido concertado: los negros de la Revolución Haitiana en la Nueva Granada,” Fronteras de la Historia 12 (2007), 151-173; Jane Landers, Atlantic Creoles, (2010). “

9 See: Maria Cecilia Ulrickson, “Cultivators, Domestics, and Slaves: Slavery in Santo Domingo Under Louverture and Napoleon, 1801-1803,” The Americas 76:2 (April 2019), 241-266; Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, (2016); Yingling, “The Maroons of Santo Domingo,” (2015); Anne Eller, We Dream Together: Dominican Independence, Haiti, and the Fight for Caribbean Freedom (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016); Fumagalli, On the Edge, (2015).

10 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, xxxv.

11 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 37.

12 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 142.

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them came the new governor-general of Saint-Domingue, d’Esparbès, who “was supposed to take control of military matters in the colony,” and was deposed by

Sonthonax and Polverel a few months later.13 During spring 1793, leaders of the Reign of

Terror executed thousands of opponents of the Revolution, many of them monarchists. In turn, the insurgents in Saint Domingue witnessed—around June 1793—the burning of Le

Cap in the northern part of the colony, as well as growing talk of emancipation by the

French republican army and the civil commissioners sent from France. While the insurgents were fighting for the Spanish monarchy, members of the civil commission

(specifically Sonthonax) were compelled to try to win over the insurgents by declaring them all free. Thus, on August 27, 1793, Sonthonax issued a general emancipation decree abolishing slavery in the North. Around September 1793, the British began a five-year occupation in parts of southern and western Saint Domingue. The Jacobin government then declared, in February of 1793, that all slaves in Saint Domingue were free. Between

April and July of 1794, Toussaint Louverture—the most well-known leader of the

Revolution and, at the time, fighting for Spain—decided between staying with the

Spanish or going with republican France; he aligned himself with the French in Saint

Domingue in spring 1794.14

Throughout the fall of 1794, Louverture consolidated his power, building an efficient and disciplined army that captured various towns that were previously held by both British and Spanish forces. During this time, Louverture fought against two of his

13 Ibid.

14 David P. Geggus, “From His Most Catholic Majesty to the Godless Republic: the ‘Volte-Face’ of Toussaint Louverture and the Ending of Slavery in Saint Domingue,” Revue Française D’histoire D’outre-Mer 65, no. 241 (1978), 481-499.

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former allies, Jean-François and Georges Biassou, exchanging in various back-and-forths.

Around the summer of 1795, a defeated Spain signed the Treaty of Basel with France and ceded Spanish Santo Domingo to the French. Jean-François and Georges Biassou left the island under the protection of Spain and were resettled throughout the Spanish empire.15

The years leading up to the 1804 independence would see Toussaint Louverture battle and defeat the Spanish, British, French, as well as prominent free people of color, establishing his hegemony within the entire island in an 1801 constitution which made him governor for life. However, eventually Napoleon Bonaparte’s French expeditionary forces headed by his brother-in-law, General Victor-Emanuel Leclerc, were sent to Saint

Domingue to reestablish slavery and take the colony back from Louverture.

Subsequently, Louverture was deceived and deported to France along with his family.

The free people of color with whom Louverture had been at war then united with Jean-

Jacques Dessalines and defeated the French troops, declaring independence in 1804.

The legacy of Toussaint Louverture in the Haitian Revolution remains contested.

What exactly was he fighting for, and why did his regime collapse? This chapter seeks to offer a better understanding of Louverture's seemingly ambivalent role in the Revolution while also asking new questions about what his outsize persona lent to the foundation of the first independent black state in the Americas, as well as the ramifications of his legacy across the hemisphere.

African Kingdoms The perplexing exchange between Cabrera and the insurgent Riqueti was not the only instance in which Saint Domingue’s insurgents deployed religious symbols. Indeed

15 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 182-83. Jane Landers, “Rebellion and Royalism in Spanish Florida,” in A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean, ed. David Barry Gaspar and David Geggus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 156-171.

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as we have seen, the 1791 insurgent leaders almost always utilized a long-live-church- and-king rhetoric, especially in their correspondence with the Spanish. By contrast,

Dubois’s work utilizes fragmentary evidence to support the notion that insurgents drew upon symbols of French republicanism.16 A view from the perspective of the Spanish provides extensive evidence of the insurgents’ ardent and pious expressions of French and Spanish royalist thought. Still, we must follow Dubois’s advice when he says “it is worth being wary of the sources, for French Republicans, especially those writing after the flight of King Louis in 1792, were quite prone to exaggerate or fabricate ‘evidence’ of royalist conspiracies.”17

And yet the voices coming out of the Spanish archives were not necessarily those of French republicans (although later in the chapter we see some). They were instead mostly the recorded words of the 1791 insurgents from the northern plains of Saint

Domingue who had waged their struggle in the name of the French king, and were then promising to fight for the Spanish monarch. Dubois poses the question of “why the insurgents took up royalist symbols with such enthusiasm, and continued to use them once they were clearly beyond the control of any white instigators, real or imagined?”18 I posit that if we turn our attention towards the Spanish monarchy, as well as the several kingdoms of West and Central Africa, we can better hazard some answers.

16 Dubois, “Our Three Colors,” 89.

17 Ibid., 90.

18 Ibid., 91.

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In another intelligence report to Governor García, Andrés de Heredia, who was stationed in the northern border town of Dajabón. detailed the insurgents’ attack on the neighboring French town of Ouanaminthe.19 Apparently, the “blacks” had come down from Saint Suzanne and integrated themselves among the free people of color. Heredia described being able to see approximately five to six hundred men on horseback taking

Ouanaminthe and gradually coming closer to the Spanish limit. Around four in the afternoon, Heredia stated that four “blacks on horseback” arrived near the river “asking the (border) guards I had dispatched for permission to deliver me a message on behalf of their general.”20 Heredia conceded them permission and after asking them to leave their weapons behind, the four black insurgents told him their general just wanted him to know of their arrival in “Juana Mendez” (Ouanaminthe) and that “he had not come in person due to his many duties, but that he would have the honor to visit me tomorrow.”21

Heredia then asked the insurgents for the identity of their general, but in their response they (presumably their scribes) left the section after “Monsieur” blank. They simply noted that he was a “free black who had recently come from France decorated with the cross of Saint Louis given to him by the King, and that his motive was to fulfill the orders he brought from the King.”22 The following day at around nine in the morning, Heredia

19 AGI, SD 1030, N. 9, (November 9, 1791)

20 Ibid., 88-89. [Original Spanish: negros . . . quatro negros a cavallo . . . pidiendo permiso a la guardia que yo havia puesto para darme un recado de parte de su general y haviendoselo cedido y hecho dejar las armas me los presentaron y el recado fue participarme de parte de su general.] The river Heredia references is the “Massacre” river, which separates Haiti from the Dominican Republic to this day.

21 Ibid. [Original Spanish: su arribo a Juana Mendez y que no venia él en persona por que sus muchas ocupaciones del dia no le daban lugar; pero que tendria el honor de visitarme mañana.]

22 Ibid. [Original Spanish: les pregunte quien era su General ya que havia venido y me respondio que – asi está – su General era Monsieur . . . . Negro Libre que havia venido poco ha de Francia

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was alerted by his border guards that a cavalry troop headed by the insurgent general approached their camp. Heredia’s explicit orders were that no more than an entourage of four men were allowed to accompany him into their camp. The mysterious general ceded and, according to Heredia, when he began to cross with his four men, his “brigands” persuaded him against crossing over without their full troop. Instead, the black general sent Heredia a message beseeching him for two officers (as a sign of peace); Heredia sent a scribe with assurances of safe passage, but the black general refused to cross, retreated, and said he had to attend mass. Heredia finished his account by stating that “those who spoke with him (the insurgent general) told me that he was a very dark-colored black with two crosses on his chest, one of the order of St. Louis and the other of a cross they did not know, that he spoke very little, and that he seems to be governed by those with whom he travels.”23

Scholars of West and Central Africa have provided valuable insight into the cultural and religious sartorial practices transported across the Atlantic to Brazilian and

condecorado con la cruz de San Luis que le há dado el rey, y que el motivo por que viene es para cumplir las ordenes que ha traido del rey.] Interestingly, Heredia makes a side annotation in his letter in which he comments on the fact that the insurgents did not specify their generals’ name. He specifically says: “this is how it was,” a reference to the fact that what followed the word “Monsieur” were simply a series of period marks.

23 Ibid., 92. [Original Spanish: me aviso la guardia del Rio que venia una tropa de cavalleria que por el antecedente de ayer tarde consideramos seria del General. Yo tenia dada la orden que si venia no permitiesen que pasase mas comitiva que quatro hombres, y como se mandó detener el resto se detubo el todo hasta que se le hizo saver que podia pasar con los quatro hombres, lo que executo, pero se detubo luego que paso el rio por que los brigantes que pasaron con el se resistieran a seguirle persuadiendole a que no vieniese a mi presencia sino contoda su comitiva, entonces me embio un recado suplicandome le embiase dos oficiales . . . le dijese que tenia el paso franco para venir a mi casa pero no quiso pasarse y retrocedio diciendo iba a asistir a la misa: los que hablaron con él me dicen que es un negro muy retinto con dos cruces al pecho la una de San Luis y otra que no conocieron y que habla poco, que parece se govierna por los que le acompañan.]

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Caribbean slave societies.24 To better understand what Riqueti's and the mysterious border-town general’s unknown crosses might have signified, I turn to art historian

Cécile Fromont. Fromont’s work on the early modern Kingdom of Kongo helps to trace how Kongolese elites engaged with visual and material cultures from Europe. Fromont argues that Kongo's noble and common classes fashioned their own conceptualization of

Christian doctrine, or “Kongo Christianity.” Building on notions of hybridity and selective cultural appropriation, she contends that Kongolese elites utilized narratives and visual artifacts amid “conceptual spaces of correlation” in order to “transform and redefine them into the constitutive and intimately linked parts of a new system of religious thought, artistic expression, and political organization.”25 Crosses and crucifixes offered "correlates," two-edged symbols that opened important possibilities for subjects of the Kongolese kingdom to ensure their status as part of the expansive network of

24 See, for instance, John K. Thornton, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641- 1718 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983); Linda M. Heywood, “Slavery and Its Transformation in the Kingdom of Kongo, 1491-1800,” Journal of African History 50, no. 1 (2009), 1-23; John K. Thornton, “African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion,” American Historical Review 96, no. 4 (1991): 1101-1113; Linda Heywood and John Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Maureen Warner-Lewis, Central Africa in the Caribbean: Transcending Time, Transforming Cultures (Kingston, Jamaica: University of West Indies Press, 2003); Monica Schular, “Alas, Alas, Kongo”: A Social History of Indentured African Immigration into Jamaica, 1841-1865 (Baltimore, 1980). For more recent work on Kisama fugitivity in Africa and the Americas, see: Jessica A. Krug, Fugitive Modernities: Kisama and the Politics of Freedom (Durham: Duke University Press, 2018). Christina Frances Mobley’s important work combines the methods of social and political history with sociolinguistics in order to illustrate the connections between the Loango Coast and Saint Domingue; Mobley argues for the durability of Kongolese ontology in what she deems part of a broader “Kongolese Atlantic.” See: Christina F. Mobley, The Kongolese Atlantic: Central African Slavery & Culture from Mayombe to Haiti. Dissertation, Duke University. Retrieved from: https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9951, 2015.

25 Cecile Fromont, The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo (Chapel Hill: OIEAHC/University of North Carolina Press, 2014), 2.

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Christendom. With this framework in mind and given the fact Saint Domingue had one of the highest influxes of slaves from the Kingdom of Kongo, we may consider the possibility that the aforementioned generals’ “unknown” crosses served in part as a cross- cultural iteration of the ways in which black insurgents in Haiti fashioned their own sense of a royalist ideology dependent on Christian beliefs.26 I do not pretend to claim that either of these men were Kongolese Christians, but nonetheless propose that it is not unlikely that they reconfigured West and Central African Christian practices in order to respond to and negotiate the complex religious, military, and political practices of both the French and Spanish authorities of Hispaniola. The crosses of Santiago or St. Louis were de rigueur for mounted officers, but there may have been more to the display.

John Thornton’s work not only provides invaluable insight into how Kongolese

Christianity impacted the events in the Haitian Revolution, but also how African ideologies rooted in kingship and monarchical ideology were crucial to the events in

Saint Domingue. He contends that “if political idiom was often different between Kongo and Europe, there was one point of contact: Christianity.”27 Thornton cites the well- known example of a slave insurgent named Macaya who, after having joined the insurgent leaders Jean-François and Georges Biassou, was being persuaded by Civil

Commissioner Polverel to return to the French republican side. According to the French general François-Joseph-Pamphile de Lacroix, Macaya responded to Polverel as follows:

“I am the subject of three kings: of the King of Congo, master of all the blacks; of the

26 As the work of James Sweet has shown, more than 70% of the slaves who arrived in Saint Domingue in the 1780s were from the region of the Kongo and Angola.

27 John K. Thornton, “I Am the Subject,” 188.

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King of France who represents my father; of the King of Spain who represents my mother. These three Kings are the descendants of those who, led by a star, came to adore

God made Man.”28 The obvious reference to the Christian tradition of the Three Kings’

Day, or the Day of the Epiphany, is important because Macaya makes the (albeit metaphorical) transatlantic connection between Kongo, France, and Spain. For Macaya, the nexus which connected the three distant places was the idealized notion of the monarch. It is therefore no surprise that he, like the insurgent leaders we will see later in this chapter, enlisted with the Spanish crown rather than with Republican France.

As historian John Thornton has noted, unlike in France, in the Kingdom of Kongo

“there was no question of dispensing with kings, as European republicanism proposed.

Rather, it was a question of the nature of the king’s rule.”29 In the Kongo, political and civil instability was typically rooted in a struggle over the centralization of power, the

“power of the leader to command followers, and the role of harmony.”30 These ideas were part of the political philosophy of the Kongo and not so dissimilar to the state of the colony in Saint Domingue at the onset of the French Revolution around 1789, as we saw in the previous chapter. Thornton’s work is persuasive in stating that such ideas did not

“vanish” when soldiers from the Kongo were captured and sent to Saint Domingue. What they brought as cultural heritage was surely “combined with other ideas to constitute an ideological undercurrent of the revolution.”31 While Thornton’s work is important in

28 Francois-Joseph-Pamphile de Lacroix, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la révolution de Saint-Domingue, 2 vols. (Paris, 1819), Volume I, 253, in Thornton, “I Am the Subject,” 181.

29 Ibid., 188.

30 Ibid., 198.

31 Ibid., 199.

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conceptualizing the Kongolese character of insurgents in Saint Domingue, I propose that instead of understanding the ideological “undercurrent” as a blend of French revolutionary ideas with Kongolese philosophies, that we also incorporate the way in which the insurgents understood French, and specifically Spanish monarchical practices.

After all, as Thornton himself proposes when talking about how newly arrived Africans maintained organization through secret societies: “one way of maintaining leadership of nations was through the election of kings and queens. These elections were widespread in the society of Afro-American slaves in all parts of the Americas. In Iberian America the annual elections were public events.” Indeed, a Spanish report shortly after the 1791 insurrections pointed out that near the camp of Gallifet, a Capuchin priest named

“Cayetano” had “married the daughter of a plantation owner from the (northern) plain with a black (man), and that after the bridal blessing he proclaimed them King and

Queen.”32 In the same report, Spanish authorities stated “the queen of the brigands has been apprehended and jailed and has not wanted to speak until the very moment right before her execution.” Apparently, her execution was suspended “with the hopes of uncovering a part of the plot that is not known.”33

We know from Thornton’s work that some of the generals and other elites in Saint

Domingue presented themselves as “conqueror kings or leaders” and that “rebels chose a

32 AGI, SD 1030, N. 56 (1791) [Original Spanish: añaden a la toma del campo del Galifet y del Padre Capuchin Cayetano que este havia casado una hija de un azucarero del llano con un negro y que despues de la bendicion nuncial los havia proclamado Rey y Reina.]

33 Ibid., [Original Spanish: La reina de los brigantes ha sido apresada y no ha querido hablar hasta el momento de hirla a executar; se ha suspendido la execucion con la esperanza de descubrir una parte de la trama que no se conoce.] It is not clear, based on the report, if this is the same queen that was married by the priest near Gallifet. It is probable that it is.

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king for each quarter that they had captured.”34 For instance, Thornton lists Jean-Baptiste

Cap as the King of Limbé and Port Margot, Jean-Louis le Parisien as the King of

Dondon, Youé as another King of Limbé, and others. This practice, he argues, “may represent a tentative movement in the direction of a local limited monarchy based on

African ideological views, though surely tempered by the military necessities of the moment and the power this gave to more ruthless and less democratic men, who seem to have often held or taken the title of king.”35

And yet, if we may trust the aforementioned Spanish reports, what do we make of the marriage between the daughter of a planter and a black and, presumably, insurgent rebel? In his description of vodou ceremonial dances, Moreau de Saint-Méry describes how the two religious leaders were referred to by “the pompous name of King and

Queen, or the despotic master and mistress, or the touching father and mother.” Moreau later noted that during the ceremony there was also singing of “an African song.”36 While it is true that Christian (in this case Roman Catholic) and vodou beliefs are not incompatible, and that vodou in fact includes many Christian elements, it is worth considering the possibility that the marriage between the queen and king of the Gallifet camp was rooted in African and, very likely, Kongolese Christian rituals. The apparent presence of a Capuchin priest to oversee the ceremony only strengthens the likelihood.

34 Thornton, “I Am the Subject,” 207-208.

35 Ibid., 209-210.

36 Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description, vol. 1, 64-68, in Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 44- 45.

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Historian Christina Mobley has wisely warned us about drawing too firm a conclusion, as John Thornton does, that the entire Kingdom of the Kongo was a

“Christian country.” Mobley suggests that “Thornton’s conclusions may not apply to the northern Kongo zone in the late eighteenth century, the region where captives enslaved in

Saint Domingue originated.”37 Yet, Mobley recognizes that sacred rituals and Christian rites were important and attractive to the Kongolese. For instance, she cites the work of

Luc de Huesch, who argues that Kongolese monarchs desired baptism (during coronation ceremonies) because “the purifying water was a decisive element in the traditional coronation.”38 Heusch further adds that Christian rites were “perfectly integrated” into indigenous religion, and that “the crucifix, the medals, the saints images and host were assimilated as charms, they entered in the category of protective fétiches, the minkisi.”39

Similarly, Mobley posits that mid-eighteenth century investigations of sorcery and poisonings in Saint Domingue led some, and not only planters, to blame such dangers on

African spiritual practices.40 Mobley argues that “Christian objects appear to have been used alongside traditional Kongolese ingredients in the composition of power objects.”41

In analyzing the collection of Moreau de Saint-Méry, Mobley cites the Mémoire of

Fournier la Chapelle, the Attorney General at the high court of Le Cap, who wrote the following in reference to Africans in the French colony: “when they can have crucifixes

37 Mobley, The Kongolese Atlantic, 273-276.

38 Ibid., 278. See: Luc de Huesch, Le roi de Kongo et les monstres sacrés: Mythes et rites bantous III (Paris: Gallimard, 2000), 82.

39 Heusch, Le roi de Kongo, 83, in Mobley, The Kongolese Atlantic, 279.

40 Mobley, The Kongolese Atlantic, 305-306.

41 Ibid., 313.

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they insert them in these packets also composed which are communally called garde corps or macandals.”42 Mobley suggests that such objects also served as covers or decoys for non-Christian rituals or acts. According to Fournier, Africans would carry a crucifix or a rosary at their assemblies (presumably night-time gatherings or kalendas), in the event they were surprised. If so, they would hide their Macandals and pretend to pray.43

In her analysis of Fournier’s account, Mobley concludes that his description “provides evidence that Christian objects were used in Saint Domingue in the same way that they were in the Kongo; they had entered into the indigenous religious category of powerful objects and were used to compose spiritually charged bundles or packets.”44 I believe these Christian objects, as we have seen, became more commonplace with the influx of

Kongolese slaves in the decades preceding 1791, as well as during the insurgents’ pitch to join the Spanish crown after the death of Louis XVI.

But even before the French monarch was beheaded in Paris, the Spanish kept a watchful eye on the arrival of Saint Domingue's second civil commission of September

1792. In a report to the Spanish crown, Governor García foreshadowed an impending war between the new “patriotic” forces and Jean-François’ army.45 García reported that the black army had essentially stopped their campaign to see how the new French army was

42 Charles Fournier de la Chapelle, “Mémoire pour server à l’information des procés contre les négres devins, sorciers et empoisonneurs,” ANOM F/3/88, Collection Moreau de Saint-Méry (CMSM), p 236-237 (1758), in Mobley, The Kongolese Atlantic, 313.

43 Ibid., 313.

44 Ibid., 313-314.

45 AGI, SD 1030, N. 330 (October 25, 1792). [Original Spanish: patriotas.]

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going to function. García mentioned the black army would subsequently “take away the shelter that is provided by taking cover during the hottest hours of the day, as well as the excessive humidity of the night.”46 García was suggesting that Saint Domingue’s insurgents would force the French to fight night-and-day, therefore literally suffocating the enemy with constant warfare.

Interestingly, and echoing the confusion over the crosses of the military orders and other religious symbols of the insurgents, there was something else García found difficult to comprehend. The Spanish governor, along with other Spanish officials, had a hard time imagining that the Africans and African descendants from across the border were actually competent on the field of battle. In fact, García finished his report with a stirring comment in which he described his astonishment at the ways in which the insurgents demonstrated “the foresight of success, not common to the simplicity of a negro and, instead, typical of a person well-prepared in the art of war.” 47 García’s

“persistent prejudice” aside, this comment is important because it may validate the notion that many of Saint Domingue’s insurgents utilized their African military experience during the Haitian Revolution.

We know, in part from Thornton’s work, that many of the Kongolese slaves who were sent to Saint-Domingue “had served in Kongo’s civil wars or were caught up by them.”48 And despite the fact that the original leaders of the revolution were not recently

46 Ibid., [Original Spanish: quitarles el auxilio de que las oras mas Fuertes del sol las pasen a cubierto, como la excesiva humedad de la noche.]

47 Ibid., [Original Spanish: Providencias de acierto y no comunas a la rusticidad de un negro, y si de un inteligente en el arte de la Guerra.]

48 Thornton, “I Am the Subject,” 186. See also: John Thornton, “African Soldiers in the Haitian Revolution,” Journal of Caribbean History 25 (1991), 58-80.

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enslaved Kongolese, the evidence regarding the majority Kongolese population in the northern plains of Saint Domingue is strong.49 As Thornton suggests, “the creoles could not stage a revolt alone. They had to obtain the support of the masses of slaves, and any ideology had to take their beliefs into account.”50 Thus, if creole leaders of the revolution waged their struggle in defense of the French king and, after his death, for the Spanish king, it was probably not difficult to convince Kongolese soldiers to fight—even if not directly for the king of the Kongo—for the maintenance of a monarchical system. Surely, the leaders (presented in detail in the following section) had the prudence to appeal to the mass of the insurgents, many of whom did come from West Central Africa. The leaders likely knew that many of the fighters “were ex-soldiers and prisoners of war who had the military experience and skills to carry the revolution forward.”51 The tactic of making numerous attacks followed by rapid retreats were, according to Thornton, “reminiscent of the tactics employed by many African armies in the late eighteenth century,” as well as

“characteristic” of Kongolese forces or those of the “slave coast.”52 Moreover, in addition to the fact that slaves’ military competence developed independently of the creole leadership, many of the bands were also “uncontrollable.”53 There was a two-tiered military system in which “larger forces under the personal supervision of the most

49 Ibid., 199.

50 Ibid., 201.

51 Ibid., 201

52 Ibid.; Thornton, “African Soldiers,” 71. Thornton gives the example of the Plantation of Bréda, which the insurgents attacked in a force deployed in three columns.

53 Ibid., 202-203.

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important or successful leaders surrounded by loosely allied bands under autonomous commanders.”54 And yet, and perhaps more importantly, Thornton argues there was an

“ideological ferment that matched the military maneuvering.”55

For instance, in a plea to the Spanish governor for more weapons and ammunition, Jean-François described not being able to get “reinforcements” from Louis

XVI, which is why they “were turning to his co-brother from Spain.”56 The insurgent leader stated that if the black army was armed like their rival, the “whites” wouldn’t even resist “two months.”57 Jean-François described how during their battles, “for every two dead blacks, there were ten or twelve dead whites.”58 That Jean-François alludes to the fact that Louis XVI and Carlos IV were cousins was important in its own right, since this demonstrates that at least one of the main leaders of the insurrection of 1791 understood the direct kinship between the French and Spanish Bourbons. Moreover, it speaks to the military prowess and skill the insurgents must have had if they were indeed inflicting such damage on their enemies despite their lack of equivalent weaponry. In this sense, and viewing the unfolding of events from the Spanish perspective, Jean-François’ ideological perceptiveness in appealing to the Spanish monarchical sensibilities—along

54 Ibid., 205. Perhaps insurgents like Jean-Baptiste Bongard and Riqueti were such independent commanders.

55 Ibid., 206.

56 AGS, SGU, 7157, 19, N. 2 (February 13, 1793). [Original Spanish: recurrir a su co-hermano de España.]

57 Ibid. [Original Spanish: si nosotros estubieramos todos armados como ellos . . . ellos no resistirían en el pais dos meses.]

58 Ibid. [Original Spanish: en una batalla con estos señores blancos, si hay dos negros muertos hay diez o doce blancos.]

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with the military superiority of his black army—makes Thornton’s arguments much stronger.

We lack positive proof of any of these assertions, but Thornton’s musings about what type of monarchical society Macaya’s Kongo King represented are worth considering. Were the insurgent "black armies" interested in a system in which authoritarianism and plantation economics persisted? Or were they seeking one in which the state was more egalitarian and estates broken up and redistributed?59 Here, the work of Jessica Krug, like Mobley's, reminds us that often the continuities of African schemas for political action are far more crosscut than a blanket term like royalism conveys.60 By looking at Kisama fugitivity, Krug shows that while West Central African societies projected “a reputation for military success.”61 Krug warns us about eschewing cross- regional, trans-Atlantic political processes when looking at how subaltern actors created complex political identities. Such identities were “oriented around renouncing state formations, martial idioms for social organization, and resisting slavery, the slave trade, and imbrication in market economies.”62 In the context of Kisama, Krug calls for a different epistemological framework with which to foster “notions of subjectivity” or

“views of personhood.”63 Krug argues that “rather than embracing ideologies of

59 Thornton, “I Am the Subject,” 206.

60 I thank Vincent Brown for sharing his insights with me and recommending Krug’s work; the use of the word ‘schema’ and ‘crosscut’ were his suggestions.

61 Krug, Fugitive Modernities, 4.

62 Ibid., 3.

63 Ibid.

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centralization and hierarchy . . . fugitives forged an ethos centered on the horizontal integration of newcomers.”64

Although Krug’s work forces us to re-think the widespread ways in which African schemas persisted in the Americas, in the context of revolutionary Saint Domingue, some of the paradigms that Krug disputes appear to have remained relevant, and the record seems to show it. Specifically, if we look at the leadership of the revolution, it is clear that regardless of whether one was a creole or Kongolese common fighter, the world the leaders were attempting to create was one in which their self-interests and the steeply hierarchical structures of pre-revolutionary Saint Domingue were to be kept. In other words, the leaders were trying to move up the social hierarchy—which was rooted in a royalist, or monarchical, system—rather than engaging in its destruction. John Thornton presents the often-cited chant recorded on the eve of the revolution by Moreau de Saint-

Méry:

Eh! Eh! Bomba, hen! Hen! Canga bafio té Canga moune dé lé Canga doki la Canga li.65

Thornton translates the chant as follows:

Eh! Eh! Mbomba [Rainbow] hen! hen! Hold back the black men Hold back the white man Hold back that witch Hold them.66

64 Ibid., 4.

65 Thornton, “I Am the Subject,” 210.

66 Ibid.

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To Thornton, the chant possibly represented a “more universalistic message than simply one of murder or revenge.”67 In fact, Thornton asserts that the verb kanga can mean to

“save and deliver” and that it therefore “stood in contrast to the conqueror king, the exploiting plantation owner, or the ambitious commandeur d’atelier who dominated the revolution and attempted restoration of forced labor.” Perhaps to the great mass of slaves who rose up and fought for their freedom, to be saved and delivered from the plantation complex was indeed their goal.

However, the insurgent leadership paints a different picture, which leads me to a different interpretation. By fashioning themselves as generals and the revolution itself as a movement against the initial moments of French Republicanism, the insurgent leadership sought to first save the French king, then deliver justice to him, and lastly to protect and fight for the Spanish king. The leadership was made up of mostly creoles who had been locally born and thus possibly “more influenced by European attitudes than were their descendants after 1804, notwithstanding their greater familiarity with African culture.”68 As such, insurgent leaders had to find a way to establish common cause with those who had recently arrived from the coasts of the African continent. And what better way to speak to, say, a recently-arrived Kongolese warrior, than in a language through which his surely-desired freedom depended on the continuity of a system in which a monarch and Christianity were the ultimate arbiters of justice, rights, privileges, and finally subject-hood itself? The notion that one could be loyal to a monarch whose kingdom offered demonstrable room to be free or to move up in the social hierarchy was

67 Ibid., 210-213.

68 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 65, 78; 247, Note 58.

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likely appealing to an African, especially when faced with the more foreign ideas of republicanism and liberal politics. Thus, the leaders of the 1791 revolts demonstrated that they knew how to exploit the political fissures opening up in this time of uncertainty, how to occupy the porous border between Saint Domingue and Santo Domingo and, as we will see, to make contingent alliances during a time of political turmoil.

Vasallos Del Rey

The notion of a “tempered monarchy” in continental Africa, whether in Kongo or elsewhere, is—in the American context—perhaps best mirrored by Spanish monarchical rule.69 As chapter two demonstrated, scholars of the Spanish Atlantic and of Afro-Latin

America have shown how vassals of the king in the Hispanic world were able to engage in and navigate imperial politics as subjects of the Spanish monarch. For instance,

Catholic doctrine had “long provided certain rights for slaves throughout Spanish

America.”70 However, in Santo Domingo during the Spring of 1793, the insurgent leaders

Jean-François and Georges Biassou began an unlikely relationship with a Spanish priest named Josef Vásquez, who was himself a mulatto.71 Graham Nessler points out that even though the Catholic church afforded certain privileges to slaves, “rarely had religious officials interacted with slaves or ex-slaves on terms of equality or near equality.”72

Nessler gives the example of how in early 1793, Vásquez and Jean-François engaged in a “complicated ritual that went far beyond a simple story of subordination.”

69 Thornton, “I Am the Subject,” 213.

70 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 44.

71 Ibid., 44; Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 73.

72 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 44.

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Apparently, Jean-François kept the priest “waiting for several hours and appeared (in elegant clothes and on horseback) only after the latter sent an underling out to find him.

The black leader also obtained promises of munitions, food, clothing, and high military ranks for himself and his followers.”73 Vásquez once wrote that “if divine Providence had not favored us with the black [allies], we would have been victims of the fury of the savage masses.”74 But Vásquez was not merely a religious figure, he was also a “political ambassador and military advisor” who had been sent by Spanish authorities near the colonial border in order to try and recruit the insurgent leaders of the 1791 revolts.75 The two most important leaders of the 1791 insurgency were Jean-François (otherwise known as Jean-François Papillon) and Georges Biassou.76 Toussaint Louverture, as we will later see, maintained a behind-the-scenes role during the first years of the revolution.

Nonetheless, these leaders agreed to the various entreaties with the Spanish, albeit on their own terms and largely for their own ends.77 The role of Father Vásquez in these negotiations was crucial, and representative of the ways in which intermediaries in other

Hispanic American colonies functioned.78

73 Ibid.

74 Landers, Atlantic Creole, 73.

75 Ibid., 45.

76 Ibid., 36.

77 Ibid., 45. Nessler specifically refers to Jean-François, but I believe its applicable to all of the main leaders, that is, also Biassou and Louverture.

78 The following works come to mind: Gabriela Ramos and Yanna Yannakakis, Indigenous Intellectuals: Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014); Restall, The Black Middle (2009); John Charles, Allies at Odds: The Andean Church and Its Indigenous Agents, 1583-1671 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010); Alida Metcalf, Go-Betweens and the Colonization of Brazil, 1500-1600 (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2005).

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The backgrounds of the slave leaders themselves also personified go-between positions. Georges Biassou was born a slave and grew up on the sugar plantations near the Haut du Cap, located in the mountainous terrain that overlooks the harbor of Le

Cap.79 Dubois states that Jean-François “may have been a slave, and a maroon, before the revolution,” but Geggus refutes such assertions, indicating there are “no suggestions in documents that Boukman or Jean-François were members still less the leaders of a band of maroons.”80 What we do know is that both of these insurgent leaders had certain privileges and “exercised authority over other bonded laborers.”81 Indeed, it was this intermediary position in colonial Saint Domingue that afforded them certain privileges and most importantly, the ability to move between plantations and to the northern port- town of Le Cap. It would have been common for men like Biassou and Jean-François to go to Le Cap “on weekends to attend the market, visit the taverns, and see the sights.”82

As Landers asserts:

“Their relative[ly] privileged positions . . and their proximity to Le Cap meant that both would have been aware of the revolutionary fervor that was sweeping the Atlantic world in the wake of the American and French Revolutions. It was from Le Cap that more than 500 black troops of the Chasseur-Voluntaires de Saint-Domingue, dressed in the King’s Blue Coats, embarked in 1779 to support American Revolutionaries fighting in Savannah.”83

79 Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 55.

80 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 124; Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 73.

81 Nessler, An Islanwide Struggle, 33.

82 Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 55.

83 Ibid., 59. Landers is here specifically referring to Biassou and Toussaint Louverture. However, I believe that these statements also likely applied to Jean-François.

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Scholars have also suggested that, especially with regards to Biassou and Toussaint

Louverture, the “political and literary allusions” in their writings suggest a “at least some rudimentary education through the church.”84 The leaders of 1791, especially in their attempts to join the Spanish ranks, presented themselves as defenders of church and king.85 They consistently showed a devotion to Catholicism and perhaps this was why the connection with Father Vásquez was almost immediate. Both Jean-François and Biassou, like the other insurgents discussed previously, donned extravagant clothes and the cross of the order of Saint Louis. For instance, for Jean-François, “the scarlet tunic . . was not just a flamboyant item of clothing but l’habit du Roi.”86 Geggus states that the insurgent companies all had a “chaplain who was instructed to end public prayers with three shouts of ‘Vive le Roi!’ and each service with ‘God Save the King’.”87 Geggus admits that such iterations of monarchical thought, along with “flags” and “medals” would have been found “at least comprehensible and perhaps appealing” to those insurgents who came from monarchical societies.88 As for Biassou, it is likely that the death of France’s Louis

XVI had an impact on him, as he apparently wept after hearing the news.89 Despite the

84 Ibid., 58.

85 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 108; David P. Geggus, “The Arming of Slaves in the Haitian Revolution” in Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age, editors Christopher Leslie Brown and Philip D. Morgan (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 221; Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 66.

86 Geggus, “The Arming of Slaves,” 226. This roughly translates to “the King’s habit,” which is consistent with the Kongolese practices of viewing oneself as a conqueror or king.

87 Ibid.

88 Ibid.

89 Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 69.

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warning that such emotion from Biassou “may have been nothing more than rhetoric,”

Landers does wonder “if Biassou’s seemingly personal sense of connection was kindled by seeing the six-foot-high painting of Louis XVI that graced the Government Hall in the former Jesuit headquarters just opposite the painting of Christ.”

Figure 9: Dibujo de Jesús Crucificado y el Rey Carlos IV90 As the colored drawing above shows, Biassou and the other rebel leaders likely saw similar imagery in their various visits to Le Cap, or to neighboring plantations. As the previous chapter also illustrated, the passports that the insurgents distributed contained the language of Church (God) and King. The leaders of the 1791 insurrection continued to use this rhetoric with the Spanish in hopes of demonstrating their allegiance

90 AGI, MP, Estampas 57, “Drawing of crucified Jesus and the King Charles IV,” (Abril 20, 1799)

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to the Spanish crown. The leadership, however, did not just appeal to the religious and monarchical devotion of Spanish authorities, they also employed more subtle tactics.

For example, in an undated letter from an insurgent leader named Hyacinthe, the black rebel asks the Spanish governor García to grant him asylum since he is a “partisan of the King.”91 Dubois has noted that Hyacinthe became a religious leader in the Western

Province who “carried a talisman made of horsehair into battle.”92 He would also oversee the “partial reestablishment of sugar production” as well as help “preserve the plantations of the west from the destruction that had occurred in the north.”93 Hyacinthe, or “Jacinto” in the colonial Spanish, claimed that “they [presumably he and his followers] didn’t recognize anything but God and the King our Lord” and that they “wanted to spill the last drop of our blood for our king and for our rights.”94 Moreover, Jacinto specifically mentioned that he “has the honor of assuring you [the Spanish authorities] that I am a maroon in the mountains,” and that he believed the “Cul-de-Sac region actually belongs more to Spain than to the brigands.”95 Lastly, Jacinto shared a list of “all of the whites

91 AGS, SGU 7157, N.19 (No date). It is likely, given the other letters in the box, that it was around the spring of 1793. [Original Spanish: como siendo partidario por el Rey os suplico de darme un asilo sobre esto.]

92 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 101.

93 Ibid., 101, 137.

94 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Nosotros no conocemos sino a Dios y al Rey nuestro señor y nosotros queremos derramar la ultima gota de nuestra sangre por nuestro rey y por nuestros derechos.]

95 Ibid. [Original Spanish: yo tengo el honor de aseguraros que me hallo cimarron en los montes . . yo creo que la parte del Cul-de-Sac pertenece mas bien a la España que a los brigantes.]

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who were adherents of the king” who had apparently been imprisoned, amongst whom was a “Mr. de Jumecourt.”96

Hanus de Jumecourt was a wealthy planter who, like the marquis de Rouvray, had

“led the move for reconciliation with free-coloreds,” was staunchly royalist, and anti-

Republican.97 Apparently, Hyacinthe invited Jumecourt to head a police force near the

Croix-des-Bouquets region in the West.98 Thus, based on Dubois’s research it appears that Hyacinthe and Jumecourt had a relatively close relationship. And as such, this may further strengthen the notion that Hyacinthe’s royalist dispositions as outlined in his letter were genuine. Graham Nessler states that Hyacinthe’s correspondence is important in that he used powerful language to “affirm his freedom” in the face of a Spanish colony that sought to maintain slavery.99 This is important, although based on Dubois’s account

Hyacinthe in fact had no problem leading slaves that he had ostensibly led to war, “back to work.”100 I submit that Jacinto’s letter is significant for other reasons.

First, Jacinto illustrated the consistent church-and-king rhetoric displayed by main leaders such as Jean-François and Biassou. Second, he also showed, similar to what we saw with Jean-Baptiste Bongard, an ability to square the authority of the king of France

96 AGS, SGU 7157, N.19 (No date). [Original Spanish: que todos los blancos que eran partidarios por el Rey todos están presos . . que son Mr. de Yumecourt (sic).]

97 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 145. Dubois explains that Jumecourt was the “architect” of the first Concordat between whites and free-coloreds, signed in 1791 in Port-au-Prince. These were the efforts by free-coloreds to gain equal rights with the whites, like Vincent Ogé had a year prior (Avengers of the New World, 120).

98 Ibid., 137.

99 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 45.

100 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 138.

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with what he deemed as essential political rights. Third and, perhaps more importantly,

Jacinto demonstrated a shrewd understanding of Spain’s centuries-old sanctuary law.101

Why else would he make a specific reference to the fact that he was not only a maroon, but that he believed the Cul-de-Sac region of the West in fact belonged to Spain?

Jacinto’s account suggests that he was less interested in the general emancipation of slaves than in his personal freedom or claims on rights. And if Dubois’s allusions to

Hyacinthe engaging in African religious practices are correct, then the idea that he was a staunch, orthodox Christian at least come into doubt. If so, this adds to the reasons behind his evoking Spanish sanctuary.102

Dependencies and Loyalties

The Spanish had their own reasons for wanting to win over Saint Domingue's insurgents. Indeed, “as soon as war was declared, both the republican French and the

Spanish, preparing to invade from Santo Domingo, began competing to win over the black rebels. They offered them employment as mercenaries and personal freedom for themselves,” despite their fears and general distrust.103 The political crisis with France prompted Governor García to proclaim a policy in April of 1793 admitting “all the

Blacks who have sustained the war against the diabolical maxims of the whites.”104 On

101 I briefly covered this topic in chapter two, but it is important to note that Jane Landers’ Black Society (1999), traces the origins of Spain’s centuries-old sanctuary—or asylum—law to the black communities fleeing the British in sixteenth century Spanish Florida. For Landers, such practices and as we saw in chapter two—maroon communities—began to grow throughout the Spanish Caribbean due to the sanctuary law.

102 Doubting that he was a staunch Christian does not mean he did not have Christian beliefs. If Hyacinthe practiced vodou, for instance, he may well have combined elements of both religions.

103 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 14.

104 AGS, SGU 7157, f. 120 (1793), in Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 42.

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February 22, 1793, a letter representing Charles IV stated: “the King desires . . to seek the opportune mediums in order to win and attract to our cause the brigands be they blacks, mulattos, or any royalist unhappy with the new government introduced by the French nation.”105 By late spring and summer of 1793, García and his military officers were successful in recruiting the black insurgents as the “auxiliary troops” of Carlos IV and, at the border town of San Rafael, García “ceremoniously decorated Biassou, Jean-François, and Toussaint with gold medals bearing the likeness of the king, and presented them with documents expressing the gratitude and confidence of the Spanish government.”106 While not without risks, this was probably not very difficult for the Spanish to achieve since two of the three main leaders, Biassou and Jean-François (the third being Toussaint

Louverture), never wavered in their royalist pronunciations. They swore to defend the crown and Biassou told García that he “contributed with all of his might to reestablish on the throne the son of the most unfortunate of monarchs, Louis XVI.”107 Leading up to the summer of 1793, Biassou and Jean-François made explicit references to defending the interests of both the French and Spanish crowns.

Perhaps one of the most convincing acts of loyalty came on or around June 21,

1793, when Jean-François received a letter from the camp of Commissioner Sonthonax.

Leaving the seal intact, and without opening the letter, Jean-François immediately sent it

105 AGS, SGU 7157, N.1 (1793). [Original Spanish: Quiere el Rey . . los medios oportunos para ganar y atraher a nuestro partido el de los brigantes asi negros como mulatos y el de los realistas descontentos del nuevo gobierno introducido por la nacion Francesa.]

106 Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 73.

107 AGS, SGU 7157,2 (No date). [Original Spanish: Haber contribuido con todas mis fuerzas a restablecer el hijo de este desgraciado monarca Luis 16 sobre el trono.]

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to Father Vásquez, telling him that this was a “show of his good faith, since he thought that perhaps the letter contained some information that would likely make [the Spanish] doubt his good conduct.”108 Indeed, the Spanish governor received the letter, opened it, and realized that Sonothonax was trying to win Jean-François over to the republican side.

Needless to say, García was pleased by this act, saying it: “offered a reassurance of the loyalty of this negro and should produce in us confidence in knowing he is addicted to

[i.e., a partisan of] our way of thinking.”109 While I tend to agree with Dubois that an act or proclamation of loyalty to the monarchy did not necessarily entail an explicit rejection of republicanism, this episode cannot be ignored or easily brushed off.110

Critical to this exchange was the figure of Father Vásquez, not only because he was the person Jean-François trusted with the letter, but because he had already received a verbal, face-to-face oath of loyalty from the insurgent. Apparently, once Vásquez got word that Jean-François was being recruited by the civil commissioners, he got on his horse and went directly to the insurgent's camp, letting him know of the rumors. Shocked, according to Vásquez, Jean-François fell to his knees and swore by God and the sacred name of the King of Spain that this was all false. The commissioners were trying to create confusion in the camps of the blacks and Spanish, he said. For whatever reason,

108 AGI, SD 1030, f. 519 (1793). [Original Spanish: La embio al momento sin abrirla al cura Don Jose Vazquez . . diciendole que deseando acreditar su Buena fé, y creyendo que aquel papel incluiria algun asunto que hiciera dudar de su conducta.]

109 Ibid., [Original Spanish: ofrecen una seguridad de la fidelidad de este Negro y deven producirnos la satisfaccion de estar adicto a nuestros pensamientos.]

110 Dubois, “Our Three Colors,” 85. On the notion of ideological warfare, see: Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 24.

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Spanish authorities seemed to trust Vásquez’s estimation of Jean-François’ loyalty.111 It is difficult to state with certainty what exactly Vásquez’s motivations may have been in becoming so close to the rebel leaders. Of course, the Spanish authorities initially sent the mulatto priest to the border to recruit the insurgents, but his unusual relationship with them is perhaps more telling of their religious and racial affinities. If Biassou and Jean-

François were indeed pious Christians, and they had mulatto soldiers fighting for them, it is perhaps not far-fetched to see how a mulatto priest who acted also as a military and political advisor might more rapidly connect with the rebels.

Echoing the empathetic sentiments that Vásquez expressed toward the black insurgents, the archbishop of Santo Domingo, Don Fernando Portillo y Torres, was also touched by the rebels' defense of Spain. For example, in a letter dated August 25, 1793,

Torres describes a battle near Atalaya and Marmelade where approximately 7,500 French republicans and mulattos led by the civil commissioners lost a “glorious victory” to the army of the blacks.112 Torres stated that if the mulattoes would only join the Spanish or lay down their arms, then it would “not be long before the Spanish were [again] owners of the colony [the implication here being the entire island] and then we could say that

God from the heavens has decided to put it in our hands.”113 Torres felt that the mulattos against whom the black insurgent army was now fighting viewed the Spanish with

“horror” since they could not, dating back to the “infamous” return of Ogé to Saint

111 Ibid., f. 520-521.

112 AGS, SGU 7157, N.22 (1793). [Original Spanish: gloriosa victoria.]

113 Ibid. [Original Spanish: no tardaremos en ser dueños de la colonia y entonces podremos decir, que Dios desde los cielos se ha dignado ponerla en nuestras manos.]

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Domingue, keep “his name out of their mouths,” nor their “memories.”114 Nessler claims that Commissioner Sonthonax “skillfully exploited bitter memories of the Ogé affair to win support” and that, in a September 25, 1793 letter, Torres accused Sonthonax “of distorting recent history to suit his own agenda.”115 Torres was eager to express his gratitude towards the insurgents to the authorities at Santo Domingo by saying they lived

“by a miracle, and dependent on the humane loyalty of these poor blacks, who have just won us the town of Marmelade by themselves.”116 And yet, the archbishop was worried that a handful of “distrustful” Spaniards might become impatient with the blacks who in his words “defended” them, and that this in turn would result in a “final calamity.”117

One of the Spanish commanders who had difficulty trusting the insurgent army was Matías de Armona. Armona had “come to the aid of the island” from Havana in the summer of 1793.118 A career soldier for Spain, Armona was appointed in the late 1770s to his post in Havana, ascending to the rank of coronel and eventually brigadier or commander.119 Governor García tasked Armona with traversing the extensive chain of

114 Ibid. [Original Spanish: el horror con que nos miran y a nuestra nacion los mulattos, desde la infame entrega de Oge, que no se les cae de la voca, y ni pierden de su memoria.]

115 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 56.

116 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Vivimos de milagro, y dependientes en lo humano de la fidelidad de esos pobres negros que nos acaban de ganar la marmelada por si solos.]

117 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Un puñado de españoles . . desconfiados e impacientes con los negros que nos defienden, solo puede producir una final desgracia.”

118 AGS, SGU 6855, N.52 (1793). [Original Spanish: a socorrer esta ysla.]

119 Luis Navarro García, Don Jose De Galvez Y La Comandancia General De Las Provincias Internas Del Norte De Nueva España. [1. Ed.] ed. Publicaciones De La Escuela De Estudios Hispano-Americanos De La Universidad De Sevilla, 148, 2. Ser. (Sevilla: Consejo Superior De Investigaciones Cientificas, 1964); For his grade of Brigadier, see: AGS, SGU 6871,38 (1791). [“Grado de Brigadier a Matías de Armona”]; AGS, SGU 6855, N. 52 (1793). [Original Spanish: Comandante el Brigadier Armona.] Around the late 1760s, Armona was sent to New Spain and

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mountain ranges to the West of Santo Domingo and communicating with Coronel

Cabrera in order to make the necessary preparations for the defense of the island. Some weeks after disembarking on July 8, 1793 near Azua, Armona relayed his first impressions of the island to García; he talked about the “burning aridness of the climate, and strength of the sun, the unevenness of the terrain . . and vast deserts, rivers without bridges—or canoes—and the poverty with which the population there lived.”120 Seeing the poor conditions of towns like Banica, San Juan, and Hincha, Armona tendered veiled complaints about the lack of resources available. He also demanded (very politely) that

García order “all of the inhabitants (of the Western towns of Santo Domingo) to take up arms . . to abandon their families and face their enemies, this way the towns and haciendas (plantations) would be left with only women and children.”121 It appears

Armona was expecting a much more organized defensive front in the hinterlands of the island. But in the late summer and early fall of 1793, what the Spanish commander probably did not know was that for almost two years since the outbreak of the 1791 revolts, the two main military commanders tasked with protecting Santo Domingo—

Cabrera and Heredia—had turned their focus almost entirely towards the border with

specifically to Spanish California. Interestingly, he met with Bernardo de Gálvez, who ordered Armona to suppress rebellions by the seri Indians in the region. Perhaps these experiences fueled Armona’s distrust of the insurgents of Saint-Domingue.

120 AGS, SGU 6855, N.52. [Original Spanish: La aridez ardentea del clima, y Fortaleza de los soles: la desigualdad del terreno . . sus desiertos i largas distancias: los rios sin puentes ni canoas, y la pobreza de la poca población de este suelo.]

121 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Exhijio la necesidad que todos sus havitantes tomasen las armas que tenian . . que abandonando sus familias se pusieran al frente de los enemigos, quedando los pueblos y haciendas con las mugeres y niños.]

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Saint Domingue. It was at the edge of this region that the insurgents were then waging a war in the name of Carlos IV, whose territories Armona himself had vowed to protect.

Having suppressed Indian rebellions during a prior stint in Spanish California, it is perhaps no surprise that Armona was bewildered at the pomp and extravagance with which non-white insurgent leaders like Biassou and Jean-François presented themselves.

Armona did not hide the fact that he was annoyed by the leaders’ self-aggrandizing ways and, in a letter to García in August of 1793 he wrote that one of the leaders who called himself “Viassou Generalissimo of his majesty’s arms” had “captains, sergeants, majors, coronels, brigadiers, marshals, generals, admirals, and crossed knights.”122 Apparently,

Biassou’s shield, or coat of arms, was of “the tree of liberty, with a crown on top sustained by two naked blacks.”123 Around August 20, 1793, Armona wrote this about

Biassou:

“He has elevated himself as a monarch. Jean-François is a subordinate of his, and is named his admiral . . he maintains a harem, gets drunk, and cuts off heads like the Emperor of Morocco . . Viassou dominates the mountain ranges through which the dividing line between the Spanish and French fronts passes, and the Maniel [maroon colonies] will not stop joining him since they are all one, and they proceed towards the same cause . . my lack of sleep is due as much to these so-called allies, as to our enemies.”124

122 AGS, SGU 6855, N.52 (1793). [Original Spanish: se firma Viassou Generalissimo de las armas de S.M. por que tiene hechos por si capitanes, sargentos, mayores, coroneles, brigadiers, mariscales, generals, y almirantes. Cavalleros cruzados.]

123 Ibid., [Original Spanish: el sello que usa es el arbol de la libertad. Encima una corona sostenida por dos negros encueros.]

124 Ibid., [Original Spanish: Se ha erigido en monarca. Juan Francisco es subaltern suyo, y se nombra su almirante . . tiene serrallo, se emboracha, y corta cavezas como el Emperador de Marruecos . . Viassou domina toda la cordillera de montañas por donde pasa la linea divisoria de la frente Española y Francesa, y no dejara de juntarsele el maniel, pues son todos unos y proceden por la propia causa . . me cuestan tantos desbelos los enemigos como estos por ahora nuestros aliados.]

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Ten days later, on August 30, 1793, Armona added the following in his correspondence with García:

“This man [Biassou] who is about forty years old, has created a state or military monarchy with all of the duties, crosses, and honors . . he has a corps guards that is supplied by the enemy colony and from our own royal treasury. With a war council, he presides over and judges oral trials (none of them know how to read or write, but they have lower-class whites as secretaries) . . everything is an imitation of the French, mixed with the ferocity they brought from Africa. It is the same with their religion. Last Sunday, they rang the bell three times for high mass in Dondon, and because there was no priest, one of them dressed as one and began to give the mass.”125

In his letters, Armona encouraged seeking more show of humility from Biassou, trying to help him “come down from such a high level of enthusiasm, and make him an obedient and subservient vassal.”126 For instance, in another letter Armona stated that Biassou thought Jean-François was dangerous and his subordinate, to which Armona (in parentheses) told García that he viewed them both as “two monarchs.”127 Overall,

Armona expressed a much greater sense of urgency than either Governor García or the other commanders near the border. He repeatedly sent warnings about the lack of provisions, the dangers of the insurgents joining forces with the blacks of Maniel and, in

125 Ibid., [Original Spanish: este hombre, como de 40 años ha formado un estado o monarquia military con todos los empleos, cruzes, y honores . . tiene sus guardias de corps cuio Fausto (?) lo saca del paiz enemigo y de nuestro erario real. Jusga soberanamente con consejo de Guerra de sus generales en juicios vervales (ninguno de todos ellos save leer, ni escrivir, pero tienen francesitos blancos por secretaries). Todo es una moneria o remed (illegible) . . de los franceses mezclado con la ferocidad que trajeron del Africa. Lo mismo su religion, El domingo pasado dieron sus tres repiques para la misa mayor en el Dondon y a falta de padre se revistio uno de ellos y se puso a hacer misa.] Although this was my translation, I took some elements from David Geggus’ translation of this document (namely, “imitation” and “royal treasury”). See: Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 110.

126 Ibid., [Original Spanish: y hacerle bajar del alto entusiasmo a que ha suvido, y hacerle basallo subordinado y obediente.]

127 Ibid., [Original Spanish: que haya dos monarcas,]

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an August 27, 1793 letter, suggested taking Le Cap. In the same correspondence, Armona mentioned that Biassou had about 16,000 fighters, while Jean-François had 20,000.

Echoing his earlier claims of despotism, he told García that Biassou ruled as they do in

“Morocco,” while Jean-François mimicked the customs used in “Algeria.” Armona pleaded with the government at Santo Domingo to “undo the knot.”128

Armona’s correspondence is in many ways revealing of the fears archbishop

Torres outlined during that same summer. Not only was it evident that Armona was distrustful of the insurgents, but he was growing increasingly impatient with the lack of action on the part of fellow Spanish authorities. It was also clear that Armona was quite unfamiliar with the situation on the island, a fact he admitted in another letter to García.

What bothered him was that religious men like Vásquez and Torres, but also fellow military commanders such as Cabrera and Heredia, had very different opinions on how to handle the insurgents.129 Spanish officials and churchmen had various reasons for supporting the 1791 insurgents in their war against France and Great Britain. Perhaps it was a pragmatic sense of colonial defense and self-preservation, exemplified by figures such as García, Cabrera, and Heredia,130 or maybe it was a religious and more empathetic defense of those “poor blacks” that Torres described and Vázquez held in high esteem.

128 Ibid., [Original Spanish: 16,000 mil combatientes e ympera como en Marruecos, y Juan Francisco con veinte mil como en Argel, tropas al modo de los de aquellos paises.]

129 Armona was eventually accused and imprisoned for treason and for having deserted the villages of San Rafael and San Miguel in Santo Domingo. He died before his trial could be resolved. (See: SGU,LEG,6856,39 (1796).

130 Jane Landers argues that the insurgent leaders like Biassou were likely pragmatic in their “search for self-interest.” I agree and tend to believe Spanish officers also tended to be pragmatic in their approach. See: Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 276, Footnote 28. I also agree with Landers’ problematization of Carolyn Fick’s argument that Biassou’s impulsiveness might ‘incarnate’ of the ‘mentality’ of the slaves. Landers instead makes the case that Biassou may well have been pragmatic and assiduous in pursuing his own interests. See: Fick, The Making of Haiti, 115.

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While it is hard to reach definitive conclusions given the nature of the evidence, it is clear that all of these men had a much deeper understanding of how to negotiate the socio-political, religious, and military complexities posed by allying with the so-called auxiliaries of Carlos IV. Spanish historian Jesús Gutiérrez Porro has argued that the

Spanish crown saw the events of 1793 and their recruitment of Saint Domingue’s insurgents as the perfect opportunity to reconquer the island of Hispaniola.131 Perhaps, then, Spain’s representatives in Santo Domingo understood what certain free men of color and monarchical loyalists in Saint Domingue already knew: that the most dangerous weapon on the island of Hispaniola, or what Vincent Ogé once called “the other side of the coin,” were the slave masses of the northern plains of Saint Domingue.

The Leaders

In order to unlock this weapon or "flip the coin," the Spanish would have to deal with the charismatic leadership of Jean-François, Toussaint Louverture, and Georges

Biassou. During the fall of 1793 and the beginning of 1794, not only did these leaders wage bloody campaigns against French republican forces, but they also confronted

British occupiers in parts of Saint Domingue's south and west.132 The insurgents constantly refused offers of freedom by the republican commissioner Sonthonax. In the face of such offers, and echoing Macaya, Jean-François and Biassou stated bluntly that

131 Jesús Gutiérrez Porro, “Inquietudes en la parte española de la isla sobre la sublevación de los esclavos de Saint-Dominuge,” Revista de la Universidad de Alcalá de Henares. Estudios de Historia Social y Económica de América (Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá, 1993), 165- 179 [173-174].

132 David Geggus, Slavery, War, and Revolution: the British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793-1798 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982).

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they had always “obeyed the will of a king” and that they would “rather be slaves of the

Spaniards than free with the French.”133 While it is true that the leaders of 1791 might have been engaged in what Landers once called the use of “rhetorical flourish,” I argue that we should not dismiss the idea that these leaders understood the practical dimensions of royalism.134 Similar to how the various imperial reforms affected the island of

Hispaniola during the latter half of the eighteenth century, Marcela Echeverri’s work on

Indian and slave royalists demonstrates similar processes. Even though Echeverri’s research is rooted in the Pacific region and the Andes of southern Colombia, I find her work useful in understanding the motivations of Saint Domingue’s insurgent leaders.

For instance, Echeverri explains that the notion of “reciprocity” and “pact” between a king and his vassals has been “instrumental in challenging the more rigid definitions of colonial power that see it stemming only from the top down, and of colonialism as a mere exercise of domination through force.”135 Already before the

American and French revolutions there was an “unwritten constitution” that the Habsburg

Monarchy of Spain utilized in order to fulfill “contractual principles that connected multiple social and ethnic groups on both sides of the Atlantic.”136 Echeverri gives the example of cacique rulers, indigenous intermediaries who helped to “carve a

133 Captain General Joaquín García to the Duque de Alcudia, December 12, 1795, cited in Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 71.

134 Ibid. Marcela, Echeverri’s, Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution: Reform, Revolution and Royalism in the Northern Andes, 1780-1825 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), is particularly useful for understanding the practicality of why subaltern American populations decided to opt for royalist position.

135 Ibid., 14.

136 Ibid.

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semiautonomous space for their communities in local politics, while at the same time guaranteeing their own permanence as a class that had accumulated economic and political prerogatives.”137

I contend that an appropriate parallel to Echeverri’s “caciques” in the context of revolutionary Saint Domingue were the top-ranking free people of color. As we have seen throughout this work, the so-called martyrdoms of Vincent Ogé and Jean-Baptiste

Chavannes reverberated in the minds of insurgents in the years following their execution.

Similarly, I propose that we also think of the free black leadership of the 1791 revolts as representative of Echeverri’s caciques. Georges Biassou, Jean-François, and Toussaint

Louverture may not have accumulated the “economic and political prerogatives” that men like Ogé did, but they likely believed that siding with the crown would “guarantee” their already relatively privileged places in the complex hierarchical pyramid of Saint

Domingue and, as we have seen, even to provide them with a level of power they perhaps never imagined. For Biassou and Jean-François, it was clear they were looking out for their own interests. The aims of Louverture were arguably more complex. This would prove to be one of the main distinguishing factors between the three leaders, as we will see in what follows.138

One of the enduring questions in the historiography of the Haitian Revolution is whether or not the insurgent leaders were fighting for the general freedom of the slave population. Scholars have different positions on whether Biassou, Jean-François, and even Toussaint Louverture were initially interested in general emancipation; the

137 Ibid., 15.

138 Geggus, “Toussaint Louverture,” 122.

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aforementioned refusals to commissioner Sonthonax support the notion that they were not, at least at first.139 There is suggestive evidence. In order to engage in negotiations with the whites in late 1791, the rebel leader Jean-François had one of the other main leaders named Jeannot executed.140 With regards to early negotiations with the whites,

David Geggus states that the slave leaders did not want citizenship, but instead wanted amnesty for their followers and freedom for themselves and their families to keep their booty and settle. They had already put forward these demands in late November (1791), when they were ignored, and Jean-François, along with Toussaint, repeated them the following summer.141 According to Nathalie Picquionne, the demands of late 1791

139 Geggus, for example, argues that imaginary emancipation decrees and rumors of emancipation were instead used by the leaders to “mobilize resistance.” See: Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary, 62; Geggus, “Slavery, War, and Revolution,” 9. Geggus also argues that Toussaint Louverture did not openly adopt the cause of general liberty until after Sonthonax decreed freedom in August 1793. See: David Geggus, “The French and Haitian Revolutions, and Resistance to Slavery in the Americas: An Overview,” in La Révolution francaise et les colonies, ed. Jean Tarrade (Paris: Sociéte francaise d’histoire d’outre-mer, 1989), 118.

140 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 73. Jeannot was known for his brutality and cruelty when dealing with captives and in the various battles the rebels undertook. In addition, the rebel leader Boukman was killed in mid-November of 1791, and insurgents stated he had died in the defense of his king, See: Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 106.

141 Geggus, “Print Culture,” 307. I came across the demands by Biassou and Jean-François of November 1791 at the Hagley Museum & Library, where Lieutenant-Colonel Tousard outlined them to Monsieur de Rouvray in his journal, See: Hagley Library, Wilmington, DE “Journal de Ma Campagne Commencée Dans La Partie de L’est Le 15 Novembre 1791,” Acc. 874 (Nov. 1791). The demands of the summer 1792 were proposed by Louverture and Jean-François, via Father Vázquez in Santo Domingo. They were six concrete demands, two of which are of particular interest. The second demand made reference to returning the slaves back to their plantations but under the condition of being “free” and with some type of daily or weekly pension. This shows that perhaps these leaders were not acting purely out of self-interest. The third demand stated that once back on their plantations, “blacks cannot be disarmed” because their “lives would be endangered.” This further complicates the matter and challenges the notion C.L.R. James proposed that these men were acting “treasonously” and not taking into account their “people,” See: James, The Black Jacobins, 109. For the list of demands, See: AGS, SGU 7161, N.1 (1793) [Original Spanish: 2nda. Que rendirán los esclavos a sus havitaciones pero en calidad de libres y con alguna pension por dia o por semana . . 3era. Que los negros no pueden ser desarmados que despues que esten en sus havitaciones por que correrian peligro sus vidas.]

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included “general liberty for all men retained in slavery” and a “general amnesty for the past.”142 Carolyn Fick argues that the negotiations with Saint Domingue’s colonial assembly fell on Jean-François and that, with Anne-Louis Tousard as a mediator, he demanded “an unconditional amnesty for all slaves who had participated in the revolt, freedom for fifty of the leaders and several hundred of their officers, as well as an amelioration of conditions for the slaves (the abolition of the whip and the cachot as forms of punishment).”143 In his account about his captivity in the rebel camps, M. Gros stated that Jean-François claimed to never have fought “for general emancipation.”144 M.

Peyredieu, an old French planter from Le Cap who was held prisoner by Jean-François claimed, around April 21, 1793, that the rebel leader did not want freedom, but rather a restoration of the old executive power.145

While it appears that the insurgent leaders vacillated in their demands, it is not surprising as they were faced with the difficult task of appeasing a massive slave population that no doubt sought freedom while, at the same time, working to safeguard their own interests and well-being. Similarly, the leaders were all vying for a certain degree of leverage over one another, which was particularly striking in the case of Jean-

François and Georges Biassou. Biassou wrote repeated letters to Governor García, attempting to gain an upper hand against Jean-François. He consistently made references

142 Nathalie Picquionne, “Lettre de Jean-François, Biassou et Belair, Juillet 1792,” Annales Historiques de la Révolution Française 311 (January-March 1998), 132-139, [133-135], in Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 142, Endnote 22.

143 Fick, The Making of Haiti, 115.

144 Gros, An Historick Recital, 42.

145 AN, COL, D/XXV/46, 1793.

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to being the first person to raise the standard for the king of France during the 1791 revolts. Biassou insisted to García that he wanted to separate himself from Jean-François, claiming the latter was a man of “many words but few actions.”146

For his part, García continued to try everything in his power to keep these two leaders from jeopardizing Spain’s project to reconquer the island of Hispaniola and defend their interests from the French Republic. García supplied the insurgents with uniforms, weapons, ammunition, foodstuffs, as well as various gold medals and decorative insignia (in addition to the crosses of St. Louis that they arrived wearing).147

Indeed, as Dubois has noted, “Spanish aid breathed new life into the insurgent army, helping it to recover from the losses suffered during the previous months.”148 The back- and-forth insults and differences between Jean-François and Biassou, however, took a drastic turn when Commissioner Sonthonax issued the emancipation proclamation.

Contingent Alliances

On August 29, 1793, Civil Commissioner Sonthonax, after failing to attract the insurgents with offers for freedom, issued an emancipation proclamation that turned out to be “a landmark in the history of the Americas” as it was the “first abolition of slavery in a major slave society and the only case that was primarily a response to slave rebellion.”149 Various factors contributed to Sonthonax’s decision, including the prospect of a British invasion, the burning of Le Cap in June 1793, and the desire to “keep the

146 AGS, SGU 7157, N.7 (1793) [Original Spanish: muchas palabras pero pocos hechos.]

147 AGI, ESTADO (Hereafter: ETO) 14, N. 89 (1794).

148 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 153.

149 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 98.

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colony French.”150 While the proclamation pertained solely to the northern province of

Saint Domingue at first, it would eventually spread to the rest of the colony.151 Moreover, while it had no effect on the forces of Jean-François and Biassou, the proclamation eventually pushed Toussaint Louverture to defect from the Spanish and join the French republican army.152 Louverture’s so-called volte-face has been called “a decisive turning point in the Haitian Revolution” since it meant that “black militancy and the libertarian ideology of the French Revolution were now melded, and the cause of slave emancipation had found a leader of genius.”153 Nessler notes that Louverture's decision to leave the Spanish “likely resulted from a confluence of the emancipation decrees of

1793-94, Toussaint’s personal enmity with both Jean-François and Biassou, and the worsening military situation of the Spanish on the island, among other forces.”154 In perhaps the one of the most well-known episodes in the Haitian Revolution, and on the same day Sonthonax abolished slavery, Louverture spoke to his comrades:

“I am Toussaint Louverture. My name is perhaps known to you. I have undertaken vengeance. I want Liberty and Equality to reign in Saint- Domingue. I work to bring them into existence. Unite yourselves to us,

150 Ibid., 99. On the burning of Le Cap—or, Cap Français, see: Jeremy Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).

151 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 99.

152 Geggus notes that Louverture fought for eight more months under the Spanish, perhaps because there was no point in backing a losing side, as well as possibly being restrained by his royalist inclinations. Louverture’s forces were not yet large enough to “challenge the army Spain was expected to assemble, or the other black generals.” See: David P. Geggus, “Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution,” In Profiles of Revolutionaries in Atlantic History, 1750- 1850, ed. R. William Weisberger, Dennis P. Hupchick, and David L. Anderson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 115-135 [123].

153 Ibid., 124.

154 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 56.

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brothers, and fight with us for the same cause.”155

Dubois notes that Louverture “was not announcing his alliance with the Republic,” but rather was putting himself in a position from which he could challenge Sonthonax as the

“true defender of liberty in Saint-Domingue.”156 Louverture declared he had been the

“first to stand up for” the cause of emancipation and had “always” supported it, claiming he would “finish” it.157

Oddly, no more than a month before uttering these words, Louverture communicated to the Spanish governor García that Georges Biassou had been the first officer entrusted to lead the 1791 uprising.158 The exchange with García was primarily an attempt by Biassou to establish his superiority over Jean-François. Specifically, he claimed that he had been the original leader of the movement to restore the monarchy of

Louis XVI. To support this claim, Biassou—quite confusingly—presented a “patent” or

“mandate” that an alleged group of royalist conspirators had given to Louverture.

Louverture, according to Biassou, was one of his “confederates, and in whom he had

“complete trust.” Apparently, Louverture had asked Biassou to “move their comrades, but when the moment arrived to begin he did not dare to act, despite the trust that had

155 Victor Schoelcher, Vie de Toussaint Louverture (1889; reprint, Paris, 1982), 94-95, In Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 176.

156 Ibid.

157 Ibid.

158 AGS, SGU 7157, N.7 (1793).

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been placed in him.”159 Louverture corroborated Biassou’s claims by telling the Spanish governor:

“At the beginning of the year 1791, I was one of the first who obtained the trust of those (men) who pretended to reestablish Louis XVI back on his throne . . but not being capable of executing such a grand project . . I turned to Monsieur Georges Biassou knowing perfectly well that he was a capable and experienced man, worthy of such an ambitious enterprise.”160

The notion that perhaps Louverture was the main instigator of the 1791 revolts has long been a subject of contentious debate and theorizing. There are two main narratives. In one scenario, Louverture was a “loyal slave preserving order on the Haut-du-Cap plantation for several months before deciding to join the insurgents,” allegedly getting his plantation manager to safety and then becoming an advisor to Georges Biassou.161 In another view,

Louverture played a key role as a “trusted intermediary” who had been recruited by a group of white counterrevolutionaries to organize and lead the rebellion. Because he was so cautious, as well as his smaller physical frame, he allegedly chose physically imposing leaders who had been slave-drivers and coachmen.162 Pierre Pluchon argued that

159 Ibid., [Original Spanish: El nombrado Tousaint hera uno de mis confederados, y en quien yo tenia toda confianza este me havia propuesto el que conmoviesemos a nuestros compañeros; pero quando llego el caso de comenzar no se atrevio de ningun modo a decidirse; y a pesar de la confianza que se tenia en él.]

160 Ibid., [Original Spanish: al principio del año de 1791 fui uno de los primeros que obtuve la confianza de aquellos que pretendieron restablecer al Rey de Francia en su trono . . pero no allandose capáz de ejecutar tan grande proyecto . . entonces me dirigi a Monseñor Jorge de Biasou conociendole perfectamente por hombre de capacidad y experiencia digno de tan grande empresa.]

161 Geggus, “Toussaint Louverture,” 119.

162 Ibid. Carolyn Fick is a leading proponent of the latter theory, following the lead of historians such as Beaubrun Ardouin, Pauleus Sannon, and Gabriel Debien. Fick claims that Louverture served “inauspiciously” as the link between the system and the leaders of the insurrection, “carefully dissimulating his actual participation.” Fick noted that he had a “pass signed by the governor” and that “he was in communication with influential elements of the royalist faction who hoped to profit from, and who even helped stimulate, the brewing slave insurrection by

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Louverture concocted the theory later in his life, but he ceded that Louverture was able to learn a great deal from the grand blancs (most typically royalist planters), becoming acquainted with their thoughts, gestures, strengths and weaknesses, as well as the power of education, work, and organization.163

As for the mandate allegedly given to Louverture before the 1791 insurrections,

David Geggus has established that it was clearly a forgery.164 Yet, Geggus poses some important questions. Why would Biassou seek to establish his position as the original leader of the revolts by referring to his subaltern at the time, “unless he [Louverture] had really been the architect of the slave uprising?”165 Geggus further contends that the

“unflattering picture of Toussaint in Biassou’s documents makes it unlikely that the two men were launching a joint propaganda campaign” and that a more “reasonable inference, perhaps, is that he [Louverture] was indeed the instigator [of the 1791 revolts].”166 In his recent biography of Louverture, Philippe Girard claims that

Louverture played the “role of coordinator” while the other rebels undertook the battles.167 Girard agrees with historians who adhere to the theory that Louverture was the

invoking a common cause – the defense of the king, who had, they rumored, granted the slaves three free days per week.” See: Fick, The Making of Haiti, 92.

163 Pierre Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture: de l’esclavage au pouvoir (Editions Caraïbes: Port-au- Prince, 1979), 11.

164 David Geggus, “Toussaint Louverture avant et après le soulèvement de 1791,” In Mémoire de revolution d’esclaves à Saint-Domingue, ed. Franklin Midy (Montréal, CIDHICA, 2006) 1st ed. 113-129; 2nd ed., revised (2007), 112-132 [124-125]; Geggus, “Print Culture,” 307; Geggus, “Toussaint Louverture,” 119. I came across a translated copy of the so-called mandate in the Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, See: AGS, SGU 7157, N.3.

165 Geggus, “Toussaint Louverture,” 120.

166 Ibid., 122.

167 Philippe R. Girard, Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life (New York: Basic, 2016), 111.

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instigator of the revolts, stating that Louverture chose to “wield power through his influence over leaders like Biassou rather than in person.”168 Like Fick’s claims of

Louverture’s mobility in the Haut-du-Cap region of the northern province, Girard notes that he “probably befriended all of them [i.e., the rebel leadership of Jeannot, Boukman,

Jean-François, and Biassou] while crisscrossing the region as coachman.”169

True to the duplicitous character that he would develop throughout his masterful role in the Haitian Revolution, I hypothesize that Louverture indeed positioned himself in the years leading up to the August 1791 revolts and gained the trust of staunch royalist counterrevolutionaries, such as those I presented in chapter three. Perhaps the most intriguing case would be that of Joseph Paul Augustin Cambefort. Geggus claims that

Pierre Pluchon stated, incorrectly, that Colonel Cambefort was the brother-in-law of

Bayon de Libertat, the plantation manager at the Bréda Plantation where Louverture was from.170 As we saw in the previous chapter, Cambefort was deeply implicated in the royalist plot by radicals in Saint Domingue, as well as by insurgents who claimed he was part of the conspiracy. According to Gros, Cambefort was “idolized” by the “unhappy wretches” (the blacks), was “too easy on them,” and “the negroes considered him their protector.”171 Allegedly, whenever Cambefort came “to close quarters” with the insurgents, the artillery was always “pointed either too high, or too low”; the attack on

168 Ibid.

169 Ibid.

170 Geggus, “Toussaint Louverture avant et après,” 123, footnote 26.

171 Gros, An Historick Recital, 60-61.

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the Gallifet camp was apparently also “preceded by the firing of a cannon,” which was an agreed-upon signal.172

Such information is reinforced by a letter from Jean-François to Joaquín García in which, in the context of asking him for more weapons and munitions, Jean-François mentioned that they (the insurgents) were “supplied by people on our side who hide amongst them [the radical republicans] and bring us provisions.”173 The conspiracy included reducing the colony “to ashes” and, according to Gros, “Cambfort, colonel to the regiment of the cape, was the central point or rather the soul of their combinations.”174 In the fourth part of his self-justifying memoir (presented in the previous chapter), Cambefort includes a letter from the rebel leaders Jean-François,

Biassou, and Belair, in which they allegedly demand full emancipation in the colony.175

However, Geggus notes that this was a letter forged by Cambefort in order to “discredit his radical critics.”176 I do not refute Geggus’s claim that the letter is yet another forgery, but I do believe that it strengthens my argument that counterrevolutionary royalists like

Cambefort sought to create scapegoats to draw attention away from themselves and their actions. Diverting outside observers' gaze toward alleged radicals allowed people like

Cambefort to partially write themselves out of the history of the revolution.

172 Ibid.

173 SGU, LEG 7157, 19, N.2 (February 13, 1793). [Original Spanish: que nosotros estamos provisos por personas de nosotros mismos que se esconden entre ellos y nos trahen.]

174 Ibid., 73.

175 JCB, Cambefort, Quatrième Partie Du Mémoire Justificatif (Paris, 1793), 4-11.

176 Geggus, “Toussaint Louverture,” 120.

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It did not take long for Louverture to begin cementing his legendary status within the revolution. Indeed, his story became a “process” of massacres, battles against Jean-

François and Biassou, and for the following four years, conflicts “against the British in the broad Artibonite valley.”177 Critical to Louverture’s trajectory was his relationship with Governor Étienne Laveaux or, as Geggus explained, “the point where the French and Haitian revolutions met.”178 Louverture made great strides, despite the fact that his republican army was, between 1794 and 1796, still fighting the auxiliary forces of Carlos

IV. Louverture’s successes were probably due to the fact that he had waited about eight months after Sonthonax’s emancipation of August 1793 to join the republican forces. He likely wanted to be sure that his army was replenished and strong before making the switch to the republican band.

Feeding (and Fearing) Revolution

Intriguing documents from the Spanish archives provide important information about the quantity of flour that the Spanish colony imported during the auxiliary period of

Haitian insurgency. Much of what we know about Spain’s steadfast support of the rebels is connected to their provision of weapons, ammunition, uniforms, medals, and other matériel. When it comes to foodstuffs, however, scholars have not yet analyzed the vital role played by Spanish-supplied flour. For instance, we have seen how for decades and perhaps even centuries, the Spanish and French—especially those rayanos who lived on the borderlands—engaged in both legal and illegal trade. The buying and selling of coffee, sugar, rum, and meat—often called víveres in colonial Spanish records—were

177 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 119.

178 Ibid.

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ordinary commodities that were constantly flowing back and forth. And yet, one of the most important staples of any meal, especially in French or Spanish cultures, was wheat bread. In my view, the importation of flour from the various outposts of the Hispanic

Americas to Santo Domingo is a topic of study in the Haitian Revolution that is worth visiting.

Bertie Mandelblatt’s work has shown that the late 1780s in Saint-Domingue was deeply affected by crises in France “in which wheat grain, flour and bread played a pivotal role.”179 Mandelblatt shows that deputies from Saint Domingue submitted documents to the National Assembly in which they “described a state of general famine on Saint-Domingue and the insufficiency of French flour imports.”180 On May 1, 1790, members of the provincial assembly of the north wrote about the criminal recklessness of

Saint Domingue’s intendant François Barbé de Marbois.181 The members of the council said that of all the places within the French Empire, Saint Domingue should have had the most rights with regards to an assured subsistence, since the colony could not produce the most precious foodstuff: four. They blamed the great grain shortage on the inclement weather of 1788, which as we know also played a part in sparking the French Revolution.

Yet the councilors were angrier at the fact that Marbois was openly opposed to the opening of Saint Domingue's ports for trade and thus the importation of flour.

179 Bertie Mandelblatt, “How Feeding Slaves Shaped the French Atlantic: Mercantilism and the Crisis of Food Provisioning in the Franco-Caribbean during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” In Sophus A. Reinert, The Political Economy of Empire in the Early Modern World (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 193.

180 Ibid.

181 JCB, “Disette de farines. Insouciance criminelle du Ministre,” in Papiers Relatifs au Comte de Peynier, Chef D’Escadre, (May 1, 1790)

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A digital exhibition titled A Colony in Crisis182 analyzes the question of failed grain harvests in France and how this issue affected and accelerated escalating political tensions between planters in Saint Domingue and the metropole. The notion of open ports posed by members of the provincial assembly of the north of Saint Domingue in the aforementioned document is an issue that receives considerable attention in the exhibit.

Thus, if the colony was suffering from a grain shortage in the years leading up to the revolution, it is very likely the revolution only exacerbated the problem. This is precisely why the importation of flour to aid the insurgents at Santo Domingo is so crucial. The

Spanish record explains that the Royal Treasury (Real Hacienda) had caudales or large quantities of víveres sent to Santo Domingo from Puerto Rico, Havana, Caracas, New

Spain, and even from Philadelphia.183 The evidence suggests that Governor García ordered up to one hundred barrels of flour from Philadelphia, but that from México alone they received twice as much, approximately two hundred barrels.184 In a March 31, 1794 letter to the Viceroy in New Spain, Governor García made it clear that México was providing considerable quantities of grain and money to Santo Domingo, which was in keeping with New Spain's so-called situado obligations.185 In addition to flour, García also ordered rice, beans, hams, and other foodstuffs to be sent directly to the border area

182 Colony in Crisis: The Saint-Domingue Grain Shortage of 1789, http://colonyincrisis.lib.umd.edu

183 AGI, SD 1031 N.5 (1794).

184 AGI, SD 1031, N. 399 (1793).

185 AGI, SD 1031, N. 907 (1794).

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with Dajabón.186 Lastly, the Intendant of Caracas, Don Esteban de León, authorized the sale of flour from the Dutch colony at Curaçao, also to be sent to Santo Domingo.187

The role of flour (and biscuit) in the Haitian Revolution remains to be explored, but additional material from the Spanish archives, along with a more exhaustive analysis of troop provisioning may alter our understanding of the auxiliary period. For now I believe it is safe to say that when Toussaint Louverture switched to the republican faction, his army was well equipped and sufficiently nourished to ultimately gain control of the entire island of Hispaniola.

Conclusion

Largely due to Louverture’s victorious campaigns, by the summer of 1795 Spain and

France signed the Treaty of Basel and Spain agreed to capitulate, signing Santo Domingo over to the French. For their part, Jean-François and Biassou had suffered considerable losses at the hands of Louverture’s army. This began a process of exile that would take them through various ports of the Atlantic World. Landers’s work has shown that there was a “royal precedent” for such exiles in the Spanish Empire.188 On December 31, 1795,

“Spanish officials carefully recorded the exodus of the Black Auxiliaries of Carlos IV from Bayajá (Fort Dauphin in the north) . . the exiles sailed away for Havana in a small flotilla of four ships.”189 Jean-François ended up in Cádiz, but not before making a

186 AGI, SD 1031, N. 39 (1793).

187 AGI, SD 1031 (Undated). Presumably this was around the auxiliary period 1793-1795.

188 Landers, Atlantic Creoles, 78. She specifically gives the example of the militia town of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose in Florida, and how they were evacuated en masse to Cuba in 1763.

189 Ibid., 79.

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dramatic appearance at Havana, an event that caused considerable consternation among the Cuban population.190 Biassou followed suit the following January and ended up in

Spanish Florida (St. Augustine). Landers notes that Biassou “strolled through the streets of St. Augustine in fine clothes trimmed in gold, wearing the gold medal of Charles IV, a silver-trimmed saber, and a fancy ivory and silver dagger.”191 Biassou celebrated events like the Day of Kings (the Day of the Epiphany) and ultimately died, receiving a lavish funeral in which the parish priest entered Biassou into the register as “the renowned caudillo of the black royalists of Santo Domingo.”192

Back in Saint Domingue, the years leading up to independence in 1804 marked

Toussaint Louverture's meteoric rise, but no longer as a royalist. Louverture, in contrast to Biassou and Jean-François, had made the compromises necessary to consolidate authority. He may have been seen raising the “tri-color flag over Gonaïves,” but he was also re-creating many of the practices learned at the old Bréda Plantation where he grew up.193 The last years of Toussaint's rule in Saint Domingue, as we will see in the conclusion, provided an important precedent for future leaders of what would become the first independent black state in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Louverture may not have worn a crown, or the cross of St. Louis, but no Republic, or Nation, or celebration of Citizenship, could take the Ancien Régime out of him.

190 See: Ferrer, Freedom’s Mirror (2014). His arrival is documented in: AGI, ETO 5A (1795).

191 Landers, Altantic Creoles, 83.

192 Ibid., 93.

193 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 179.

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Epilogue

“From Monarchs to Emperors: Authoritarianism and the Perplexing Legacies of the Haitian Revolution”

Near the end of October 1796, a slave revolt broke out at the Boca Nigua plantation close to the southern coast of Spanish Santo Domingo, just west of the namesake capital.1 The conspiracy involved almost two hundred slaves, most of them males—although women played prominent roles as well. The leaders consisted of five slaves who worked at Boca Nigua or at a nearby plantation called Buenavista. The five leaders held privileged positions on the plantation, including a domestic slave who worked in the main house, a wagoner, and a slave driver. As we have seen, social mobility on Hispaniola plantations enabled formation and growth of broad regional social networks. The leaders of Boca Nigua had clearly taken advantage of the freedom of movement afforded by their positions. The four leading slaves who worked at Boca

Nigua were Antonio (the wagoner), Francisco Sopo (slave driver), Ana María (domestic and Antonio’s wife), and “Old” Pedro—otherwise known as “Papa Pier.” The remaining black rebel leader was named Tomás Aguirre, also known as “Buenavista” (the name of his plantation) or “Tomás Congo.” He had allegedly been recruited by Antonio and

Francisco.2 The revolt was supposed to take place on Sunday, October 30, 1796, but one

1 AGI, SD 1033 (November 28, 1796); AGI, ETO, 13, N.33, “Sublevación de negros de la Hacienda Boca-Nigua,” (December 30, 1796).

2 AGI, SD 1033 (November 28, 1796) [Original Spanish: Condenados a los negros Francisco Sopo capitan de la expresada hacienda, a Antonio el carretero . . a Ana Maria mugger de este . . a Pedro Viejo alias Papa Pier . . Unidos con el negro Tomás Aguirre, alias Buenavista se constituyeron autores, Gefes, y cabezas principals de tan execrables crimenes]; David Geggus, “Slave Resistance in the Spanish Caribbean in the Mid-1790s,” In A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean, ed. D. B. Gaspar and D. P. Geggus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), 131-155 [141].

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of the leaders of the revolt, Francisco Sopo, revealed the plot to Don Pedro Albadia (the attorney of the estate) the preceding Saturday. He also informed the manager of the estate, Don Juan Bautista Oyarzábal, on the Sunday of the revolt at about four-thirty in the afternoon.3

Initially, it seemed the Boca Nigua revolt would be successful, as the rebels sacked the main plantation house with the help and support of Ana María who was familiar with the structure. It appeared that the rebels also had a formidable range of weapons, including two large guns.4 The rebels, much like the insurgents of Saint

Domingue, were able to retreat into the nearby mountains and then to push the Spanish troops sent to suppress them backwards towards the beach. According to eyewitnesses, during the attack on the main house (or more likely thereafter), Ana María organized a feast and dance during which she presented herself “extraordinarily composed and joyful, sitting under a pavilion from where she received a queen's treatment, being regaled with lavish generosities.”5 Similarly, her partner Antonio had titled himself “king.”6 It appears that all five of the revolt’s leaders were of the same African nation, which given the demography of Santo Domingo plantations of the time was most likely Kongolese.7

3 AGI, ETO, 16, N.12, “Manuel Bravo solicita merced.”

4 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Se encontraban surtidos de fusiles, cartuchos, armas blancas, lanzas, y otros instrumentos ofenzibos a que añadian dos cañones reforzados de a quatro, polvora, y balas correspondientes].

5 Ibid. [Original Spanish: A demas de proporcionarles un bayle en que se presento extraordinariamente compuesta y gozosa ocupando asiento bajo de un pavellon desde el que recivia el tratamiento de Reyna y le contextaba con agasajos y expresiones de liberalidad.]

6 AGI, SD 1033 (November 28, 1796. [Original Spanish: A Antonio el carretero titulado Rey, a Ana Maria mugger de este que se denominava la Reyna].

7 AGI, ETO, 16, N. 12, “Manuel Bravo solicita merced.” [Original Spanish: Eran los cinco de una propia nacion.] Geggus, “Slave Resistance,” 142.

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Interestingly, three of the conspirators—José, Juan, and Juan Pedro—had been part of the army of Jean-François in previous years.8 Ultimately, however, Santo Domingo governor

Joaquín García’s troops proved too much for the rebels, suppressing the revolt. The five leaders were beheaded and their bodies were quartered. Mutilated parts were hung in public view so that the Boca Nigua rebels would serve as an example to others who dared engage in revolt.9

Two of the main leaders of the Haitian Revolution, Jean-François and Georges

Biassou, had been exiled into different ports of the Spanish Atlantic, yet the influence of their insurrection in Saint Domingue seeped into Spanish Santo Domingo. David Geggus has remarked that it is an “exaggeration” to consider the Boca Nigua revolt as one aiming for liberty and equality or, even more, “general liberty.”10 The only instance in which any sort of liberty is mentioned in surviving records is in the account of Manuel Bravo, the judge who led the investigation. He heard testimony that the one of the revolt's leaders,

Antonio, in his attempts to recruit slaves to the cause, “promised them that those who took up arms would be free, and those that did not would be his slaves.”11 This is far from a radical emancipatory discourse, to be sure. As Geggus put it: “the Boca Nigua revolt

8 AGI, ETO, 13, N. 33, “Sublevación de negros de la Hacienda Boca-Nigua,” (December 30, 1796).

9 AGI, ETO, 5B, N. 202, “Sublevación de negros de la Hacienda de Boca-Nigua” (December 13, 1796); AGI, ETO, 13, N. 31, “Sublevación de negros en el ingenio nombrado Boca-Nigua,” (November 1796). AGI, ETO, 13, N. 32, “Sublevación de negros de la Hacienda Boca-Nigua,” (December 30, 1796).

10 Geggus, “Slave Resistance,” 147.

11 AGI, ETO, 16, N. 12, “Manuel Bravo solicita merced.” [Original Spanish: Prometia que quantos tomasen las armas serian libres y los que no lo hiciesen sus esclavos.]

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seems on balance to belong to an older type of slave rebellion, localized in causation, where African ethnic identity and ritual played a central role.”12 The fact that the leaders of the revolt were likely Kongolese slaves (or Kongolese descendants) may help explain why Ana María and Antonio both took the titles of queen and king, respectively. The

Boca Nigua revolt illustrates the sometimes-paradoxical nature of slave revolts in the greater Caribbean at the end of the eighteenth century, this one right in the shadow of

Haiti.13 What would motivate someone like Antonio to want to enslave people who, like himself, were also fighting for freedom? Such impulses perhaps arose out of necessity, or maybe because men like Antonio in late-eighteenth century Hispaniola understood liberty and captivity within a very specific set of principles. I ultimately agree with Geggus’s formulation that even when slaves like Antonio engaged in “the language of general emancipation it was usually embedded in a traditionalist not a bourgeois-democratic discourse.”14

“Apostles of Liberty”

One of the central aims of this study has been to disentangle the complex and often contradictory language of general liberty and authoritarianism that came out of the

12 Geggus, “Slave Resistance,” 147.

13 Nessler asserts that “many of the aspects of the Boca Nigua rebellion appeared in numerous slave revolts in the Americas” including choosing “a leader bearing a royal title,” See: An Islandwide Struggle, 214 (Footnote 6). Important studies on slave revolts include: Michael Craton, Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982); Eugene Genovese, From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979); David Barry Gaspar, Bondmen and Rebels: A Study of Master-Slave Relations in Antigua (Durham: Duke University Press, 1985); João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia, trans. Arthur Brakel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993).

14 Ibid., 149.

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Haitian Revolution, as well as to decipher the strange interplay or dance between the opposed notions of monarchy and republicanism. The period between Santo Domingo’s capitulation to Republican Saint Domingue in 1795 and the first constitution issued by

Toussaint Louverture in 1801 is one in which French and Spanish officials struggled to gain the upper hand on the question of freedom. At first glance, this may seem incongruous since France had declared a general emancipation in 1793 and Spain was publicly displaying the bodies of the Boca Nigua rebels in 1796. Yet, there was a real debate over the question of rights and freedoms between French Republican governor

Étienne Laveaux and Santo Domingo’s governor Joaquín García.

In an exchange dating to late 1795 and early 1796, García and Laveaux quarreled over the peace agreement of 1795 between the French Republic and the Spanish monarchy.15 García told Laveaux: “the Spanish government has, at all times, granted liberties to the slaves, dependent on their cases and circumstances, and these concessions have been permanent and irrevocable; there have been slaves and there will continue to be as long as Spanish legislation does not change.”16 Of course, “liberties” (or privileges) are not the same as general emancipation, but García was making the case for how

Spanish law granted slaves a level of social status that perhaps was not found in the

French colonial program with which he was familiar. He was drawing, as Graham

Nessler puts it: “upon the centuries-old Spanish-American practice of conferring

15 AGI, SD 1033, (December 19, 1795).

16 Ibid. [Original Spanish: En todos tiempos ha concedido el Gov.no Español libertades a los esclavos segun los casos y circunstancias lo han exigido, y estas concesiones han sido permanentes e irrevocables y ha havido esclavos y los havia mientras no lo innove la legislacion Española.]

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manumission upon certain individuals for service deemed advantageous to imperial objectives.”17 García added: “without being well acquainted with Spanish procedures, you censure and attribute contradictions to us . . the slaves do not belong to the Spanish government, they belong to individual people . . who all have one year to resolve their stay or transfer (out of the island) in conjunction with the agreed-upon treaties.”18

García was responding to a scathing letter Laveaux wrote him in which the

French governor charged his counterpart with mishandling the auxiliary period of the

Haitian Revolution and bungling the transfer after Spain ceded the eastern part of the island to the French Republic. Laveaux started his letter by stating that the Republic “has decreed that a man cannot be the property of another (man)” and that “not one Spaniard can, by force, transport another man off of the island of Santo Domingo [i.e., Spanish

Hispaniola].”19 Laveaux suggested that García had “forgotten” how his “second in command Don Vasquez” had signed his official papers. These had made clear that just as the French republicans promised “liberty to the blacks” that “so, too, would our master the King of Spain.”20 Laveaux chastised García for granting freedom to soldiers during

17 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 75.

18 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Sin estar bien impuesto del procedimiento del govierno Español le censura y atribuye contrariedades . . . los esclavos no son del govierno, son pertenecientes a personas particulares . . y todos tienen el termino de un año para resolver su permanencia o translacion segun se ve por los tratados.]

19 Ibid. [Original Spanish: La Republica ha decretado que el hombre no puede ser la propiedad de otro . . ningun Español ha podido ni puede sacar por fuerza un solo individuo de la Ysla de Santo Domingo.]

20 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Haveis olvidado todos los escritos que han parecido bajo vuestro nombre, y firmados por vuestro segundo Don Vasquez? Estos escritos dicen Los franceses Republicanos prometen a los Negros la libertad y el Rey de España mi amo os la da . . Durante la Guerra vos queriais soldados, y vos davais idealmente la libertad: oy que la paz esta hecha vos quereis esclavos.]

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the war, only to again want to keep everyone enslaved now that the peace treaty had been signed. Laveaux would not waver from his principles, which were rooted in French

Republicanism, adding for good measure that he was “an Apostle of Liberty.”21

In their own ways, both governors attempted to defend their own sense of what freedom meant to their respective colonies—or republic. Nessler has remarked that

“behind the Laveaux-García exchange was the central driving question of the Haitian

Revolution: could a polity exist entirely without slaves—or ought it to?”22 Étienne

Laveaux and Toussaint Louverture also pondered this question. Louverture had built a close relationship with Laveaux, greatly strengthened when Louverture thwarted a coup against the governor led by a free man of color named Jean-Louis Villatte. As thanks,

Laveaux made Louverture deputy-governor.23 Laveaux in fact predicted that under “the rule of Louverture, Saint-Domingue would soon be as ‘prosperous as it was in 1788’ cultivated by ‘hands forever freed from slavery’.”24

“For the Rest of His Glorious Life”

In the years that followed the Boca Nigua revolt in Santo Domingo, Toussaint

Louverture sought to consolidate his power on the island and, with the support of

Laveaux and Sonthonax, he would indeed achieve his goal.25 But not before fighting a

21 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Es a estos principios fundamentals de nuestra constitucion que yo me atengo . . yo soy Republicano Frances, es deciros, que yo soy un Apostol de la Libertad.]

22 Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 75.

23 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 128-129, xxxvi. Geggus cites two letters in the aftermath of the coup in which Louverture refers to Laveaux as “papa.” Geggus remakrs that this “probably reflects black Americans’ proclivity for ‘fictive kinship’ terms.

24 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 215.

25 Commissioner Sonthonax returned to Saint Domingue around May of 1796.

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brutal war with the British, who had occupied Hispaniola from 1793 to 1798.26 Much like the Spanish, the British promised freedom in return for the service of Dominguan slaves and by 1798 there were approximately 6,000 recruited black soldiers fighting for the

British.27 The optimism did not last. General Thomas Maitland watched all but helplessly as Louverture, along with Rigaud, attacked British troops increasingly decimated by disease. Worse, recently emancipated soldiers were defecting to the Republican side.28

The British “clung on for five years,” but the “heavy costs of occupation” forced them to depart in 1798.29

In the following three years, Louverture consolidated his power by forcing out

Commissioner Sonthonax, and subsequently General Gabriel Marie Theodore Joseph d’Hédouville. According to Laurent Dubois, Hédouville had no French troops to accompany him and he did not heed the advice of a French officer, François Kerverseau, who had counseled Hédouville “that the only way for him to carry out his mission was to secure the forces he lacked by creating an ‘intimate link’ with Louverture.”30 It is ironic that during their first meeting, Louverture commented that Hédouville’s officers “[wore] counterrevolutionary fashions popular in Paris,” when no more than five years earlier

26 For a complete study on the British occupation of Saint Domingue, see: David P. Geggus, Slavery War, and Revolution: the British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793-1798 (Oxford: New York: Clarendon Press, 1982).

27 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 216.

28 Ibid.

29 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 176. See also: John Robert McNeill, et al. Mosquito Empires Ecolony and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 (ACLS Humanities E-Book, 2010) URL: http://www.humanitiesebook.org/.

30 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 217.

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Louverture himself likely wore similar clothing.31 In the interim, Louverture had carved out a free black state in what Geggus has called “the heart of slave-owning America.”32

Even though Hédouville was ousted, tensions flared between free man of color André

Rigaud and Louverture. As Dubois asserts, “The tensions that had been smoldering between the free colored officers and the leaders of the ‘African bands’ were not resolved, just transferred into the beginnings of a conflict between Rigaud and

Louverture.”33 The conflict escalated, spawning the so-called “War of the South.”34 The war has typically been seen as a racial conflict, with Louverture representing a black army and Rigaud a free-colored one. However, Dubois states that there was in fact “quite a bit of diversity on both sides” and one cannot explain the war “simply as a conflict between two racial groups.”35 By fall of 1800, Louverture had defeated Rigaud, effectively controlling all of Saint Domingue.

In January 1801, François Kerverseau and Antoine Chanlatte wrote a detailed report to the Spanish captain-general of Caracas, Don Manuel de Guevara Vasconcelos, in which they recounted the events that preceded Toussaint Louverture's invasion of

Santo Domingo.36 The two men described how Louverture made his power visible by

31 Ibid., 218.

32 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 176.

33 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 199.

34 Ibid., 232.

35 Ibid.

36 AGI, ETO, 61, N.5 “Capitán General Caracas sobre sucesos en Santo Domingo,” (3 Pluviose, año 9 de la Republica Francesa [Around 22-23 January 1801]). Antoine Chanlatte was a military officer and homme de couleur who was at odds with Louverture, see: Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle, 98.

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calling for games like those played in the Roman Republic, and that all of Santo

Domingo lived in fear from the moment the Spanish governor received a letter from

Louverture in which the black general expressed his plans for occupying the Spanish portion of the island.37 Apparently, Louverture explicitly stated that he was sending forces to San Juan with the “necessary forces to take possession of the Spanish part [of the island], and he himself would head the expedition so as to avoid any effusion of blood.”38 San Juan was about one hundred miles east of Port-au-Prince and only about thirty miles east of the border with Saint Domingue. Despite the Spanish governor’s confusion and dissuading points, Louverture marched his troops past San Juan and about sixty-five miles west of the capital of Santo Domingo to Azua. Immediately thereafter, they marched to Baní, which is about halfway between Azua and Santo Domingo— approximately thirty miles west of the capital. According to Kerverseau and Chanlatte, the news was a “thunderbolt throughout the entire Spanish part of the island.”39

By July of 1801, Louverture promulgated the first constitution in Saint

Domingue, resulting in de facto independence while still claiming to be part of the

French Empire. Even though he was not authorized to do so, Louverture “deftly justified the measure by Napoleon Bonaparte’s having removed the colonies from the protection

37 AGI, ETO, 61, N.5 “Capitán General Caracas sobre sucesos en Santo Domingo,” (3 Pluviose, año 9 de la Republica Francesa [Around 22-23 January 1801]). [Original Spanish: Se havia hecho prepara diversions tales como se hacian en Roma . . por las armas el poder de la republica romana . . se vivia en Santo Domingo . . del temor . . el governador español recivio una carta de Tousen . . de ocuparse de la toma de la posesion.]

38 Ibid. [Original Spanish: se havia dirigido a San Juan con las fuerzas necesarias para tomar posesion de la parte española, y que el mismo se ponia a la cabeza de esta expedicion para evitar toda efusion de sangre.]

39 Ibid. [Original Spanish: Tousen hizo marchar en el mismo instante que escrivio su carta el 4 todas sus tropas acia Azua, que sin detenerse pasaron con diligencia a Baní que está a diez leguas de Santo Domingo: esta noticia fue un relampago en toda la parte española.]

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of the French constitution when he seized power in late 1799.”40 In the Saint Domingue constitution’s preamble, there was a series of declarations about forging the destiny of peoples, and that such moments very rarely presented themselves.41 While Louverture’s constitution declared slavery abolished forever, it was also conservative in practice and furthermore declared Louverture governor for “the rest of his glorious life.”42 The constitution maintained the forced labor system, putting most former slaves back to work on plantations. It also revived the slave trade from Africa in order to boost sugar production.43 Moreover, when it came to questions about executive power, the role of religion in the state, and issues pertaining to the family, as one scholar put it “it looked back to the old regime.”44 The constitution indeed shunned liberal democratic values of the era and it “maintained the unapologetic authoritarianism that had characterized the black revolution since 1791 and would be continued by Louverture’s successors,

Dessalines and Christophe, after independence.”45

New Monarchs

It was not long before Napoleon Bonaparte sent his brother-in-law Emanuel

Leclerc to reinstate slavery in the colony and regain control from Louverture. The War of

Independence ensued, and after three months of fighting Louverture and his top generals

40 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 141.

41 AGI, ETO, 59, N.17, “Sobre constitución y proclama hecha por Toussaint Louverture.”

42 Ibid. [Original Spanish: La constitucion nombra gobernador y elije al ciudadano Toussaint Louverture . . se le ha confiado el mando por el resto de su gloriosa vida.]

43 Geggus, The Haitian Revolution, 141.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid.

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surrendered in May 1802.46 Louverture was deported to France, where he died in prison.

A former slave, Jean-Jacques Dessalines took control of the army and adopting the name

“Armée Indigène” (Native Army) waged war against the French. Using their vast military experience, as well as combining “conventional warfare with the scorched earth and guerilla tactics,” Dessalines’s native army defeated the French and issued a declaration of independence that was mainly a call for vengeance.47 David Geggus notes that the naming of Haiti has long been the object of debate among scholars, from connections to

Africa, to the Taino, to Quisqueya, to Enrique, and the Inca.48

The connection to the Inca is particularly intriguing since there was a novel in

1799 titled “Zoflora ou la bonne négresse” in which its author “suggested that

Hispaniola’s aboriginal population had come from Peru.”49 Geggus believes that the book made it to Saint Domingue during the period 1799-1803 as it was one of the first novels written about the Revolution. There’s a chance that Alexander Pétion who was in France between 1800 and 1802, and was second in command to Dessalines, played “a major role in choosing the term ‘Government of the Incas’.”50 It is also possible that Dessalines, or

Louverture, or some other independence fighter who may have been present at the 1791

46 Geggus, the Haitian Revolution, 168.

47 Ibid., 169.

48 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 207-220.

49 Ibid., 214.

50 Ibid.

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stage of the Revolution had heard word coming out of Caracas that two possible fugitive nephews of Tupac Amaru had made it to Suriname to deal with “Indians” there.51

The Caracas connection remains intriguing, hinting at sustained transimperial communication. Geggus has written that the abolition of slavery in “Massachusetts and other northern states in the 1780s must have been discussed in Saint Domingue by

American seamen and local whites, but it is not known how this affected the slaves.”52 If news could reach the colony, at any level, from the northeastern United States, surely news could come from Caracas. And while it is doubtful that rumors regarding Túpac

Amaru or his nephews reached Saint Domingue in the late 1780s or early 1790s, we know that Juan Laguardia (covered in chapter one) was able to reach the French colony while maintaining connections to Caracas. As Cristina Soriano has recently shown, news was certainly going in the other direction.53 Perhaps, then, we can trace connections between the Haitian Revolution and the Spanish Empire not only in terms of the effect the Revolution had abroad, but also within a connected framework. As this dissertation has shown, the histories of Saint Domingue/Santo Domingo and mainland Spanish

America were deeply intertwined before and during the Revolution. The distances were not great and news got around.

Concluding Remarks

51 AGI, ETO, 65, N.1 (Aranjuez 4 June 1790) [Original Spanish: Si entre ellos se hallan dos sobrinos del rebelde Tupac Amaro, que se sublevó en el Peru en los años de 79 a 80, si tienen trato con los Yndios y si esos los miran con alguna consideracion.]

52 Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, 8.

53 Cristina Soriano, Tides of Revolution: Information, Insurgencies, and The Crisis of Colonial Rule in Venezuela (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, Diálogos Series, 2018).

235

With this dissertation, I have taken on the task of appraising the events of the

Haitian Revolution from a perspective that engages the role of the Spanish Empire. In doing so, I have developed a history of the Revolution that not only puts royalism and authoritarian legacies at the forefront of the story, but also one that proposes a “Haitian

Revolution in Spanish America.” This work does not refute the importance of liberal and democratic thought coming out of the United States and France during the Age of

Revolutions, but it has sought to challenge their centrality insofar as explaining the events that transpired on the island of Hispaniola beginning in 1791. My work also poses new questions about malleable or ambivalent concepts of freedom and the eighteenth-century crisis of monarchical authority.

While it is indeed true that the predicament of European monarchies opened up new and democratic models of governance, it also ushered in a new era of substitute monarchs. After all, Toussaint Louverture declared himself governor for life in 1801,

Dessalines was crowned Emperor Jacques I of Haiti in 1804, and Christophe became

King Henry I of the Kingdom of Haiti in 1811.54 Even Alexander Pétion’s Republic of

Haiti established his presidency as a lifetime position. Formalized military service, which was a main staple of the Bourbon dynasties, produced a yearning to serve a patron in order to win distinctions and advance one's individual or family lot. As for African societies, “freedom lay not in a withdrawal into a meaningless and a dangerous autonomy but in attachment to a kin group, to a patron, to a power—an attachment that occurred

54 Faustin Soulouque would rule as Faustin I in the Second Empire of Haiti (1849-1859), Geggus has called this Haiti’s three periods of monarchy, see: David P. Geggus, “The Sounds and Echoes of Freedom: the Impact of the Haitian Revolution in Latin America,” In Beyond Slavery: the Multifaceted Legacy of Africans in Latin America. Ed. Darién J. Davis (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2007), 19-36.

236

within a well-defined hierarchical framework.”55 In this regard, it is important to understand that the “antithesis of ‘slavery’ is not ‘freedom’ qua autonomy but rather

‘belonging’.”56 In a higher register, in a time of social and political upheaval, the safe choice for Louverture and his successors was to declare allegiance to a king and step into a leadership role as his faithful subject. Yet in the absence of a monarch and attendant army, the temptations of royal power were more than negligible. For several survivors of the Haitian Revolution, they proved irresistible—yet their new subjects were likely not surprised.

In spite of the fact that Haiti’s early leaders established an enduring authoritarian legacy, the Haitian Revolution was a watershed in world history. Haiti's was the first of any major slave society of the Americas to abolish the practice of permanent human captivity for good, inspiring numerous slave conspiracies and revolts from Brazil to

Louisiana. The Haitian Revolution also established the principle of racial equality, proudly standing alone as Latin America’s first independent, and black, nation-state.

55 Suzanne Miers, et al., Slavery in Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), 5, 17.

56 Ibid.

237

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BIOGRAPHY

Jesús Guillermo Ruiz was born on 28 October 1986 in Van Nuys, California. He is a first-generation citizen of the United States, and the first in his family to attend college. He holds a B.A. (2008) in Spanish Honors from St. Lawrence University, with a minor in Latin American & Caribbean Studies. He was awarded an M.A. (2012) in

Caribbean Cultural Studies from The State University of New York at Buffalo, where he was an Arthur A. Schomburg Fellow, and upon completion of his thesis, entitled “On

Becoming Louverture: How a Mandate of 1790 Allowed Toussaint to Seize the Role of

Liberator Prophesized by Abbé Rayna a Decade Before.” At Tulane, he was an Instructor for the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane University for two years and served on the Board of Directors for the Latin American Graduate Organization, winning both writing and teaching awards. He has received numerous competitive grants, fellowships, and awards including: a Fulbright Fellowship for Spain, short-term research grants at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the John Carter Brown

Library, the Hagley Library & Museum, Summer Travel Awards from the School of

Liberal Arts at Tulane University, a Haitian Kreyol grant from the US Department of

Education, a Tinker Foundation research grant, and an invitation from Harvard

University’s Mark Claster Mamolen Dissertation Workshop at the Hutchins Center for

Afro-Latin American Studies. This funding allowed him to conduct archival research and present his work in Spain, France, and the United States. His dissertation is entitled

“Subjects of the King: Royalism and the Origins of the Haitian Revolution, 1763-1806.”

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