Saint Dominguan Refugees in Charleston, South Carolina, 1791
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 12-15-2014 Saint Dominguan Refugees in Charleston, South Carolina, 1791-1822: Assimilation and Accommodation in a Slave Society Margaret Wilson Gillikin University of South Carolina - Columbia Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Gillikin, M. W.(2014). Saint Dominguan Refugees in Charleston, South Carolina, 1791-1822: Assimilation and Accommodation in a Slave Society. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3040 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Saint Dominguan Refugees in Charleston, South Carolina, 1791-1822: Assimilation and Accommodation in a Slave Society by Margaret Wilson Gillikin Bachelor of Arts Clemson University, 1990 Master of Arts University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 1999 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2014 Accepted by: Daniel C. Littlefield, Major Professor Lacy K. Ford, Jr. Committee Member Matt D. Childs, Committee Member Kenneth Kelly, Committee Member Lacy K. Ford, Jr. Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Margaret Wilson Gillikin, 2014 All Rights Reserved ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my grandfather Calvin Templeton Lindsay who always shared his love of learning and love of history with me. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Daniel C. Littlefield as my advisor offered hours of guidance and pressed me to ask the questions necessary to produce this dissertation. I appreciate the helpful suggestions offered by Lacy Ford, Matt Childs, and Kenneth Kelly. Each approached my work from a different point of view and helped to broaden the approach I took. Archivists and staff at American Catholic History Research Center; University Archives at Catholic University of America; Catholic Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina; the Special Collections Department of Georgetown University Library; Georgetown Visitation Convent Archives; the South Carolina Historical Society; and the Charleston Library Society offered much assistance during my time with them. A version of chapter five appeared as "Competing Loyalties: Nationality, Church Governance, and the Development of an American Catholic Identity” in Early American Studies. Finally, my family has supported this in ways too numerous to count. Mona and Steve Baker and Debbie Lindsay welcomed me into their homes while I traveled to archives. My parents, Ann and Harold Wilson, and my sister Alicia Breakfield have encouraged me and always believed in me. My children Lindsay and Meghan have grown up with their mother in graduate school and have followed the ups and downs of the experience. Through it all, they have brought me joy and love; being their mother is wonderful. Most important in my life is my husband Ken who knew earlier than I that this was what I was supposed to do. iv ABSTRACT During the 1790s and the first decade of the nineteenth century, nearly 20,000 refugees fled the French colony of Saint Domingue for asylum in the United States. They found new homes in such American port cities as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, and New Orleans. This dissertation explores the experiences of the white planters, gens de couleur, and slaves who sought asylum in Charleston, South Carolina, and the effect their presence had on the city’s long time residents. It might seem from first glance that finding acceptance in Charleston would be easy for them, but this was not the case. From the early days of the Haitian Revolution, South Carolinians struggled with how to relate to their newest residents. While an obvious kinship existed between the two slave societies, the violence of Saint Domingue raised difficult questions about how a society could maintain slaves in a place where the ideals of republican revolution were spreading to larger sectors of the population. Charlestonians had many reasons to be anxious about these new arrivals as Saint Domingue’s experience represented the materialization of the state’s worst worries. Concern that Saint Domingue’s slaves would spread insurrection to the American South was ever present. South Carolinians attempted to reassure themselves that their own slaves would never rebel as they looked for explanations of why French slaves had turned violent. v In addition to these difficulties, white Saint Dominguans also faced attacks by France’s republican leaders, particularly Citizen Édmond Genet, France’s ambassador to the United States from 1793 until 1794. He accused them of being royalists who actively worked to destroy France’s colony instead of embracing the republican changes that were occurring in France. These charges and concerns about slave violence forced the refugees to seek ways to prove they held republican ideology. Over time, as they made their case for acceptance in economic, political, and religious realms, South Carolinians began to embrace them. In many ways, South Carolinians had few other options. The presence of these refugees on their streets highlighted the paradox under which southerners had lived since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, that of simultaneously holding men, women, and children in bondage while openly declaring allegiance to republican ideals of freedom and equality. The state’s leaders and residents needed to enfold Saint Domingue’s refugees into their definitions of republicanism in order to protect the institution of slavery in America. Unwilling and unable to turn from slavery, South Carolina’s slave owners redoubled their efforts at patrolling and controlling their slave population for the next fifty years. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT .........................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1: STORM OF DESTRUCTION: TURMOIL IN THE CARIBBEAN AND IN SOUTH CAROLINA ..............................................................................36 CHAPTER 2: “FOR I WAS HUNGRY AND YE GAVE ME MEAT:” ADDRESSING THE NEEDS OF SAINT DOMINGUAN REFUGEES .............75 CHAPTER 3: SETTLING INTO LIFE IN SOUTH CAROLINA: SEEKING ACCEPTANCE THROUGH ECONOMIC EFFORTS ......................................110 CHAPTER 4: SEEKING SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE IN THE MIDST OF CHAOTIC WORLD EVENTS................................................................................................146 CHAPTER 5: ADOPTING REPUBLICANISM: REFUGEES, ST. MARY’S CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CONFLICT OVER THE PRIEST ......................194 EPILOGUE: “TO HEAR OF THE DISTRESS:” WESTERN VIEWS OF SAINT DOMINGUE AND HAITI .....................................................................245 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................262 vii INTRODUCTION In the wake of the Haitian Revolution, an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 refugees fled the violence and political instability of Saint Domingue and came to the United States.1 White planters, gens de couleur, and enslaved blacks who were often African- born poured into port cities along the coastline from New York to New Orleans. 2 Most of these travelers had little say regarding their destination; they were just relieved to have made an escape. As the violence of slave insurrection and colonial rebellion escalated, particularly in Saint Domingue’s northern port of Cap Français, frightened colonists often with their most trusted servants, made their way to the docks in search of passage away from the carnage and fire. Those who arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, may have thought that they had reached the place in the United States most like the home they fled. South Carolina’s economy depended on agricultural exports; wealthy merchant and 1Winston C. Babb, “French Refugees from Saint Domingue to the Southern United States, 1791-1810” (Dissertation, University of Virginia, 1954), 255-264. 2 Any study that attempts to understand race must define the racialized terms employed. This dissertation recognizes that all free people of color, those defined as “other free people” by the United States Census of 1790, were not a unified group. On the other hand, those referred to as “gens de couleur” were much more homogeneous. They were generally mixed race people of substantial means in Saint Domingue, people who often were planters who owned large numbers of slaves. The enslaved in Saint Domingue on the eve of the Haitian Revolution were largely African born. The plantation crops grown in Saint Domingue were particularly hard on the enslaved population, and owners required their slaves to produce their much of their own food with limited free time to do so. These factors in addition to harsh discipline led to high mortality rates among Saint Dominguan slaves. The population had to be regularly replenished. This slave population