Independence declared.—Dessalines attempts to take the city of Santo Domingo.—Raised to the imperial dignity.—New constitution.—His atrocious massacres.—Attempts to import negroes from Africa.—Encourages cultivators.—Census taken.—State of his army.—His death and character.

The independence of Hayti was declared on the 1st of January, 1804, and the first step taken by Dessalines, who had been vested with the chief command, was to endeavour to stop the emigration which was going on, and remove the delusion under which the blacks were labouring. For this purpose he caused it to be made generally known, that all previous opinions would be buried in oblivion, and those who had been allured to take part with the enemies of the colony, and had been induced to emigrate from apprehension of the consequences which such conduct might entail upon them, were invited to return to their homes, being assured of protection and security; at the same time, however, he gave it out, that all those who were disposed to accompany the French army were at liberty to do so, and should be allowed to depart unmolested. This augured favourably, and many took advantage of this declaration of clemency, who afterwards had to regret their credulity and condemn their own want of foresight and discretion.

To give a colour of clemency and humanity to this declaration of the black general-in-chief, and to stamp it with the mark of sincerity, another proclamation was issued signed by Dessalines, Christophe, and Clerveaux, a mulatto, in which the independence of the colony is declared, and encouragement given to the emigrants to return to their properties. It says, “towards those men who do us justice, we will act as brothers; let them rely for ever on our esteem and friendship; let them return amongst us. The God who protects us, the God of freemen, bids us stretch out towards them our conquering arms.” Allured by a proclamation which held out a promise of security and protection, many returned from the interior of the island, whither they had fled for safety.

As a great many freemen of colour, as well as slaves, had emigrated to the United States at the commencement of the revolution, and as many had manifested a desire to return, but were without the means of accomplishing it, Dessalines devised a plan to enable them to do so; but this plan does not appear to have succeeded, for there is no authentic proof that any of them ever returned: it is on the contrary known, that although the emissaries of Dessalines were industriously employed in America, but very few of the negroes and people of colour availed themselves of the advantages which were so glowingly held out to them; doubting the sincerity of the general-in-chief on the one hand, and on the other, living in some degree of comfort and tranquillity with their new masters, they had no wish to try an experiment by which they might lose a great deal, and gain nothing. As it afterwards turned out, their decision was prudent and wise, for it was no doubt the aim of the inhuman Dessalines to make them all objects of his brutal ferocity, and this was the impression of those who were beyond the reach of his vengeance; they could never be inspired with the hope of safety, were they to give up the hold of which they had obtained possession. To hazard a security, by visionary schemes of improvement is a proof of weakness and indiscretion; and those who had obtained that security were determined to preserve it, by not listening to the proposals of the negro chief. Had such a proposal been made by Toussaint, many, from an innate love of their native soil, would no doubt have accepted it; but a proposition from a man so base and sanguinary as Dessalines, surely, could never have found one individual who would have had faith or confidence in it. It is evident, that he meditated the destruction of all those who returned, and that too in the most cruel and brutal way; such a thing as mercy formed no constituent of the character of the most ferocious tyrant that ever afflicted the inhabitants of any country. Those who had emigrated to America, I think, would have returned, had the proposition for their doing so been made by any other of the chiefs; but coming from such a wretch as Dessalines, it deterred instead of having encouraged them.

A short time after Dessalines had been invested with the chief command, he began to discard all the appellations which were used in the time of the French, and Hayti, the name given to the island by the Aborigines, was adopted instead of Saint Domingo, and he was severe in the extreme towards any one who might by the smallest and purest accident use any of the abrogated terms. This was followed by a general call on the people to revenge the wrongs which they had endured, and to execute vengeance upon those whom they conceived to have been the authors of it. The white French people, therefore, were indiscriminately sacrificed, not indeed by the inhabitants or cultivators, who preferred peace, and wished clemency to be shewn towards all, but by the troops, headed by their officers, and under the orders of the general-in-chief. No age nor sex was spared: the brutal soldiers, led on by their merciless officers, ran from door to door, and left not one alive whom they could find within; the females, whose amiable softness might have stayed the hand of the savage in his native wilds, first endured the most dreadful violation, and then were bayoneted and most shockingly mangled.

Military execution is at all times, and in all countries, to be greatly dreaded. It is always attended with those appalling enormities and barbarities, which make it the scourge of those nations which resort to it; it shews not the least mercy to either the innocent, the child, or the female with all her sweetness and charms, but all are indiscriminately the objects of its ravages, and the innocent with the guilty feel its atrocious influence, without being able to avert its vengeance and fury. In Hayti the effects of it must have been heavy indeed, and from the fact of its having been perpetrated by people who were little advanced over the unlettered savage of the desert, its consequences must have been horrible beyond the powers of language to describe. The measures which the merciless Dessalines adopted were enough to deter people from expressing their abhorrence for such vindictive proceedings. He made all his officers assume the capacity of spies, and in consequence, it became dangerous even to speak; all therefore being silent spectators of his enormities, he took it for granted that they approved, whilst fear alone prevented them from loudly pronouncing their abhorrence and detestation of his most flagitious conduct.

This crafty and execrable monster had recourse to one of the most diabolical acts recorded in the annals of history, for the purpose of collecting all those people together, who had escaped from the military massacres. He gave it out by a proclamation, that as he intended to stay his vengeance for the sufferings to which his brethren had been exposed, all those who had escaped execution under his military decree, should appear at an appointed spot for the purpose of receiving tickets, which might in future protect them from the vengeance of the people; and many who had been fortunate enough to escape, as they thought, in the first massacre, became the victims of the second; for no sooner did these unsuspecting and deluded creatures obtain what they conceived an assurance that their lives would be spared, than leaving their hiding places, they ran with eagerness to the place announced for issuing the tickets, when they were immediately seized and led away for instant execution. Before he perpetrated so deliberate, base, cool blooded, and horrible an act, even Nero would have paused; but the infamous and blood thirsty negro Dessalines secretly rejoiced at the success of his inhuman stratagem.

Another of this monster’s acts of barbarity is recorded. A young Frenchman, the son of a very opulent planter, had escaped during the early part of the revolution, with his father and the rest of his family, to Jamaica, where he had followed the occupation of a clerk in a mercantile house in Kingston. On its being known that all persons were invited back to their native country, he adopted the resolution to go up to Port au Prince, and procure leave to settle there. Speaking English fluently, he obtained a clerkship in the counting-house of an English merchant in that city. After having been there for some time, the monster heard of him, and it was intimated that he was a Frenchman. When he was sent for to appear at the government-house, the young man complied, and attended at the time appointed. Dessalines received him in the presence of his numerous officers, and told him that he had sent for him to ascertain if he were a Frenchman. The young man replied in the negative, and that he was a native of Jamaica, born of French parents, and had come to the city as a clerk to an establishment connected with the house in which he had lived in that island. Dessalines expressed much regret at the disappointment he felt, said he hoped to discover in him the son of a planter of his name, from whom he, Dessalines, had received much kindness, and who had once saved his life; and stated that he was most anxious to learn if any of the family were living, that he might be enabled to shew his gratitude, by restoring them to their estates, and affording them encouragement and protection. The young man elated with this expression of kindness and good will, and in the moment of credulous joy, declared himself to be the son of the man whom he had represented as having been his benefactor. The inhuman savage with a laugh which resounded through the whole apartment, and jumping, as he was wont to do whenever he had succeeded in entrapping an individual, from his chair, ordered the young man to be bayoneted in his presence, which was instantly done, whilst he looked on with the most ferocious countenance, indicative of the inward satisfaction he felt in having sacrificed another victim on the altar of revenge.

It is certain that Dessalines willingly took upon himself the responsibility of all these enormities; he even gloried in them, boasted that he had inflicted them on the French, and alleged that his predecessor Toussaint had been too lenient and too backward in his measures against those who opposed his cause. In his subsequent proclamation, he claims to himself the whole merit of these atrocious proceedings, and declares that in future he will admit no Europeans to hold property in the colony. That part of his proclamation is extremely harsh, and shews the malignancy of his nature, and his hatred of the whites; it states, as the translation from another author has it: “Generals, officers, soldiers, somewhat unlike him who has preceded me, the ex-general Toussaint L’Ouverture, I have been faithful to the promise I have made to you when I took up arms against tyranny, and whilst a spark of life remains in me I will keep my oath. Never again shall a colonist or European set his foot upon this territory, with the title of master or proprietor. This resolution shall henceforward form the fundamental basis of our constitution.”[5]

When all the massacres were at an end, he began to turn his attention towards restoring the country to some degree of tranquillity, after the injuries which it had sustained by the war, and to endeavour, if possible, to remove the fears under which the people seemed to labour, from the apprehension of a future interruption of their quiet and repose. He therefore determined to visit all parts under his command, and to make those arrangements which had a tendency, not only to augment the wealth of the island, but also to promote the welfare of his people, and inspire confidence in his future government. So commendable an act was certainly entitled to the highest praise and consideration, but emanating from so execrable a character it seemed paradoxical, and many questioned his sincerity, and were apprehensive that he contemplated measures of a contrary tendency. In the present instance, however, he was not dissembling, for he evinced more than common anxiety for the reestablishment of agriculture, and held out to the people the high advantages that were to be derived from their personal exertions in the culture of their lands; and for the purpose of stimulating them, he assured them of his intention to encourage an intercourse with the United States and England, in order to open a vent for their own productions, and to ensure on better terms the purchase of those articles of foreign growth and manufacture of which they stood in need. This seems to have been particularly offered for his consideration by some American merchants of respectability, with whom Dessalines frequently held conferences on subjects having a reference to his future government: and it has been communicated to me by one of them, that he was, notwithstanding his irascible temper, very attentive to their representations, and shewed great deference for their opinions, and frequently acted upon them in matters of commerce, when he found them consistent with the policy which he meant to pursue; otherwise he heard them deliberate upon them, and if he thought they proposed any thing to which he could not readily concur, he would freely state his objections, but always expressed himself thankful.

After a short period had elapsed, he also began to concert measures for the reduction of the Spanish part of the island. The city of Santo Domingo had rendered ineffectual all the efforts of the blacks to sow dissensions among the people. There were but few slaves in this part of the island, and those were living in so great a state of equality with the people, that slavery was only known by name, and they evinced no desire whatever to throw off their adherence to their masters, and join their brethren of the west. Both these parties united in their resolution to oppose the tyrant, whom they equally detested, should he appear before Santo Domingo. At last Dessalines laid siege to the city, vainly conceiving that the terror of his name and the extent of his achievements would deter the people from making any resistance, and that they would surrender on his first appearance before it, on being assured of his protection and friendship. But in this he was egregiously deceived, for the besieged made strong preparations for defence, and determined on the most vigorous efforts to repel his attacks. In the mean time a reinforcement having arrived from France, proved a very seasonable succour to the inhabitants; this induced Dessalines to raise the siege and return to the west, without having been able to carry into effect this last design, which caused him no little chagrin and disappointment.

His tour through the country, and his incursion to the Spanish part of the island, were followed in a short time by his elevation to the imperial dignity; on the 8th of October, 1804, with great parade and splendour, he was crowned “Emperor of Hayti.” His elevation to the imperial throne was recognized in the following year by the new constitution, and being proclaimed immediately throughout the island, the announcement was received with little or no enthusiasm.

In this new constitution there are some things which certainly indicate a great desire for the improvement of the country, and manifest a very strong wish to promote the happiness and improve the condition of the people, and to introduce something like morality among them. It says, that no Haytian is entitled to the privileges of a citizen, who does not inherit all the qualities of a good father, a good son, and a good husband. No child could be disinherited by his parents; emigration subjected a person to the loss of his citizenship, and a citizen becoming bankrupt lost all his privileges; all citizens too were required to make themselves skilful in some mechanical trade. Such enactments as these did credit to the people from whom they emanated, and must in some measure soften our detestation of Dessalines, who consented that they should form a part of the fundamental laws which he was sworn to observe, and by which he engaged to govern. By the new constitution also religion was tolerated, although it was declared that there should be no predominant religion, copying in this particular the United States, which it was the aim of the Haytians to imitate as nearly as circumstances would permit. Marriage it declared to be merely a civil ceremony, tending to improve society, and to inspire the people with a disgust for the unlimited sensuality then so prevalent in the country.

Dessalines during his imperial reign made the strongest efforts to increase the population of the island, his ferocious disposition having been somewhat softened by the sweets of peace and tranquillity, which now in all parts happily reigned. People of colour and blacks began to return to their homes, and others from the French and British colonies found their way thither, and were received in a very cordial manner, every pledge of protection being given them. One act of the emperor, however, for the purpose of increasing his male population, seems to have excited no little astonishment as well as indignation, and that was the importation of people from Africa. For this object he wished to enter into a commercial treaty with the British agent from Jamaica, offering to open the ports of Hayti to the British slave ships, and to grant to the Jamaica importers the exclusive right of selling negroes in Hayti! True it is, the privilege was to extend to the importation of men only, and that they were not to be sold to any other persons but those appointed by the government, which wanted them, as it has been generally wished should be understood, to increase their military establishment, but which in fact required them for the cultivation of the government lands which had fallen into a state of neglect and unproductiveness. This arrangement however did not take place; not by reason of any backwardness evinced by the emperor, but because no disposition was shewn by the British agent to accept the offer of a grant, which, to say the least of it, appeared a most extraordinary and unaccountable measure. Some have observed, that the emperor himself was dissuaded from it on the ground that its principle was nearly allied to that slave trade, to which it could not fail to give encouragement; but he contended, that it was a measure of necessity, of political expediency, which, with him, superseded every other consideration; and besides, he alleged that he should be performing an act of humanity towards the African race, by permitting them to be brought into his dominions, as otherwise they would be taken to Jamaica and made slaves.

From a note which I obtained of a census taken in 1805, the population of Hayti appears to have amounted to about four hundred thousand, of all denominations, so that by natural augmentation and by emigration from other countries, there was an evident increase in three years of at least twenty-five thousand, taking M. Humboldt’s statement of the population in 1802 to be a correct one. But from the manner in which the census was taken, a considerable degree of inaccuracy must have arisen, and hence the census of 1805 may in all probability have overstated the actual number: otherwise the increase seems to have been prodigious, and consequently questionable. The taking of a census was left entirely to the military officers of the respective districts in which they commanded, and a very large proportion of these personages could neither read nor write, and no great confidence can therefore be placed in these returns.

Placide Justin states the amount of the census of 1805 at three hundred and eighty thousand, and twenty thousand, which from a variety of causes, he says, may have been omitted in the returns. This is a strong evidence of their mode of taking a census being most imperfect.

Dessalines was particularly solicitous for the encouragement of the cultivators of the soil, and held out to them every possible inducement to labour. The code of Toussaint was enforced, and the people seemed to work contentedly, but not to the same extent as they did in Toussaint’s time. By Dessalines the cultivators were permitted to change the estates on which they had chosen to work, on expressing to the commanding officer of the district that they wished to do so, and by assigning a sufficient reason for such wish: but on no other account could they leave the property without incurring the penalty attached to such an offence. Now whatever may be said about the freedom of the cultivators by the advocates for free labour, I must be permitted to say, that no instance has yet been adduced of such freedom in practice, and I must beg leave to maintain still that the code of Toussaint, which was acted upon by his successor, exhibits a greater proof of the existence of coercion than any thing I have seen, and that the conduct pursued by Dessalines towards the cultivators, though he wished it to be understood that he was anxious for their welfare, was harsh and severe in the extreme, and that those who worked on the government estates felt it so. It has been communicated to me by an individual who managed one of the properties held by the government, that Dessalines, who well knew the work which could be performed by one man, had a regular daily return sent in to him of the quantum of work done, and should there have been any relaxation from the day before, he broke out into a torrent of abuse, and often sentenced the negligent negroes, as a punishment, to labour on the public roads.

The greater portion of the labour bestowed upon the soil was confined to the cultivation of coffee. The sugar plantations having been destroyed and the works demolished, but little sugar was now made in proportion to the quantity produced in the time of the French, as will be shewn hereafter in my general remarks upon the agricultural state of the country, and the specifications of the returns at the respective periods.

Dessalines, it is said, paid some attention to the clergy, although he was but little better than an infidel. He gave strict injunctions that all persons should be attentive to the celebration of public worship, and particularly observe the sabbath. This was a measure dictated by policy, for the better preserving order, and keeping the people in a tranquil state. He went through the exterior forms of religious worship as a matter of necessity, and as an example to his subjects, but not from any inward feelings of devotion or regard for religion. He encouraged marriage as much as possible among his people, and rigidly exacted attention to it, and endeavoured to impress his people with the impropriety of sensuality and voluptuousness; but in his own person he appears to have been the most depraved and most licentious man in the country.

The army of the emperor did not form a very powerful body. His standing force after the conclusion of the war did not exceed twenty thousand men, of infantry and cavalry. The militia, or, as they were formerly termed, the national guards, were numerous, because every man from the age of sixteen to fifty was obliged to assemble four times a year, and undergo a regular service of training for several days at each period, when they returned to their usual avocations. His troops were active, well disciplined and armed, but their clothing was of the coarsest kind, and at all times in the very worst condition. All the fortifications in the different parts of the island he endeavoured to put in a proper state of defence, lest the French should make another descent, of which they were at times very apprehensive, and he took care to keep all the provision grounds in the vicinity of the several fastnesses in the mountains in a good state, that the different garrisons might be well supplied with provisions in case it should, at any subsequent period, become necessary to resort to them for security. The good old maxim, that the best security for the preservation of peace is always to be prepared for war, seems not to have been forgotten by Dessalines, or by those on whom the executive part of his government devolved.

Although Dessalines, impressed at last by a sense of his own enormities, endeavoured to make some atonement for them, yet the people, who had so often experienced the severity of his mandates, and dreaded a recurrence of similar measures, secretly detested him as a savage and a tyrant, under whom it was not possible to expect happiness or repose; and any indication of mildness and humanity was only considered the forerunner of some atrocious crime which he meditated. Wearied out by his suspicions and jealousies, deprived of friends and connexions who were often snatched from them, and hurried to an immediate execution, without even the semblance of judicial proceedings having been instituted against them, the people at last determined to dethrone him, and aided by his troops, who could no longer submit to his caprices and his tyranny, they conspired against him, and in the vicinity of Port au Prince, and at no great distance from the north gate of the city, he was killed by one of his own soldiers, on the 17th of October, 1806.

The individual who shot him was a mulatto youth, whom I have seen, and who at the time of the tyrant’s death did not exceed fifteen years of age. He was attached to the militia, and was in ambush at the time of Dessalines’ advance at the head of his staff, accompanied by some soldiers. The moment they saw their master fall, some of them attempted to revenge his death, but they met a similar fate: others rejoiced at an event which appeared to them merely in the light of just retribution for crimes of unparalleled inhumanity and atrocity.

Dessalines had been a slave; his master was a carpenter, or shingler, somewhat like a tiler in England. He was short, but very stoutly formed, and capable of undergoing more than the ordinary fatigue of men. His capacity was not extensive, rising but little, if at all, above mediocrity; he could neither read nor write, with the exception of being capable of signing his name. His military talents had more the appearance of daring movements, than of judicious and well planned operations; and he more often succeeded by his own courage and example, than by the superiority of his arrangements. His activity was surprising, and the celerity with which he moved from one point of his command to another, astonished even his enemies. He was vain, capricious, and fond of flattery; and those who were most forward to compliment him for his exterior embellishments, to which he was exceedingly attentive, were certain of being admitted into his favour. His last wife, for he had been twice married, is now living in Port au Prince in retirement, and with a very small income. She is quite neglected by the present government, to its disgrace, as she had often been the means of staying the bloody hand of her husband, when he was about to sign an order for the indiscriminate execution of the whites and mulattoes. She bears the marks of a negress who at one time was extremely handsome, and her exterior must have been commanding: she is rather above the middle size of females, but not too tall, nor yet too large in proportion. The white inhabitants of Port au Prince, and particularly strangers who occasionally visit it, never fail to attempt to obtain a sight of her, as her name and her character excite a great deal of interest, and surely entitle her to the best support of the existing government, which boasts—and it is only an empty boast—of being generous to those who have rendered the country a service.