Anti-Slavery Poems 1.: Part 1 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf WhittierWhittier, John Greenleaf
General
Anti-Slavery Poems 1.: Part 1 From Volume III of The Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
Whittier, John Greenleaf
Slavery -- United States -- Poetry
Toussaint L'Ouverture, the black chieftain of Hayti, was a slave on the
plantation "de Libertas," belonging to M. Bayou. When the rising of the
negroes took place, in 1791, Toussaint refused to join them until he had
aided M. Bayou and his family to escape to Baltimore. The white man had
discovered in Toussaint many noble qualities, and had instructed him in
some of the first branches of education; and the preservation of his
life was owing to the negro's gratitude for this kindness. In 1797,
Toussaint L'Ouverture was appointed, by the French government,
General-in-Chief of the armies of St. Domingo, and, as such, signed the
Convention with General Maitland for the evacuation of the island by the
British. From this period, until 1801, the island, under the government
of Toussaint, was happy, tranquil, and prosperous. The miserable
attempt of Napoleon to re-establish slavery in St. Domingo, although it
failed of its intended object, proved fatal to the negro chieftain.
Treacherously seized by Leclerc, he was hurried on board a vessel by
night, and conveyed to France, where he was confined in a cold
subterranean dungeon, at Besancon, where, in April, 1803, he died. The
treatment of Toussaint finds a parallel only in the murder of the Duke
D'Enghien. It was the remark of Godwin, in his Lectures, that the West
India Islands, since their first discovery by Columbus, could not boast
of a single name which deserves comparison with that of Toussaint
L'Ouverture.
'T WAS night. The tranquil moonlight smile
With which Heaven dreams of Earth, shed down
Its beauty on the Indian isle,--
On broad green field and white-walled town;
And inland waste of rock and wood,
In searching sunshine, wild and rude,
Rose, mellowed through the silver gleam,
Soft as the landscape of a dream.
All motionless and dewy wet,
Tree, vine, and flower in shadow met
The myrtle with its snowy bloom,
Crossing the nightshade's solemn gloom,--
The white cecropia's silver rind
Relieved by deeper green behind,
The orange with its fruit of gold,
The lithe paullinia's verdant fold,
The passion-flower, with symbol holy,
Twining its tendrils long and lowly,
The rhexias dark, and cassia tall,
And proudly rising over all,
The kingly palm's imperial stem,
Crowned with its leafy diadem,
Star-like, beneath whose sombre shade,
The fiery-winged cucullo played!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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