Later events in Santo Domingo now moved in a direction and with a velocity which few then were able to comprehend. The danger and the potency of the volcano that had long been muttering beneath their feet needed but a few touches from without to reveal its full explosive power. These were furnished not only by the mulattoes, many of whom, after having fought under French officers in the American Revolution, had returned to the island and there spread wide the spirit of disaffection and revolt; but also by the National Assembly in France, which by its vacillating policies destroyed every hope of reconciliation. In March, 1790, this Assembly granted to the citizens of Santo Domingo the right of local self-government, but only a year later, on May 15, 1791, tore up this decree and emancipated the mulattoes. When the news reached the island six weeks later, the colony was thrown into the utmost consternation; the whites as a class refused point-blank to accept the decision and summoned an Assembly of their own, which met in August. The mulattoes again took up arms, and the blacks, who by this time had been won to their side, started a general revolt which had its origin on a plantation called "Noé," in the parish of Acul, nine miles from Cap François. They began by burning the cane fields and the sugar houses and murdering their white owners. Thenceforth Santo Domingan history becomes an intricate and disgusting detail of conspiracies, treacheries, murders, conflagrations, and atrocities of every description. The only ray of light comes from the first genuine leader of the blacks, the gallant but unfortunate Toussaint, in 1793. As has already been intimated, Jean Audubon's Santo Domingo property suffered long after he left the island, and certainly after 1792 when, as we shall soon see, revolutions were demanding his attention and all his energies at home. CHAPTER IV AUDUBON'S BIRTH, NATIONALITY, AND PARENTAGE Les Cayes—Audubon's French Creole mother—His early names—Discovery of the Sanson bill with the only record of his birth—Medical practice of an early day—Birth of Muguet, Audubon's sister—Fougère and Muguet taken to France—Audubon's adoption and baptism—His assumed name—Dual personality in legal documents—Source of published errors—Autobiographic records—Rise of enigma and tradition—The Marigny myth.