Secret History; or, the Horrors of St. Domingo: In a Series of Letters, Written by a Lady at Cape Francois, to Colonel Burr, Late Vice-President of the United States, Principally During the Command of General RochambeuSansay, Leonora
History
Secret History; or, the Horrors of St. Domingo: In a Series of Letters, Written by a Lady at Cape Francois, to Colonel Burr, Late Vice-President of the United States, Principally During the Command of General Rochambeu
Sansay, Leonora
Haiti -- History -- Revolution, 1791-1804; Haiti -- Social life and customs
The Negroes remain pretty tranquil in this quarter; but at
Port-au-Prince, and in its neighbourhood, they have been very
troublesome.
Jeremie, Les Cayes, and all that part of the island which had been
preserved, during the revolution, by the exertions of the inhabitants,
have been lost since the appearance of the French troops!
The Creoles complain, and they have cause; for they find in the army
sent to defend them, oppressors who appear to seek their destruction.
Their houses and their negroes are put under requisition, and they are
daily exposed to new vexations.
Some of the ancient inhabitants of the island, who had emigrated,
begin to think that their hopes were too sanguine, and that they
have returned too soon from the peaceful retreats they found on the
continent. They had supposed that the appearance of an army of thirty
thousand men would have reduced the negroes to order; but these
conquerors of Italy, unnerved by the climate, or from some other cause,
lose all their energy, and fly before the undisciplined slaves.
Many of the Creoles, who had remained on the island during the reign of
Toussaint, regret the change, and say that they were less vexed by the
negroes than by those who have come to protect them.
And these negroes, notwithstanding the state of brutal subjection in
which they were kept, have at length acquired a knowledge of their
own strength. More than five hundred thousand broke the yoke imposed
on them by a few thousand men of a different colour, and claimed
the rights of which they had been so cruelly deprived. Unfortunate
were those who witnessed the horrible catastrophe which accompanied
the first wild transports of freedom! Dearly have they paid for
the luxurious ease in which they revelled at the expense of these
oppressed creatures. Yet even among these slaves, self-emancipated, and
rendered furious by a desire of vengeance, examples of fidelity and
attachment to their masters have been found, which do honour to human
nature.
For my part, I am all anxiety to return to the continent. Accustomed
from my earliest infancy to wander on the delightful banks of the
Schuylkill, to meet the keen air on Kensington bridge, and to ramble
over the fields which surround Philadelphia, I feel like a prisoner in
this little place, built on a narrow strip of land between the sea and
a mountain that rises perpendicularly behind the town. There is to be
sure an opening on one side to the plain, but the negroes are there
encamped; they keep the ground of which general Le Clerc suffered them
to take possession, and threaten daily to attack the town!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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