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There were already symptoms of an alarmingly dangerous nature affecting the domination of the colonists; the slaves who, up to that time, had been seemingly obedient and resigned, began to show signs of their intention of shaking off the yoke. In June and July insurrections took place at Cul-de-Sac, at Vases, and at Mont-Rouis. The whites had recourse to their usual methods: they tried to intimidate the rebels by inflicting horrible punishments on them. Men were quartered alive; and so great a number was hanged that it was sometimes difficult to find enough executioners.

At that time there appeared before the public a man who was to shape the destinies of his race and have a great influence on the future of Saint-Domingue. Toussaint-Breda, better known under the name of Louverture, acting in connivance with the followers of the Governor of the island, prepared a general uprising of the slaves. Clever and perspicacious, he assumed at the outset a very modest part. He did not endeavor to obtain the command; his friend Jean-François was proclaimed the leader; Biassou was

next in command; to Boukmann and Jeannot had been intrusted the mission of giving the signal of rebellion. This matter settled, there remained but to find a way of influencing all the slaves. These were told that the King of France and the National Assembly had granted them three holidays a week and had abolished flogging as a means of punishment; but that the colonists refused to obey the decree. The slaves, however, after their many years of submission, were naturally cautious; they were afraid of being defeated. Boukmann boldly informed them that soldiers were coming from France to second their revendications. And in order to give them full confidence in themselves he performed an imposing ceremony at Bois Caiman on August 14, on the plantation of Lenormand de Mézy. On their knees, Boukmann and the conspirators, in the presence of a priestess, took solemn oaths on the reeking entrails of a wild-boar, Boukmann swearing that he would lead the rebellion, and the others to follow and obey their chief.

In a pamphlet printed in 1814 ("The Colonial System Disclosed" "Le systems colonial devoile"), Baron de Vastey mentions the following inhuman punishments inflicted on the slaves by their masters: Poncet mutilated his slaves; he killed his own illegitimate daughter by pouring boiling wax in her ears (p. 48). Corbierre buried his slaves alive (p. 41). Chapuiset, incensed by the loss of one of his mules, caused the keeper to be put alive in the interior of the dead animal; man and beast were then buried (p. 45). At Grande-Rivière, Jouaneau nailed one of his slaves to the walls by the ears; the ears were then cut off with a razor and roasted, and the victim was compelled to eat them (p. 46). At Marmelade, De Cockburn, a Knight of Saint-Louis, buried his slaves up to the neck and used their heads as a game of ten pins (p. 46). At Ennery, Michau threw his slaves whilst alive into hot ovens. In the Artibonite, Desdune burned more than forty-five blacks alive, men, women and children. Jarosay, in order to have only dumb servants, cut out their tongues. Baudry, honorary member of the Superior Council of Port-au-Prince, at Bellevue flogged his confectioner to death for having been unsuccessful in the making of some preserves (p. 52). Madame Ducoudrai gave from two to three hundred lashes to her slaves; and hot sealing-wax was afterward poured on their lacerated flesh (p. 64). Madame Charette put iron masks over her slaves' faces and left them to starve to death (p. 66). At Cavaillon, Lartigue caused his servant Joseph to be quartered alive (p. 57). Guilgand, Naud, Bocalin, tied their slaves to trees and left them there to die from exposure (p. 59).]

Jean François and Boukmann

[Eight days after this oath of blood, on the night of October 22, the slaves of the Turpin plantation, headed by Boukmann, rose to a man and gave the signal of the struggle for liberty. The slaves of the neighboring plantations hastened to respond to the call of their comrades. The grievances which had been accumulating for centuries found vent at last. In their turn the masters would be made to suffer the tortures which they had long taken pleasure in inflicting on the unfortunate blacks. In their first paroxysm of anger and revenge the rebels spared neither persons nor things. Armed with pikes, axes, knives, spears, torch in hand, they destroyed and exterminated everything that came in their way. Fire and death marked their passage. Jeannot, self-appointed avenger of Ogé and Chavanne, was merciless. In less than eight days 200 sugar refineries and 600 coffee plantations were reduced to ashes; the plain of the North was one immense cemetery.

In order to put a stop to the terrible reprisals of Jeannot, Jean-François had him shot. But no white man was punished on account of the cruelties inflicted by the colonists on the blacks and mulattoes.

Jean-François who had assumed the title of generalissimo and grand-admiral of France, led his followers to the very entrance of Cap-Français. On November 14, however, they were defeated; Boukmann was made prisoner and beheaded; his body was then burnt and his head, stuck on the end of a pole, was exposed in the centre of the Place d'Armes of Cap-Français, with a sign bearing the words: "Head of Boukmann, chief of the rebels." The colonists gave no quarter. All the prisoners were at once put to death. Two wheels on which they were tied and their bones broken, and five gallows were kept constantly busy?

Rabau (Résumé de l'histoire de Saint-Domingue, p. 77), quoted by Mr. Benito Sylvain (loc. cit. p. 91), says: "Some planters buried the blacks up to their shoulders, and with pincers forced them to open their mouths and to swallow boiling syrup. Others had their prisoners sawed between two boards. I stop; my pen cannot describe such dreadful scenes. A black man, called Bartolo, who at the risk of his life had taken his master to Cap-Français for safety, was sentenced to death for having participated in the uprising; his denunciator, Mangin, was the very colonist whose life he had saved. The whites, says Colonel Malenfant, considered every black man as an enemy, and increased in that way the number of rebels; for they massacred indiscriminately all the slaves they could lay their hands on, even those who were peaceful and had not deserted their plantations. (Benito Sylvain, Du sort des Indigenes, etc. (p. 92.)

Whilst these events were taking place in the North, on August 26, at the Diègue plantation, the affranchis in pursuance of the plan adopted on the Rabuteau plantation, took up arms and declared themselves in revolt with Beauvais at their head. The first encounter took place at the Néret plantation. The whites were defeated; they fled in disorder. From Port-au-Prince troops and artillery were then despatched. A blood: battle was fought on the Pernier plantation. The white were again defeated, and fled, abandoning their guns which fell into the hands of the affranchis. Beauvais then marched with his army to Trou-Caiman, which was fortified.

These two defeats made it clear to the whites that on the battlefield at least the blacks and mulattoes were not their inferiors. Genuinely alarmed by the simultaneous uprising of the slaves and the "affranchis," the wealthy planters thought that the time had come to sever their relations with France. They sought Eng land's protection and sent to Jamaica for help. The English did not deem that things were ripe for action in consequence they refused to intervene. Left to themselves, the wealthy planters of Port-au-Prince, in fear of the devastation which had befallen the plain of the North, made up their minds to come to an agreement with the colored men. On October 23, a treaty of peace was signed at the Damiens plantation. By this concords it was agreed that the affranchis would be admitted on a footing of perfect equality with the whites, in all the assemblies, even in the Colonial Assembly; the sentence against Ogé and his companions would be held in execration and the memory of these martyrs rehabilitated; a solemn mass would be celebrated in all the churches of the Western departement for these victims, and proper indemnity paid to their widows and children.