Page:Haiti- Her History and Her Detractors.djvu/393

Rh understanding its importance and meaning, was mixed up in their minds with the superstitious beliefs taught by those who were unquestionably deceiving them, but with the praiseworthy object of bettering their condition. Hierarchy was established to insure the success of the undertaking; the leaders had subordinates under their authority scattered through the island, whose duty was to carry out their decisions. The colonists at last began to fear these meetings, which assumed the appearance of a menace to their domination. The beating of the drum which was supposed to summon the adepts or to form part of the mysterious ceremonies of vaudou struck terror into their hearts. These ceremonies had a two-fold aim: on one hand to inspire the ignorant masses with confidence in order to decide them to rise up against their powerful masters; on the other hand to conceal as much as possible the true object of the leaders in order to remove the suspicions of those whose yoke they intended to shake off. Toussaint Louverture, whose religious sentiments were unquestioned and who was a strong protector of the Catholic cult and clergy of Saint-Domingue, had nevertheless witnessed the secret meeting in which the conspirators, stirred by the fierce Boukmann, had taken the "bloody oath" on the entrails of a wild boar. The slaves have never been charged with indulging in human sacrifices in all the vaudou meetings at which they prepared for their uprisings. And what was called vaudou can be compared with the many secret associations, with political and religious purposes, which existed and are still to be found even nowadays in Europe. From the meetings in which vaudou ceremonies only were supposed to be practised came the signals which would cause the slaves to rush upon the colonists and to set fire to the plantations. In order to strike the masters with fear and to impair their resistance, the leaders who were preparing the great struggle for liberty did not scruple to spread all kinds of horrible