Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/276

 in which they were expressed, were astounding; they amounted, in fact, to the throwing off of allegiance to the mother country. This very unforeseen result created great commotion in the island. The cry rose every where that the assembly was rebelling against the mother country; some districts recalled their deputies, declaring they would have no concern with such presumptuous proceedings; the governor-general, M. Peynier, was bent on dissolving the assembly altogether; riots were breaking out in various parts of the island, and a civil war seemed impending, when in one of its sittings the assembly, utterly bewildered and terrified, adopted the extraordinary resolution of going on board a ship of war then in the harbor, and sailing bodily to France to consult with the national assembly.

In the meantime, the news of the proceedings of the colonial assembly had reached France, and all parties, royalists as well as revolutionists, were indignant at what they called the impudence of these colonial legislators. The Amis des Noirs of course took an extreme interest in what was going on; and under their auspices, an attempt was made to take advantage of the disturbances prevailing in the island for the purpose of meliorating the condition of the colored population. A young mulatto named James Ogé was then residing in Paris, whither he had been sent by his mother, a woman of color, the proprietrix of a plantation in St. Domingo. Ogé had formed the acquaintance of the Abbé Gregoire, Brissot, Robespierre, Lafayette, and other leading revolutionists connected with the society of the Amis des Noirs, and fired by the ideas which he derived from them, he resolved to return to St. Domingo, and, rousing the spirit of insurrection, become the deliverer of his enslaved race. Accordingly, paying a visit to America first, he landed in his native island on the 12th of October, 1790, and announced himself as the redresser of all wrongs. Matters, however, were not yet ripe for an insurrection; and after committing some outrages with a force of 200 mulattoes, which was all he was able to raise, Ogé was defeated, and obliged, with one or two associates, to take refuge in the Spanish part of the island. M. Blanchelande succeeding M. Peynier as governor-general of the colony, demanded Ogé from the Spaniards; and in March, 1791, the wretched young man was broken alive upon the wheel.

The court convicted Vincent Ogé and Jean Baptiste Chevanne, his associate, of the intent to cause an insurrection of the people of color, and it condemned them to be conducted by the public executioner to the church of Cape François, and there, bare-headed, and en chemise, with a rope about their necks — upon their knees, and holding in their hands a wax candle of two pounds weight, to declare that they had wickedly, rashly, and by evil instigation, committed the crimes of which they had been accused and convicted; and then and there they repented of them, and asked forgiveness of God, of the king, and the violated justice of the realm; that they should then be conducted to the Place d'Armes of the said town, and in the place opposite to that appropriated to the execution of white men, to have their arms, legs, hips, and thighs broken alive; that they should be placed upon a wheel, with their faces towards