Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/278

 the negroes grew vehement and ungovernable. "Perish the colonies," said Robespierre, "rather than depart, in the case of our colored brethren, from those universal principles of liberty and equality which it is our glory to have laid down." Hurried on by a tide of enthusiasm, the national assembly, on the 15th of May, passed a decree declaring all the people of color in the French colonies born of free parents entitled to vote for members of the colonial judicatures, as well as to be elected to seats themselves. This decree of admission to citizenship concerned, it will be observed, the mulattoes and free blacks only; it did not affect the condition of the slave population.

In little more than a month this decree, along with the intelligence of all that had been said and done when it was passed, reached St. Domingo. The colony was thrown into convulsions. The white colonists stormed and raged, and there was no extremity to which, in the first outburst of their anger, they were not ready to go. The national cockade was trampled under foot. It was proposed to forswear allegiance to the mother country, seize the French ships in the harbors, and the goods of French merchants, and hoist the British flag instead of the French. The governor-general, M. Blanchelande, trembled for the results. But at length the fury of the colonists somewhat subsided; a new colonial assembly was convened; hopes began to be entertained that something might be effected by its labors, when lo! the news ran through the island like the tremor of an earthquake — "The blacks have risen!" The appalling news was too true. The conspiracy, the existence of which had been divulged by Ogé before his execution, had burst into explosion. The outbreak had been fixed for the 25th of August, 1791; but the negroes, impatient as the time drew near, had commenced it on the night of the 22d.

The insurrection now burst forth in all its terror and calamity. The slaves of the plantation Turpin, headed by an English negro, set out at 10 o'clock at night, in their way drawing into their ranks the slaves of four or five other plantations, and commenced the horrors of a wide-spread insurrection. They proved to be the veriest tigers in rage and cruelty. The plain of Cape François, that might have rivaled the fabled garden of the Hesperides, both in richness and beauty, was soon in one universal conflagration, the gleams of which painted the sky in lurid horror, while the smoke enveloped the whole country in uncertain gloom. The ranks of the rebels were increased at every step of their progress, and along their march of devastation they murdered every white who fell into their power, without distinction of age or sex, viewing with fiendish delight the agonies and groans of those whom so lately they had not dared to look in the face.

These scenes of destruction were continued through the night, and on the following day the inhabitants of Cape François knew nothing of the disasters around them, but of the smoke that obscured the horizon and the fugitives that were pouring into their gates. Petrified with horror and panic, they quickly fastened themselves in their houses, and locked up their slaves. The troops of the garrison were the only living objects seen in the streets, as they were hurrying to their different posts. An alarm gun soon called the whole