Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence | Page 4

strongly encouraged to
hope, that here also there may originate a plan, which shall be the
means of restoring many of our fellow beings to the embraces of their
families and friends, and place that whole country upon the basis of
unanimity and perpetual peace.
If the American Convention should in their wisdom think it expedient
to adopt measures for attempting to affect a pacification of the Haytians,
it is most heartily believed, that their benevolent views would be hailed
and concurred in with alacrity and delight by the English
philanthropists.
It is moreover believed that a concern so stupendous in its relations,
and bearing upon the cause of universal abolition and emancipation,
and to the consequent improvement and elevation of the African race,
would tend to awaken an active and a universally deep and active
interest in the minds of that numerous host of abolitionists in Great
Britain, whom we trust have the best interests of the descendants of
Africa deeply at heart.

TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE AND THE HAYTIAN
REVOLUTIONS[2]
BY JAMES MCCUNE SMITH, M. A., M. D.
[Note 2: Extracts from a lecture delivered at the Stuyvesant Institute,
New York, for the benefit of the Colored Orphan Asylum, February 26,
1841.]
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Whilst the orgies of the French revolution thrust forward a being whose
path was by rivers of blood, the horrors of Santo Domingo produced
one who was pre-eminently a peacemaker--TOUSSAINT
L'OUVERTURE.
In estimating the character of Toussaint L'Ouverture, regard must be
paid, not to the enlightened age in which he lived, but to the rank in
society from which he sprang--a rank which must be classed with a
remote and elementary age of mankind.
Born forty-seven years before the commencement of the revolt, he had
reached the prime of manhood, a slave, with a soul uncontaminated by
the degradation which surrounded him. Living in a state of society
where worse than polygamy was actually urged, we find him at this
period faithful to one wife--the wife of his youth--and the father of an
interesting family. Linked with such tender ties, and enlightened with
some degree of education, which his indulgent master, M. Bayou, had
given him, he fulfilled, up to the moment of the revolt, the duties of a
Christian man in slavery.
At the time of the insurrection--in which he took no part--he continued
in the peaceable discharge of his duties as coachman; and when the
insurgents approached the estate whereon he lived, he accomplished the
flight of M. Bayou, whose kind treatment (part of this kindness was
teaching this slave to read and write) he repaid by forwarding to him
produce for his maintenance while in exile in these United States.

Having thus faithfully acquitted himself as a slave, he turned towards
the higher destinies which awaited him as a freeman. With a mind
stored with patient reflection upon the biographies of men, the most
eminent in civil and military affairs; and deeply versed in the history of
the most remarkable revolutions that had yet occurred amongst
mankind, he entered the army of the insurgents under Jean François.
This chief rapidly promoted him to the offices of physician to the
forces, aid-de-camp, and colonel. Jean François, in alliance with the
Spaniards, maintained war at this time for the cause of royalty.
Whilst serving under this chief, Toussaint beheld another civil war
agitating the French colony. On one side, the French Commissioners,
who had acknowledged the emancipation of the slaves, maintained war
for the Republic; on the other side, the old noblesse, or planters, fought
under the royal banner, having called in the aid of the British forces in
order to re-establish slavery and the ancient regime.
In this conflict, unmindful of their solemn oaths against the decree of
the 15th of May, 1791, the whites of both parties, including the planters,
hesitated not to fight in the same ranks, shoulder to shoulder, with the
blacks. Caste was forgotten in the struggle for principles!
At this juncture Jean François, accompanied by his principal officers,
and possessed of all the honors and emoluments of a captain-general in
the service of his Catholic Majesty, retired to Spain, leaving Toussaint
at liberty to choose his party. Almost immediately joining that standard
which acknowledged and battled for equal rights to all men, he soon
rendered signal service to the Commissioners, by driving the Spaniards
from the northern, and by holding the British at bay in the eastern part
of the island. For these services he was raised to the rank of general by
the French commander at Porte-aux-Paix, General Laveaux, a
promotion which he soon repaid by saving that veteran's life under the
following circumstances: Villate, a mulatto general, envious of the
honors bestowed on Toussaint, treacherously imprisoned General
Laveaux in Cape François. Immediately upon hearing this fact,
Toussaint hastened