United States or Palestine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Cacos leadership had devolved upon Benoit, a highly educated negro, who had secured the alliance of "the Black Pope" and Chu-Chu, the two lieutenants of Charlemagne. Upon Benoit fell the duty of "chasing the white men into the sea" and exterminating the Americans, just as Toussaint l'Ouverture drove the English, and Dessalines, Christophe and Pétion drove the French, a century before.
"Follow exactly my instructions," General Bonaparte wrote to him on the 16th of March, 1802, "and as soon as ever you have got rid of Toussaint, Christophe, Dessalines, and the leading brigands, and the masses of the blacks are disarmed, send away all the blacks and men of color who shall have played any part in the civil troubles."
The day of the great insurrection of the blacks in September, 1802, the bands of Christophe and Dessalines, composed of more than twelve thousand negroes, exasperated by their hatred against the whites, and the certainty that if they yielded no quarter would be given, made an assault on the town of the Cape, which was defended by only one thousand soldiers; for only this small number remained of the large army which had sailed from Brest a year before, in brilliant spirits and full of hope.
"Those are not Saint Domingo hounds," said Vincent, in a low voice to Dessalines. "No, indeed! Home, all of you! Run for your lives! No questions, but run! Therese, leave me! I command you. If this is your doing, Vincent " "Upon my soul, it is not. I know nothing about it. Home, ladies, as fast as possible!" "My children!" exclaimed Madame Bellair.
"This is what one may expect from negroes, as the General will leant when he has had enough to do with them. They are all alike." This great event in the life of Jacques Dessalines did not delay his proceedings for more than half-an-hour.
It didn't take a hundred years after Toussaint L'Ouverture and Dessalines, in Haiti, for the blacks to shuck off French civilization and go back to grass huts and human sacrifice to make another little Central Africa out of it, in the backwoods districts, at any rate. And we have had a thousand, Beatrice, since the white man died!" She thought a moment, and shook her head.
The city was burned three times by the French buccaneers during their struggles with the Spanish colonial authorities and later by the Haitian general Christophe on the occasion of the retreat of the emperor Dessalines in 1805. It had again attained importance when it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1842. Once more it was reduced to ashes in 1863 at the outbreak of the War of the Restoration.
"Why did you not kill me? You know I should have been thankful. I wish the roof would fall and bury us now." She started and shrieked when she heard some one at the door. It was her father's servant, who told her that Madame Dessalines had arrived, and that L'Ouverture wished her to come and receive her friend. The servant held the door open, so that there was opportunity only for another word.
Till that time, the planters retained their property, and then it was, but not till then, that they lost their all; it cannot, therefore, be expected, as I have said before, that I should have any thing to say in favour of the industry or good order of the emancipated Negroes, during such a convulsive period. In the year 1804, Dessalines was proclaimed emperor of this fine territory.
I wish you had left your revolutions and nonsense till after my time, that I might have sat under my own vine and my own fig-tree, as the priest says, till the end of my days." "Indeed I wish so too, Dessalines. But you shall have some wine." "Ay, send us some. Jacques will tell you what I like. Don't forget, Toussaint Breda.
Word Of The Day