The Present State of Hayti (Saint Domingo) with Remarks on its Agriculture, Commerce, Laws, Religion, Finances, and Population. Franklin Jameson J.
under their prudent and more assiduous neighbours the French, whose industry and perseverance had astonished the world, and whose judicious and highly commendable system for promoting the cultivation of their country had become the theme of much praise and admiration, seemed about this time to have produced among the Spaniards some disposition to adopt measures for insuring to the parent state a more lucrative trade from their colonies. The force of example was too powerful to be resisted, and even the Court of Madrid began about this time to devise measures which might improve, and which might call into play all those resources which this highly fertile and most congenial soil was known to possess. Governors of known prudence and patriotic zeal for the interest of their nation were selected, and sent out, with injunctions to promote the interests of agriculture, and to give a spur to commerce, by opening an intercourse with their neighbours. The wants of the French in cattle, mules, and horses, were exceedingly extensive, and offered to the Spaniards an opportunity of improving their properties, by providing a vent for the sale of their stock. It gave an impulse to industry, and the once inert and unconcerned Spanish planter became in time an active and enterprising agriculturist, shaking off that languor by which he had been previously characterized, and at length assuming a degree of animation and spirit, which enabled him to take advantage of those resources which nature had placed within his reach.
A mutual interchange and good understanding between the two powers of France and Spain having taken place, this intercourse, become more frequent and reciprocally beneficial, continued for a series of years. In 1790, however, this most important branch of their commerce was cut off by the convulsion into which the neighbouring province was thrown. All that part of the population who dwelt on the frontiers withdrew themselves into the interior, leaving behind them their cattle, which fell into the hands of their rapacious neighbours, whose inroads caused much consternation amongst the proprietors; but their slaves, from habit or from some other powerful cause, remained unmoved and attached to them, although they had before them such strong incentives to revolt. Every appeal made by these people (and it is said, that they made innumerable ones) to the cabinet of Spain for protection against the fatal example of the French division, met with a very cold reception, if not a positive rejection. In this state of suspense and continued fear and alarm the people remained, until the disgraceful treaty of Basle gave Hispañeola to the republican government of France; and this event I cannot better describe than in the language of one of the most correct writers on this country1, whom I shall here quote as an authority which has been hitherto deemed unquestionable. Speaking of this event, which occurred in the year 1795, and of the designs of the French rulers, he says, “though busied in the plans of universal dominion on their own continent, their cabinet did not lose sight or cease to entertain a hope of again possessing colonies abroad, and they were well aware which were the most desirable. Perhaps no system of invasion had been longer or more deeply premeditated, and digested with more mysterious secrecy, than the entire subjugation of Spain and her American settlements, in which, besides the common views of aggrandizement, their constitutional enmity to the reigning family acted as a powerful stimulus. This policy was coeval with that ambition which marked the first career of the present ruler of France and the specious veil under which the hidden, but continued advances were regularly made towards the end in view, adds to the guilt of duplicity and ingratitude, when we consider that Spain has scrupulously maintained her treaty of alliance and has fulfilled the stipulations entered into in 1795, notwithstanding all the three changes that have given other names to the French government, without altering its entity, or revolutionary or destructive system; that the cabinets of Madrid have bended to a degree of abject condescension, rather than be precipitated into a war; that they have sacrificed the interests and inclinations of their people, and have been driven at length into a state of non-reprisal, rather than risk a warfare with a nation they respected, and though an ally, furnishing both men and money under promises to share in the conquests made, they have been treated rather as a faithless neutral without claim, representation, or character, and thus their country has been impoverished and laid waste, and the supports of national union and energy undermined.”
Further, in continuation of this disgraceful treaty, by which Spain so abjectly submitted to surrender her colony to France, he says, “by this instrument of diplomatic intrigue and subtlety Hispañeola was made over unreservedly to France; the oldest subjects of the Spanish crown in the western world were thus bartered like so many sheep, and an island, not the capture of an enemy during war, and given up at its termination, but one that had descended to them as a primitive right, and had formed the glory of the preceding monarchs, who saw it discovered and settled. When possession was given in further aggravation of the Spanish natives, the transfer was received by Toussaint at the head of the intrusive settlers of one division of the island, with whom the former had previously and generously shared their territory; in short by a horde of emancipated slaves to whom the French republic had given equality, consistence, and power, and who now came to erect a new standard on the spot consecrated by the labours and ashes of Columbus, and long revered as an object of national pride.”
“In justice to the Dominican people it may be said, that none of the Spanish settlements possess more of the amor patriæ which ought to distinguish loyal subjects: they received the news as a thunder-bolt, and the country presented an universal scene of lamentation. They appealed to the humanity of their sovereign, but without effect, and then had recourse to remonstrances.”
Receiving no answer to their prayers or to their remonstrances, the people were left in a state bordering on despondency, with the only alternative of leaving their native land, or of swearing allegiance to a power in whom they could not confide, and which they had been taught to detest. Emigration therefore was determined on, and all orders – nuns, friars, clergy, and men of property and influence – with their families and their slaves, embarked for Cuba, Porto Rico, and the Spanish main, leaving behind them their possessions, to seek a shelter, and to find homes and occupations, in a country in which they might be protected by laws to which they had been accustomed, and submit to a government which they had been taught to respect. The extent of this emigration was considerable, and is said to have amounted to one third of the population; and it is evident from a subsequent census that this was not an exaggeration, and that so large a proportion of the people absolutely left the country, abandoning their abodes and much wealth rather than submit to a people whom they hated as the usurpers of their possessions.
In the years 1789 and 1790, about which time the first disturbances among the slaves in the French part of the island commenced, it appears the Spanish division contained about one hundred and fifty thousand souls or upwards; but by a subsequent census taken immediately after the cession to the French, and after the spirit for emigration had in some measure subsided, there remained only about one hundred thousand of all descriptions, a very strong proof of the detestation in which the Spaniards held this treaty, which assigned them over as subjects of the republican government of France. It is very evident, however, whatever impressions this arrangement might have made on the Spanish colonists, that it was one dictated by the rulers in France, and therefore accepted from necessity, and not from choice. The infamous Godoy, Prince of Peace (which high sounding title was confirmed by this treaty) was the leading personage in its negotiation, and being secretly leagued with the French ministry, became a willing instrument in consigning this bright and valuable appendage of the Spanish crown to the more designing and crafty schemes of the French cabinet, which had been from the beginning of their ambitious aim at universal dominion, not unmindful of the advantages that were to be derived from colonial possessions. When it is seen that the mistaken and weak policy, as well as the pusillanimity of the Spanish cabinet, caused so great a sacrifice as the dismemberment of their most valuable colony, it becomes a matter of no astonishment that the people should relax in their efforts to aid the means and resources of their parent state, by any exertions, in the cultivation of their lands, beyond what might be requisite for their own support. As this neglect and heedless inattention to their prosperity had been for a series of years observable, and as every incentive to industry was checked by the measures of the crown, it is not to be wondered at that this division of the island did not advance at the same rate as that which was under the dominion of France. However manifest the declension of the colony was to Spain, she never made any movements, nor adopted any means indicating a desire to revive the drooping energies of the colonists, and reinstate them in their former easy circumstances and affluence.
Walton.