EXHIBITS

Bill of sale for one man. [4]

The Slaves

The slave trade as ruthless as it was inhumane—and nowhere was it worse than on the colony of Saint Domingue.  Slaves were worked "16 or 18 hours a day, for seven or eight months in the year."  Colonists treated their slaves however they wished.  Mutilations were common, as was pouring burning wax on the slave, emptying boiling sugar cane over their heads, burning them alive, burying them up to the neck and smearing their heads with sugar to be devoured by flies, fastening them near nests of ants and wasps, making them eat their excrement, and the most common—whipping.[1]

The conditions on Saint Domingue were so horrific, and the need for labor so strong, that it became impossible for plantation owners to meet the growing need for labor. The slaves could not reproduce fast enough to keep pace with the demand.[1]  Men, women, and children were shipped to the colony from the African coast.  By 1787, Saint Domingue was importing more than 40,000 slaves a year.  With these staggering numbers, the island's slave population numbered around 500,000 in 1791.[2]  In 1764, the colony was importing between 10,000 and 15,000 slaves each year.

Blinded by their wealth, the white planters seemed to forget the human value of those that they uprooted and brought to their island. Though the France passed laws restricting and abolishing slavery, the whites of Saint Domingue continued to pass legislation that allowed the horrors to continue.  The rights of the slaves were as restrained as the slaves themselves.  It was only a matter of time before something snapped. 

Fernando Miranda, "The Statue of 'The Freed Slave' in Memorial Hall," illustration from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, August 5, 1876. [5]

The Free Blacks

Saint Domingue was home to more than merely white men and slaves.  On the island there were various groups of free black men and women.  Though slaves did not often get paid for their work on the plantations, they still managed to make some money, harvesting personal crops or selling trinkets. A few slaves were able to save enough money to buy themselves from their masters.  This would then allow them to enter the “promised land.”[1]  No longer slaves, they were allowed freedoms that they had not enjoyed before. This small group of black men and women were known as “free persons of color.”[2]  

Of course, there were also those who escaped plantations.  These were those known simply as Maroons.  The Maroons were ex-slaves that had escaped the bonds of their masters. Slaves often found themselves with two choices out of their hellish existence: escape, or suicide.[1]  Ex-slaves that became Maroons would run to the jungles of the island where they would hide from their former masters and live off the land.  These Maroons had the occasional leader that managed to group them together and mount small rebellions against their oppressors—first the French, and later even against their liberated countrymen.[2]  Though there were hostilities between racial groups, for the most part those known as the free blacks joined with those who were still enslaved and supported them as they rose up against their masters when the revolution began in 1791.

The Barbadoes Mulatto Girl. [6]

The Mulattoes    

There were many types of oppression on the island of Saint Domingue, race was the most common form.  The Mulattoes were those who were those who had both white and black heritage.  They were perhaps the social class that most posed a problem to the white plantation owners and French bourgeois.  As a way to oppress and control Mulattoes, the whites forced them to serve for three years in a police force created for arresting fugitive slaves, serving at the discretion of a white commanding officer.  To make things worse, they suffered judicially as well.  Not only did legal actions nearly always go against the Mulattoes, but if any free man of color ever struck a white man—regardless of social station—the punishment was to have his right arm cut off.[1]

The Mulattoes were allowed to own property without limitation, allowing them to amass wealth and education.  It wasn’t long before they began to outpace the petit blancs—the poor whites.  Between 1758 and the revolution, the white colonists began to pass a series of laws to suppress the freedoms of the Mulattoes.  The Mulattoes fought for new legislation, appealing to France for help.  In March of 1790, France responded with the National Assembly accepting the petition of rights of “free citizens of color” from Saint Domingue, known as Article 4.[3] But the ambiguity of Article 4 allowed the whites of Saint Domingue to continue to exclude the Mulattoes from political meetings.  

The Mulattoes were neither with the slaves, nor with the colonists—and were often at odds with both.  In a colony drowning in racism, the Mulattoes saw themselves as being above the petit blancs, the slaves, and the free blacks. Yet despite their racial pride, they still found themselves victims to the color of their skin.