Caribbean by James A. Michener
A bellowing of rage greeted the last decree, and it came not only from an outraged Espivent and his fellow grands blancs, but also from Xavier Prémord and his free-coloreds, and it would be difficult to determine which faction detested the new regulations more. Certainly Prémord saw it as the first fearful step in a movement that must ultimately alter his life, for once the slaves were free, the free-coloreds would become superfluous, and in rejecting the new law he used almost the same words as Espivent: ‘The dam is breaking.’ But his wife was more hopeful: ‘We cannot change what has happened and we must be prepared to adjust to whatever comes next,’ and she let her husband know that in her management of their plantation she would begin to take those steps which would enable them to adjust to freedom for their slaves when it came.
And it did come with startling suddenness, for on 14 June 1794 a packet boat arrived from France with final instructions from the revolutionary government: ‘All slaves in St.-Domingue are to be granted complete freedom.’ At last it seemed that this glorious island, so filled with human promise, was about to be restored to sanity, with its three groups working together toward the common purpose of equality and productivity. Optimists calculated that within two years the plantations would recover to the point where they would be delivering as much sugar as before, but Julie, who understood her slaves, assured other owners: ‘We’ll do even better, because when your slaves are free, they’ll work harder than before.’
Despite that chance for sanity, Espivent and his powerful friends declared war against the new decree and threatened to shoot any owner who tried to implement it. Knowing that he would need a united citizenry if the blacks rebelled at being denied what was now legally theirs, he came to Prémord’s shop dressed in his full military regalia, and asked: ‘Could we meet in your kitchen?’ and when they sat about the rough, sturdy table that Julie herself had built, he said persuasively: ‘Obviously, we must now work together, for once the blacks get their freedom, they’ll move against both of us.’ Xavier nodded in agreement, but Julie cried out in protest: ‘No! This is wrong! The blacks should be free, and we coloreds should work with them, because you’—and she pointed her finger almost in Espivent’s face—‘will never grant us acceptance, even if we do help you win this time.’
‘Madam,’ Espivent said without raising his voice, ‘had you uttered those words out in the street, you would have been shot. This is war, war to the death, and you must stand with us or we shall both be swept away in a black hurricane.’ So that night the free-coloreds of Cap-Français placed themselves once more under the leadership of the grands blancs for the defense of the town.
Why did they submit so passively to this repeated humiliation and betrayal? Xavier Prémord had known why from the start: ‘We have no other option. We’re trapped between unyielding whites and vengeful blacks, but since the whites have the guns and the ships, we must ally with them and trust that sooner or later they’ll show us generosity.’ Julie, of course, argued differently: ‘The blacks are so numerous they’ll overcome the guns and ships. We must ally with them,’ but as a woman, her voice in council mattered little.
• • •
When the outlines of the great civil war that would destroy even further the wealth of St.-Domingue were drawn, César Vaval, snug in his leadership of the blacks on Colibri Plantation, told his wife: ‘We have no quarrel with Espivent and he has none with us. Keep calm and do nothing to create a new frenzy like the one Boukman started.’ And between them they persuaded the Colibri blacks to remain aloof from the rapidly forming battle lines.
But one night that compelling black leader from Bréda Plantation returned, loomed ominously in the doorway, and told Vaval: ‘I said I’d be coming back one day to summon you. I am here,’ and Toussaint L’Ouverture’s appearance was so commanding, his dedication to the black revolt so forceful, that Vaval asked but one word: ‘Battle?’
‘Yes.’
‘Against Le Cap again?’ When this question was asked so boldly and so quickly, Toussaint became evasive, but César pressed: ‘Not Cap? We heading south to Port-au-Prince?’ at which the Negro leader blurted out: ‘No! We’ve been offered tremendous promises by the Spaniards to fight on their side … against the French.’
Vaval was stunned. He had always supposed that the slaves’ fight for freedom would be a prolonged affair against reluctant French whites like his own master, Espivent. But now to be asked to join a foreign army, to fight against what he considered his own country, that seemed treacherous and unworthy, and he said: ‘I would not feel easy,’ and Toussaint reached down and grabbed him by the neck: ‘Do you trust me or not?’ and Vaval looked up: ‘I do.’
‘Then come!’
Thus in mid-1793 the great black leader led Vaval and some half-dozen of his other lieutenants across the mountainous border and into camps where the Spaniards were preparing a full-scale attack on St.-Domingue. It was a bold decision, a terrible one, really, but Toussaint, having watched a score of constructive laws passed in Paris but ignored in the colony, saw no way to correct such injustice except to join with the Spaniards, drive out the French, and then make the best deal possible with the new victors.
The strategy worked, at least in the beginning, for the reinforced Spanish armies swept across the border and quickly captured the mountainous eastern third of the French colony. With surging joy Toussaint cried to his black troops: ‘We’ll soon have the whole country!’ But cautious Vaval probed when they were alone: ‘Then what? Spaniards don’t like us any better than the French do,’ and Toussaint, finding strength from being back on familiar terrain, said: ‘Old friend, you must trust me. I want what you want, but the secret is to keep fluid. If you keep watching, you usually discover what the next step must be.’ Now César, who was becoming his general’s conscience, warned: ‘Don’t be too clever.’
He had barely uttered this warning when runners from the seacoast brought frightening information: ‘Toussaint! The British have declared war on everybody—the French, the Spanish, even us. They see a chance to steal the entire colony. Their warships have captured every port on the Caribbean side.’
‘Le Cap, too?’
‘No, the French still hold that.’
When subsequent couriers confirmed the news, other self-styled black generals met one afternoon in their camp atop the middle of three small hills—their Spanish allies were occupying the hill to the east, and at a farther distance, the French army waited on the western hill. As the men joined Toussaint they knew that this would be a meeting of crucial importance, but none of them, Vaval least of all, could have guessed what was to be discussed.
Toussaint started by sketching in the earth a rude map of St.-Domingue: ‘If the Spaniards, with our help, hold this eastern third of the colony, and the British with their ships hold the western third, the French can control only this narrow strip down the middle,’ and his generals visualized the enormous areas under foreign control. ‘But there is an important difference,’ Toussaint continued. ‘The part the French own is mostly mountains, the part that’s easy to defend. The Spaniards and the English have had it too simple up to now. The real battle is yet to begin.’
For three days the black leader, a rugged, finely disciplined man of gigantic courage and imagination, kept his own counsel. He was only two generations out of Africa, where his ancestors had been men of leadership, and for that reason, he had great respect for fellow blacks like Vaval whose parents had also known Africa. On the third night of his lonely vigil he invited César to walk with him, and they climbed to a small rise from which they could look down on the smaller hill held by the Spanish soldiers: ‘What you said, Vaval, it’s been nagging at me: “The Spaniards don’t like us any more than the French do.” What would you do in my place?’ The two men spent several hours striving to unravel the future although they were barely able to understand the present. ‘Let’s sleep now and talk further in the morning,’ Toussaint said abruptly, and off he marched to bed. But at half after
‘Why?’ a grizzled old fighter asked, and Toussaint whirled about to face him. ‘Because, old friend, if either Spain or England captures our colony, it’s back to slavery for us. But if we help France win, we have a fighting chance. At least they’ve given freedom to their own people!’
The same old fellow pointed out: ‘Yes, they did pass a fine law in Paris giving us freedom, but when it crossed the ocean to St.-Domingue, there was no more law, no more freedom,’ and Toussaint moved a step forward to clap the old man on the back: ‘True, you wise old bird, but this time we’ll be in charge, and we’ll see it’s real freedom … for everyone.’
Then, before the sleeping Spaniards on the other hill became aware of what was happening, Toussaint, Vaval and their complete black army were marching off to unite with the French, and when Vaval whispered to Toussaint: ‘i never slept an easy night in a Spanish uniform,’ the leader confessed: ‘Nor did I … I’m French.’
• • •
Now Toussaint proved that he was just as able a leader of men as he was a strategist, for with a grudging promotion to make-believe general conferred almost comically by the French high command, he launched a series of brilliant thrusts, first to the east against the Spaniards, then boldly to the west to throw the British off balance. In these actions he demonstrated an unusual mastery of not only the spectacular one-time tactical raid on an isolated target but also the long-range strategic operation that moved an entire enemy front back a few precious miles. He had converted himself into a real general and, with reliable lieutenants to execute his orders, he had become a formidable one.
In a series of lightning sorties to the east, he practically liquidated the Spanish, but he still had to come to grips with the British, who had poured a huge number of troops into St.-Domingue in hopes of stealing that weakened colony for their empire. Their success had been spasmodic, now surging forward to wipe out the French, now retreating before Toussaint’s inspired blacks. But in 1797 they began a final drive, with a chain of spectacular victories. Toussaint, with remarkable self-discipline, allowed them to rampage among the small targets while keeping them isolated from the big, until it became common in the British mess to refer to their black enemy with grudging praise as ‘that damned Hannibal,’ for he, like his famous black counterpart from Carthage, utilized mountains with great skill.
By maintaining remorseless pressure over an extended period, Toussaint, with no help from the French, finally forced the British back against the shore from which they had started four years earlier, and toward the end of summer in 1798, Toussaint had recaptured all the major port towns, leaving the British pinched into the northwest corner of the island.
There the British commander, a Scot from a noble family, offered one of those valiant gestures which make others smile at British gentlemen but also salute their devotion to the honorable act; realizing that the black generals had outsmarted him at every turn, he gathered his staff at a port of debarkation and told them: ‘Those stubborn beggars have been a gallant foe. Let’s give them a real salute. They’ve earned it.’ And his soldiers decorated the town, built a triumphal arch laden with flowers, conscripted local musicians to augment the military band, and assembled the local cooks to prepare a feast.
On the appointed day the British officers rose early, dressed in their brightest regimental uniforms laden with braid and medals, and marched behind the band to the edge of town, where they greeted in full panoply the two black generals. As those victors approached, the British had to smile, for tall Toussaint took such big strides that stubby Vaval, a head shorter, had to pump his chubby legs twice as hard to keep up. Joined by the Scot, they formed the front rank of the parade, and entered the town to the wild cheering of the black citizens and the polite applause of whites. At the local church Toussaint was handed a silver cross, which he bore proudly to the banqueting hall, and there he listened in solemn grandeur as the Scottish officer, a gallant adversary, said: ‘At the start we British had every advantage—controlled all your ports, occupied most of them, drove you inland. Total victory for our side.’
The British officers applauded, and the speaker continued: ‘We overlooked these two—General Toussaint L’Ouverture, who could not be pinned down no matter how hard we tried, and this stubborn little fellow Vaval, whom we could never quite catch but who struck at us again and again.’
Here the British officers turned to face the black generals and applauded loudly with cries of ‘Hear! Hear!’ Then the Scotsman asked: ‘Honestly. How did you do it?’ and the two black generals sat silent, tears coming to their eyes.
Toussaint and Vaval stood at the dock until the last British troops withdrew, and as the seven ships left the harbor Toussaint said, almost plaintively: ‘Vaval, our own French leaders never treated us with half the respect that enemy out there did. It could have been so different if they’d only dealt with us honorably.’
‘It was never possible,’ Vaval said, and Toussaint replied: ‘Now let’s take this country for ourselves.’
‘You mean the slaves? Us?’
‘We can tend the land as well as the French.’
‘But why would you risk fighting a lion like Napoleon?’
Toussaint, a slave who had been allowed no education or access to books or the friendship of learned men, fell silent, for he too was amazed at what he was now proposing—grappling with the foremost military genius of his age.
‘Time’s at hand, old friend, when we must strike out against the French.’
‘Wait!’ Vaval pleaded, raising his voice to an unaccustomed level. ‘You can’t go on doing this. First we side with the French, then the Spanish, then the French again, and now against them. You make yourself look foolish.’
‘No man is foolish when he calculates strategies to gain his freedom. Besides, we’ll have no choice.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because Napoleon will never let us exercise any control in this colony. Sooner or later he’ll send troops against us.’ Bringing his shoulders forward, as if he were a boxer preparing either to attack or defend, he said grimly: ‘Now we prepare for whatever Napoleon throws against us, and what a shock we’ll have for that one.’ And off the two black generals went to prepare their troops for the battles that could not be avoided.
• • •
Napoleon, during his march through Europe, often found recreation at night by reading reports from his colonies, and insofar as the Caribbean in general was concerned, he was not unhappy: ‘Guadeloupe back in our hands, slave uprisings under control. Our Martinique does remain in British hands, but in retaliation we’ve captured three of their richest islands. Now, what is happening on that damned St.-Domingue? What do those slaves think they’re doing? Are English officers leading those black troops? Some outsider is.’ Whenever he voiced that suspicion, he concluded: ‘We’ve got to teach those slaves a lesson. About who controls France these days.’
An aide, who had recently returned to Europe from St.-Domingue and traveled to Austria to meet Napoleon, reported: This fellow Toussaint, a kind of homemade military genius. You know, of course, that he came back to our side after fighting for a long time against us … with the Spanish.’
Napoleon stopped him right there: ‘He did desert to the Spanish, didn’t he?’
‘With that able assistant, General Vaval.’
‘Sounds French.’
‘Black as midnight, but a manly little fighter. Helped Toussaint kick the British completely out of St.-Domingue, and now there’s talk among the slaves that they’ll throw us out, too.’
‘Never!’ Napoleon growled. ‘Time’s come to discipline them. Get them back to the sugar plantations … all of them.’
Once he voiced this decision his aides saw his eyes gleam with conspiratorial delight, and they supposed that he had suddenly imagined some stratagem which would startle and subdue Toussaint and Vaval, but that was not the case. What pleased him was the prospect of finally discovering how to get his obstreperous younger sister Pauline out of Paris. For the past five years she had presented him with one difficult problem after another; only twenty-one, she had already weathered some half-dozen tempestuous and even scandalous love affairs, and seemed quite prepared to add to that list whenever she encountered one of his handsome colonels or married generals.
Some months ago he believed he had solved the problem: he had married her to a fine young officer of good family named Charles Leclerc, medium height, erect carriage, dashing, and with a ready wit. Napoleon had attended their wedding, had given his sister away, and had then rushed the promotion of the bridegroom to senior general. Now he said: ‘We’ll put Leclerc in charge of the St.-Domingue expedition, let him win his spurs and make him a duke or something. That would please Pauline.’ When the announcement was readied, Napoleon warned his aides: ‘We won’t put it in writing, but most important—Pauline must accompany him. We’ve got to get her out of Paris.’
So an expedition of enormous magnitude was mustered, utilizing at least nine ports from Honfleur in the north to Cádiz in the south, thirty-two thousand battle-tested soldiers and gear enough for a yearlong campaign in the tropics. When Napoleon saw the final report of what was being sent to St.-Domingue—the munitions, the extra uniforms, the medical kits, the presence of small, fast ships to serve as messengers back and forth between the scores of big ones—he remarked: ‘Young Leclerc may not be a Marshal Soult or Ney, but he’ll have older aides of proven merit to keep him headed in the right direction.’ It was a massive expedition, a tribute to Napoleon for having been able to assemble it and to France for having the men and equipment to spare. As its components sailed forth from their various ports, Napoleon could be forgiven when he claimed: ‘We’ve thought of everything,’ but not even he could have foreseen what kind of enemy his troops were about to face.