CHAPTER III 



JEAN AUDUBON AS SANTO DOMINGO PLANTER AND 



MERCHANT 



Captain Audubon at Les Cayes — As planter, sugar refiner, general mer- 

 chant and slave dealer, amasses a fortune — His return to France 

 with his children — History of the Santo Domingo revolt — Baron de 

 Wimpffen's experience — Revolution of the whites— Opposition of the 

 abolitionists — Effect of the Declaration of Rights on the mulattoes — 

 The General Assembly drafts a new constitution — First blood drawn 

 between revolutionists and loyalists at Port-au-Prince — Oge's futile 

 attempt to liberate the mulattoes — Les Cayes first touched by revolu- 

 tion in 1790, four years after the death of Audubon's mother — Emanci- 

 pation of the mulattoes — Resistance of the whites — General revolt of 

 blacks against whites and the ruin of the colony. 



After the American struggle for liberty had been 

 finally won, Captain Audubon resigned his commission 

 held in the United States and returned to his home at 

 Nantes, but town or country could not hold him long. 

 Lured by the prospects of great wealth which Santo 

 Domingo offered to the merchant of those days, and 

 having learned by long experience in her ports the devi- 

 ous methods by which fortunes were attained, he de- 

 cided to give up the sea and embark in colonial trade. 

 For six years, from 1783 to 1789, he lived almost con- 

 tinuously in the West Indies, and as merchant, planter, 

 and dealer in slaves amassed a large fortune. Mean- 

 while his wife, who had seen little of him since their 

 marriage in 1772, remained at Nantes. 



Captain Audubon traveled through the United States 

 early in 1789, and again late in that year when on his 

 way to France, probably in the first instance returning 



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