408 



MEXICO, CENTEAL AMEEICA, WEST INDIES. 



It was then that the commissioner Sonthonax, realising the desperate state 

 of affairs, prodaimed the emancipation of the slaves, causing the edict to be 

 ratified by that section of the planters which had refused to betray the mother- 

 country. This step was followed by the decree of the National Assembly of 

 February 4th, 1794, recognising equality of rights between all races. 



So great was the moral effect that in a few weeks the material position was 

 completely reversed. On the appeal of Sonthonax, now become "le bon Dieu," 

 a whole army sprang from the ground ; the black insurgents fighting in the name 

 of the Spanish king changed their flag, and voluntarily espoused the cause of the 



Fig. 194.— Scene of the Wae of Independence. 



Scale 1 : 3,250,000. 



60 Miles. 



French republic. After driving their late allies back to the eastern part of the 

 island, they successively captured the western towns that had been occupied by 

 British garrisons. Toussaint Breda, the black general, changed his name to 

 L'Ouverture, to show that a new era was dawning and a new order of things had 

 certainly been ushered in. Work was resumed on the plantations, no longer for 

 the benefit of a few great landowners, but to the profit of thousands of freemen, 

 and the rural settlements again prospered. 



In 1795 the treaty of Basle yielded to France the Spanish part of San 

 Domingo, and the French republic thus became officiiil mistress of a far larger 

 colony than that inherited from the monarchy. Bnt the political ties between the 

 two countries were ruptured by the action of France herself. The first consul, 



