Haiti: A Degenerating Island 



2 11 



and carried back to France to die in a 

 dungeon. But retribution speedily fol- 

 lowed this perfidity, for the negroes, 

 seeing their beloved chief so basely and 

 cruelly treated, again hoisted the flag of 

 rebellion and, under the leadership of 

 Dessalines and Christophe, assisted by 

 the pestilential yellow fever, they drove 

 the intruders out of the island and into 

 the hands of their implacable enemy, the 

 British, who had again declared war 

 against France. It is said that this expe- 

 dition to reenslave the blacks cost Napo- 

 leon $40,000,000, besides almost all of his 

 troops. 



On the first of January, 1804, Dessa- 

 lines, who followed Toussaint as general- 

 in-chief of the army, promulgated the 

 declaration of Haitien independence, and 

 the country has remained the Black Re- 

 public ever since. The name of Haiti, 

 as the island was designated by the abo- 

 riginal inhabitants, was now revived and 

 has never been changed. Dessalines, who 

 was soon afterward proclaimed em- 

 peror, started a bloodthirsty policy, of 

 exterminating the French subjects who 

 still remained in the country, and his acts 

 of cruelty showed how well he had been 

 schooled under the French ; but in spite 

 of this many of the planters, who had the 

 alternative of falling into the hands of 

 the English or run the risk of being mur- 

 dered by the negroes, remained on the 

 island, and as Dessalines' object became 

 later to restore his exhausted male popu- 

 lace, they were gradually allowed to re- 

 sume tilling the soil. 



Dessalines' administration was, for- 

 tunately for the Republic, short-lived, but 

 his cruel nature and implacable hatred 

 of the whites led' him into such acts of 

 bloodshed as to shame even his own race. 

 At the time of the insurrection in 1791 

 he was a slave to a negro whose name 

 was Dessalines, and this surname was 

 added to his own, Jean Jacques. He was 

 short in stature and strongly built, of 

 great activity and undaunted courage. 

 He undoubtedly had great military tal- 

 ents in spite of his want of education, 

 but the respect he commanded was due 



rather more to the terror he inspired' than 

 to his ability as a general. He was at 

 last conspired against by his own army,, 

 arrested, and killed in an attempt to 

 escape, October 17, 1806 



During the insurrection the Revolu- 

 tionists, who were mainly composed of 

 the negroes, had their headquarters in 

 the north, generally at Cape Francois. 

 While the colored people, many of whom' 

 were small property-owners, had estab- 

 lished a colony by themselves in the 

 southern part of the island, and having 

 but little in common with the slaves, there 

 was a gradual separation of the twa 

 classes, the blacks predominating in the 

 north and the colored people in the south. 



Upon Dessalines' death, Christophe, 

 one of Toussaint's generals, took his- 

 place, and several years later declared 

 himself king under the title of Henry I,. 

 King of Haiti. 



Christophe and his wife were crowned 

 as king and queen at Cape Francois, to 

 which place was given the name of Cape 

 Henry. The royal court, copied after the 

 monarchies of Europe, was established, 

 here, and a full line of titles was given 

 out, many of them, such as the Count de 

 Lemonade and the Duke de Marmalade,, 

 still existing on the island. Christophe, 

 during all his reign of 12 years, put forth 

 his utmost energies to develop the natural' 

 prosperity of the island. He introduced 

 the Protestant religion and the English 

 language into the schools, but at the same 

 time he never ceased to prepare to defend 

 his country against the French, which he 

 rightly feared would again attempt to 

 reenslave it. 



On a lofty mountain top above the 

 beautiful valley of Millot, back of Cape 

 Haitien, he built that remarkable struc- 

 ture known as Sans Souci. He lived in 

 this palace with his suite in a state of 

 regal splendor. The ruins of the palace, 

 now overgrown by tropical plants, are a 

 monument to Christophe's engineering 

 skill ; but more wonderful still is the stu- 

 pendous castle fortress, built as a refuge 

 in case the French should again appear. 

 Within the walls of this fortress, which 



