Background
Saint-Domingue was the wealthiest colony in the French empire, producing sugar and coffee under a brutal system of plantation slavery. After the French Revolution in 1789, Saint-Domingue became increasingly politically unstable, as free people of color agitated for equal rights and white colonists responded with increasingly violent repression. In 1791, enslaved people took advantage of this political instability by launching several massive insurrections, burning plantations, and establishing military encampments. By 1793, Black revolutionary troops controlled significant portions of the colony and were either fighting for or being actively courted by the Spanish and French militaries, who were vying for control of the colony. In summer and autumn 1793, French officials abolished slavery in the colony, followed by abolition across the French empire in February 1794.
For the next several years, revolutionaries, plantation laborers, and government officials struggled over what abolition looked like in practice; while nominally free, formerly enslaved people were still required to work on the plantations, prompting widespread protests, strikes, and revolts. This continued under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, a formerly enslaved man who emerged as a brilliant military and political strategist during the revolution and had become the most powerful man in the colony by 1796. Louverture acted increasingly autonomously from France, managing the plantation regime and undertaking diplomatic relations with Britain and with President John Adams in the United States. In 1801, after Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in France, Louverture issued his own constitution for Saint-Domingue. This constitution affirmed the abolition of slavery and Louverture’s new position as governor-general for life, going against Bonaparte’s ambitions to restore white French control over the colony. In December 1801, Bonaparte sent a French military fleet to depose Black leaders and regain control of the island. French troops succeeded in capturing Louverture in June 1802. By August, however, news reached the colony that Bonaparte had reestablished slavery in Martinique, prompting a surge of resistance against the French troops. Over the next year, Black troops, now headed by Louverture’s leading general, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, fought a grueling war against increasingly genocidal French troops, whom they finally defeated in November 1803. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines declared independence, vowing to the rest of the world that Haiti will “live independent or die.”
Saint-Dominguans in Virginia
From its beginning in 1791, news of the Haitian Revolution travelled to Virginia, carried by merchants, sailors, and passengers who traveled from Saint-Domingue. Reports also circulated in newspapers, which often reprinted second- or third-hand accounts of the revolution in lurid (and often inflated) detail. News also came directly from the several thousand refugees who arrived in Virginia from Saint-Domingue. As early as June 1792, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The news from the French West Indies is more and more discouraging. Swarms of the inhabitants are quitting them and coming here daily.”
A year later, the number of people from Saint-Domingue in Virginia increased dramatically. Thousands of inhabitants fled the city of Cap-Français in June 1793 during several chaotic and transformative days that saw fighting in the streets, the first abolition proclamation of the revolution, and the destruction of much of the city by fire. Free and enslaved residents crowded onto 137 ships in the Cap-Français harbor, headed for the East Coast of the United States. The first stop was Norfolk, where many of the passengers disembarked. The influx of several thousand Saint-Dominguans initially strained city resources. On the first night of their arrival, according to one passenger, “those who had saved money crowded into inns; others sought out the canopies of the market-places, which gave some shelter from the inclemencies of the night.” Many of those who first arrived in Norfolk eventually moved elsewhere, seeking opportunity in cities like Richmond or in other states. However, by 1796 there were still “great numbers” of French residents in Norfolk. Of those who stayed, wrote Irish traveler Isaac Weld, many “opened little shops of different kinds.” Others made money as merchants, participating in Norfolk’s “flourishing” trade with the Caribbean, including Saint-Domingue, that continued throughout the revolution.
Many of the free colonists who arrived in Virginia had been enslavers and plantation owners in Saint-Domingue and left behind much of their wealth. Others came to Virginia as merchants and traders, artisans, or skilled laborers. Many hoped that their departure would be temporary, and prepared to return to Saint-Domingue in the event that the revolution was crushed or the plantation system fully restored. The majority of the enslaved people from Saint-Domingue who arrived in Virginia did so as domestic laborers within the households of their enslavers. While the revolution was a moment of immense social and political upheaval, many enslaved people had few options for escape. Those who left in June 1793, in the midst of a city on fire, often had few choices but to board a ship with their enslaver.
The Revolution as Inspiration for Revolt
The arrival of this enslaved population was a source of inspiration and interest for free and enslaved Black Virginians, who followed the news of the revolution closely. In the wake of an American Revolution that had denied hopes of Black liberty and a French Revolution that seemed to revolve around questions of political liberty in Europe, the Haitian Revolution served as a model, according to historian James Sidbury, for “the radical possibilities for revolution in a slave society.”
Throughout the 1790s, persistent stories circulated of French involvement in slave revolts or of enslaved Virginians taking inspiration from the Haitian revolutionaries to plan their own insurrections. In 1792, for example, reports reached Governor Henry Lee of a conspiracy planned by enslaved people in Norfolk, Portsmouth, and the lower Eastern Shore. After traveling to the region, Lee attributed the alleged conspiracy to the separation of enslaved families and to “the example in the West Indies” (Saint-Domingue). A year later, in August 1793, a commander at the Point of Fork state arsenal stated that he had heard, or heard of, “dangerous conversations” among free people of color in the region, and said that enslaved people had become increasingly “insolent” since the arrival of the French from Cap-Français.
That same month, a major conspiracy was allegedly discovered when a letter was dropped, possibly by Gowan Pamphlet, a free Black Baptist preacher, in Yorktown. The letter, which was addressed from one “Secret Keeper” to another, detailed an audacious interstate plan for insurrection in Virginia and the Carolinas. The letter asserted, “I suppose there may be two hundred or more Negroes brought from Cape Francois by the unfortunate French people. These I have no doubt would be ready to operate against us with the others.” During the subsequent investigation, the letter was connected to a conversation between two enslaved people that had been overheard by John Randolph in Richmond in July 1793. When one asked “where the plot wou’d [be] put in Execution,” and questioned whether it would happen at all, the other allegedly responded by reminding him “how the blacks has kill’d the whites in the French Island…a little while ago.”
Connections to the Haitian Revolution also emerged during the investigation of the plot in South Carolina, where it was alleged a Richmond Secret Keeper had told Charleston plotters they would be “furnished by a person from the West Indies with arms and ammunition.”
Similar connections emerged during the interrogation of participants in Gabriel’s Conspiracy in Richmond in 1800. In the period between the conspiracy’s betrayal and Gabriel’s capture, rumors circulated that he had attempted to escape to Saint-Domingue and that the rebellion was to be supported by an “invading French army.” When participants were interrogated, they apparently confessed that they had agreed to spare three groups: Methodists, Quakers, and French people. Moreover, they stated that two Frenchmen had actually been involved in the plot (although one or both of these men had likely come to the United States with French troops during the American Revolution and had no apparent connection to Saint-Domingue).
These stories and rumors are difficult to disentangle from the paranoia of white Virginians that the Haitian Revolution, and the presence of Black people from revolutionary Saint-Domingue in Virginia, would inspire revolt. There is no evidence, for example, that anyone from Saint-Domingue was directly involved in planning an insurrection in Virginia. However, the prevalence of rumors that Black forces on the island would provide aid to Virginian insurrections, whether in the form of arms and troops or as a place of refuge for leaders like Gabriel, suggests that the Haitian Revolution was a potent source of inspiration for enslaved people in Virginia.
White Fear of the Haitian Revolution
White Virginians received news of the Haitian Revolution with horror. Many falsely believed that the revolution had not been planned by enslaved people but had been instigated by white abolitionists. Viewed through this lens, the Haitian Revolution was a violent race war that demonstrated the dangers of abolitionism. Moreover, white Virginians feared that the revolution might inspire revolts in the United States.
White, wealthy Virginians expressed sympathy with their Saint-Dominguan counterparts, seeing them as unfortunate victims of the type of revolution that they feared might occur in Virginia. Almost as soon as the Cap-Français residents arrived in Norfolk in 1793, the city government issued a loan to help cover the “Necessities of the Sufferers.” The state government followed suit, providing 600 pounds ($2,000) to the Saint-Dominguans. People in Williamsburg, Portsmouth, Petersburg, and Richmond all raised money to support the Saint-Dominguans. Perhaps most notably, police in Norfolk suspended their enforcement of the state ban on the importation of enslaved people and the arrival of free Black people from out of state, citing “motives of humanity” towards their enslavers.
In the late 1790s, diplomatic relations between France and the United States began to deteriorate, culminating in the Quasi-War of 1798-1800. Some white Virginians became increasingly anxious not only that the revolution might inspire slave revolts at home, but that French immigrants, acting on behalf of the French government, might try to start such a revolt. In 1798, for example, an anonymous author in the Columbian Mirror and Alexandria Gazette wrote, “It is certain that the [French] directory count much on a revolution in their favor in the south, and have employed some means to let loose the negroes, to complete their purposes. Americans, keep a good look out.”
Similar fears were voiced by Virginia state representatives. In 1798, the Virginia House of Delegates debated whether or not to condemn the federal Alien and Sedition Acts, passed during the Quasi-War, which allowed the president to deport any “alien” (non-citizen) whom he deemed a threat to the country. The acts also allowed the prosecution of anyone who criticized the president or Congress, resulting in the prosecution of newspaper editors who criticized the Federalist Adams administration. Federalists were a minority in Virginia, and the House of Delegates ultimately voted to condemn the Alien and Sedition Acts. During the debate, however, Federalist George K. Taylor argued that the acts were necessary because “Attempts…had already been made, by French emigrants, to excite our slaves to insurrection.” The only way to prevent insurrection and societal destruction, he argued, was “By investing the general government with that power to remove such Aliens.”
Diplomacy, Trade, and the Revolution in Virginia Politics
The Haitian Revolution also affected U.S. foreign policy. When Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, he reversed U.S. foreign policy toward Saint-Domingue from John Adams’s policy of friendly diplomacy towards Toussaint Louverture. Adams had quietly offered military and financial support to Louverture and encouraged him to move toward independence from France. This was driven on both sides by a desire to gain leverage over France in the context of the Quasi-War and to maintain commercial ties. Saint-Domingue and the United States had been major trading partners since before the revolution, and American merchants—including many in Virginia—were keen to keep doing business on the island. Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison adopted a policy of distance from Saint-Domingue, demoting U.S. diplomatic officials on the island from “consul” to “commercial agent” and ordering U.S. naval ships to return home from their station at Saint-Domingue. Jefferson’s approach to the Haitian Revolution was influenced by his background as an enslaver who feared that the presence of “black crews, supercargoes & missionaries” from the island in southern ports might inspire slave revolt. It also was influenced by his inclination to foster diplomatic ties with France. When it became clear in 1801 that Napoleon Bonaparte planned to send a military expedition to Saint-Domingue to retake control from Louverture, Jefferson offered the French government his tacit support. After Haitian forces defeated this expedition and declared independence in 1804, Jefferson called for an end to U.S. trade with Haiti—a call that culminated in Congress passing a ban on trade in February 1806. U.S. merchants continued to trade illicitly with Haiti, as they had done throughout the revolution, but the ban dealt a blow to the fledgling Haitian economy. The United States did not recognize Haiti’s sovereign nationhood until 1862.
Memory of the Revolution in Virginia
Memories of the Haitian Revolution continued to shape Virginians’ understandings of slave revolt and abolitionism up to the American Civil War (1861–1865). When Nat Turner and his supporters rose up in Southampton County in 1831, for example, Samuel Warner, the first person to publish an account of the uprising, compared it to the Haitian Revolution, writing, “such were the horrors that attended the insurrection of the Blacks in St. Domingo; and similar scenes of bloodshed and murder might our brethren at the South expect to witness, were the disaffected Slaves…gain the ascendancy.”
In the Black imagination, however, memory of the Haitian Revolution represented a “heroic narrative” of the struggle for liberty in the face of slavery and racial oppression. The Haitian Revolution repudiated white supremacist assertions that Black people were unfit for freedom as evidence that they could seize their freedom for themselves. Louverture emerged as an icon of Black military and political excellence—a “republican citizen soldier” who had “sacrificed much to lead a desperate people to freedom.” Black soldiers like Jim Lawson, who served as a scout for the Union after leaving his enslaver in Northern Virginia, were heralded by the press as “American ‘L’Ouvertures.” In Alexandria, freedmen arrived at a Black settlement called Hayti and renamed it New Hayti. Nearby, they built a hospital that they named L’Ouverture Branch Hospital. Decades after the revolution, its memory remained a source of pride and inspiration for Black Virginians.
