Aquin. Whites from Petit-Goâve arrive and kill Labadie.

Meanwhile the men of color, for all their moderation, were exposed to the cruelest violence from the colonists, who at Petit-Goâve put to death Ferrand de Baudières, an old man, seneschal of the place, known for his moderation toward the people of color. He had drawn up a petition in which the freedmen claimed the right to send one of their number to represent them in the Provincial Assembly of the West, which was soon to open at Port-au-Prince. The Whites of Petit-Goâve, led by one Valentin de Cuillon, went in fury to his house, tore him from the arms of his family, dragged him ignominiously through the streets of the town and delivered him to the executioner, after heaping outrages upon him. His head fell beneath the axe in November 1789. Thus the first martyr of liberty in Saint-Domingue was a White man, set apart from his fellows by philanthropic sentiments. The Whites, emboldened by this first crime, set out for Aquin, where they arrived on 26 November. They broke into the house of one Labadie, a man of color, killed him with 25 musket shots, and tied his corpse to the tail of a horse, which they sent off at a gallop along a stony road. The frenzied animal stopped only at its victim’s plantation, three leagues from the town. Labadie’s family, after being insulted, gave burial to the shapeless and bloody corpse. For his wisdom and the purity of his morals Labadie was called the venerable throughout his canton. The Whites had accused him of being the accomplice of Ferrand de Baudières.