Le Cap. Affair of 4 December: the poor whites attack the freedmen, then are crushed.

Sonthonax resolved to put an end to this anarchy. A proconsul of the Republic, he put into practice the words: perish the colonies rather than a principle. Indignant at the horrors in which the club and the poor whites indulged, whose evident aim was to overthrow him, seize authority and thrust the freedmen back into nothingness, he issued on 15 November a proclamation in which he declared that he saw in the poor whites only a horde of factious men, led by turns by hidden ringleaders whose aims were more criminal still, and who secretly nourished a venomous hatred against France and the hope of sooner or later making themselves independent of her; only pretended patriots who cordially detested the law of 4 April and made no secret of it. He declared, moreover, that they were more dangerous than the old aristocrats. He had several of them prosecuted who had massacred twelve enslaved people. He met with lively opposition in the club, which since the revolution against Cambefort had wished to deprive the freedmen of the enjoyment of political rights. But Sonthonax and Rochambeau meant the law of 4 April to be strictly carried out. Laveaux, now commandant of the province of the North, showed his sympathy for the men of color in the public square; and Sonthonax placed three freedmen as officers in the troops that had come from Europe, where they were well received. But the regiment of Le Cap would not accept a single one in its ranks. It went so far as to refuse Laveaux its recognition of the law of 4 April. Then Sonthonax resolved to give battle to the poor whites who kept this anarchy alive. On 4 December the whole garrison of Le Cap was assembled on the parade ground; the freedmen, three hundred in number, showed themselves resolved to die to the last man for the civil commissioner; Pinchinat had filled them with the greatest determination. Laveaux, now a general, took command of the troops of the line and the national guard. The soldiers of the regiment of Le Cap, who had received no ammunition, saw with indignation the freedmen drawn up opposite them loading their weapons. Sonthonax, decked in tricolor ribbons and surrounded by a numerous staff, came to the Champ de Mars and exhorted the regiment of Le Cap in vain to submit to the law of 4 April. At the same moment a Black man carrying a sack crosses the parade ground; the whites cry out: “Fire on him! Kill him!” The freedmen, for their part, cry out: “Do not fire! He is bringing us biscuit.” Soldiers pursue him; he throws down his sack and flees; the whites take up the bundle and open it; it was full of cartridges. The exasperation of the soldiers of the regiment of Le Cap and of the poor whites is at its height; Sonthonax, to avoid an engagement, orders the troops to withdraw to their respective quarters; he is obeyed. At once, against the orders of the civil commissioner, the poor whites beat the general alarm throughout the town and seize the arsenal. The sailors of the squadron, whom they had won over, came to reinforce them. With two adventurers, Binsse and Gervais, at their head, they marched two thousand strong, in three columns, against the freedmen, who were drawn up in battle order before their barracks. The first column, made up of the regiment of Le Cap and three hundred patriots, attacked the men of color, who, in spite of a heavy fusillade and the discharges of the artillery, resisted vigorously; the fire slackened only when Dassas, placing himself between the combatants to stop the action, was struck down by a bullet. But a moment later the other columns, supported by the sailors, came to assail the men of color on both flanks with heavy volleys of musketry and the most murderous grapeshot. The freedmen, yielding to superior numbers, abandoned their quarters in good order and withdrew to La Fossette, which they evacuated at the end of the day to go to the Haut-du-Cap, where they entrenched themselves. They at once entered into communication with the insurgents and prepared to launch them upon the town. Meanwhile Sonthonax and Laveaux were somewhat disconcerted; Rochambeau was ill; the town was in the power of the poor whites. The municipality, frightened by its own success, instead of profiting by it sent the civil commissioner a deputation that urged him to bring the freedmen back into the town, so that terms could be made with them. Sonthonax, perceiving the hesitation of the Commune, recovered his usual energy, ordered the men of color to remain encamped at the Haut-du-Cap, won over some chiefs of the popular party in the following night, and the next day disconcerted the agitators by an astonishing boldness. While the freedmen stood ready to launch bands of insurgents on the town should the commissioner’s life be in danger, Laveaux, and Rochambeau, still ill, went through the town saber in hand with six Orléans dragoons, arrested the chief clubmen, Baillio, Fournier, Verneuil and Gervais, and put them aboard L’América, where royalists and patriots now found themselves together as prisoners. Calm was to some degree restored. Then the men of color, with Pinchinat at their head, came back into Le Cap, proud and arrogant toward the whites, who were cast down. They marched with arms and baggage, colors flying and waving laurels. Sonthonax, Rochambeau, the intermediary commission, the municipality and a great number of citizens came out to meet them: it was a true triumph for them. In vain did the municipality and Larchevêque Thibaud ask pardon for the four agitators who had been shipped out. The next day, the 6th, Rochambeau, accompanied by some Orléans dragoons, arrested three whites, Daugy, Delaire and Raboteau, members of the intermediary commission, and sent them aboard L’América; the same day he went with a picket of twenty-five freedmen to the house of Larchevêque Thibaud and arrested him too, as a disturber of the public peace. The people made no move in his favor. He came out of his house under escort, holding with one hand his weeping wife and with the other his eldest son, whom the club called the hope of the fatherland. So ended the political career of a man without conviction, who was skilled only in the art of rousing the base passions of the populace.