The last of "Bury the Chains"

The island of St. Dominque, owned by the French, had the largest slave population in the Caribbean.  With half of a million slaves, they far outnumbered the forty thousand whites who lived there.  It was "the crown jewel of all European colonies anywhere."  It produced more than 30 percent of the world's sugar and more than half its coffee, as well as cotton and other crops.

In 1791 there was a revolt.  The slaves had been planning in secret to all rise up at the same time.  Drumbeats were the signal.  For miles around, everything was destroyed by fire, machetes, and pruning hooks.  The French soldiers responded quickly.  There was terrible brutality from both sides. Pleas of help were answered with arms and ammunition from Britain.

In the 1790's, France was in turmoil.  The revolution there had claimed the lives of many in the ruling classes, including King Louis XVI who lost his head by the guillotine on January 21, 1793.  The revolution spilled over the English Channel as France declared war on England on February 1.

With war on the minds of the people, the abolition movement came to an end for the time being.  The book calls it the "Bleak Decade."  During this time Clarkson and Wilberforce both married.  Slavery increased and more West India docks were built in London.

"War fever seemed to wrap slavery tightly in the British flag, as the country's most popular military hero, Lord Nelson, declared that he would battle any threat to 'our West Indian possessions ... while I have an arm to fight in their defence, or a tongue to launch my voice against the damnable doctrine of Wilberforce and his hypocritical allies.'"

When I read this quote, I was astonished that Lord Nelson had made this comment that he would "battle. . . .  while I have an arm to fight in their defence...."  My surprise came because of what happened to Lord Nelson just a few years later.  He lost his right arm in battle in 1797.  There is some kind of poetic justice or irony here.

After the war broke out between Britain and France, the British wanted St. Dominque for themselves.  It would increase, by a large margin, their numbers of sugar and coffee plantations.  The British sent ships and soldiers to fight.  But, "pomp triumphed over common sense, and successive shiploads of fresh troops disembarked in tight-fitting red uniforms of heavy wool, made for fighting on the snowy plains of northern Europe.  The army refused to abandon the famous red coat, or the regulation flannel underwear.  In the intense, humid heat, the layers of flannel and wool became drenched in sweat, creating a covering as thick and clammy as a modern surfer's wetsuit and bringing on heat stroke."

By 1798, it was clear that the British were fighting a losing battle.  In Edmund Burke's words, "it was like fighting to conquer a cemetery."  The British withdrew.  In 1802, the French sent an initial thirty-five thousand men to recapture St. Dominque.  After a twenty-two month attempt to retake the colony, France had lost more than fifty thousand men.  Napoleon suffered more casualties in St. Dominque than he would at Waterloo.  Because of this great loss of lives and money, he decided to sell a great tract of land to the United States for a much needed $15 million. Yes, that's the one.  The Louisiana Purchase.

On January 1, 1804, after the only successful slave revolt in history, St. Dominque became Haiti, the first independent black state in the new world.

Slavery, on paper, was abolished in the British Empire in 1833, but because of technicalities, the real triumph came on August 1, 1838 when nearly 800,000 men, women, and children finally became totally free.

Now you have heard something interesting.