Haiti and the Haitian People: An Address Delivered in Chicago, Illinois, on January 2, 1893
HAITI AND THE HAITIAN PEOPLE: AN ADDRESS DELIVERED
IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, ON 2 JANUARY 1893
(Chicago, 1893?), 46-57. Other texts in
Speech File, reel 17, frames 356-62, 379-89, 396-400, 417-56, 477-530, FD Papers,
DLC; Foner, , 4: 478-90.
Continuing his round of activities at the World’s Columbian Exposition at
Chicago, Douglass delivered his second address on 2 January 1893 at Quinn
Chapel. A more formal oration than his earlier effort, Douglass’s lecture
attracted some fifteen hundred “of the best citizens of Chicago.” Chicago
admirers of Douglass published his two speeches together in a pamphlet.
George Washington to Douglass, 15 May 1893, General Correspondence
File, reel 7, frames 215-16; Indianapolis , 3 December 1892; Lang-
ston City (Okla.) , 2 February 1893; Coffeyville (Kans.) , 24 March 1893.
No man should presume to come before an intelligent American audience
without a commanding object and an earnest purpose. In whatever else I
may be deficient, I hope I am qualified, both in object and purpose, to
speak to you this evening.
My subject is Haiti, the Black Republic; the only self-made Black
Republic in the world. I am to speak to you of her character, her history, her
importance and her struggle from slavery to freedom and to statehood. I am
to speak to you of her progress in the line of civilization; of her relation with
the United States; of her past and present; of her probable destiny; and of
the bearing of her example as a free and independent Republic, upon what
may be the destiny of the African race in our own country and elsewhere.
If, by a true statement of facts and a fair deduction from them, I shall in
any degree promote a better understanding of what Haiti is, and create a
higher appreciation of her merits and services to the world; and especially,
if I can promote a more friendly feeling for her in this country and at the
same time give to Haiti herself a friendly hint as to what is hopefully and
justly expected of her by her friends, and by the civilized world, my object
and purpose will have been accomplished.
There are many reasons why a good understanding should exist be-
tween Haiti and the United States. Her proximity; her similar government
and her large and increasing commerce with us, should alone make us
deeply interested in her welfare, her history, her progress and her possible
destiny.
Haiti is a rich country. She has many things which we need and we have
many things which she needs. Intercourse between us is easy. Measuring
distance by time and improved steam navigation, Haiti will one day be only
three days from New York and thirty-six hours from Florida; in fact our next
door neighbor. On this account, as well as others equally important, friend-
ly and helpful relations should subsist between the two countries. Though
we have a thousand years of civilization behind us, and Haiti only a century
behind her; though we are large and Haiti is small; though we are strong
and Haiti is weak; though we are a continent and Haiti is bounded on all
sides by the sea, there may come a time when even in the weakness of Haiti
there may be strength to the United States.
Now, notwithstanding this plain possibility, it is a remarkable and
lamentable fact, that while Haiti is so near us and so capable of being so
serviceable to us; while, like us, she is trying to be a sister republic, and
anxious to have a government of the people, by the people and for the
people;1Douglass paraphrases the concluding sentence of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Basler, , 7: 23. while she is one of our very best customers, selling her coffee and
her other valuable products to Europe for gold, and sending us her gold to
buy our flour, our fish, our oil, our beef and our pork;2Haiti received $10 million worth of imported goods in 1891, of which $6.5 million were from the United States. Exports from Haiti during that same year reached a total of $14 million and included such products as sugar, coffee, mahogany, and cacao. , 391. while she is thus
enriching our merchants and our farmers and our country generally, she is
the one country to which we turn the cold shoulder.
We charge her with being more friendly to France and to other Euro-
pean countries than to ourselves. This charge, if true, has a natural explana-
tion, and the fault is more with us than with Haiti. No man can point to any
act of ours to win the respect and friendship of this black republic. If, as is
alleged, Haiti is more cordial to France than to the United States, it is partly
because Haiti is herself French. Her language is French; her literature is
French, her manners and fashions are French; her ambitions and aspira-
tions are French; her laws and methods of government are French; her
priesthood and her education are French; her children are sent to school in
France and their minds are filled with French ideas and French glory.3Mulattos and the upper class generally spoke French, while the working class spoke Creole, a mix of French and African dialects. James G. Leyburn, (1941; New Haven, 1966), 5; Heinl and Heinl, , 5.
But a deeper reason for coolness between the countries is this: Haiti is
black, and we have not yet forgiven Haiti for being black (applause) or
forgiven the Almighty for making her black.4Ninety percent of the Haitian population is black; the remaining ten percent are mulattos born of mixed racial ancestry. Heinl and Heinl, , 4. (Applause.) In this en-
lightened act of repentance and forgiveness, our boasted civilization is far
behind all other nations. (Applause.) In every other country on the globe a
citizen of Haiti is sure of civil treatment. (Applause.) In every other nation
his manhood is recognized and respected. (Applause.) Wherever any man
can go, he can go. (Applause.) He is not repulsed, excluded or insulted
because of his color. (Applause.) All places of amusement and instruction
are open to him. (Applause.) Vastly different is the case with him when he
ventures within the border of the United States. (Applause.) Besides, after
Haiti had shaken off the fetters of bondage, and long after her freedom and
independence had been recognized by all other civilized nations, we con-
tinued to refuse to acknowledge the fact and treated her as outside the
sisterhood of nations.
No people would be likely soon to forget such treatment and fail to
resent it in one form or another. (Applause) Not to do so would justly
invite contempt.
In the nature of the country itself there is much to inspire its people with
manliness, courage and self-respect. In its topography it is wonderfully
beautiful, grand and impressive. Clothed in its blue and balmy atmosphere
it rises from the surrounding sea in surpassing splendor. In describing the
grandeur and sublimity of this country, the Haitian may well enough adopt
the poetic description of our own proud country: (Applause)
A land of forests and of rock.
Of deep blue sea and mighty river,
Of mountains reared aloft to mock,
The thunder shock, the lightning’s quiver;
My own green land forever.
It is a land strikingly beautiful, diversified by mountains, valleys,
lakes. rivers and plains, and contains in itself all the elements of great and
enduring wealth. Its limestone formation and foundation are a guarantee of
perpetual fertility. Its tropical heat and insular moisture keep its vegetation
fresh. green and vigorous all the year round. At an altitude of eight thou-
sand feet, its mountains are still covered with woods of great variety and of
great value.5Mountains cover approximately three-quarters of Haiti's land mass and some forest-crowned peaks. such as Mome la Selle, measure over eight thousand feet Composed primarily of limestone, the Haitian mountains also contain deposits of iron. copper. and bauxite, and provide a topsoil suitable for growing sugar, coffee, and mahogany, the chief exports of Haiti. Heinl and Heinl, . 2-4; Leyburn, , 11-12. Its climate, varying with altitude like that of California. is
adapted to all constitutions and productions.
Fortunate in its climate and soil, it is equally fortunate in its adaptation
to commerce. Its shore line is marked with numerous indentations of inlets,
rivers. bays and harbors, where every grade of vessel may anchor in safety.
Bulwarked on either side by lofty mountains rich with tropical verdure
from base to summit, its blue waters dotted here and there with the white
wings of commerce from every land and sea, the Bay of Port au Prince
almost rivals the far-famed Bay of Naples, the most beautiful in the world.
One of these bays has attracted the eyes of American statesmanship.
The Môle St. Nicolas of which we have heard much and may hear much
more, is a splendid harbor. It is properly styled the Gibraltar6At the southern extremity of Spain, a peninsula one and a half miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide extends into the Mediterranean Sea. Occupied by the British since 1704, the rocky mountain at the end of the Gibraltar peninsula became the site of a powerful fortress that commands the fifteen-mile-wide strait between Spain and Morocco at the mouth of the Mediterranean. The Môle St. Nicolas is over three miles long and possesses a large stone face similar in size and mass to that of the Rock of Gibraltar. A French abbé named Raynal in the eighteenth century recognized the similarity and dubbed the Môle St. Nicolas the “Gibraltar of the West Indies." , 1: 853, 2: 2130; Logan, , 321. of that
country. It commands the Windward Passage,7The Windward Passage is a strait of approximately fifty miles separating the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. the natural gateway of the
commerce both of the new and old world. Important now, our states-
manship sees that it will be still more important when the Nicaragua Canal
shall be completed.8On 1 December 1884, the United States and Nicaragua signed an agreement to begin work on a canal connecting the Caribbean Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Work began in 1886 under the direction of the American-owned Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company but changed hands twice before the Maritime Ship Canal Company of Nicaragua finally abandoned the project when the United States government began work on the Panama Canal in 1904. , 623; McCullough, , 240, 263-65, 314, 326-27. Hence we want this harbor for a naval station. It is
seen that the nation that can get it and hold it will be master of the land and
sea in its neighborhood. Some rash things have been said by Americans
about getting possession of this harbor. (Applause.) We are to have it
peaceably, if we can, forcibly, if we must. I hardly think we shall get it by
either process. (Applause.) For the reason that Haiti will not surrender
peacefully, and it would cost altogether too much to wrest it from her by
force. (Applause.) I thought in my simplicity when Minister and Consul
General to Haiti, that she might as an act of comity, make this concession to
the United States, but I soon found that the judgment of the American
Minister was not the judgment of Haiti. Until I made the effort to obtain it I
did not know the strength and vigor of the sentiment by which it would be
withheld. (Applause.) Haiti has no repugnance so deep-seated and uncon-
querable as the repugnance to losing control over a single inch of her
territory. (Applause.) No statesman in Haiti would dare to disregard this
sentiment. It could not be done by any government without costing the
country revolution and bloodshed. (Applause.) I did not believe that Presi-
dent Harrison9Benjamin Harrison. wished me to press the matter to any such issue. (Ap-
plause.) On the contrary, I believed as a friend to the colored race he desired
peace in that country. (Applause.)
The attempt to create angry feeling in the United States against Haiti
because she thought proper to refuse us the Môle St. Nicolas, is neither
reasonable nor creditable. There was no insult or broken faith in the case.
Haiti has the same right to refuse that we had to ask, and there was insult
neither in the asking nor in the refusal. (Applause)
Neither the commercial, geographical or numerical importance of
Haiti is to be despised. (Applause) If she wants much from the world, the
world wants much that she possesses. (Applause) She produces coffee,
cotton, log-wood, mahogany and lignum-vitae. The revenue realized by
the government from these products is between nine and ten millions of
dollars.10A more accurate figure recorded in 1893 placed the value of revenue collected by the Haitian government for its country's exports at only $3.1 million for the fiscal year 1890-91. During the same period, the Haitian government collected $4.2 million from tariffs on foreign imports. , 391. With such an income, if Haiti could be kept free from revolution,
she might easily become, in proportion to her territory and population, the
richest country in the world. (Applause) And yet she is comparatively
poor, not because she is revolutionary.
The population of Haiti is estimated to be nearly one million.11In 1887, the population of Haiti was approximately 960,000. , 355. I think
the actual number exceeds this estimate. In the towns and cities of the
country the people are largely of mixed blood and range all the way from
black to white. But the people of the interior are of pure negro blood. The
prevailing color among them is a dark brown with a dash of chocolate in it.
They are in many respects a fine looking people. There is about them a sort
of majesty. They carry themselves proudly erect as if conscious of their
freedom and independence. (Applause) I thought the women quite superi-
or to the men. They are elastic, vigorous and comely. They move with the
step of a blooded horse. The industry, wealth and prosperity of the country
depends largely upon them. (Applause) They supply the towns and cities
of Haiti with provisions, bringing them from distances of fifteen and
twenty miles, and they often bear an additional burden in the shape of a
baby. This baby burden is curiously tied to the sides of the mother. They
seem to think nothing of their burden, the length of the journey or the added
weight of the baby. Thousands of these country women in their plain blue
gowns and many colored turbans, every morning line the roads leading into
Port au Prince.12Douglass’s observations were most likely a reference to Haitian peasant women, whose daily domestic routines formed an essential part of the Haitian economy. Clad in colorful knee-length dresses with brightly patterned scarfs about their heads, these women could be seen along road sides carrying farm produce and home-made goods to nearby cities, or working in sugar cane fields beside their husbands. Melville J. Herskovits, (1937; New York, 1975), 67-87; Leybum, , 5-6. The spectacle is decidedly striking and picturesque.
Much of the marketing is also brought down from the mountains on don-
keys, mules, small horses and horned cattle. In the management of these
animals we see in Haiti a cruelty inherited from the old slave system. They
often beat them unmercifully.
I HAVE SAID THAT THE MEN did not strike me as equal to the
women, and I think that this is largely due to the fact that most of the men
are compelled to spend much of their lives as soldiers in the service of their
country, and this is a life often fatal to the growth of all manly qualities.
Every third man you meet within the streets of Port au Prince is a soldier.13In I878, the Haitian government passed a law fixing the total number of officers and enlisted men at 6,828. Two years later, the government expanded the total armed forces to 16,000. Subsequent revolutions undoubtedly caused an increase in the number of men under arms in Haiti, but Douglass’s estimates appear greatly exaggerated. , 391; Heinl and Heinl, , 275.
His vocation is unnatural. He is separated from home and industry. He is
tempted to spend much of his time in gambling, drinking and other destruc-
tive vices; vices which never fail to show themselves repulsively in the
manners and forms of those addicted to them. As I walked through the
streets of Port au Prince and saw these marred, shattered and unmanly men,
I found myself taking up over Haiti the lament of Jesus over Jerusalem, and
saying to myself, “Haiti! Poor Haiti! When will she learn and practice the
things that make for her peace and happiness?”14Douglass paraphrases Matt. 23: 37-39 and Luke 13: 34-35.
NO OTHER LAND HAS BRIGHTER SKIES. No other land has purer
water, richer soil, or a more happily diversified climate. She has all the
natural conditions essential to a noble, prosperous and happy country.
(Applause) Yet, there she is, torn and rent by revolutions, by clamorous
factions and anarchies; floundering her life away from year to year in a
labyrinth of social misery. Every little while we find her convulsed by civil
war, engaged in the terrible work of death; frantically shedding her own
blood and driving her best mental material into hopeless exile. Port au
Prince, a city of sixty thousand souls,15Other contemporary estimates place the population of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince proper at closer to twenty thousand. , 2: 1784. and capable of being made one of
the healthiest, happiest and one of the most beautiful cities of the West
Indies, has been destroyed by fire once in every twenty-five years of its
history.16Although no official record of fires occurring every twenty-five years exists, there are accounts of at least seven major fires destroying large sections of Port-au-Prince between September 1866 and July 1888. Davis, , 126; Heinl and Heinl, , 247, 253, 257, 296. The explanation is this: Haiti is a country of revolutions.17From the establishment of Haiti as a republic in 1807 by Alexandre Sabes Pétion until the presidency of Louis Mondestin Florvil Hyppolite in 1889, the government changed hands fourteen times. Revolutions deposed eleven of these fifteen presidents. three died in office, and only one, Jean Nicolas Nissage-Saget, retired voluntarily. Davis, , 114-38, 340-41; Heinl and Heinl, , 691-93. Leyburn, , 316-17. They
break forth without warning and without excuse. The town may stand at
sunset and vanish in the morning. Splendid ruins, once the homes of the
rich, meet us on every street. Great warehouses, once the property of
successful merchants, confront us with their marred and shattered walls in
different parts of the city. When we ask: “Whence these moumful ruins?”
and “Why are they not rebuilt?” we are answered by one word—a word of
agony and dismal terror, a word which goes to the core of all this people’s
woes; It is, “revolution!” Such are the uncertainties and insecurities caused
by this revolutionary madness of a part of her people, that no insurance
company will insure property at a rate which the holder can afford to pay.
Under such a condition of things a tranquil mind is impossible. There is
ever a chronic, feverish looking forward to possible disasters. Incendiary
fires; fires set on foot as a proof of dissatisfaction with the government;
fires for personal revenge, and fires to promote revolution are of startling
frequency. This is sometimes thought to be due to the character of the race.
Far from it. (Applause) The common people of Haiti are peaceful enough.
They have no taste for revolutions. The fault is not with the ignorant many,
but with the educated and ambitious few. Too proud to work, and not
disposed to go into commerce, they make politics a business and are
forever plotting to get into their hands the large revenues of their country.
Governed neither by love nor mercy for their country, they care not into
what depths she may be plunged. No president, however virtuous, wise
and patriotic, ever suits them when they themselves happen to be out of
power.
I wish I could say that these are the only conspirators against the peace
of Haiti, but I cannot. They have allies in the United States. Recent devel-
opments have shown that even a former United States Minister Resident
and Consul General to that country has conspired against the present gov-
emment of Haiti. It so happens that we have men in this country who, to
accomplish their personal and selfish ends, will fan the flame of passion
between the factions in Haiti and will otherwise assist in setting revolutions
afoot. To their shame be it spoken, men in high American quarters have
boasted to me of their ability to start a revolution in Haiti at pleasure. They
have only to raise sufficient money, they say, with which to arm and
otherwise equip the malcontents, of either faction, to effect their object.
Men who have old munitions of war or old ships to sell; ships that will go
down in the first storm. have an interest in stirring up strife in Haiti. It gives
them a market for their worthless wares. Others of a speculative turn of
mind and who have money to lend at high rates of interest are glad to
conspire with revolutionary chiefs of either faction, to enable them to start
a bloody insurrection. To them, the welfare of Haiti is nothing; the shed-
ding of human blood is nothing; the success of free institutions is nothing,
and the ruin of [a] neighboring country is nothing. They are sharks, pirates
and Shylocks, greedy for money, no matter at what cost of life and misery
to mankind.
It is the opinion of many. and it is mine as well, that these revolutions
would be less frequent if there were less impunity afforded the leaders of
them. The so-called right to asylum is extended to them.18In 1865, assistant secretary of state William Hunter outlined the official United States policy on asylum, allowing legations in Haiti to offer sanctuary to political refugees but advising them to release refugees to local authorities if requested to do so. Logan, , 363-65; Heinl and Heinl, , 227-35. This right is
merciful to the few, but cruel to the many. While these crafty plotters of
mischief fail in their revolutionary attempts, they can escape the conse-
quences of their treason and rebellion by running into the foreign legations
and consulates. Once within the walls of these, the right of asylum prevails
and they know that they are safe from pursuit and will be permitted to leave
the country without bodily harm. If I were a citizen of Haiti, I would do all 1
could to abolish this right of Asylum. During the late trouble at Port au
Prince, 1 had under the protection of the American flag twenty of the
insurgents who, after doing their mischief. were all safely embarked to
Kingston19Kingston is the capital and principal seaport of the island of Jamaica in the Caribbean Sea. , 1: 1147. without punishment, and since then have again plotted against
the peace of their country. The strange thing is, that neither the government
nor the rebels are in favor of the abolition of this so-called right of asylum,
because the fortunes of war may at some time make it convenient to the one
or the other of them to find such shelter.
Manifestly, this revolutionary spirit of Haiti is her curse, her crime, her
greatest calamity and the explanation of the limited condition of her civi-
lization. It makes her an object of distress to her friends at home and
abroad. It reflects upon the colored race everywhere. Many who would
have gladly believed in her ability to govern herself wisely and successfully
are compelled at times to bow their heads in doubt and dispair. Certain it is
that while this evil spirit shall prevail, Haiti cannot rise very high in the
scale of civilization. While this shall prevail, ignorance and superstition
will flourish and no good thing can grow and prosper within her borders.
While this shall prevail, she will resemble the man cutting himself among
the tombs. While this shall prevail, her rich and fruitful soil will bring forth
briers, thorns and noxious weeds.20Douglass possibly paraphrases Isa. 5: 6, 32: 13. While this evil spirit shall prevail, her
great natural wealth will be wasted and her splendid possibilities will be
blasted. While this spirit shall prevail, she will sadden the hearts of her
friends and rejoice the hearts of her enemies. While this spirit of turbulence
shall prevail, confidence in her public men will be weakened, and her well-
won independence will be threatened. Schemes of aggression and foreign
protectorates will be invented. While this evil spirit shall prevail. faith in
the value and stability of her institutions, so essential to the happiness and
well-being of her people, will vanish. While it shall prevail, the arm of her
industry will be paralyzed, the spirit of enterprise will languish, national
opportunities will be neglected, the means of education will be limited, the
ardor of patriotism will be quenched, her national glory will be tarnished,
and her hopes and the hopes of her friends will be blighted.
In its presence, commerce is interrupted, progress halts, streams go
unbridged, highways go unrepaired, streets go unpaved, cities go un-
lighted, filth accumulates in her market places, evil smells affront the air,
and disease and pestilence are invited to their work of sorrow, pain and
death.
Port au Prince should be one of the finest cities in the world. There is no
natural cause for its present condition. No city in the world is by nature
more easily drained of impurities and kept clean. The land slopes to the
water’s edge, and pure sparkling mountain streams flow through its streets
on their way to the sea. With peace firmly established within her borders,
this city might be as healthy as New York, and Haiti might easily lead all
the other islands of the Caribbean Sea in the race of civilization.
You will ask me about the President of Haiti. I will tell you. Whatever
may be said or thought of him to the contrary I affirm that there is no man in
Haiti. who more fully understands or more deeply feels the need of peace in
his country than does President Hyppolite.21Louis Mondestin Florvil Hyppolite. No purer patriot ever ruled the
country. His administration. from the first to the last, has had the welfare of
his country in view. It is against the fierce revolutionary spirit of a part of
his countrymen that he has had to constantly watch and contend. It has met
him more fiercely at the seat of his government than elsewhere.
Unhappily, his countrymen are not his only detractors. Though a friend
and benefactor of his country, and though bravely battling against conspir-
acy, treason and rebellion, instead of receiving the sympathy and support
of the American Press and people, this man has been denounced as a cruel
monster. I declare to you, than this, no judgment of President Hyppolite
could be more unjust and more undeserved.
I know him well and have studied his character with care, and no man
can look into his thoughtful face and hear his friendly voice without feeling
that he is in the presence of a kind hearted man. The picture of him in the
New York papers, which some of you have doubtless seen, does him no
manner of justice. and, in fact. does him startling injustice. It makes him
appear like a brute, while he is in truth a fine looking man, “black, but
comely."22Song of Sol. 1: 5. His features are regular, his bearing dignified, his manner
polished, and he makes for himself the impression of a gentleman and a
scholar. His conduct during the recent troubles in Haiti was indeed,
prompt, stern and severe, but, in the judgment of the most thoughtful and
patriotic citizens of that country, it was not more stringent than the nature of
the case required. Here, as elsewhere, desperate cases require desperate
remedies.23The aphorism paraphrases a line from Defoe: “Desperate Diseases must have Desperate Remedies." Daniel Defoe, (London, 1713), 18. Governments must be a terror to evil-doers if they would be a
praise to those who do well. It will not do for a government with the knife
of treason at its throat, to bear the sword in vain. (Applause)
I invoke for the President of Haiti the charity and justice we once
demanded for our President. Like Abraham Lincoln, President Hyppolite
was duly elected President of Haiti and took the oath of office prescribed by
his country, and when treason and rebellion raised their destructive heads,
he like Mr. Lincoln, struck them down otherwise he would have been
struck down by them. (Applause) Hyppolite did the same.24Douglass probably alludes to Louis M. F. Hyppolite's suppression of the attempted military coup on 28 May 1891. If one should
be commended for his patriotism, so should the other. While representing
the United States in Haiti, I was repeatedly charged in certain quarters,
with being a friend to Haiti. I am not ashamed of that charge. I own at once,
that the charge is true, and I would be ashamed to have it otherwise than
true. I am indeed a friend to Haiti, but not in the sense my accusers would
have you believe. They would have it that I preferred the interest of Haiti,
to the just claims of my own country, and this charge I utterly deny and defy
any man to prove it. I am a friend of Haiti and a friend of every other people
upon whom the yoke of slavery has been imposed. In this I only stand with
philanthropic men and women everywhere. I am the friend of Haiti in the
same sense in which General Harrison, the President of the United States,
himself is a friend of Haiti. lam glad to be able to say here and now of him,
that I found in President Harrison no trace of the vulgar prejudice which is
just now so malignant in some parts of our southern country towards the
negro. He sent me not to represent in Haiti our race prejudice, but the best
sentiments of our loyal, liberty-loving American people. No mean or mer-
cenary mission was set before me. His advice to me was worthy of his lofty
character. He authorized me in substance to do all that I could consistently
with my duty to the United States, for the welfare for Haiti and, as far as I
could, to persuade her to value and preserve her free institutions, and to
remove all ground for these reproaches now hurled at her and at the colored
race through her example.
The language of the President was worthy of the chief magistrate of the
American people—a people who should be too generous to profit by the
misfortune of others; too proud to stoop to meanness; too honest to practice
duplicity; too strong to menace the weak, and every way too great to be
small. I went to Haiti, imbued with the noble sentiments of General Har-
rison. For this reason, with others, I named him as worthy to be his own
successor, and I could have named no other more worthy of the honor.
From the beginning of our century until now, Haiti and its inhabitants,
under one aspect or another, have, for various reasons, been very much in
the thoughts of the American people. While slavery existed amongst us,
her example was a sharp thorn in our side and source of alarm and terror.
She came into the sisterhood of nations through blood. She was described
at the time of her advent, as a very hell of horrors. Her very name was
pronounced with a shudder. She was a startling and frightful surprise and a
threat to all slave-holders throughout the world, and the slave-holding
world has had its questioning eye upon her career ever since.
By reason of recent events and the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement
of the negro in our country, and the probable completion of the
Nicaragua canal, Haiti has under another aspect, become, of late, interest-
ing to American statesmen. More thought, more ink and paper have been
devoted to her than to all the other West India Islands put together. This
interest is both political and commercial, for Haiti is increasingly important
in both respects. But aside from politics and aside from commerce, there is,
perhaps, no equal number of people anywhere on the globe, in whose
history, character and destiny there is more to awaken sentiment, thought
and inquiry, than is found in the history of her people.
The country itself, apart from its people, has special attractions. First
things have ever had a peculiar and romantic interest, simply because they
are first things. In this, Haiti is fortunate. She has in many things been first.
She has been made the theatre of great events. She was the first of all the
cis-Atlantic world, upon which the firm foot of the progressive, aggressive
and all-conquering white man was permanently set. Her grand old tropical
forests, fields and mountains, were among the first of the New World to
have their silence broken by trans-Atlantic song and speech. She was the
first to be invaded by the Christian religion and to witness its forms and
ordinances. She was the first to see a Christian church and to behold the
cross of Christ. She was also the first to witness the bitter agonies of the
negro bending under the blood-stained lash of Christian slave-holders.25In 1508, Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican priest commissioned by Queen Isabella to protect the Indian population from extermination at the hands of Spanish colonists, recommended that King Ferdinand II of Aragon import African slaves to Haiti, arguing that Africans were more numerous, durable, and able to survive forced labor. In 1510, Ferdinand authorized the first shipment of over ten thousand Africans to the New World. Heinl and Heinl, , 13; Perusse, , 25.
Happily too, for her, she was the first of the New World in which the black
man asserted his right to be free and was brave enough to fight for his
freedom and fortunate enough to gain it.
In thinking of Haiti, a painful, perplexing and contradictory fact meets
us at the outset. It is: that negro slavery was brought to the New World by
the same people from whom Haiti received her religion and her civiliza-
tion. No people have ever shown greater religious zeal or have given more
attention to the ordinances of the Christian church than have the Spaniards;
yet no people were ever guilty of more injustice and blood-chilling cruelty
to their fellowmen than these same religious Spaniards. Men more learned
in the theory of religion than I am, may be able to explain and reconcile
these two facts; but to me they seem to prove that men may be very pious,
and yet very pitiless; very religious and yet practice the foulest crimes.
These Spanish Christians found in Haiti a million of harmless men and
women, and in less than sixty years they had murdered nearly all of them.
With religion on their lips, the tiger in their hearts and the slave whip in their
hands, they lashed these innocent natives to toil, death and extinction.
When these pious souls had destroyed the natives, they opened the slave
trade with Africa as a merciful device.26Although the Roman Catholic Church expressed concern about the genocide of the native Indian population, which declined from about a half million to approximately sixty thousand between 1492 and 1550, it showed little regard for blacks imported from Africa, whose enslavement was justified by a variety of theological arguments. Davis, , 13-15; Heinl and Heinl, , 13. Such, at least, is the testimony of
history.
Interesting as Haiti is in being the cradle in which American religion
and civilization were first rocked, its present inhabitants are still more
interesting as having been actors in great moral and social events. These
have been scarcely less portentous and startling than the terrible earth-
quakes which have some times moved their mountains and shaken down
their towns and cities. The conditions in which the Republican Govern-
ment of Haiti originated, were peculiar. The great fact concerning its
people, is, that they were negro slaves and by force conquered their masters
and made themselves free and independent. As a people thus made free and
having remained so for eighty-seven years, they are now asked to justify
their assumption of statehood at the bar of the civilized world by conduct
becoming a civilized nation.
The ethnologist observes them with curious eyes, and questions them
on the ground of race. The statesman questions their ability to govern
themselves; while the scholar and philanthropist are interested in their
progress, their improvement and the question of their destiny.
But, interesting as they are to all these and to others. the people of
Haiti, by reason of ancestral identity, are more interesting to the colored
people of the United States than to all others, for the Negro, like the Jew,
can never part with his identity and race. Color does for the one what
religion does for the other and makes both distinct from the rest of man-
kind. No matter where prosperity or misfortune may chance to drive the
negro, he is identified with and shares the fortune of his race. We are told to
go to Haiti; to go to Africa. Neither Haiti nor Africa can save us from a
common doom. Whether we are here or there, we must rise or fall with the
race. Hence, we can do about as much for Africa or Haiti by good conduct
and success here as anywhere else in the world. The talk of bettering
ourselves by getting rid of the white race. is a great mistake. It is about as
idle for the black man to think of getting rid of the white man, as it is for the
white man to think of getting rid of the black. They are just the two races
which cannot be excluded from any part of the globe, nor can they exclude
each other; so we might as well decide to live together here as to go
elsewhere. Besides, for obvious reasons, until we can make ourselves
respected in the United States, we shall not be respected in Haiti, Africa, or
anywhere else.
Of my regard and friendship for Haiti, I have already spoken. I have,
too, already spoken somewhat of her faults, as well, for they are many and
grievous. I shall, however, show before I get through, that, with all her
faults, you and I and all of us have reason to respect Haiti for her services to
the cause of liberty and human equality throughout the world, and for the
noble qualities she exhibited in all the trying conditions of her early history.
I have, since my return to the United States, been pressed on all sides to
foretell what will be the future of Haiti—whether she will ever master and
subdue the turbulent elements within her borders and become an orderly
Republic. Whether she will maintain her liberty and independence, or, at
last, part with both and become a subject of some one or another of the
powerful nations of the world by which she seems to be coveted? The
question still further is, whether she will fall away into anarchy, chaos and
barbarism, or rise to the dignity and happiness of a highly civilized nation
and be a credit to the colored race? I am free to say that I believe she will
fulfill the latter condition and destiny. By one class of writers, however,
such as Mr. Froude27Born in Devon, England, James Anthony Froude (1818-94) was the youngest son of the Archdeacon of Totnes and the brother of Richard Hurrell Froude, a leader of the Oxford Movement. Educated at Oxford University, Froude became a fellow of Exeter College upon his graduation in 1840. In 1842 he received the Chancellor's prize for an English essay and thereafter began his long and distinguished literary career, producing such early works as (1847), The (1847), and (1849). The last work, published during the ecclesiastical controversies at Oxford, caused considerable debate and eventually forced Froude to resign his fellowship at Oxford. From 1850 to 1870, Froude held a number of positions, including lord rector of St. Andrews University and editor of , but primarily devoted himself to writing his twelve-volume History of England, completed in 1870. An outspoken advocate of colonialism, Froude also made numerous trips abroad to South Africa, Australia, and the West Indies, and published his observations in a series of works on the British Empire, (1872-1874), (1880), and ( 1888). In the 1880s, he published two works, , at the request of his long-time friend and mentor Thomas Carlyle. At the height of his career in 1892, Froude became Regius professor of modern history at Oxford University, filling the chair vacated by his long-standing rival, the historian Edward A. Freedman. Waldo Hilary Dunn, , 2 vols. (Oxford, 1961); Herbert Paul, (New York, 1905), 19-50, 250-87, 288-336; , 679-87. and his echoes, men and women who write what they
know the prejudice of the hour will accept and pay for, this question has
been vehemently answered already against Haiti and the possibilities of the
negro race generally.
They tell us that Haiti is already doomed—that she is on the down-
grade to barbarism; and, worse still, they affirm that when the negro is left
to himself there or elsewhere, he inevitably gravitates to barbarism.28In 1888, after a brief visit to the West Indies and during the height of discussion regarding the British Home Rule bill, Froude published The English in the West Indies, characterizing the islands, particularly Haiti, as slipping into barbarism and emphasizing the stabilizing influence of the British presence. James Anthony Froude, (London, 1888), 181-88, 333. Alas,
for poor Haiti! and alas, for the poor negro everywhere, if this shall prove
true!
The argument as stated against Haiti, is, that since her freedom, she
has become lazy; that she is given to gross idolatry, and that these evils are
on the increase. That voudooism,29Voodoo, or Vodun, is a combination of African and Catholic beliefs and rituals, which emerged among African slaves and eventually became the folk religion of the Haitian peasantry. Leyburn, , 131-42; Herskovits, , 267-91. fetichism, serpent-worship and can-
nibalism are prevalent there; that little children are fatted for slaughter and
offered as sacrifices to their voudou deities; that large boys and girls run
naked through the streets of the towns and cities, and that things are
generally going from bad to worse.
In reply to these dark and damning allegations, it will be sufficient only
to make a general statement. I admit at once, that there is much ignorance
and much superstition in Haiti. The common people there believe much in
divinations, charms, witchcraft, putting spells on each other, and in the
supernatural and miracle working power of their voudou priests generally.
Owing to this, there is a feeling of superstition and dread of each other, the
destructive tendency of which cannot be exaggerated. But it is amazing
how much of such darkness society has borne and can bear and is bearing
without falling to pieces and without being hopelessly abandoned to barba-
rism.
Let it be remembered that superstition and idolatry in one form or
another have not been in the past, nor are they in the present, confined to
any particular place or locality, and that, even in our enlightened age, we
need not travel far from our own country, from England, from Scotland,
from Ireland, France, Germany or Spain to find considerable traces of
gross superstition. We consult familiar spirits in America. Queen Victoria
gets water from the Jordan to christen her children, as if the water of that
river were any better than the water of any other river. Many go thousands
of miles in this age of light to see an old seamless coat supposed to have
some divine virtue. Christians at Rome kiss the great toe of a black image
called St. Peter, and go up stairs on their knees, to gain divine favor. Here,
we build houses and call them God’s houses, and go into them to meet God,
as if the Almighty dwelt in temples made with men’s hands. I am not,
myself, altogether free from superstition. I would rather sit at a table with
twelve persons than at one with thirteen; and would rather see the new
moon first over my right shoulder than over my left, though my reason tells
me that it makes no manner of difference over which shoulder 1 see the new
moon or the old. And what better is the material of one house than that of
another? Can man build a house more holy than the house which God
himself has built for the children of men? If men are denied a future
civilization because of superstition, there are others than the people of
Haiti who must be so denied. In one form or another, superstition will be
found everywhere and among all sorts of people, high or low. New England
once believed in witches, and yet she has become highly civilized.
Haiti is charged with the terrible crime of sacrificing little children to
her voudou gods, and you will want to know what I have to say about this
shocking allegation. My answer is: That while I lived in Haiti I made
diligent inquiry about this alleged practice so full of horror. I questioned
many persons concerning it, but I never met a man who could say that he
ever saw an instance of the kind; nor did I ever see a man who ever met any
other man who said he had seen such an act of human sacrifice. This I know
is not conclusive, for strange things have sometimes been done in the name
of God, and in the practice of religion. You know that our good father
Abraham (not Abraham Lincoln) once thought that it would please
Jehovah to have him kill his son Isaac and offer him [as] a sacrifice on the
altar.30Gen. 22: 1-13. Men in all ages have thought to gain divine favor of their divinities
or to escape their wrath by offering up to them something of great and
special value. Sometimes it was the firstlings of the flock, and sometimes it
was the fat of fed beasts, fed for the purpose of having it nice and accept-
able to the divine being. As if a divine being could be greatly pleased with
the taste or smell of such offerings. Men have become more sensible of
late. They keep, smell and eat their fat beef and mutton themselves.
As to the little boys and girls running nude in the streets, I have to say,
that while there are instances of the kind, and more of them than we, with
the ideas of our latitude, would easily tolerate, they are nevertheless the
exceptions to the general rule in Haiti. You will see in the streets of Port au
Prince, one hundred decently dressed children to one that is nude; yet, our
newspaper correspondents and six-day tourists in Haiti, would lead you to
think that nudity is there the rule and decent clothing the exception. It
should be remembered also, that in a warm climate like that of Haiti, the
people consider more the comfort of their children in this respect than any
fear of improper exposure of their little innocent bodies.
A word about snake worship. This practice is not new in the history of
religion. It is as old as Egypt and is a part of our own religious system.
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness as a remedy for a great
malady, and our Bible tells us of some wonderful things done by the serpent
in the way of miraculous healing.31Douglass alludes to Num. 21: 8-9 and John 3: 14. Besides, he seems to have been on
hand and performed marvelous feats in the Garden of Eden,32Gen. 3: 1-5, 13-14. and to have
wielded a potent and mysterious influence in deciding the fate of mankind
for time and eternity. Without the snake, the plan of salvation itself would
not be complete. No wonder then that Haiti, having heard so much of the
serpent in these respectable quarters and sublime relations, has acquired
some respect for a divinity so potent and so ancient.
But the future of Haiti. What is it to be? Will it be civilization or
barbarism‘? Will she remain an independent state, or be swallowed up by
one or another of the great states? Whither is she tending? In considering
these questions, we should allow no prejudice to influence us on the one
hand or the other. If it be true that the Negro, left to himself, lapses into
barbarism, as is alleged; the Negro above and beyond all others in the world
should know it and should acknowledge it.
But it is said that the people of Haiti are lazy. Well, with the conditions
of existence so easy and the performance of work so uninviting, the wonder
is not that the men of Haiti are lazy, but that they work at all. But it is not
true that the people of Haiti are as lazy as they are usually represented to be.
There is much hard work done in Haiti, both mental and physical. This is
true, not only of accessible altitudes where the air is cool and bracing, but it
is so in the low lands, where the climate is hot, parching and enervating. No
one can see the ships afloat in the splendid harbors of Haiti, and see the
large imports and exports of the country, without seeing also that somebody
there has been at work. A revenue of millions does not come to a country
where no work is done.
Plainly enough; we should take no snap judgment on a question so
momentous. It should not be determined by a dash of the pen and upon
mere appearances of the moment. There are ebbs and flows in the tide of
human affairs, and Haiti is no exception to this rule. There have been times
in her history when she gave promise of great progress, and others, when
she seemed to retrograde. We should view her in the broad light of her
whole history, and observe well her conduct in the various vicissitudes
through which she has passed. Upon such broad view I am sure Haiti will
be vindicated.
It was once said by the great Daniel O’Connell, that the history of
Ireland might be traced, like a wounded man through a crowd, by the
blood. The same may be said of the history of Haiti as a free state. Her
liberty was born in blood, cradled in misfortune, and has lived more or less
in a storm of revolutionary turbulence. It is important to know how she
behaved in these storms. As I view it, there is one great fundamental and
soul-cheering fact concerning her. It is this: Despite all the trying
vicissitudes of her history, despite all the machinations of her enemies at
home, in spite of all temptations from abroad, despite all her many destruc-
tive revolutions, she has remained true to herself, true to her autonomy, and
still remains a free and independent state. No power on this broad earth has
yet induced or seduced her to seek a foreign protector, or has compelled her
to bow her proud neck to a foreign government.
We talk of assuming protectorate over Haiti. We had better not attempt
it. The success of such an enterprise is repelled by her whole history. She
would rather abandon her ports and harbors, retire to her mountain fast-
nesses, or burn her towns and shed her warm, red, tropical blood over their
ashes than to submit to the degradation of any foreign yoke, however
friendly. In whatever may be the sources of her shame and misfortune, she
has one source of great complacency; she lives proudly in the glory of her
bravely won liberty and her blood bought independence, and no hostile
foreign foot has been allowed to tread her sacred soil in peace from the hour
of her independence until now. Her future autonomy is at least secure.
Whether civilized or savage, whatever the future may have in store for her,
Haiti is the black man’s country, now and forever. (Applause)
In just vindication of Haiti, I can go one step further. I can speak of her,
not only words of admiration, but words of gratitude as well. She has
grandly served the cause of universal human liberty. We should not forget
that the freedom you and I enjoy to-day; that the freedom that eight hundred
thousand colored people enjoy in the British West Indies; the freedom that
has come to the colored race the world over, is largely due to the brave
stand taken by the black sons of Haiti ninety years ago. When they struck
for freedom, they builded better than they knew.33Douglass adapts a line from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem “The Problem" (1847). , 9: 6-9. Their swords were not
drawn and could not be drawn simply for themselves alone. They were
linked and interlinked with their race, and striking for their freedom, they
struck for the freedom of every black man in the world. (Prolonged ap-
plause.)
It is said of ancient nations, that each had its special mission in the
world and that each taught the world some important lesson. The Jews
taught the world a religion, a sublime conception of the Deity. The Greeks
taught the world philosophy and beauty. The Romans taught the world
jurisprudence. England is foremost among the modern nations in com-
merce and manufactures. Germany has taught the world to think, while the
American Republic is giving the world an example ofa Government by the
people, of the people and for the people. (Applause) Among these large
bodies, the little community of Haiti, anchored in the Carribean Sea, has
had her mission in the world, and a mission which the world had much need
to learn. She has taught the world the danger of slavery and the value of
liberty. In this respect she has been the greatest of all our modern teachers.
Speaking for the Negro, I can say, we owe much to Walker for his
appeal;34David Walker. to John Brown (applause) for the blow struck at Harper’s Ferry, to
Lundy and Garrison35Benjamin Lundy and William Lloyd Garrison. for their advocacy (applause), and to the abolition-
ists in all the countries of the world. (Applause) We owe much especially
to Thomas Clarkson, (applause), to William Wilberforce, to Thomas
Fowell Buxton, and to the anti-slavery societies at home and abroad; but
we owe incomparably more to Haiti than to them all. (Prolonged ap-
plause.) I regard her as the original pioneer emancipator of the nineteenth
century. (Applause) It was her one brave example that first of all startled
the Christian world into a sense of the Negro’s manhood. It was she who
first awoke the Christian world to a sense of “the danger of goading too far
the energy that slumbers in a black man's arm.” (Applause) Until Haiti
struck for freedom, the conscience of the Christian world slept profoundly
over slavery. It was scarcely troubled even by a dream of this crime against
justice and liberty. The Negro was in its estimation a sheep-like creature,
having no rights which white men were bound to respect,36Douglass paraphrases the language of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney's decision in the Dred Scott case. Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sandford, 19 Howard 393 (1857), 407-10. a docile ani-
mal, a kind of ass, capable of bearing burdens, and receiving stripes from a
white master without resentment, and without resistance. The mission of
Haiti was to dispel this degradation and dangerous delusion, and to give to
the world a new and true revelation of the blackman’s character. This
mission, she has performed and performed it well. (Applause)
Until she spoke no Christian nation had abolished negro slavery. Until
she spoke no Christian nation had given to the world an organized effort to
abolish slavery. Until she spoke the slave ship, followed by hungry sharks,
greedy to devour the dead and dying slaves flung overboard to feed them,
ploughed in peace the South Atlantic painting the sea with the Negro’s
blood. Until she spoke, the slave trade was sanctioned by all the Christian
nations of the world, and our land of liberty and light included. Men made
fortunes by this infernal traffic, and were esteemed as good Christians, and
the standing types and representations of the Saviour of the World. Until
Haiti spoke, the church was silent, and the pulpit was dumb. Slave-traders
lived and slave-traders died. Funeral sermons were preached over them,
and of them it was said that they died in the triumphs of the Christian faith
and went to heaven among the just.
To have any just conception or measurement of the intelligence, soli-
darity and manly courage of the people of Haiti when under the lead of
Toussaint L’Ouverture, (prolonged applause) and the dauntless Des-
salines,37Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1753?-1806), an ex-slave and general in Toussaint L’Ouverture's rebel army, earned the nickname “Tiger” for his relentless massacre of French troops and native whites. Elected govemor-general for life of the newly independent Haiti by a convention of generals in January 1804, Dessalines took the title Emperor Jacques I in imitation of Napoleon Bonaparte later the same year. Dessalines ruled until 17 October 1806 when assassinated by mutinous troops. Davis, , 4, 91-98; Heinl and Heinl, , 111-16, 123-38; Perusse, , 27-28. you must remember what the conditions were by which they
were surrounded; that all the neighboring islands were slaveholding, and
that to no one of all these islands could she look for sympathy, support and
co-operation. She trod the wine press alone. Her hand was against the
Christian world, and the hand of the Christian world was against her. Her's
was a forlorn hope, and she knew that she must do or die.
In Greek or Roman history nobler daring cannot be found. It will ever
be a matter of wonder and astonishment to thoughtful men, that a people in
abject slavery, subject to the lash, and kept in ignorance of letters, as these
slaves were, should have known enough, or have had left in them enough
manhood, to combine, to organize, and to select for themselves trusted
leaders and with loyal hearts to follow them into the jaws of death to obtain
liberty. (Applause)
In forecasting the future of this people, then, I insist that some impor-
tance shall be given to this and to another grand initial fact: (Applause) Her
people fought for it. They suffered for it, and thousands of them endured
the most horrible tortures, and perished for it. It is well said that a people to
whom freedom is given can never wear it as grandly as can they who have
fought and suffered to gain it. Here, as elsewhere, what comes easily, is
liable to go easily. But what man will fight to gain, that, man will fight to
maintain. To this test Haiti was early subjected, and she stood this test like
pure gold. (Applause)
To re-enslave her brave self-emancipated sons of liberty, France sent in
round numbers, to Haiti during the years 1802-1803, 50,000 of her vet-
eran troops, commanded by her most experienced and skillful generals.
History tells us what became of these brave and skillful warriors from
France. It shows that they shared the fate of Pharaoh and his hosts.38They were drowned in the Red Sea as told in Exod. 14: 26-30. Negro
manhood, Negro bravery, Negro military genius and skill, assisted by
yellow fever and pestilence made short work of them. The souls of them by
thousands were speedily sent into eternity, and their bones were scattered
on the mountains of Haiti, there to bleach, burn and vanish under the fierce
tropical sun. Since 1804 Haiti has maintained national independence. (Ap-
plause.) I fling these facts at the feet of the detractors of the Negro and of
Haiti. They may help them to solve the problem of her future. They not
only indicate the Negro’s courage, but demonstrate his intelligence as well.
(Applause)
No better test of the intelligence of a people can be had than is fur-
nished in their laws, their institutions and their great men. To produce these
in any considerable degree of perfection, a high order of ability is always
required. Haiti has no cause to shrink from this test or from any other.
Human greatness is classified in three divisions: first, greatness of
administration; second, greatness of organization; and the third, great-
ness of discovery, the latter being the highest order of human greatness.39Douglass summarizes Theodore Parker’s classification of human greatness first enunciated in a sermon in 1848. Parker, , 204-12.
In all three of these divisions, Haiti appears to advantage. Her Toussaint
L'Ouvertures, her Dessalines, her Christophes,40Henri Christophe. her Petions,41Alexandre Sabes Pétion (1770-1818), a well-educated mulatto and general in Jean-Jacques Dessalines's imperial army. Following the latter's assassination in 1806. Pétion became the most serious rival of Henri Christophe for control of Haiti. He received the title of President of the Republic of Haiti from an assembly of delegates representing the country‘s southwestem region in 1807. Pétion is best remembered for dividing the former French plantations into small plots by which he permanently changed the nature of Haitian agriculture. A benevolent dictator nicknamed “Papa Bon-coeur" by Haitians, Pétion ruled the southern third of the country for twelve years and was one of the few Haitian leaders to die, uneventfully, in office. Davis, , 99-113; Heinl and Heinl, , 150-153; Cole, , 140, 155-60; Perusse, , 79-80. her Re-
gaud42In 1793, while Toussaint rallied rebel slaves in northern Haiti, André Rigaud (1761-1811), a mulatto general of exceptional military talent, organized the free colored people against the white populace in the south. From June 1799 to July 1800, Rigaud and his mulatto army battled Toussaint's predominantly black forces for control of Haiti. Defeated, Rigaud fled to France but returned to Haiti the following year as an officer in the French invasion army. The French, however, soon expelled Rigaud and imprisoned him at Fort de Joux near the Swiss border where Toussaint later joined him. Finally released in 1810, Rigaud returned to Haiti and shared power with Petion in the south until his death in 1811. Davis, , 45, 47, 53-55, 61, 104-05; Heinl and Heinl, , 52, 91, 117, 166; On, , 85-88, 109-16, 146. and others, their enemies being judges, were men of decided ability.
(Applause) They were great in all the three departments of human great-
ness. Let any man in our highly favored country, undertake to organize an
army of raw recruits, and especially let any colored man undertake to
organize men of his own color, and subject them to military discipline, and
he will at once see the hard task that Haiti had on hand, in resisting France
and slavery, and be led to admire the ability and character displayed by her
sons in making and managing her armies and achieving her freedom.
(Applause)
But Haiti did more than raise armies and discipline troops. She orga-
nized a Government and maintained a Government during eighty-seven
years. Though she has been ever and anon swept by whirlwinds of lawless
turbulence; though she has been shaken by earthquakes of anarchy at
home, and has encountered the chilling blasts of prejudices and hate from
the outside world, though she has been assailed by fire and sword, from
without and within, she has, through all the machinations of her enemies,
maintained a well defined civil government, and maintains it to-day. (Applause.)
She is represented at all the courts of Europe, by able men, and, in
turn, she has representatives from all the nations of Europe in her capital.43Between Haiti’s declaration of independence in 1804 and the administration of President Louis Mondestin Florvil Hyppolite, many nations had recognized Haiti’s sovereignty by establishing diplomatic relations, including France (1825), Great Britain (1838), the United States (1862), Brazil (1865), and Venezuela (1874). Heinl and Heinl, , 691-93; Logan, , 231-32.
She has her judiciary, her executive and legislative departments. She
has her house of representatives and her senate. All the functions of gov-
ernment have been, and are now being, regularly performed within her
domain. What does all this signify? I answer. Very much to her credit. If it
be true that all the present, and all the future rests upon all the past, there is a
solid ground to hope for Haiti. There is a fair chance that she may yet be
highly progressive, prosperous and happy. (Applause)
Those who have studied the history of civilization, with the largest
range of observation and the most profound philosophical generalization,
tell us that men are governed by their antecedents; that what they did under
one condition of affairs they will be likely to do under similar conditions,
whenever such shall arise. Haiti has in the past, raised many learned, able
and patriotic men. She has made wise laws for her own government.
Among her citizens she has had scholars and statesmen, learned editors,
able lawyers and eminent physicians. She has now, men of education in the
church and in her government, and she is now, as ever, in the trend of
civilization. She may be slow and halting in the race, but her face is in the
right direction. (Applause)
THE STATEMENT THAT SHE IS ON THE DOWN GRADE TO
BARBARISM is easily made, but hard to sustain. It is not at all borne out
by my observation and experience while in that country. It is my good
fortune to possess the means of comparison, as to “what Haiti was and
what Haiti is;” what she was twenty years ago, and what she is now. I
visited that country twenty years ago44Douglass visited Haiti in 1871 while serving as assistant secretary of a commission sent to Santo Domingo by President Ulysses Grant. Douglass, , 449-55; Quarles, , 255- 57. and have spent much time there
since, and l have no hesitation in saying that, with all that l have said of her
revolutions and defective civilization, I can report a marked and gratifying
improvement in the condition of her people, now, compared with what it
was twenty years ago. (Applause)
IN PORT AU PRINCE, which may be taken as a fair expression of the
general condition of the country, I saw more apparent domestic happiness,
more wealth, more personal neatness, more attention to dress, more car-
riages rolling through the streets, more commercial activity, more schools,
more well clothed and well cared for children, more churches, more teach-
ers, more Sisters of Charity45Douglass might be referring to Catholic female religious orders in general or to members of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. , 15 vols. (New York, 1976), 3: 470-72; Leyburn, , 128. more respect for marriage, more family
comfort, more attention to sanitary conditions, more and better water
supply, more and better Catholic clergy, more attention to religious obser-
vances, more elegant residences, and more of everything desirable than I
saw there twenty years ago. (Applause)
AT THAT TIME HAITI was isolated. She was outside of telegraphic
communication with the civilized world. She now has such connection.
She has paid for a cable of her own and with her own money.46In 1879, President Louis Etienne Félicité (Lysius) Salomon commissioned a British company to lay a cable between Port-au-Prince and Kingston, Jamaica. Eight years later, the Haitians ordered another telegraphic cable, connecting Môle St. Nicolas with Santiago de Cuba. Heinl and Heinl, , 274-75, 320; Logan, , 385, 394.
THIS HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED under the much abused Presi-
dent Hyppolite. (Applause) Then, there was no effort to light any of the
streets. Now, the main streets are lighted. The streets are full of carriages at
night, but none are allowed to appear without lighted lamps, and every
attention is given to the peace and good order of the citizens. There is much
loud talk in Haiti, but blows are seldom exchanged between Haitians.
EVEN HER REVOLUTIONS are less sanguinary and ruthless now,
than formerly. They have in many cases been attended with great disregard
of private rights, with destruction of property and the commission of other
crimes, but nothing of the kind was permitted to occur in the revolution by
which President Hyppolite, was raised to power. He was inaugurated in a
manner as orderly as that of inducting into office any President of the
United States. (Applause)
BEFORE WE DECIDE AGAINST THE probability of progress in
Haiti, we should look into the history of the progress of other nations.
Some of the most enlightened and highly civilized states of the world of to-
day, were, a few centuries ago, as deeply depraved in morals, manners and
customs, as Haiti is alleged to be now. Prussia, which is to-day the arbiter
of peace and war in Europe and holds in her borders the profoundest
thinkers of the nineteenth century, was, only three centuries ago, like Haiti,
the theatre of warring factions, and the scene of flagrant immoralities.47After fighting fifteen major wars, among which were the Thirty Years Wars (1618-48), the Nordic War ( 1715-20), and the Seven Years War (756-63), the Austro-Prussian War ( 1866), and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Prussia won control over all of Germany and established itself as an empire in 1871. Sebastian Haffner, , trans. Ewald Osers (London, 1980), 164-74.
France, England, Italy and Spain have all gone through the strife and
turmoil of factional war, the like of which now makes Haiti a by-word, and
a hissing to a mocking earth.48Douglass probably paraphrases Jer. 18: 16, 19: 8. 25: 9, 25: 18, 51: 37. As they have passed through the period of
violence, why may not Haiti do the same? (Applause)
IT SHOULD ALSO BE REMEMBERED THAT HAITI IS STILL IN
HER CHILDHOOD. Give her time! Give her time!! While eighty years
may be a good old age for a man, it can only be as a year in the life of a
nation. With a people beginning a national life as Haiti did, with such crude
material within, and such antagonistic forces operating upon her from
without, the marvel is, not that she is far in the rear of civilization, but that
she has survived in any sense as a civilized nation.
THOUGH SHE IS STILL AN INFANT, she is out of the arms of her
mother. Though she creeps, rather than walks; stumbles often and some-
times falls, her head is not broken, and she still lives and grows, and I
predict, will yet be tall and strong. Her wealth is greater, her population is
larger, her credit is higher, her currency is sounder, her progress is surer,
her statesmen are abler, her patriotism is nobler, and her government is
steadier and firmer than twenty years ago. I predict that out of civil strife,
revolution and war, there will come a desire for peace. Out of division will
come a desire for union. out of weakness a desire for strength, out of
ignorance a desire for knowledge, and out of stagnation will come a desire
for progress. (Applause) Already I find in her a longing for peace. Already
she feels that she has had enough and more than enough of war. Already
she perceives the need of education, and is providing means to obtain it on a
large scale. Already she has added five hundred schools to her forces of
education, within the two years of Hyppolite’s administration. (Applause)
In the face of such facts; in the face of the fact that Haiti still lives, after
being boycotted by all the Christian world; in the face of the fact of her
known progress within the last twenty years, in the face of the fact that she
has attached herself to the car of the world’s civilization, 1 will not, I cannot
believe that her star is to go out in darkness, but I will rather believe that
whatever may happen of peace or war Haiti will remain in the firmament of
nations, and, like the star of the north, will shine on and shine on forever.
(Prolonged applause.)