The Black Mozart

by Walter E Smith

  Saint-Georges' removal was assuredly nothing less than an arbitrary measure, as unjust as it was unjustified. With the preponderance of evidence in his favor, the Committee of Public Safety reinstated Saint-Georges to the command of the American Hussards on the 15th of May, 1795.

  However, Saint-Georges had some new problems. During his absence the Regiment had been reorganized twice, first by Target and then by a M. Bouquet. Therefore, Saint-Georges became the third colonel. Target immediately stepped down, and the rivalry between Saint-Georges and Bouquet began. The situation became chaotic with two colonels giving orders. The Regiment became divided between the Saint-Georgists and the Bouquetistes.

  Since the Regiment was originally Saint-Georges', the military Commission preferred him to Bouquet, especially since his commandment had been taken away form him by an arbitrary decision.

  Bouquet took advantage of the fact that Saint-Georges had stayed in Paris and that while he was giving direct commands to the Regiment, Saint-Georges was seen as creating disorganization by trying to command without being present.

  The situation grew worse for Saint-Georges when the Commune of Arras complained that the 13th Regiment had displayed royalist opinions. This accusation was so dangerous that it even affected Bouquet.

  Again Saint-Georges lost his command! But again he was placed at the head of the squad by General Kermorvan to show that from then on he had the command of this unity.

  Finally, politics entered and Saint-Georges was dismissed again on October 30, 1795 and Bouquet became commander of the 13th Regiment de Chasseurs à Cheval (13th Regiment of Horse Hunters).

  This last dismissal was based on a certain article 15 of the decree of the third brumaire2 year IV (October 24, 1795). This article was replaced a year later on December 4, 1796.

  Again Saint-Georges requested that the decision of dismissal be reconsidered. He wrote a letter to Rewbell presenting his case:

  George, Chef de Brigade du 13 Regiment de Chasseurs à cheval.

  To citizen Rewbell, one of the members of the executive directory.

  Citizen,

  I commanded the 13th Regiment of Hunters from the time of its creation; relieved of this position September 29, '93 by the Minister Bouchotte,

  I was reinstated the 24 Flored of the year III (May 15, 1794). But an act of the 8 Brumaire (October 29) following stated that:

  As I am included in Article 15 of the law of the 3rd day of the month of Brumaire (October 24), I am obliged to leave the 13th Regiment of Huntsmen (Cavalry) and to retire from every other commune than that in which the Regiment is presently placed.

  The above mentioned Article 15 is precisely one of those replaced by the law of the 14th Brumaire of the year 5 (December 4, 1796) of which I am enclosing a copy.

  I have constantly proven my attachment to the Revolution. I served it from the beginning of the war with a tireless zeal which even persecutions were not able to diminish. My only resource is to be reinstated in my rank. I address you with confidence, Citizen Director, and I demand of your spirit of justice the position of brigade captain of which I was deprived by virtue of an article which is no longer in effect since it was replaced by a subsequent law.

  Greetings and respect

  George.

  His request was never answered and Saint-Georges' military career came to a sad and tragic end. Saint-Georges was not just fighting for his honor and for redress alone, he needed the position because he needed the money. The Revolution had taken its toll: many lost all they had; Saint-Georges was not excluded.

  1Odet Denys explains in his book Article 15 and its relation to Saint-Georges. The explanation is long and a little complicated, but it can help understand the politics and paranoia that exists during any revolution and in this particular case, The French Revolution.

  Article 15 which was brought against Saint-Georges was to suspend officers and commissaries of war who not being in activity of service the 15th germinal3 an III (April 5, 1795), had been placed from that time until the 14th thermidor4 of the same year (August 2, 1795). Saint-Georges was precisely not in action the 15th germinal year III (April 7, 1795) and had been re-integrated the following month, so that he did not fall under Article 15.

  But this article appears at first glance, to have no connections other than dispositions of the decree of 3rd brumaire year IV (October 24, 1795).

  Taken on the eve of the last session of the Convention, the decree in effect was directed against individuals capable of 'having provoked or signed seditious measures contrary to the laws in the primary or electoral assemblies,' on the other hand against immigrants, their relatives or allies, as well as by priests who had refused to support the revolution.

  Those they wanted to reach were bourgeois, who had taken the part, sometimes even resulting in violence, against the decree which maintained in the next legislature body two-thirds of the members of the convention.

  Article 15 hit, also, officers, war commissaries, employees of military administrators who, being in active service on the tenth of August, 1792, had retired since that date, then taking up service again in the army. Those were not only suspended but their job was taken away from them without the chance of being reinstated. So it was obviously a question of royalist soldiers, or supposedly royalist soldiers.

  But concerning officers and war commissaries who were brought into question by article 15- -the one which concerned Saint-Georges a particular period (that of the fifth of August and the 2nd of April, 1795) was specified.

  By what motives?

  The answers given by events which preceded the 13th vendémiaire5 (October 5, 1795) and by the reaction which followed this famous date, the beginning of the dazzling career of Bonaparte.

  Since the fall of Robespierre, and particularly since the spring of 1795, there were many immigrants who had come back into the capitol.

  They had allied themselves with a certain number of rich bourgeois, who were dissatisfied with the ruling regime and especially with the accelerating fall of the assignats; they had also taken contacts with some of the members of the convention who were very anxious to make a profitable change.

  But if the period from April 5th to August 2, 1795 was specified, it's because during that period the ministry of war had been administered by one of the authors of the fall of Roberspierre, certainly, by Thermidorien6, as like the other people in power at the time, but whom the majority of the other thermidoriens had found, at the date of this decree of the 3rd brumaire year IV (October 24, 1795), 'reactionary,' too zealous not to be suspected of connivance with the royalist or the federalists.

  By taking this decree, the convention, most of whose members wanted to stay in power, showed that they had not forgotten to guard the days of before the repression of the 13th vendémiare, nor the role that certain officers had played in the plot.

  Because he had been reintegrated during this period, Saint-Georges found himself among the mass of suspects. Yet his dossier contained authentic proofs of good service given before to the republic. And the texts stated that in this case his suspension should be lifted. Yet it was not.

  Once again, it definitively appears that he was the victim of envious rivalries and of vigilant friendships. In any hypotheses, the silence given to his request cannot be excused, since the text by which he was dismissed was not found or had been retracted.

  It is obvious that Saint-Georges was certainly a victim of politics; however, it was a time of politics. But he was more fortunate than many accused of lesser crimes, who were not fortunate enough to go to prison but instead were taken quickly to the guillotine to loose their heads. Such was the fate of the Duke of Orléans and so many lesser-known people with much less influence or power. Many, in order to escape this fate, fled the country to live in exile; others were ordered to leave or were forced into exile. It would not have been unusual at all had Saint-Georges suffered a
ny of these other fates. It was not unusual that he was sent to prison on suspicions.

  Chapter VI

  Seeking a New Life

  Toussaint L'Ouverture and The Haitian Revolution.

  With the end of his military career, the death and exile of most of his friends and associates and having lost his money in the Revolution, the world looked very bleak for Saint-Georges. What would he do now? What could he do? He was well into his fifties, not a young man any longer, although he was still well built and handsome. With a torn Achilles tendon and his advanced age, fencing exhibitions did not appeal to him. What was he going to do?

  From a point of desperation came a great idea. He would return to San Domingo and see if he could claim the plantation that his father had left behind. Perhaps in this way, he could sell it or get money from it in. At least it was property, and it presented a chance, a hope to recover.

  Saint-Georges left for San Domingo. Before the ship could dock, on the horizon, he could see smoke and hear explosions. What was happening? Saint-Georges had not kept in touch with the situation on this island or he would have known what to expect.

  There, taking place before him was another Revolution, but very different in its causes and in its execution. This was an armed uprising of the slaves and former slaves against the whites. And it was not a different ruler who was desired but a completely different system. Here, freedom was the issue, freedom from slavery.

  Christopher Columbus discovered Haiti and found that the Indians there had already settled it. They were peaceful and helped Columbus and his men. In the name of Spain, Columbus annexed the island, and called it Hispañiola, and immediately began exploiting the natives. They introduced Christianity, forced labor in mines, murder, rape, bloodhounds, strange diseases and artificial famine (by the destruction of cultivation to starve the rebellious). These and other requirements of the higher civilization reduced the native population from an estimated half-a-million, perhaps a million, to 60,000 in 15 years. Since the population of Indians was being wiped out, there was a fear of a shortage of forced labor. The Spanish decided to take slaves from Africa. Thus, in 1517, Spain started the slave trade business in America.

  Later, France gained the western part of this island through a treaty. In order to supplement the labor force on its part of the island, France brought in whites who were like the indentured servants in North America, who could work for a period of time and gain their freedom. They also had freedmen from France, who were offered property if they would work the property for 36 months. These people were known as les trente-six mois. The whites found the climate too hot. More slaves were needed, thus the number of slaves imported increased to thousands brought to the Americas.

  I won't go into the well-known details of the cruelty of the "middle passage." Eventually millions of slaves were brought to the other islands in the West Indies and to America.

  Slavery in San Domingo was conducted more brutally than in America as I previously stated. This among many other reasons led to resistance and finally insurrection. C. L. R. James in his book, The Black Jacobins gives us a description of the conditions of the slave in San Domingo. He says:

  The difficulty was that though one could trap them like an animal, transport them in pens, work them alongside an ass or a horse and beat both with the same stick, stable them and starve them, they remained, despite their black skins and curly hair, quite invincibly human beings; with the intelligence and resentments of human beings. To cow them into the necessary docility and acceptance necessitated a regime of calculated brutality of property-owners apparently careless of preserving their property; they first had to ensure their own safety.1

  He goes on to describe in detail the types of torture inflicted on the slaves for the least fault:

  ---irons on the hands and feet, blocks of wood that the slaves had to drag behind them wherever they went, the tin-plate mask designed to prevent the slaves from eating the sugar-cane, the iron collar. Whipping was interrupted in order to pass a piece of hot wood on the buttocks of the victim; salt, pepper, citron, cinders, aloes, and hot ashes were poured on the bleeding wounds. Mutilations were common, limbs, ears, and sometimes the private parts, to deprive them of the pleasures they could indulge in without expense. Their masters poured burning wax on their arms and hands and shoulders, emptied the boiling cane sugar over their heads, burned them alive, roasted them on slow fires, filled them with gun powder and blew them up with a match; buried them up to the neck and smeared their heads with sugar that the flies might devour them; fastened them near to nests of ants or wasps; made them eat their excrement, drink their urine, and lick the salava of other slaves. One colonists was known in moments of anger to throw himself on his slaves and stick his teeth into their flesh.2

  These were not isolated events. These were commonly practiced daily, to perfection. Enough said about the civilized Europeans. Do they seem like the same people with whom Saint-Georges was dining, hunting and dancing? Well, not exactly, these island whites were their emissaries.

  All the slaves were not treated in this fashion. There was a small privileged group or caste composed of the foremen of the gangs, coachmen, cooks, butlers, maids, nurses, female companions, and other house-servants. These same people in America were called "house-Niggers." Because of their better treatment and small privileges, they were very faithful to their masters, many being spies and anti-black. C. L. R. James described them in this way:

  Permeated with the vices of their masters and mistresses, these upper servants gave themselves airs and despised the slaves in the fields. Dressed in cast-off silks and brocades, they gave balls in which, like trained monkeys, they danced minuets, and bowed and curtseyed in the fashion of Versailles. But a few of these used their position to cultivate themselves, to gain a little education, to learn all they could.3

  Among those of this caste were found some of the future leaders of San Domingo. Toussaint Bréda, later Toussaint L'Ouverture (the liberator of San Domingo) belonged to this caste as did Henri Christophe, who became the Emperor of Haiti and Dessalines, the first Emperor of Haiti.

  As early as 1685 or perhaps before, every Mulatto was free, up to the age of 24. This created a third group or caste. The house servants or the caste formally mentioned were still slaves although treated better than the others. The Mulattoes had white blood and most were free. There was no law, but since the masters did not want to increase the number of their enemies, they sought to align the Mulattoes with the whites. The Negro Code in 1685, in San Domingo, authorized marriage between the white and the slave who had children by him.This marriage ceremony freed the slave and her children. The Code gave the free Mulattoes and the free Negroes equal rights with the whites.

  This was before the birth of Saint-Georges in Guadeloupe which may account for his and his mother's situation, since racial prejudice was not as great at that time as it became later.

  The Mulattoes served another useful purpose to the whites. Since there was a shortage of women and since most of the white women sent to San Domingo were the ugliest and the lowest of France, the Mulatto women served additional purpose.

  The Mulatto women lived in such comfort and luxury that in 1789, of 7000 Mulatto women in San Domingo, 5000 were either prostitutes or were kept as mistresses of white men.4

  The degree of freedom of the Mulatto changed constantly according to the whims of their masters, individually and sometimes collectively. In spite of this capriciousness, the Mulattoes, after many years, owned property and amassed much wealth, while at the same time growing to outnumber the whites.

  The Mulattoes and freed Negroes also became slave owners and later shared with the whites the support of the institution of slavery and the disdain for the slave. They became rich enough to send their children to France to become educated and became money lenders to the whites. Their position was unique in that they could not be white or fully accepted as equal to whites,
and they did not wish nor did they associate themselves with these barbarous, ignorant slaves. The more freedom, wealth and education they attained, the more frustrated they became. The Mulatto, rather than be a slave to a black, would have killed himself.

  After 1789, and the taking of the Bastille, the Mulattoes, as well as the slaves saw that they had something in common with the French peasants and that maybe now, there would be a change in policy in San Domingo, like the one happening in France.

  There was a movement in France for the abolition of slavery in San Domingo by a group known as "The Friends of the Negro." Their influence and interest fluctuated for several years, and as a result, the situation of the Mulattoes was the most frustrating. They were always considered first when the issue of abolition was discussed. They were talked about as being human beings and the slaves as property.

  This constantly changing position of the Mulattoes caused them to band together in large numbers with their wealth and education. Such groups represented a great concern for the white slave-owners, who did not want the Mulattoes to unite and lead the Negroes into insurrection. But a small number of whites or small landowners still showed no respect to the Mulatto and with little provocation, attacked and lynched them.

  The Mulattoes constantly made demands for their rights and entered into many agreements with the whites for their rights, in return for a promise to help keep the Negroes as slaves. But these agreements were always broken.

  Rejected in France, humiliated at home, the Mulattoes organized a revolt. It was a quarrel between bourgeoisie and monarchy that brought the Paris masses on the political stage. It was the quarrel between whites and Mulattoes that woke the sleeping slaves.5

  The same Raymond who had asked the assembly to form a corps of blacks to fight for the French Revolution that was lead by Saint-Georges was now speaking again, stating that: "Mulattoes must be given rights so as to unite with whites to keep down the slaves." The compromise was made but later broken, as was the pattern.