Toussaint Louverture - Madison Bell [82]
This ultimatum was rash in all sorts of ways—aside from the insult and threat of injury to Toussaint's friend and former master, it was ill considered for Sonthonax to threaten Toussaint himself with four years in irons. On July 18, Toussaint took the matter over the commissioner's head, writing to the Directory in Bayon's defense. Barely five weeks later, Sonthonax himself was compelled to leave Saint Domingue.
In August 1797, Toussaint called on Sonthonax in the commissioner's house at Cap Francais. Toussaint was accompanied by Raimond and Pascal, but Sonthonax preferred to see Toussaint alone. Their conversation was interrupted, but on August 20 Sonthonax visited Toussaint to continue it—again with no witnesses. The next day, Toussaint summarized both halves of the interview to Raimond and Pascal, who set it down as a dialogue ten pages long. This piece de theatre may very well be a work of fiction but it served as Toussaints justification for pressing Sonthonax to leave the colony:
TOUSSAINT: Recall, when you proposed independence to me, you personally told me that to assure liberty it would be necessary to cut the throats of all the great planters, and you made the same propositions to other blacks, who reported them to me.
SONTHONAX: That was a long time ago, but that project was never carried out.
TOUSSAINT: I'll answer you as Creoles do—If you have a hog that eats chickens, you may put out its one eye, you may put out its other eye, but it still will eat chickens whenever it can.
SONTHONAX: What's that supposed to mean?
TOUSSAINT: It means that the wicked are incorrigible. The other time, when you came here, you told the hommes de couleur to slit the throats of all the whites, and the nouveau libre blacks to slit the throats of all the anciens libres. That's what caused the civil war and caused so much French territory to be turned over to the English and the Spanish. And then you left, and you left us nothing but trouble.
SONTHONAX: How can you have such a bad opinion of me?
TOUSSAINT: It's a true fact and all the world knows it.19
How much truth was there in any of this? At least enough to blacken Sonthonaxs reputation. Sonthonaxs exhortation to Dieudonne to fear and mistrust the mulattoes had been a public statement—in Toussaints construction of the dialogue, the rest seemed to follow quite logically. The idea of an independent Saint Domingue had arisen before 1791, and Sonthonax certainly suspected a pro-independence motive in Toussaints resistance to his own authority. This dialogue neatly turned that accusation on the accuser. Still, it is not impossible that Sonthonax did have his own dream of leading Saint Domingue to independence.
His role (as reproduced from Toussaint's formidable memory) is not a noble one. Before the play is over, Toussaint has reduced Sonthonax to pleading:
TOUSSAINT: Commissioner, this conversation will never be finished, but to conclude it, I tell you that you must prepare yourself to leave for France.
SONTHONAX: NO, General, let us forget the past.
TOUSSAINT: Comissioner, you are too well known; the salvation of the colony requires that you leave for France; it is absolutely necessary that you go; her security depends on it.
SONTHONAX: Let's forget all that, let it all be over; I promise that I will give you all I own—everything that you want.
TOUSSAINT: I want nothing, I need neither gold nor silver nor anything at all. You must go; the salvation of the colony requires it.20
And so the stage was set. On August 20, the commissioner received a letter similar to the one earlier sent to Laveaux, though this one was signed by Generals Moyse, Henry Christophe, and Clervaux and several junior officers, as well as Toussaint: “Named deputy of the colony to the Legislative Corps, commanding circumstances made it your duty to remain for some time still in our midst; then your influence was necessary, troubles had disturbed us, it was necessary