By the close of the decade 1790-1800 the fear occasioned by the Haytian revolution had led to a general movement against the importation of Negroes, especially of those from the West Indies.  Even Georgia in 1798 prohibited the importation of all slaves, and this provision, although very loosely enforced, was never repealed.  In South Carolina, however, to the utter chagrin and dismay of the other states, importation, prohibited in 1787, was again legalized in 1803; and in the four years immediately following 39,075 Negroes were brought to Charleston, most of these going to the territories.[1] When in 1803 Ohio was carved out of the Northwest Territory as a free state, an attempt was made to claim the rest of the territory for slavery, but this failed.  In the congressional session of 1804-5 the matter of slavery in the newly acquired territory of Louisiana was brought up, and slaves were allowed to be imported if they had come to the United States before 1798, the purpose of this provision being to guard against the consequences of South Carolina’s recent act, although such a clause never received rigid enforcement.  The mention of Louisiana, however, brings us concretely to Toussaint L’Ouverture, the greatest Negro in the New World in the period and one of the greatest of all time.

[Footnote 1:  DuBois:  Suppression of the Slave-Trade, 90.]

2.  Toussaint L’Ouverture, Louisiana, and the Formal Closing of the Slave-Trade

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, it was not long before its general effects were felt in the West Indies.  Of special importance was Santo Domingo because of the commercial interests centered there.  The eastern end of the island was Spanish, but the western portion was French, and in this latter part was a population of 600,000, of which number 50,000 were French Creoles, 50,000 mulattoes, and 500,000 pure Negroes.  All political and social privileges were monopolized by the Creoles, while the Negroes were agricultural laborers and slaves; and between the two groups floated the restless element of the free people of color.

When the General Assembly in France decreed equality of rights to all citizens, the mulattoes of Santo Domingo made a petition for the enjoyment of the same political privileges as the white people—­to the unbounded consternation of the latter.  They were rewarded with a decree which was so ambiguously worded that it was open to different interpretations and which simply heightened the animosity that for years had been smoldering.  A new petition to the Assembly in 1791 primarily for an interpretation brought forth on May 15 the explicit decree that the people of color were to have all the rights and privileges of citizens, provided they had been born of free parents on both sides.  The white people were enraged by the decision, turned royalist, and trampled the national cockade underfoot; and throughout the summer armed strife and conflagration were the rule.  To add to the confusion the black slaves struck for freedom and on the night of August 23, 1791, drenched the island in blood.  In the face of these events the Conventional Assembly rescinded its order, then announced that the original decree must be obeyed, and it sent three commissioners with troops to Santo Domingo, real authority being invested in Santhonax and Polverel.