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a CREOLE article
Cultures
of Acadiana |
Lafayette (La) Daily Advertiser, May 25, 1999
Louisiana felt effects of revolutions in France, Haiti
By: Jim Bradshaw
At the time of the French Revolution, Louisiana was a Spanish colony, with a French population and close commercial ties to France. As in France, the revolution found divided opinion in Louisiana.
Kimberly Hanger reports in her essay, "Conflicting Loyalties: The French Revolution and Free people of color in Spanish New Orleans" (Louisiana History, Winter, 1993), "Persons of French descent in New Orleans were torn between desires for a reunion with the mother country and apprehensions concerning the ideals espoused by the French revolutionaries. Their political views fell along class and economic lines. The leading planters and merchants rejected notions of equality and decried efforts by republican France to end slavery
When the revolutionary ideals spread to the French Caribbean, planters in Louisiana wanted to keep those slaves "infected" with the ideas of freedom from coming to Louisiana.
According to Hangar, "(Louisiana) officials, many of them planters, urged the Spanish governor and crown to ban such importation, initially from the Caribbean, but later from Africa also. They endeavored not only to check knowledge of and experience with rebellion, but also to decrease the slave to master ratio, and they looked to a strong centralized Spanish government to provide stability and protect their interest.
"On the other hand, " Hangar continues, "several French persons in Louisiana voiced private and public support for fraternity, liberty, and equality and called for the reinstatement of French rule in (Louisiana). Some of them even went so far as to conspire with United States invasionary forces and rebel slaves in order to achieve their goals."
Historians such as Bennet H. Wall agree that the French Revolution threatened the stability of Louisiana society.
"As a monarchy, Spain could not coutenance a revolutionary France, so supporters of the French Revolution among the inhabitants of Louisiana posed a problem for (Gov. Hector de) Carondelet, "wall writes in "Louisiana: A History." "These supporters were inspired by the democratic spirit of the new government in France and they sought a similar regime in Louisiana. The situation reached near-crisis proportions in the mid-1790s when revolutionary clubs were founded in the Natchitoches and several other locations in the colony. There were public demonstrations in New Orleans and an attempted slave revolt in Point Coupée. Carondelet decided to take the hard line. He forbad the singing of French revolutionary songs and threatened to discipline those who openly showed sympathy to the French Republic. These measures worked, probably because many prominent citizens supported the governor.
T. Harry Williams gives more detail in his text, "Louisiana: A Narrative History."
"In 1793 ... two events occurred which inflamed the Creoles of Louisiana - the execution of Louis XVI and the declaration of war between France and Spain," Williams writes. "Now they marched through the streets of New Orleans yelling 'Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity' or Hang the "Marseillaise,' the Ça Ira,' and other French revolutionary songs. Carondelet issued a proclamation forbidding the reading of 'public writings, printed matters or papers relating to the political affairs of France' and prohibited meetings, gatherings, or even conversations in which the French Revolution was discussed. Those who violated the proclamation were to be imprisoned at Havana or fined 200 pesos. ... Copies of the proclamation were distributed throughout the colony ... and 'anyone who finds the observance of this order too rigorous may withdraw from the colony with all his effects to where he pleases, as the government does not care to admit or retain any subjects other than those who come to enjoy the peace, union, immunities, and advantages that form the basis of its prosperity.'
"Early in 1795," Williams continues, "even greater disorder broke out. The populace of New Orleans compelled orchestras to play revolutionary songs, secured communications and revolutionary literature from France and from the French Jacobin Society of Philadelphia, which was urging rebellion in Louisiana, and sent a petition signed by 150 citizens to the American government asking annexation to the United States. Anonymous incendiary documents appeared, reviling government officials, and citizens began to discuss the possibility of getting rid of them by use of the guillotine. Suspicion was everywhere; no one could be trusted. Mobs thronged the streets of (New Orleans), destroying property, shrieking that Carondelet was a Cochon de lait, and promising him first place on the guillotine. ... Jean Delvaux, a parish priest in Natchitoches, led an open revolutionary movement. Louisiana was practically in open rebellion against the Govenor and the Spanish regime."
Carondelet responded in several ways. First, he put more government responsibility in the hands of substanial citizens, asking them to help him preserve order. Next, he brought in additional Spanish troops and to organize militia companies to put down any revolt. But, in Williams' view, "Perhaps of even more significance, he invited numerous members of the French nobility who had fled France to immigrate to Louisiana, and when they arrived aided them in acquiring lands. This conservative element did much to calm the excited people and to put down the spirit of revolt."
In all, fewer than 100 people were expelled from the colony during the disturbances, and not even a dozen were sent to prison in Havana.
Free people of color in New Orleans also reflected the conflicting loyalties in Louisiana. Some of them helped defend the colony against pro-French agitators and discontented slaves in Louisiana. Others, Hangar notes, "advocated the overthrow of a discriminatory Spanish government and the enactment of liberal French laws that guaranteed free blacks equal rights as citizens and that abolished slavery in France and its colonies."
when the Louisiana colony was transferred from Spain to France in 1803, "officials continued to express concern about contact between persons of African descent in the Caribean and in Louisiana, "according to Hanger. "In August 1803, (for example) the French Prefect, Pierre Clément de Laussat, asked the Spanish governor ... to detain five black sailors from Saint-Domingue at the moth of the Mississippi in order to 'avoid any communication between these blacks and those of this colony.'"
While there were several agitators among the free black population of Louisiana who wanted to use the rebellions in France and Haiti to further their liberties in Louisiana, in the long run things got worse, not better, for free black people here.
According to Hangar, "Louisiana never experienced a revolution like the one in Saint-Domingue ... (but) the free black rights and privileges deteriorated even further under United States rule. Without the protection of a paternalistic Spanish government free people of color in New Orleans encountered continuning attacks on their status as a distinct group; local whites endeavored to treat all persons of African descent like slaves.