a negro government tends to degenerate into an absolutism untempered by mercy, while a mulatto government is apt to develop into an inefficient oligarchy lacking in govern

ance.

Resumption of commerce with the dominions of Christophe was not altogether profitable for American merchants. The year 1810 was an especially difficult one for American traders, for in that year Christophe had sent to the United States, $125,000 to purchase a variety of articles, but the money was fraudulently detained there. Christophe's only resource was to requisition American merchants at Cap Français for the sum and in spite of their innocence of any connection with the transaction in question, they were compelled to reimburse the king for the loss he had suffered. This was a beginning of claims upon Christophe, which, aggravated by repeated confiscations and captures of American vessels, in a few years reached a sum estimated at several hundred thousand dollars, 261

Relations with Pétion seem to have been somewhat more friendly for a mulatto régime is apt to show itself more favorable to foreign intercourse than a negro government, but even trade with the West and South had its disadvantages. In November, 1813, during our war with England, an American commercial agent was received at Port au Prince and special privileges were accorded to our privateers in Haitian harbors.262 In the following August, however, Mr. Taylor wrote that "the conduct of Pétion to our Privateers, is barely friendly.263

In 1817 the American government determined to make a serious attempt to recover the indemnity claimed by American traders from Christophe. Septimius Tyler was dispatched to Cap Français with the title of commercial agent.264 To make his mission more impressive, he was conveyed to Haiti in the frigate Congress, but the attempt

261 27 Cong., 3 sess., House Doc. 36, 6.

262 State Department Archives, Taylor to Monroe, December 10, 1813. 263 State Department Archives, Taylor to Monroe, August 30, 1814. 264 27 Cong., 3 sess., House Doc. 36, 40.

to leave him at Cap Français as a representative of the American government proved unsuccessful. The letter of credence with which he had been supplied was not in the ordinary form used in despatching commercial agents. To avoid anything like a recognition of Christophe's authority, the letter simply announced that Mr. Tyler had been named as commercial agent at Cap Français in the island of Santo Domingo. As no mention was made of his being accredited to King Henry and his court and as Cap Français had ceased to exist having been rechristened Cape Henry, while the island of Santo Domingo had been given again its old Indian name of Haiti, Christophe felt justified in refusing to receive the American commissioner.265 He was rather unfairly accused of taking this course solely in order to avoid paying the three or four hundred thousand dollars demanded by the American government;266 but the American disregard of ordinary diplomatic usage would seem sufficient justification for his action.

The following year another attempt was made to place a commercial agent at the court of King Henry. An American frigate was again employed to convey the American representative, William Taylor, to his post and he was given a certificate of appointment in which the words Cap Français and Santo Domingo were replaced by the new names, Cape Henry and Haiti. But as this certificate too did not recognize the independence of the Haitian government, Christophe refused to accord its bearer any official recognition. The only consolation for the American government was that England had failed too in a similar attempt.2 Pétion had proved less unwilling to receive American representatives. In 1817 William Taylor had been named as commercial agent at Port au Prince and Pétion had at that time expressed his desire to "preserve the most amicable relations with the United States."268 In 1818 Commodore Lewis was received in the same capacity.

265 27 Cong., 3 sess., House Doc. 36, 117.

266 Niles's Register, xiv, 263.

267 27 Cong., 3 sess., House Doc. 36, 117-120.

268 Ibid., 42.

267

Pétion's death in 1818 and the suicide of Christophe in 1820 resulted in the union of Haiti under one man, JeanPierre Boyer and two years later the Spanish part of Santo Domingo also came under his control, which continued until 1843. It was the period of despots in the South American states and Boyer would seem to have compared not unfavorably with contemporary rulers. He was, for his time and position, enlightened and liberal. He preserved peace and order, and, in contrast with the days of revolution and bloodshed that have followed, his rule is looked back upon as Haiti's golden age. But "the quiet which marked Boyer's rule was at best only a consumptive tranquility.' He displayed the typical mulatto inability to rule. He kept peace at the expense of progress and the period of his rule was one of stagnation rather than growth. St. John has summed up the results of his régime: "After a twenty years' peace, the country is described as in a state of ruin, without trade or resources of any kind; with peculations and jobbery paramount in the public offices."270 With such

17269

a ruler the United States was able to preserve some sort of diplomatic relations, though it proved a difficult task at times in the face of the determined refusal of the United States to recognize Haitian independence.

Soon after his inauguration Boyer conceived the idea of recruiting the population, decimated by constant wars, by an immigration of free blacks from the United States. It was not a new idea. Dessalines, in 1804, had offered a reward of forty dollars to American captains for every Haitian negro brought back from the United States;271 and in 1821 a Maryland Haytian Society was formed by some free blacks in that state to forward their emigration to Haiti.272 In 1824 Boyer began a serious attempt to bring over negroes in large numbers. Jonathan Granville was sent to New York as the agent of the Haitian government and was supplied with fifty thousand pounds of coffee

269 Clark, A Plea for Hayti, 34.

270 St. John, op. cit., 84.

271 Writings of James Monroe, iv, 186.

272 Niles's Register, xix, 415.

to pay the expenses of the undertaking. Boyer's terms were most liberal. He promised to pay the passage of the immigrants, support them for four months, and then grant them land at the rate of thirty-six acres to every twelve laborers.273 He was especially anxious for agricultural laborers and artisans of whom the country stood in need. According to Hunt some thirteen thousand negroes availed themselves of the opportunity to become established in a free country.274 The result was in many respects disappointing. The immigrants seem to have expected continued support in Haiti, many came from American cities and were not adapted to the rural life of the island, and a large number, finding conditions other than their imaginations had painted, returned to the United States.

Southern opposition manifested itself to a course of action which on its face would seem to have been advantageous to the slave-owners. The principal objection to the emigration was the nearness of Haiti. Already afraid of the effect upon their own slaves of the establishment as the result of a servile revolt of a "flourishing black empire," they opposed the colonization of American negroes there lest "if this example is rendered more striking and familiar by the intercourse and communication which, in the event of colonizing in Hayti, must necessarily subsist between these colonists who shall go and their connections left behind in this country, it may add greatly to the apprehended danger."275

But it was in the following year in connection with the debate on the Panama Congress that Southern feeling in regard to Haiti was most clearly and emphatically expressed. The opposition to the Panama Mission was fundamentally a party and not a sectional opposition, stirred up by the Jackson Democrats. The interest in the congress, so far as American relations with Haiti are concerned, lies

173 Biographie de Jonathan Granville, 92–93.

274 Hunt, Remarks on Hayti as a Place of Settlement for Afric-Americans, 11.

275 New York American, June 18, 1824. Quoted Biographie de Jonathan Granville, 116.

not so much in the fate of the mission as in the appeal made to the South by the opponents of the president and the very candid statement made in the course of the Senate debates of the Southern attitude toward the Black Republic. The action taken by the United States at this time did much to intensify the feeling of bitterness engendered in Haiti against the American government because of its refusal to recognize Haitian independence.

Salazar, the Columbian minister at Washington, in his letter of November 2, 1825, to Mr. Clay, then secretary of state, in mentioning the topics which the approaching Congress at Panama would be called upon to discuss, wrote in regard to Haiti:

On what basis the relations of Hayti and other parts of our hemisphere that shall hereafter be in like circumstances are to be placed, is a question simple at first view, but attended with serious difficulties when closely examined. These arise from the different manner of regarding Africans and from their different rights in Hayti, the United States, and in other American States. This question will be determined at the Isthmus, and, if possible, a uniform rule of conduct adopted in regard to it, or those modifications that may be demanded by circumstances.276

Though the president was opposed to the recognition at that time of Haitian independence and did not even favor a discussion of the question by the Panama Congress,277 a good deal of fiery invective was launched in the Senate against Señor Salazar's proposal. Mr. Hayne of South Carolina, one of the leaders of the opposition, said:

With nothing connected with slavery can we consent to treat with other nations, and, least of all, ought we to touch the question of the independence of Hayti in conjunction with Revolutionary governments, whose own history affords an example scarcely less fatal to our repose. Our policy with

regard to Hayti is plain. We never can acknowledge her independence. Other states will do as they please-but let us take the high ground, that these questions belong to a class, which the peace and safety of a large portion of our Union forbids us even to discuss. Let our government direct all our ministers in South America and Mexico to protest against the independence

276 International American Conferences, iv, 30. 277 Ibid., iv, 43, 145.