# The Black Man (Brown)/Andre Rigaud

ANDRE RIGAUD.
Slavery, in St. Domingo, created three classes—the white planters, the free mulattoes, and the slaves, the latter being all black. The revolution brought out several valiant chiefs among the mulattoes, their first being Vincent Oge. This man was not calculated for a leader of rebellion. His mother having been enabled to support him in France as a gentleman, he had cherished a delicacy of sentiment very incompatible with ​the ferocity of revolt. But Andre Rigaud, their next and greatest chief, was a far different man. A native of Aux Cayes, educated at Bourdeaux, and afterwards spending some time at Paris, maturing his mind amid scenes of science and literature, Rigaud's position among his followers was an exalted one. His father was white and his mother black. He was tall and slim, with features beautifully defined. Nature had been profligate in bestowing her gifts upon him.
While at the Military School at Paris, besides being introduced into good society, he became acquainted with Lafayette, Condorcet, Gregoire, and other distinguished statesmen, and his manners were polished and his language elegant. In religion he was the very opposite of Toussaint. An admirer of Voltaire and Rousseau, he had made their works his study. A long residence in the French metropolis had enabled him to become acquainted with the followers of these two distinguished philosophers. He had seen two hundred thousand persons following the bones of Voltaire, when removed to the Pantheon, and, in his admiration for the great author, had confounded liberty with infidelity. In Asia, he would have governed an empire; in St. Domingo, he was scarcely more than an outlawed chief; but he had in his soul the elements of a great man. In military science, horsemanship, and activity, Rigaud was the first man on the island, of any color. Toussaint bears the following testimony to the great skill of the mulatto general: "I know Rigaud well. He leaps from his horse when at full gallop, and he puts all his force in his arm when he strikes a blow." He was high-tempered, irritable, and haughty. The charmed power that he held over ​the men of his color can scarcely be described. At the breaking out of the revolution, he headed the mulattoes in his native town, and soon drew around him a formidable body of men.
After driving the English and Spaniards from the island, and subduing the French planters, Toussaint and Rigaud made war upon each other. As the mulattoes were less than fifty thousand in number, and the blacks more than five hundred thousand, Rigaud was always outnumbered on the field of battle; but his forces, fighting under the eyes of the general whom they adored, defended their territory with vigor, if not with success. Reduced in his means of defence by the loss of so many brave men in his recent battles, Rigaud had the misfortune to see his towns fall, one after another, into the power of Toussaint, until he was driven to the last citadel of his strength—the town of Aux Cayes. As he thus yielded foot by foot, every thing was given to desolation before it was abandoned, and the land, which under his active government had just before been so adorned with cultivation, was made such a waste of desolation, that, according almost to the very letter of his orders, "the trees were turned with their roots in the air." The genius and activity of Toussaint were completely at fault in his attempt to force the mulatto general from his intrenchments.
The government of Prance was too much engaged at home with her own revolution to pay any attention to St. Domingo. The republicans in Paris, after getting rid of their enemies, turned upon each other. The revolution, like Saturn, devoured its own children; priest and people were murdered upon the ​thresholds of justice. Murat died at the hands of Charlotte Corday. Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were guillotined, Robespierre had gone to the scaffold, and Bonaparte was master of France.
The conqueror of Egypt now turned his attention to St. Domingo. It was too important an island to be lost to France or destroyed by civil war, and, through the mediation of Bonaparte, the war between Toussaint and Rigaud was brought to a close.
Petion and several other generals followed Rigaud, when, at the conclusion of his war with Toussaint, he embarked for France. When Napoleon's ill-fated expedition came to St. Domingo, Rigaud returned, made his appearance at Aux Cayes, and, under his influence, the south soon rallied in arms against Toussaint. He fought bravely for France until the subjugation of the blacks and the transportation of their chief to the mother country, when Napoleon felt that Rigaud, too, was as dangerous to the peace of St. Domingo as Toussaint, and he was once more forced to return to France. Here he was imprisoned—not for any thing that he had done against the government of Bonaparte, but for fear that the mulatto chief would return to his native island, take up arms, and assist his race, who were already in rebellion against Leclerc.
Although the whites and the free colored men were linked together by the tender ties of nature, there was, nevertheless, a hatred to each other, even stronger than between the whites and the blacks. In the earlier stages of the revolution, before the blacks under Toussaint got the ascendency, several attempts had been made to get rid of the leaders of the mulattoes, and especially Rigaud. He was hated by the ​whites in the same degree as they feared his all-powerful influence with his race, and the unyielding nature of his character, which gave firmness and consistency to his policy while controlling the interests of his brethren. Intrigue and craftiness could avail nothing against the designs of one who was ever upon the watch, and who had the means of counteracting all secret attempts against him; and open force, in the field, could not be successful in destroying a chieftain whose power was often felt, but whose person was seldom seen. Thus, to accomplish a design which had long been in meditation, the whites of Aux Cayes were now secretly preparing a mine for Rigaud, which, though it was covered with roses, and to be sprung by professed friends, it was thought would prove a sure and efficacious method of ridding them of such an opponent, and destroying the pretensions of the mulattoes forever. It was proposed that the anniversary of the destruction of the Bastile should be celebrated in the town by both whites and mulattoes, in union and gratitude. A civic procession marched to the church, where Te Deum was chanted and an oration pronounced. The Place d'Armes was crowded with tables of refreshments, at which both whites and mulattoes seated themselves. But beneath this seeming patriotism and friendship, a dark and fatal conspiracy lurked, plotting treachery and death. It had been resolved that, at a preconcerted signal, every white at the table should plunge his knife into the bosom of the mulatto who was seated nearest to him. Cannon had been planted around the place of festivity, that no fugitive from the massacre should have the means of escaping; and that Rigaud should not ​fail to be secured as the first victim of a conspiracy prepared especially against his life, the commander-in-chief of the National Guard had been placed at his side, and his murder of the mulatto chieftain was to be the signal for a general onset upon all his followers. The officer to whom had been intrusted the assassination of Rigaud, found it no small matter to screw his courage up to the sticking point, and the expected signal, which he was to display in blood to his associates, was so long delayed, that secret messengers began to throng to him from all parts of the tables, demanding why execution was not done on Rigaud. Urged on by these successive appeals, the white general at last applied himself to the fatal task which had been allotted him; but instead of silently plunging his dagger into the bosom of the mulatto chief, he sprung upon him with a pistol in his hand, and, with a loud execration, fired it at his intended victim. But Rigaud remained unharmed, and, in the scuffle which ensued, the white assassin was disarmed and put to flight. The astonishment of the mulattoes soon gave way to tumult and indignation, and this produced a drawn battle, in which both whites and mulattoes, exasperated as they were to the utmost, fought man to man. The struggle continued fiercely until the whites were driven from the town, having lost one hundred and fifty of their number, and slain many of their opponents.
Tidings of this conspiracy flew rapidly in all directions; and such was the indignation of the mulattoes at this attack upon their chief, whose death had even been announced in several places as certain, that they seized upon all the whites within their reach; and ​their immediate massacre was only prevented by the arrival of intelligence that Rigaud was still alive. Such were the persecutions which the leader of the mulattoes, now in exile, had experienced in his own land. Napoleon kept him confined in the prison of the Temple first, and then at the castle of Joux, where Toussaint had ended his life.
During this time, St. Domingo was undergoing a great change. Leclerc had died, Rochambeau and his forces had been driven from the island, Dessalines had reigned and passed away, and Christophe was master of the north, and Petion of the south. These two generals were at war with each other, when they were both very much surprised at the arrival of Rigaud from France. He had escaped from his prison, made his way to England, and thence to the island by way of the United States. Petion, the president of the republic in the south, regarded Rigaud as a more formidable enemy than Christophe. The great mulatto general was welcomed with enthusiasm by his old adherents; they showed the most sincere respect and attachment for him, and he journeyed in triumph to Port au Prince. Though Petion disliked these demonstrations in favor of a rival, he dared not attempt to interfere, for he well knew that a single word from Rigaud could raise a revolt among the mulattoes. Petion, himself a mulatto, had served under the former in the first stages of the revolution. The people of Aux Cayes welcomed their chief to his home, and he drew around him all hearts, and in a short time Rigaud was in full possession of his ancient power. The government of Petion was divided to make room for the former chief, and, though the two ​leaders for a while flew to arms against each other, they, nevertheless, were driven to an alliance on account of the encroachments of Christophe.
After a reign that was fraught only with tumult to himself and followers, Rigaud abdicated his province, retired to his farm, and in a few weeks died. Thus ended the career of the most distinguished mulatto general of which St. Domingo could boast.