The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-10 00:00:00


,
7

AMERICAN SLAVES IN ST. DOMINGO.

On the 28th of December, 1801, a single watchman
sat on the steep promontory of Samana, on the east
coast of St. Domingo, counting the ships of war which
came to invade the island. The first consul had already
decreed the re-establishment of slavery ; and he now
sent fifty-four ships of war to re-conquer the French
part of the island, and reduce the coloured population
to bondage. Last month, after a lapse of fifty-three
years, was again a critical December at Samana. For
some time past it has been known to all who were aware
of the importance of the fact, and who therefore attended
properly to it, that the slaveholding party in the United
States were resolved to get possession of St. Domingo,
as well as Cuba ; and that the remnant of President
Pierce's term of office would be diligently employed in
preparation for such annexation. The American slave-
holders cannot be ignorant, as too many Europeans are,
of the real cause of the horrors of the Si. Domingo war,
which choose to treat as a consequence of negro
emancipation. They cannot but know that the war
was one of race—between the whites and the mulat-
toes—cud that the slaves were released only when
they were wanted as a reinforcement in the struggle.
That release gave the world the services and the
example of Toussaint L'O verture —a man, a
leader, and a ru.er—whom the filibustering Ameri-
cans would find it hard to match from among their
agitators. He was the solitary watchman on the
Samana heights on that December morning, fifty-
,three years ago. His place is not vacant, it seems.
There are eyes wide awake at Santana, and ears open to
tidings from the friends and foes of social and political
freedom everywhere. On the sth of last month, the
treaty. proposed by the United States—the
first step
towards annexation—was rejected by the Dominican
Cougress, without a dissentient vote. And why ? What
is the foremost reason alleged for the rejection ? It was
the case of Manuel Pereira, the seaman in the British
service, whose imprisonment at Charleston on account
of his colour was brought before Parliament by Mr.
Monckton Mines, and made the subject of negotiation
and legal proceedings between the British and American
Governments, and in the courts of the United States.
The St. Domingo legislators have kept their eye upon
that case, and have read the American treaty by its
light ; and, finding that the third clause denied equal'
rights to them in the southern states of the Union, they
without hesitation refused their sanction to it. They
know the consequences. They have been watchful
enough to see that the slaveholding power in the United
States, though numerically weak, has in fact determined
the whole policy and action of the country, from the
time when the institution of slavery was first practically
brought into question, rather more than twenty years
ago. They have taken warning by the annexation
of Texas—as high-handed a theft as the Czar or his
predecessors ever perpetrated. They understand, no
doubt, the true history of the Seminole war, and of the
Mexican war—no less than of the repeal of the Missouri
Compromise, and its consequences—now becoming too
burdensome for the great Republic to endure. They have
watched the Cuba business throughout, and no doubt
have their own opinion of Lord John Russell's slashing
letter, and Mr. Everett's suicidal reply. They know
all about Manuel Pereira, we find, and the care taken
of his person by his Charleston gaolers, and of his rights
by British statesmen. They also know that their tempt-
ing promontory and bay of Samana will bring upon
them such expeditions as Cuba has been visited and
threatened with ; and indeed the American plenipoten-
tiary en the spot has made no secret of the risk. He
has thrown out hints that Greytown is not the only
place that ,the Americans can lay in ashes, and that the
city of St. Domingo is within their range. His country-
men immediately picked a quarrel in the roadstead of
St. Domingo, which speedily brought to the spot two
British steam-sloops and a French frigate and two war
brigs. It is in Samana, however, that the Americans
desire to effect a lodgment, and thence will a look-ont be
still kept for the approach of invaders. These wide-
awake Dominicans are probably aware, also, that the
invasion of their coasts will be partly determined, as to
time and manner, by the course of the war in the Crimea:
We have had occasion to show, more than once since
the war began, how the policy of the United States is
affected by the politics of Europe, through the regular
practice of the Czars of Russia to stir up a
pro-slavery agitation in America whenever liberal
movements are impending in Europe. The Fugitive
Slave law and the Nebraska bill—which may thus be
regarded as the fruits of the European revolutions of
1848 and 1849—are found to be too bad, though both
are extolled by one of the Czar's favoured guests, Dr.
Cottman, and one—the Nebraska Bill—was actually
procured by another St. Petersburg courtier, Senator
Douglass. The more intolerable these measures are
found, the more necessary is it to have fresh ones of
the same tendency. We witness accordingly the per-
severing declaration of the President that Cuba shall
be obtained ; the recent attempt on the Dominican Con-
gress, and the organisation of a new slave territory,
extending over 43,000,000 of acres, between the south-
ern boundary of Kansas and the Red River. The bill
for constituting this new territory of Neosho was
quietly brought in, just before the rising of Congress.
It is a plot of the slaveholding interest, as much as
the carrying on of the slave trade from the port of
New York, which has recently been ascertained to be
greater than from any other port in all those seas.
The southern legislators and citizens tamper with
philosophy and emasculate literature to prevent their
wives and children knowing what is thought of slavery
in the foremost countries of the world. There the lady
who takes up Cowper to read while she rests from
the heat finds no trace in her copy of the passage,
"Heaven speed the canvas gallantly unfurled," nor of a
good many others which women elsewhere are wont to
enjoy. Her son at college is obliged to take his moral
and political philosophy all sliced and hashed, there
being no edition of any European work, on those sub-
jects fit for his study, in a complete form. The little
child, too young for church, but beginning to keep
Sunday by learning Mrs. Berbauld's Hymns, of world-
wide fame, finds one shorter \than the rest. It is so
from the cutting out of that apostrophe so affecting to
English children, "Negro woman, who sittest pining in
captivity." All this is, in fact, the central idea of every
device for preserving the "peculiar domestic institution"
of the southern states from molestation—from what the
planters are pleased to call " the narrowness of foreign
opinion" on that subject.
We repeat here the declaration we always make to
prevent mistakes when treating of American affairs, that
we are speaking of the Southern States and not of the
whole Union. But we must also add our usual question
how long does the entire nation mean to allow the slave-
holding interest to represent its domestic policy and
its foreign relations ? Of the millions of heads of
families in the United States, only 347,525 are slave-
holders ; and yet the slaveholders have been the
guides and masters of American politics from the time
that the nation entered on the retrograde path of foreign
conquest and annexation. President Pierce conjures us
all to believe that his nation has no ambition, and ex-
plains that all its annexations have happened merely
through manifest destiny. This destiny is becoming so
extremely manifest now, that even in the crisis of our
war in the Crimea, the French and we are carefully
placing our war ships in the roadstead of St. Domingo ;
and we shall not relax our watch over Cuba, or any
other land which lies within the boundary of " destiny."
Meanwhile, there are features of American destiny
which it would be well for all the genuine republicans to
attend to before it is too late. The destiny of all tools
of the Russian Czars is the same ; they become slaves
politically and morally. While there is negro slavery in
the United States, the Czar has a handle by which he
can guide the political machine which is betrayed into
his hands by the snobs and the men-owners of the Re-
public. And who cannot see that the time must come
when it will suit his convenience that there shall be no
democratic republic on the shores opposite his own
eastern boundary ? If he can now embroil the Republic
it is time to be taking heed that he does not break it up
when the convenient moment comes. The great Ame-
rican Union has received a rebuff from the little Domi-
nican State. All true lovers of freedom must hope that
it will serve as an admonition to the sound part of the
nation to take the management of their affairs into their
own hands.—Daily News.