Document A

LEGER FEIJCITE SONfHONAX

Decree of General Liberty

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights; citizens, this is
France's gospel. It is high time that it be proclaimed in all areas of the
republic.
Sent by the nation to Saint-Domingue as civil commissioners, our
mission was to enforce the law of April 4, to see it applied in all its
force, and gradually, smoothly, without rupture, to prepare the general
emancipation of the slaves.
Upon our arrival, we found a horrible division among the whites
who, separated by interest and opinion, agreed only on a single point
to maintain the slavery of the negres forever and therefore to prohibit
any system of liberty or even improvement of their fate.
In order to foil malicious persons and to reassure everyone, since
they all feared any sudden action, we declared that we believed
slavery was necessary for agriculture.
What we said was true, citizens; at that time slavery was as essen­
tial to the continuation of work as it was to keeping the colonists faith­
ful to France. A group of ferocious tyrants still ruled Saint-Domingue,
men who publicly preached that one's skin color should be a sign of
power or condemnation. These were men like those who condemned
the unfortunate Oge or the creators and members of those notorious
military tribunals who filled the towns with gallows and torture racks
in order to sacfince Africans and men of color to their own foul pre­
tensions. The colony was still full of these bloodthirsty men. If by
some great foolhardiness, we had then broken the chains that bound
slaves to their masters, undoubtedly their first reaction would have
been to throw themselves upon their persecutors, and, in their justifi­
able rage, they might easily have confounded innocent with guilty
people. At that time, we did not have the legal authority to decide the
status of the Africans; we would have been disloyal and in violation of
the law had we done so.
Today the situation is quite different The slave traders and canni­
bals are gone. Some of them have died, victims of their impotent rage,
while others have sought safety by fleeing to foreign countries. Those
whites who remain believe in France's laws and values.
The men of April 433 make up the majority of the [remaining] popu­
lation; these are men to whom you owe your freedom, the first to
show you what it is to have the courage to fight for natural and human
rights.. These men were so proud of their independence that they
chose to lose their property rather than suffer the shame of putting on
their old shackles. Never forget, citizens, that they gave you the
weapons that conquered your liberty; never forget that you fought for
the French Republic, that of all the whites in the universe, the only
ones that are your friends are the Frenchmen of Europe.
The French Republic wants all men to be free and equal with no
color distinctions. Kings can only be content when they are sur­
rounded by slaves; they are the ones who sold you to the whites on
the African coast; they are the tyrants in Europe who want this vile
trade to continue. The republic adopts you among its children; these
kings wanted only to load you down with chains or eliminate you.
 Document B

TIIE FREE CIT1ZENS OF COWR

Address to the National Assembly

Address to the National Assembly, To Our Lords,

the Representatives of the Nation.
Our lords, the free citizens and landowners of color of the French
islands and colonies are honored to 1nform you that there still exists in
one of the lands of this empire a species of men scorned and de­
graded, a class of citizens doomed to rejection, to all the hwniliations
of slavery: in a w9,rd, Frenchmen who groan under the yoke of op­
pression.
Such is the fate of the unfortunate American colonists known in the
islands under the name of mulattos, quadroons,2 etc.
Born citizens and free, they live as foreigners in their own father­
land. Excluded from all positions:, from honors and professions, they
are even forbidden to practice some of the mechanical trades. Set
apart in the most degrading fashion, they find themselves enslaved
even in their liberty.
The Estates General has been summoned.
All France has hastened to support the king's benevolent plans; citi­
zens of all classes have been called to the great work of public regen­
eration; all have contributed to writing complaints and nominating
deputies to defending their rights and set forth their interests.
The call of liberty has echoed in the other hemisphere.
It should certainly have erased even the memory of these outra­
geous distinctions between citizens of the same land; instead, it has
brought forth even more appalling ones.
For an ambitious aristocracy, liberty means only the right to rule
other men, with0u sharing power.
The white colonists have acted according to this principle, which
even today consistently guides their behavior.
They have taken upon themselves the right to elect colonial repre­
sentatives.
Excluded from these meetings, the citizens of color have been
deprived of the ability to look after their own interests, to discuss
things that affect them too, and to carry their wishes, complaints, and
demands to the National Assembly.
In this strange system, the citizens of color find themselves repre­
sented by the white colonists' deputies, although they have still never
been included in their partial assemblies and they have not entrusted
any power to these deputies. Their opposing interests, which sadly are
only too obvious, make such representation absurd and contradictory.
You, our lords, must weigh these considerations; you must return
to these oppressed citizens the rights that have been unjustly stripped
from them; you must gloriously complete your work, by ensuring the
liberty of French citizens in both hemispheres.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen has awakened the
colonists of color to their past condition; they have shown themselves
worthy of the dignity that you have assigned to them; they have
learned their rights and they have used them....
The citizens of color are clearly as qualified as the whites to
demand this representation.
 Document C

The Haitian Constitution

Preliminary Declaration
Article l. By this document the people living on the island formerly
called Saint-Domingue agree to form a free and sovereign state,
independent of all the;other powers of the universe, under the name of
the Haitian Empire:
Article 2. Slavery is abolished forever.
Article 3. Brotherhood unites Haiti's citizens; equality before the
law is irrefutably established; and no other titles, advantages, or privi­
leges can exist, other than those which necessarily result from respect
and compensation for services rendered to liberty and independence.
Article 4. There is one law for everyone, whether it punishes or
protects.
Article 5. The law cannot be retroactive.
Article 6. Property rights are sacred; violations will be vigorously
pursued.
,Article 7. Persons who emigrate and become citizens in a foreign
country forfeit their Haitian citizenship, as do those convicted of
corporal or _disgraceful crimes. The former instance is punishable by
death and confiscation of property.
Article 8. In cases of bankruptcy or business failure, Haitian citizen­
ship is suspended.
Article 9. No one is worthy of being a Haitian if he is not a good
father, a good husband, and, above all, a good soldier.
Article 10. Fathers and mothers may not disinherit their children.
Article 11. Every citizen must know a mechanical trade.
Article 12. No white man, regardless of his nationality, may set foot
in this territory as a master or landowner, nor will he ever be able to
acquire any property.
Article 13. The preceding article does not apply to white women
who the government has naturalized as Haitian citizens or to their
children, existing or future. Also included in this are the Germans and
Poles naturalized by the government
Article 14. Because all distinctions of color among children of the
same family must necessarily stop, Haitians will henceforth only be
known generically as Blacks.
 Document D

Edict of the King

Concerning the enforcement of order in the French American islands

Louis, by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre: to all present
and to come, Greetings. Since we owe equally otir attention to all the
peoples that Divine Providence has put under our obedience, we have
had examined in our presence the memoranda that have been sent to
us by our officers in our American islands, who have informed us that
they need our authority and our justice t6 maintain the discipline of
the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church 1 there and to regulate the
status and condition of the slaves in our said islands. And we desire to
provide for this and to have them know that although they live in
regions infinitely removed from our normal residence, we are always
present to the_m, not only by the range of our power but also by the
promptness cif our attempts to assist them in their needs. For these
reasons, by the advice of our Council and by our certain knowledge,
full power, and royal authority, we say, rule, and order, wish and. are
pleased by that which follows.
I. ...we charge all our officers to evict from our islands all the
Jews who have established their residence there, who we order, as to
the declared enemies of the Christian religion, to leave within three
months of the publication date of these present [edicts], or face confis­
cation of body and property.
II. All the slaves in our Islands will be baptized and instructed in
the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion....
III. We forbid any public exercise of any religion other than the
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman; we wish that the offenders be pun­
ished as rebels and disobedient to our orders.... We prohibit all such
[religious] assemblies, which we declare illicit and seditious, subject
to the same penalty that will be levied even against masters who allow
or tolerate them among their slaves.
VI. We charge all our subjects, whatever their status and condition,
to observe Sundays and holidays that are kept by our subjects of the
Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion.We forbid them to work or to
make their slaves work on these days from the hour of midnight until
the next midnight, either in agriculture, the manufacture of sugar, or
all other works, on pain of fine and discretionary punishment of the
masters and confiscation of the sugar and of the said slaves....