By Trevlyn Mwafuli
THE Saint Domingue occupied approximately one-third of the western portion of Hispaniola, the island Christopher Columbus claimed for Spain in 1492.
Spanish exploitation quickly reduced the native Arawakan population to such a degree that colonists had to import slaves from Africa.
The first Africans were brought to the island in 1502, beginning a slave trade that would profoundly shape the political and economic future of the Caribbean and the Americas.
Small groups of French colonists began to appear in the West Indies shortly after the Spanish discovery, but it was not until 1664 that the newly established French West Indies Company wrested firm control of western Hispaniola from Spain.
In 1697, the Treaty of Ryswick between France and Spain formally recognised the French title to this western portion.
Afterward, large numbers of French emigrants began to settle, particularly in the more accessible coastal areas of the mountainous island; about three-fourths of the island is made up of rugged mountains interspersed with fertile valleys.
Many of the early planters established hugely successful coffee, indigo and sugar plantations.
From the mid-18th Century until the French Revolution (1789-1799), Saint Domingue, the French half of Haiti, prospered, becoming the richest colonial possession in the world and the basis for French colonial wealth in the West.
Its success, however, was built on enslaved African labour, and by the late 1750s, the slave population of around 500 000 far outnumbered the white population of around 32 000. Fearing a revolution, the French created a rigid caste system dominated by grand blancs; white planters born in the colony (known as Creoles) and French-born bureaucrats and landowners.
Poor whites, or petit blancs formed an underclass, while people of mixed ancestry and free men, known as affranchise, came next in the social hierarchy.
At the bottom were enslaved Africans.
White masters, who were outnumbered by enslaved workers, often used physical violence to maintain control and quell any rebellion. Slaves who left the plantations or disobeyed their owners were brutally whipped and sometimes subjected to more extreme forms of torture.
Although France established the Code Noir in 1685, in an attempt to regulate the treatment of slaves in the colony, the code was rarely enforced.
Further, local legislators reversed parts of the code during the 18th Century.
Attempting to escape the brutality, large numbers of runaway slaves, called maroons, lived on the margins of large plantations and often stole supplies from their former masters.
Other slaves fled to towns, blending in with the urban and freed slaves (free persons of colour) living there.
When they were caught, these runaway slaves were severely and violently punished.
The hard labour on sugar plantations also led to an extremely high death rate among the slaves who worked them. But with sugar profits so high, planters found it more cost effective to work enslaved people to death and replace them with new imported slaves.
As a result, it is estimated that Saint Domingue alone imported as many as 40 000 enslaved Africans annually and accounted for approximately one-third of the Atlantic slave trade.
According to Oliver Ransford: “…the philanthropic society whose main objective was the abolition of slavery in the French possessions and whose members included such famous names as Lafayette, Necker and Mirabeau; now they were certain that their philanthropic precepts would be put into practice.”
The mulattos were indecisive; they were not sure whether to side with the blancs or the negroes.
The uncertainty created instability in the colonies.
The free blacks and mulattos agitated for full rights.
The planters feared that Paris might abolish slavery and take away their livelihood, and began to talk about independence.
In wanting to solve the issue, the mulattos decided to dispatch six wealthy members of their community to Paris with instructions to persuade the National Assembly to castigate equality with the blancs. The leader of the delegation was Vincent Oge.
Vincent Ogé Jeune (the younger) was born in 1755 in Dondon Parish in Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti).
He was born to Jacques Ogé, a whiteman, and Angélique Ossé, a mulatta. He grew up in a wealthy family that had inherited a coffee plantation.
At a young age, he was sent to Bordeaux, France, to be an apprentice to a goldsmith. This allowed him to build his fortune as a merchant and returned to Saint Domingue where he soon became part of the higher ranks of society as one of the wealthiest free coloured planter of Saint Domingue.
In Paris, September 1789, Ogé started working with a small group of free coloured artisans and servants: the colons Américains (American Colonists). Together, they wrote a Cahier de doléances (book of grievances) concerning the French colonies, addressed to the National Assembly.
Among other things, this text demanded the representation of free blacks in the government, the possibility of being part of the justice system and the military, the right to education and, most of all, for black and white people to be treated equally.
This petition was rejected by the French National Assembly. Vincent Ogé was later a member of the Société d’Amis des Noirs (Society of the Friends of Blacks) in Paris, which fought for the rights of black people.
After further petitioning, in March 28 1790, the National Assembly in Paris ratified a decree which, although it did not mention people of colour, granted colonies the right to form a local Assembly and allowed all free people of the colony to be part of this local government.
However, much to the disappointment of Ogé and other activists, this decree was never fully enforced.
According to Ransford: “Nothing could have been handled more stupidly, fighting broke out between the blanc and the mulattos, and it was attended by atrocities which set the pattern for much of Haiti’s later history.’’
In October 1790, Ogé returned to his hometown and, with the help of Jean-Baptiste Chavanne, started gathering fellow people of colour who were likewise eager to enforce justice. In a letter to the Assembly in Le Cap, he warned that he was ready to take up arms if the March 1790 decree was not enforced.
Ogé and Chavanne were met with no response, except from the Comte Peinier, governor of the colony, who demanded that they stopped their activism.
Ogé, Chavanne and their followers, who were now wanted by the colonial army, fought back before eventually fleeing to the Spanish part of the island.
In November 1790, they were caught and sent back to Le Cap, where both Ogé and Chavanne were eventually executed by the wheel in the city’s public square in February 1791.
Ogé’s execution led to rising tensions between white people and people of colour in Saint Domingue.
Although he was not an abolitionist, his activism and the violence of his execution are most definitely linked to the slave uprising that became the Haitian Revolution in August 1791, as well as the extension of voting rights to free coloured people by the National Assembly in Paris that same year.