1691 Slave Conspiracy (Leogane)

 

Whilst checking Gallica for something unrelated to Saint Domingue, we came across more digitized items from the Collection Moreau de Saint-Méry. One document, entitled De l'introduction des nègres à Saint-Domingue de leurs révoltes, de leur traitement, etc., outlines the history of black people in Hispaniola from the early Spanish period to the early 1700s French colonial era. Reading through it, we were reminded of one conspiracy to revolt and kill the white planters in the Leogane region. Jean Fouchard has written briefly about this plot in his book on Haitian marronage, but it seems to not have been extensively documented despite allegedly including a plan for at least 200 slaves to rebel. Interestingly, around the same time, slaves in the Nord were also plotting a revolt...

Mentioning Haiti in Kano

Although we have often wondered what people in African during the 19th century knew of Haiti, there is a brief mention of the Haitian Revolution in Kano. Hugh Clapperton, who traveled to Borno and the Sokoto Caliphate in the 1800s, recounted this particular episode in his Journal of a Second Expedition Into the Interior of Africa: From the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo, published in 1829. According to Clapperton, an Arab merchant residing in Kano was killed by his female slaves. According to his informants, the custom was to sell such slaves toward the coast. Clapperton, when asked what should be done, endorsed hanging the slaves once it was clear they had killed their master from Ghadamis. Naturally, this led to Clapperton's curiosity about the slave population in Kano. Surprisingly, it was thirty slaves for every free man. Given these demographics, Clapperton used the example of St. Domingo (Haiti) as a warning to the people of Kano, since slaves may rise up and seize control when they overwhelmingly outnumber their masters. Besides the example of Haiti, which we presume was either unknown or poorly understood in West Africa, Clapperton cited recent history of the Hausa slaves in Oyo who rebelled.