WHERE BLACK RULES WHITE
A JOURNEY
ACROSS AND ABOUT HAYTI
(1900)
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CHAPTER I:
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
CONTENTS
I
WHERE
BLACK RULES WHITE
II
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III
A HAYTIAN SCENE.
IV-V
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VI
AUTHOR'S NOTE
For the use of some of the illustrations
in this volume I am indebted
to the courtesy of Dr. Rauch of Port-au-Prince, Hayti. Owing to my
departure on an expedition to Patagonia, organized by „The Daily
Express“, I am unable to correct the final proof-sheets of this book,
and must therefore beg my readers' indulgence should any inaccuracies
have crept into the text.
H. P.
VII
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VIII
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to top)
IX
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1
WHERE
BLACK RULES WHITE.
CHAPTER I.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE BLACK
REPUBLIC.
THE liner was hove to,
awaiting daylight. Across
the leaden swell Hayti lay hazy and of a soft grey, her delicate
mountain crests cut sharply out against the brightening sky. Soon the
east was alive and glowing in deep orange and deeper red patched with
livid green, a bar of angry colour shut in between the sea and a jagged
lid of cloud. Four bells rang forward, and upon the stroke we were
under way and steaming slowly past the dim dead shores. Between us and
the distant heights ran a low bluff, bristling with scrub.
No villages were visible, but here and there,
through glasses, we could discern a brownish speck which might have
been a solitary hut, but these did not break the sense of desolation.
Nothing seemed alive save the dawn and
2 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
a clean, sweet
wind that blew graciously cool after the sweltering heats of the night.
Thus it was that in November of last year (1899) I
saw Hayti for the second time. Eighteen months had elapsed since I
first steamed along under the same shores, and Hayti had lost none of
her mystery and fascination. Since the wholesale massacre of the whites
by order of General
Dessalines, which followed immediately upon the
proclamation of the Act of Independence in 1804, Hayti has been a
sealed land. Very little could be told about her; for very little was
known. Threaded in the circle of a hundred civilised isles, she alone
has drawn a veil between herself and the rest of mankind.
A few scores of white men live in her coast towns,
but of the interior even they can tell you practically nothing. The
Black Republic, set between her tropical seas and virgin
mountain-peaks, keeps her secrets well.
In spite of endless inquiries, until I actually
landed in the island, I could gather no definite details. The ship I
was travelling in passed seven times a year along the southern coast to
drop the mails at the principal port of Jacmel, but although many
people on board had lived half their lives on the neighbouring islands,
I could glean no information respecting Hayti. I was vaguely told that
the place was unhealthy, more unhealthy than Colon, and even more
abnormally dirty, and that men were rather more apt to
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OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
die suddenly there than elsewhere in the
tropics. Even the steamer seemed to hold herself aloof. It is her
custom to lie well out in the roadstead of Jacmel, and she only waits
for the return of the mail boat before putting to sea again.
BANANAR AT JACMEL.
There were of
course various strange rumours
drifting about, stories that had oozed out from the guarded silence
shrouding those dark-green shores, stories of snake-worship, and
poisonings, human sacrifice and cannibalism. Hayti appeared to be a
stage with the curtain down,— all the world knew that the dramas of
life and death were being
4 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
played out over and over again behind
that curtain, but with what curious or horrible variations from the
ordinary tenor of human existence none could guess. I had read one or
two books about the place, notably that by Sir Spencer St.
John, who was British Minister in Hayti for a considerable period,
but even his book was some years old.
Hayti the Mysterious! Her appeal to the imagination
is inevitable. Ships from Europe and America move perpetually round and
along her coasts and call at her open ports, ocean cables link her to
the rest of the globe, but for all these things, five miles inland you
lose touch with civilisation, with the world.
From the sea, her mountains, bearded with dark
forests up to their wrinkled brows, scowl at you. To deny that she is
picturesque is impossible; to do so would be to acknowledge a sheer
lack of imagination.
Mile after mile we slid along the coast cliff, until
the fjord-like bay turned in upon itself, and there was the town of
Jacmel lying inside its belt of sand.
Jacmel from the sea is not unlike towns in the
Colombian Republic or on the Pacific coast. The same white houses,
nestling in vivid foliage, give it the same false air of coolness.
Five minutes later the quarter-boat was shouldering
her way shorewards across the swell which broke in foam almost at the
foot of the palms.
5 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
We shot past the reefs, and I scrambled on to the dilapidated
landing-stage among the crowd of negroes, — a crowd which as to colour
represented every shade of full-bodied black. As to dress, there were
degrees from gold lace down to the simplicity of a cloth with a hole in
the middle for the wearer's head, supplemented by ragged trousers. Most
of them carried heavy jointed clubs. The boat that had landed me put
off; I saw the rowers slide into their stroke; I waited till they
reached the shadow of the steamer, the gangway was raised, the boat
swung inboard, and the liner dived away over the glinting sea. Then I
turned, stepped from the boarding, and was on Haytian earth.
I do not know precisely what I had expected, but I
do know that it was not at all like the reality.
Almost straight before me was a narrow street, lined
with irregular buildings, something like a street of old London as you
see it in pictures, save that the overhanging first floors were wooden
piazzas.
I walked slowly along, taking the measure of things.
It was a dirty street, albeit the chief one of the chief town of
southern Hayti, and the sun was scalding. The place was also acrush
with human beings of African race and their donkeys. A lean dog or two
basked in the alleys. There were shops, open cavernous places, with the
stock-in-trade of the proprietor depending from ropes round the walls.
Pavement or foot-path there was none.
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OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
The piazzas,
jutting from the upper floor of the ungainly houses, were supported by
pillars of wood driven into the earth; but walking under them in the
shadow was an athletic exercise of four-foot leaps up and down. Some of
the domiciles possessed brick thresholds leading up to the supports,
while others had none. There were many empty houses with smashed
shutters, fire-scarred shells which seemed all the emptier for the
pitiless sunlight. In Hayti they always start a revolution by firing
the town.
I turned on the thought to observe the negroes in
their own preserve, where they may „revolute“ as they like. Most of
them had dropped their work or business to look at me. Through the dust
and glare wizened donkeys trotted, laden with huge bundles of
guinea-grass, negresses hawked about baskets of bananas and mangoes,
the street was full of men and women, screaming, gesticulating, and
shouting. A bareheaded negro was blowing a tin trumpet in long, ringing
blasts. The din was incredible.
There were women carrying loads upon their heads;
one was half-running with a bottle balanced on a yellow bandana tied
round her brows. Most of them were dressed in white, short-kilted to
the knee, and nearly all wore the turban handkerchief. As for the men,
some had coats, some only trousers, and some, more ragged than the
rest, affected képis with red bands. These last I discovered
later were policemen.
No carriages were to be seen, not even a broken-down
7 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
West Indian
buggy. It was my first impression of the land where Black rules White.
The bawl and clatter of voices, the jostling crowd, the scream of an
angry man in the hot street, the few cool stores with their proprietors
seated on chairs in the doorways, the ungainly wooden houses with their
sprawling side-posts, the sun, the smell, the dirt: — this was Hayti.
The British Consular Agent, to whom I had brought a
letter of introduction, was most kind, and offered to put me up for the
night, a proposal which I was only too glad to accept. Failing this
hospitality I should have been obliged to bivouac in the open; for
Jacmel, though the principal port in southern Hayti, does not boast
either hotel or rest-house where one could hope for a night's shelter.
Half an hour later, as I sat at peace in the
Consular office, near the door for the sake of air, a sudden clamour of
voices arose outside. Then a thudding noise, — the gathering of a
bare-footed crowd. We turned out into the scorching sun to where, in
the centre of the arid waterside space, a fight was in progress. A
policeman, buttoned up in a blue linen uniform like a butcher-boy's
coat, only double-breasted, was struggling with a big-headed negro. The
captive had hold of his captor's cocomacaque club, and the pair swung
to and fro in a heated struggle.
The big-headed negro was already wresting away the
weapon when two other policemen raced up. Smash went
8 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
a cocomacaque
on the big, stooping head, and a bubble of red blood rose through the
short fuzz. A bellow of excitement went up from the bystanders. The
prisoner turned like a dazed bull for a moment, then he broke free and
fled down the street.
Experience soon taught me that similar scenes were
by no means uncommon: I also learnt to sympathise with the frantic
resistance of the prisoners.
The business in Jacmel is almost entirely in the
hands of the small foreign element. The Republican Government distrusts
and dislikes the outlander, but it cannot get on without him. On
sufferance therefore he remains, but any projects as to opening up the
country, prospecting or obtaining concessions, are blocked in one way
or another. Either the Government plants its foot firmly and refuses
permission point-blank, or if expediency suggests another course,
negotiations are begun, which are later on so craftily manipulated that
the white man finds himself finally left in the lurch, saddled with a
hopelessly bad bargain.
Again no foreigner can legally own land in the
island, but so far as private houses in the coast towns are concerned,
this law has been circumvented at various times.
There are in the town and district about 500
potential soldiers, of whom no fewer than 200 are generals. A general,
as he is known in Hayti, must be spelt with a big G. The general
commanding this province is one of the
9 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
A FUNERAL
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OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
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11 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
strong men of
the country. He can neither read nor write, and belongs to the lowest
strata, yet he was one of the great forces in the last revolution.
General Johannis Merisier cannot sign documents, but by way of making
his mark he adds the impress of his signet ring. What one man writes
for him he gets another man to read, thus securing himself against
deception. In person he is of the ultra-negro type, and in his hands
lies the power of life and death.
Towards evening I went for a ride about the
surrounding country; there were some pretty-looking villas half hidden
in green dotted about the outskirts of the town. Returning I passed by
the arsenal under the walls of which public executions take place. Not
so long ago two criminals, a man and a boy of fourteen (the latter had
split open the paternal skull with a hatchet) were condemned to be
shot. Upon the moment of firing a Roman Catholic priest went up to the
boy and asked him if he repented of his crime. The boy said „No“ — he
would do it again if he had the chance.
„If you repent you will be reprieved.“
„I do not repent.“
The priest withdrew, and the twenty assorted
firearms spoke. The man fell upon his knees, but the boy was untouched.
The volley rang out again. No result. Another volley. The bleeding man
pitched forward dead, but the boy stood in the aching sunlight, still
unhurt.
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OF THE BLACK REPUBLIC
A general rode
up, and borrowing a cocomacaque from a bystander, beat the soldiers
over the head for their bungling. He swore that unless the next attempt
took effect, the men themselves should be shot. A second later, the boy
fell riddled with bullets. Then the drums beat, for the justice of the
Republic was satisfied. On this occasion it was said that the soldiers
had pity on the youth of the boy, and purposely shot wide, each man
hoping that his comrade's bullet might do the deed. But it was a cruel
mercy.
Darkness had come on by the time I recrossed the
market-place. The scene was weird. Among the ruinous wooden booths a
few fluttering flames cut into the blackness of the night, and from the
gloom around came the indescribable screeching babble of negro voices.
Here and there in the dim light I saw pale-palmed hands twisting in
gesticulation, or wide mouths that flashed white teeth over slips of
sugar-cane. And so the busy unseen night-life, which the dark-skin
loves, went on under the dense sky.
End of chapter 1.
Last update: July
2nd, 2011.
