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Vincent OGé Jeune (1757-91): Social Class and Free Colored Mobilization on the Eve of the Haitian Revolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

John D. Garrigus
John D. Garrigus*
Affiliation:
University of Texasas, Arlington, Arlington, Texas
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Extract

Vincent Ogé jeune (the younger) was one of the wealthiest free men of color in Saint-Domingue, but his behavior in the year before the Haitian revolution (1791-1804) was a puzzling anomaly. Returning to the colony from Paris in October 1790, Ogé quickly emerged at the head of a group of free colored militiamen demanding voting rights. Colonists labeled this a “revolt” and four months later they executed Ogé and three of his colleagues, breaking their bodies bone by bone in a public square and mounting their severed heads on posts.

Type
2011 CLAH Luncheon Address
Information
The Americas , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , July 2011 , pp. 33 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2011

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References

The archival work underlying this article was funded by a research enhancement grant from the University of Texas at Arlington. Thanks to Dominique Rogers, Stewart King, and David Geggus for their assistance in locating sources.

1. This change in status and its causes are at the heart of Garrigus, John D., Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in Saint-Domingue (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. On Raimond’s self-presentation as a representative of this class, see Chambón, André Maistre du, “Acte notarié relatif aux doléances des ‘gens de couleur’ (29 juillet 1789),” Mémoires de la société archéologique et historique de la Charente (1931), pp. 5–11;Google Scholar for an overview of Raimond’s life and career, see Garrigus, , ‘Opportunist or Patriot? Julien Raimond (1744–1801) and the Haitian Revolution,” Slavery & Abolition 28: 1 (2007), pp. 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Helg, Aline, “Simón Bolívar and the Spectre of Pardocracia: José Padilla in Post-Independence Cartagena,– Journal of Latin American Studies 35: 3 (2003), pp. 447–471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. The one publication devoted to him comes from the high point of mulatto rule in Haiti. Nau, Émile, Réclamation par les affranchis des droits civils et politiques. Ogé et Chavannes (Port–au–Prince: T. Bouchereau, 1840).Google Scholar

5. See Chapter 8, “The ‘Volte–Face’ of Toussaint Louverture” in Geggus, David P., Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002).Google Scholar The standard biography of Sonthonax, the French commissioner who ended slavery in Saint–Domingue, is Stein, Robert Louis, Léger–Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic (Rutherford: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985);Google Scholar on Sonthonax, and especially for Galbaud, who led the white revolt that preceded emancipation, see Popkin, Jeremy D., You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).Google Scholar

6. Important contributions from French scholars include those of Gautier, Ariette, Les sœurs de Solitude: la condition féminine dans l’esclavage aux Antilles du XVIIe au XIXe siècle (Paris: Editions caribéennes, 1985)Google Scholar and Pluchon, Pierre, Vaudou, sorciers, empoisonneurs: De Saint–Domingue à Haïti (Paris: Karthala, 1987).Google Scholar Since the 1980s, by far the most important and prolific scholar in this field has been David Geggus, whose key articles on the pre–revolu–tionary period include “On the Eve of the Haitian Revolution: Slave Runaways in Saint Domingue in the Year 1790,” in Out of the House of Bondage: Runaways, Resistance and Marronage in Africa and the New World, ed. Heuman, Gad (London: Frank Cass, 1986), pp. 112–128;Google Scholar “Sex Ratio, Age and Ethnicity in the Atlantic Slave Trade: Data from French Shipping and Plantation Records,” The Journal of African History 30:1 (1989), pp. 23–44; “Urban Development in Eighteenth–Century Saint–Domingue,” Bulletin du centre d’histoire des espaces atlantiques 5 (1990), pp. 197–228; “Haitian Voodoo in the Eighteenth Century: Language, Culture, Resistance,” Jahrbuch für Geschichte von staatywirtschaft undgesellschaft Lateinamerikas 28 (1991), pp. 21–51; “Marronage, Voodoo and the Saint–Domingue Slave Revolution of 1791,” in Proceedings of the Fifteenth Meeting of the French Colonial Historical Society, eds. Galloway, Patricia and Boucher, Philip (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1992), pp. 22–35;Google Scholar “Sugar and Coffee Production and the Shaping of Slavery in Saint Domingue,” in Cultivation and Culture: Labor and the Shaping of Slave Life in the Americas, eds. Berlin, Ira and Morgan, Philip D. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993), pp. 73–100;Google Scholar “Slave and Free Colored Women in Saint Domingue,” in More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas, eds. Hine, Darlene Clark and Gaspar, David Barry (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996), pp. 259–278;Google Scholar and “The French Slave Trade: An Overview,” William and Mary Qttarterly 58:1 (2001pp. 119–138. This article owes a lot to King, Stewart R., Blue Coat or Powdered Wig: Free People of Color in Pre-Rcvolutionary Saint Domingue (Athens: University of Georgia, 2001), which emphasizes the class differences among free people of color in Saint–Domingue.Google Scholar

7. The discovery that Toussaint was a free man by 1776 was first published in Debien, Gabriel, Fouchard, Jean, and Menier, Marie Antoinette, “Toussaint txmverture avant 1789: légendes et réalités,” Conjonction: revue franco–haïtienne (1977), pp. 65–80.Google Scholar A recent biography that makes use of this research is Bell, Madison Smartt, Toussaint Lou–verture (New York: Pantheon Books, 2008).Google Scholar

8. See for example Elizabeth Colwill, “’Fetes de l’hymen, fetes de la liberté:’ Marriage, Manhood and Emancipation in Revolutionary Saint–Domingue,” in The World of the Haitian Revolution, eds. Geggus, David P. and Fiering, Norman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), pp. 125–155.Google Scholar Another example of innovative scholarship is Rebecca Scott, J. and Hébrard, Jean M., “Rosalie of the Poulard Nation: Freedom, Law, and Dignity in the Era of the Haitian Revolution,” in Assumed Identities: The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World, eds. Gar–rigus, John D. and Morris, Christopher (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2010), pp. 19—45.Google Scholar Here again, the work of David Geggus dominates the literature, as seen in the articles collected in Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies.

9. Ardouin, Alexis Beaubrun, Etudes sur l’histoire d'Haïti suivies de la vie du général J.-M. Borgella, 2nd ed. (Port-au-Prince: F. Dalencour, 1958), p. 430, note 2.Google Scholar

10. For example, Bercy, Drouin de , De Saint-Domingue: de ses guerres, de ses révolutions, de ses resources, et de moyens à prendre pour y rétabilir la paix et l’industrie (Paris: Chez Hocquet, 1814),p. 8.Google Scholar

11. C. L. R. James is typical in devoting a page-and-;a-haif to Ogé; about half of this is a description of his execution. See The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 2nd ed. (New York: Vintage, 1963), pp. 73–75;Google Scholar Fick, Carolyn E., The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990), pp. 82–4;Google Scholar and Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press, 2004), pp. 87–8.Google Scholar

12. For example, ’“La révolution de 91 est essentiellement due à l'esprit du mulâtre. Les anciens noirs libres, tous hommes du plus profond dévouement, se laissèrent entraîner par cet esprit. Ils s’unirent étroitement aux hommes de couleur pour armer les esclaves et leur faire connaître ce qu’ils ignoraient: leur nombre et leur puissance.” Beau–vais Lespinasse, Histoire des affranchis de Saint–Domingue (Paris: J. Kugelmann, 1882), p. 15.

13. Cauna, Jacques de, “Autour de la thèse du complot: franc–maçonnerie, révolution et contre–révolution à Saint–Domingue, 1789–1791,” Lumières 7 (2006), pp. 289–310;Google Scholar de Cauna, , “Toussaint Louverture et le déclenchement de l’insurrection des esclaves du Nord en 1791: un retour aux sources,” in Haiti, regards croisées, eds. Dessens, Nathalie and Le Glaunec, Jean–Pierre (Paris: Éditions le Manuscrit, 2007), pp. 35–68;Google Scholar and Bell, , Toussaint Louverture, pp. 75–83.Google Scholar

14. Dubois, , Avengers of the New World, p. 98;Google Scholar Geggus, , Haitian Revolutionary Studies, pp. 81–92,Google Scholar especially pp. 84–86, lays out the evidence without pronouncing a single cause, though he appears skeptical about claims of a royalist conspiracy.

15. Although she believes rebels had news from France, Carolyn Fick argues that Saint–Domingue had a long tradition of slave resistance. See Fick, , Making of Haiti, pp. 47–75 and 91–117, esp. 91.Google Scholar Although he carefully follows French Revolutionary events in Saint–Domingue, Jeremy Popkin sees the black uprising as an autonomous event. Popkin, You Are All Free, p. 41.

16. See Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 248–252,Google Scholar for evidence that free men of color in the colony’s southern peninsula may have urged slaves to rebel after Ogé was arrested.

17. Saint-Méry, M.L.E. Moreau de, Description topographique, physique, civile, politique et historique de la partie française de IHsle Saint Domingue, (Paris: Société de l’histoire des colonies françaises, 1958), pp. 266–288;Google Scholar Mackenzie, Charles, Notes on Haiti, made during a residence in that republic, vol. 1 (London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1830), pp. 182–184.Google Scholar

18. Saint-Méry, Moreau de, Loix et constitutions des colonies françoises de l’Amérique sous le Vent, vol. 3 (Paris: Quillau. Mcquignon jeune, 1784), pp. 96–7.Google Scholar For the militia, black, Debbasch, Yvan, Couleur et liberté. Le jeu de critère ethnique dans un ordre juridique esclavagiste (Paris: Dalloz, 1967), p. 51, note 1, cites the Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer (henceforth, ANOM) F3132.Google Scholar

19. There is very little archival evidence about men of color who fought in this campaign. See Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 114–118.Google Scholar

20. Lanier, Clément, “Les Nègres d’Haïti dans la guerre d'indépendance américaine,” Le Temps 2: 52 (July 1, 1933), , suggests that Thomas Madiou had evidence that Ogé fought at Savannah and that this fact was printed in a nineteenth-century Haitian newspaper, Létan.Google Scholar

21. Although historians have usually spelled the name “Chavannes,” the interrogation transcript and other documents never add the “s.”

22. Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 205–213.Google Scholar

23. See the cases described in Debbasch, , Couleur et liberté, pp. 34–52,Google Scholar or Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 141–170.Google Scholar

24. Dominique Rogers, “On the Road to Citizenship: The Complex Route to Integration of the Free People of Color in the Two Capitals of Saint-Domingue,” in The World of the Haitian Revolution, eds. Geggus, David P. and Fiering, Norman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), pp. 70–72.Google Scholar

25. See the illustrations of Raimond’s changing status in Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 1–2, 145–146, 168.Google Scholar

26. Martin-Ollivier Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes du Conseil Supérieur du Cap, CABAN Dxxv58/ 574, January 1791, 2. This is the unpaginated, handwritten transcript of Ogé’s interrogation, conducted from January 20 through January 25,1791, in Cap-Français. I count 149 pages in the manuscript; in this and other works I use my own page numbers, based on my digital photographs of the entire document. CARAN is the Centre d'accueil et de recherche des Archives nationales in Paris.

27. Those that did survive were copies sent to a special depot in France by virtue of a 1776 law, which means that no notarial archives exist for this region before 1776. For a discussion, see Stewart King, R., Blue Coat or Powdered Wig, pp. 3–12;Google Scholar for a discussion of how these records differ across Saint-Domingue’s regions, see Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

28. For the “Auger” plantation, see “Cartes du général de Rochambeau durant l’expédition de Saint-Domingue, 1801-1803,” 1800, CABAN 135 AP 4-1-f.

29. This was definitely the case with Julien Raimond. See Garrigus, , “Opportunist or Patriot? Julien Raimond (1744–1801) and the Haitian Revolution,” Slavery & Abolition 28: 1 (2007), pp. 1–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. For the censuses, see ANOM Gl509, nos. 20 and 30; for coffee prices, see Tarrade, Jean, Le commerce colonial de la France à la fin de l’ancien régime: Vèolution da régime de Vexclusif de 1763 à 1789, vol. 1 (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972), p. 413, note 35.Google Scholar

31. These are notarial “repertoires”—lists that three of Dondon’s notaries made during the years 1777 to 1789 describing the documents they were sending to Versailles. These include brief abstracts of contracts, naming the transaction (for example “sale of a slave” or “power of attorney”) and identifying the contracting parties. These lists are found in ANOM Dépôt des papiers publiques des colonies, Notariat, Saint-Domingue (henceforth, ANOM SDOM), registers 130, and 132.

32. Garrigus, , Before Haiti, p. 142;Google Scholar Saint-Mcry, Moreau de, Loix et constitutions des colonies, vol. 5 (Paris: Chez PAuteur, 1784), pp. 448–449.Google Scholar

33. ANOM SDOM reg. 130, Boissier, March 14, 1780.

34. Angrand, Jean-Luc, Céleste ou le temps des signares (Paris: A. Pépin, 2006)Google Scholar claims that Anne Rossignol, a wealthy mixed-race business woman or signare of Corée moved to Saint-Domingue in the 1780s, but many aspects of Angrand's book are disputed; see Ricou, Xavier, “Celeste,” Sénégalmctis, June 2010, Google Scholar

35. ANOM SDOM reg. 130, Boissier, August 22, 1778.

36. ANOM SDOM rcg. 130, Boissier, January 18, 1779.

37. ANOM SDOM reg. 132, Lcgrand, September 14, 1782; ANOM SDOM reg. 132, Lcgrand, December 19, 1782.

38. Three of the four marriages involved Charlotte LaCassagnc and Marguerite LaCassagne; see ANOM SDOM rcg. 130, Boissier, January 13, 1780; ANOM SDOM reg. 130, Boissier, November 21,1786; ANOM SDOM rcg. 130, Boissier, December 24, 1788; and ANOM SDOM reg. 130, Boissier, April 28, 1789. For interracial marriage in the southern peninsula in the 1780s sec Garrigus, Before Haiti, pp. 178–179.

39. ANOM SDOM reg. 130, Boissier, October 6, 1777.

40. Lacroix, François Joseph Pamphile de, La Révolution de Haïti (1819), ed. Pluchon, Pierre (Paris: Karthala, 1995), p. 68.Google Scholar

41. Dominique Rogers graciously shared with me her discovery that in 1780 the free mulatto woman “Angélique Hossé” (Osse) won the right to provide meat to the public butchers in Dondon and Haut du Trou du Dondoli for three years. She cites ANOM SDOM reg. 1088, September 12, 1780. This is confirmed by a contract Ossé signed in Dondon on October 8, 1781: ANOM SDOM rcg 132, Pont.

42. ANOM SDOM reg. 130, Boissier, May 19, 1777.

43. ANOM Col. E306, “Dossier de Vincent Ogé jeune,” 1789. Dominique Rogers was kind enough to share this document with me.

44. In 1791 Ogc noted that his brothers had recently begun signing as Augé “since their true name was written this way” [“que depuis ils ont signé leur nom par au défaut que leur véritable nom s’écrivait ainsi”’]. Ogé had not made this change himself, to avoid confusion in his business affairs. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 6.

45. See Archives départementales de la Gironde (hereafter, ADG), ’Originaires des Iles passagers pour les Iles, 1713–1787” a finding aid created by the Amitiés Généalogiques Bordelaises.

46. For the dates of Ogé’s apprenticeship, see Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 2. I’m indebted to Jim Sidbury for pointing out the commercial utility of a goldsmith’s skills. On specie in Saint-Domingue, see Robert Richard, “À propos de Saint-Domingue: la monnaie dans l’économie coloniale, 1674–1803,” Revue d’histoire des colonies 41:142 (1954), pp. 22–46.

47. Dominique Rogers, “Présences noires en Aquitaine au XVlIIème siècle, une question à redécouvrir,” Institut aquitaine d’études sociales 76 (September 2001), pp. 103–121. André Rigaud, who would support Ogé in November 1790 by helping to lead a protest in Saint-Domingue’s southern peninsula, was also apprenticed as a goldsmith in Bordeaux at around the same time, but there is no evidence the two men knew each other. See James, , The Black Jacobins, p. 96.Google Scholar

48. ANOM DPPC G1495a and G1495b.

49. For example, “Motion faite par M. Vincent Ogé, jeune, à l'Assemblée des colons, habitans de S.Domingue, à l’Hôtel de Massiac,” in La révolution française et l’abolition de l’esclavage, vol. 12, (Paris: Editions d’histoire sociale, 1968); Rolland-Audiger, De Joly and Poizat, , Extrait du procès-verbal de l’Assemblée des citoyens, libres et propriétaires de couleur des isles et colonies françoises, constituée sous le titre de Colons américains (Paris, 1789);Google Scholar and De Joly, et al., Cahier, contenant les plaintes, doléances and reclamations des citoyens-libres and propriétaires de couleur, des isles and colonies françoises (Paris, 1789).Google Scholar

50. ANOM SDOM reg.132, Pont, 1, June 1, 1778; “Procuration generalle Sr et Dme Fouché au Sr Ogé“.

51. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 6.

52. ANOM SDOM reg. 191, July 14, July 15, July 26, July 30, and September 15, 1785; ANOM F391, feuille 162; and ANOM SDOM reg. 187, July 1, 1784. I first became aware of these documents thanks to Stewart R. King, Blue Coat or Powdered Wig, and Rogers, Dominique, “Les libres de couleur dans les capitales de Saint-Domingue: fortune, mentalités et intégration à la fin de l’Ancien Régime (1776–1789)” (Ph.D. diss., Université de Bordeaux III, 1999).Google Scholar

53. ANOM SDOM reg. 182, February 27, 1783.

54. “Dossier de Vincent Ogé jeune,” 1789, ANOM Col. E306. For Raimond, see Garrigus, “Opportunist or Patriot?”; for the difference between colonial and metropolitan values, see McCusker, John J., Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600–1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978), pp. 282–283 and Table 4.9 on page 290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55. Most of these figures come from the survey of scholarship in Lewis, Gwynne, France, 1715–1804: Power and the People (New York: Pearson Longman, 2004), pp. 101–103;Google Scholar the Bordeaux example is from Forster, Robert, “The Noble Wine Producers of the Bordelais in the Eighteenth Century,” The Economic History Review 14: 1 (1961), p. 21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

56. Cauna, Jacques de, Au temps des isles à sucre: histoire d’une plantation de Saint-Domingue au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Karthala, 2003), pp. 45—47;Google Scholar for plantation employees, see pp. 73 and 84-5; for Raimond, see. Garrigus, , “Opportunist or Patriot?” pp. 1–21.Google Scholar

57. Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 1–9.Google Scholar

58. For the free colored planters of Aquin, Torbec, and other parts of the southern peninsula, see Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 171–194;Google Scholar on Castaing, see Noël, Erick, “Le sang noir des Castaing, ou l’insolite ascension d’une famille des Isles,” Bulletin du centre d’histoire des espaces atlantiques 7 (1995), pp. 171–182;Google Scholar on the LaPorte family, see King, Blue Coat, pp. 144–145, 195–196, 222–223, 270–271.

59. Chambón, André Maistre du, “Acte notarié relatif aux doléances des ‘gens de couleur’ (29 juillet 1789),” Mémoires de la société archéologique et historique de la Charente (1931), pp. 135–139,Google Scholar provides Raimond’s own 1789 list of his supporters; for Raimond's political activity before the revolution, see Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 216–218.Google Scholar

60. “Requête adressée au roi étant en Conseil,” ANOM Col. E306, March 19, 1789, dossier de Vincent Ogé jeune.

61. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 4.

62. Tarrade, , Le commerce colonial, vol. 1, pp. 454, 467.Google Scholar

63. DeméesJacques Pierre, cited in Frostin, Charles, “Saint-Domingue et la révolution américaine,” Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe 22 (1974), p. 105.Google Scholar

64. “Requête,” ANOM Col. E306.

65. Thésée, Françoise, Négociants bordelais et colons de Saint-Domingue: liaisons d’habitations: la maison Henry Romberg, Bapst et Cie, 1783–1793 (Paris: Geuthner, 1972), pp. 86–100.Google Scholar

66. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, pp. 10–11.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid., p. 5. This was a very large sum, roughly equivalent to the value of a medium-size coffee plantation and slaves in this part of the colony.

69. Ibid., pp. 3–4.

70. Ibid., p. 8.

71. Debien, Gabriel, Les colons de Saint-Domingue et la Révolution: Essai sur le Club Massiac (août 1789-août 1792) (Paris: Armand Colin, 1953), p. 17;Google Scholar the best overview of these events in English is Geggus, David P., “Racial Equality, Slavery, and Colonial Secession During the Constituent Assembly,” The American Historical Review 94: 5 (1989), pp. 1290–1308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72. Ogé, “Motion faite par M. Vincent Ogé jeune, à l’Assemblée des colons, habitans de S.Domingue, à l’Hôtel de Massiac.”

73. See the 1840 controversy about Ogé’s intentions in Bongie, Chris, “C’est du papier ou de l’Histoire en marche? The revolutionary compromises of a Martiniquan homme de couleur Cyrille-Charlcs-Auguste Bissctte, ” Nineteenth-Century Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Journal 23: 4 (2001), p. 463.Google Scholar Gauthier, Florence, L’aristocratie de Vépiderme: le combat de la Société des citoyens de couleur, 1789–1791 (Paris: CNRS Editions, 2007), pp. 35–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, exaggerates Julien Raimond’s position on slavery but offers a more balanced assessment of Ogé.

74. Rolland-Audiger, De Joly and Poizat, , Extrait du procès-verbal, pp. 11–13;Google Scholar Debbasch, , Couleur et liberté, p. 24.Google Scholar

75. De Joly, et al., Cahier, contenant les plaintes, doléances and reclamations des citoyens-libres et propriétaires de couleur, des isles et colonies françoises, p. 5.Google Scholar

76. Chambón, Maistre du, “Acte notarié,” pp. 135–139.Google Scholar

77. Dorigny, Marcel and Gainot, Bernard, eds., ha Société des Amis des Noirs, 1788–1799: contribution à l’histoire de l–abolition de l’esclavage (Paris: Éditions UNESCO, 1998), p. 244.Google Scholar

78. Thésée, Françoise, “Autour de la Société des Amis des Noirs: Clarkson, Mirabeau et l’abolition de la traite (août 1789–mars 1790),” Présence africaine 125 (1983), p. 48.Google Scholar

79. Brown,, Christopher Leslie Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), p. 438.Google Scholar

80. Wilson, Ellen Gibson, Thomas Clarkson: A Biography (New York: St. Martin–s Press, 1990), p. 58, cites Clarkson’s 1830 History.Google Scholar

81. Andress, David, The French Revolution and the People (London: Hamblcdon and London, 2004), pp. 131–133.Google Scholar

82. For the full story of the expedition, and the failed attempt in 1782 to turn this volunteer unit into part of the royal army, with obligatory service for men of color, see Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 205–215.Google Scholar

83. On the patriotism/militia debate in Saint-Domingue in the years up to 1763, see Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 205–215.Google Scholar

84. Clifford, Dale L., “Can the Uniform Make the Citizen? Paris, 1789–1791,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 34: 3 (2001), pp. 368, 369, 373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

85. CARAN F3/278, feuille 329 and Berault, and Cullion, Antoine Valentin de Adresse à l’Assemblée nationale: conspiration découverte (Saint-Marc, Saint-Domingue: Imprimerie de l’Assemblée Générale, 1790), pp. 5, 12.Google Scholar Simon Schama’s account of this meeting suggests that Ogé may have already had the medal by the time he met Clarkson; see Schama, Simon, Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution (New York: Harper Collins, 2006), p. 263.Google Scholar

86. A reproduction of the military image can be found in Garrigus, “‘Thy Coming Fame, Ogé! Is Sure’: New Evidence on Ogé’s 1790 Revolt and the Beginnings of the Haitian Revolution,“ in Assumed Identities: The Meanings of Race in the Atlantic World, eds. Garrigus, John D. and Morris, Christopher (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2010), p. 18;Google Scholar a similar image showing Ogé in civilian clothes is reproduced in Images de la Revolution aux Antilles, ed. Châtillon, Marcel (Basse-Terre: Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1989), figure 21.Google Scholar

87. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 133-134; Thomas Clarkson apparently remembered that Lafayette had agreed to be the honorary leader of a special free colored militia corps. See Thésée, , “Autour de la Société des Amis des Noirs,” p. 15.Google Scholar

88. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 10.

89. Lewis, , France, 1715–1804, p. 108;Google Scholar Roche, Daniel, A History of Everyday Things: The Birth of Consumption in France, 1600–1800, trans. Brian Pearce (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 69.Google Scholar

90. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 16–17, 27.

91. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 27; Debien, Gabriel, “Gens de couleur libres et colons devant la Constituante (3e partie et fin),” Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française 4: 4 (March 1951), p. 20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

92. Many Anglophone historians appear to have taken this from Edwards, Bryan, An Historical Survey of the French Colony in the Island of St Domingo: Comprehending a Short Account of Its Ancient Government, Political State, Population, Productions, and Exports: A Narrative of the Calamities Which Have Desolated the Country Ever Since the Year 1789 (London: John Stockdale, 1797), pp. 42–3, Google Scholar; Edwards does refer to Ogé’s purchase of arms in April 1790, but he was drawing from the records of the national assembly’s colonial committee and the allegation is probably a rumor from the Club Massiac. See Debien, , “Gens de couleur (3e partie et fin),” p. 545.Google Scholar

93. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 29.

94. Clarkson, Thomas, The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade (London: Printed for Longman, 1808), pp. 148–150.Google Scholar

95. “Procuration à MM. Grenouillaud et Chavannc ,” October 30, 1789, ADG Collection Chatillon 61J 15, piece 21; for events in Limonade, see Garrigus, , Before Haiti, p. 230.Google Scholar

96. For the extraordinary career of Castaing, who eventually married one of Bonaparte’s stepdaughters in France, sec Noël, “Le sang noir des Castaing.”

97. On Chavanne’s status as a veteran, see Ardouin, , Études sur Vhistoire d’Haïti suivies de la vie du général J.M. Bargella, vol. 1, p. 38;Google Scholar on Jean-Baptiste Chavanne’s social network with poorer free men of color, see King, , Blue Coat, p. 213; on the financial difficulties of his mother, p. 221.Google Scholar

98. For Limonade, see Garrigus, , Before Haiti, p. 230;Google Scholar for activities in Grande-Rivière, see “Procuration à MM. Grenouillaud ct Chavanne”; and “Lettre aux Messieurs du comité colonial séant au Cap,” October 30, 1789, ADG Collection Chatillon 61J 15, piece 24; Jean-Baptiste Chavanne, “Mémoire,” November 10, 1789, ADG Collection Chatillon 61 J 15, piece 22.

99. On Ferrand and Labadie, see Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 229–232;Google Scholar for Labuissonièrc, sec Labuissonière, “A MM de rassemblée paroissiale fixé pour la ville de Léogane le 15 novembre 1789” (Lcogane, Saint-Domingue, November 15, 1789), ADG Collection Chatillon 61J15, piece 21.

100. Debbasch, , Couleur et liberté, p. 171, cites Governor de Peînier’s letter of March 14, 1790 [ANOM F3195].Google Scholar

101. Confirming the idea that Jean-Pierre Ogé was involved in political affairs, Julien Raimond wrote that he thought colonial whites had hired Ogé's brother's slave to kill him, in exchange for manumission. Raimond, Julien, Réponse aux considérations de M. Moreau, dit Saint-Mèry, député à l’assemblée nationale, sur les colonies (Paris: Imprimerie du patriote françois, 1791), p. 32.Google Scholar Ogé mentioned his brother’s murder in his interrogation but he did not say when or how it had occurred. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 32.

102. For a translated version, see Dubois, Laurent and Garrigus, John D., Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804: A Brief History with Documents (New York: Bedford St. Martin's Press, 2006), pp. 70–2;Google Scholar on the disagreement among contemporaries in Paris about how to interpret these instructions, Debien, , “Gens de couleur (3e partie et fin),” pp. 543–547.Google Scholar

103. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 28–29, 33, 34; for an English translation of the October 21, 1790, letter to Governor de Peinier, see Dubois, and Garrigus, , Slave Revolution, p. 76.Google Scholar

104. In an earlier article I suggested Chavanne was waiting for Ogé in the spring of 1790. See Garrigus, , ‘“Thy Coming Fame, Ogé! Is Sure’,” p. 31, but the dates of documents from the Chatillon collection in Bordeaux, described below, make this seem unlikely.Google Scholar

105. Saint-Méry, M.L.E. Moreau de, Considérations présentées aux vrais amis du repos et du bonheur de la France, a l’occasion des nouveaux mouvemens de quelques soi-disant Amis-des-noirs (Paris: I’Imprimerie Nationale, 1791), p. 22;Google Scholar Pamphile de Lacroix, La Révolution de Haïti, p. 50.

106. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 46–48; “Lettre aux membres de la conseil coloniale de Grande Rivière,” Grande-Rivière, Saint-Domingue, April 30, 1790, ADG, Chatillon Collection 61 J 15, piece 29; “Lettre aux membres de l'assemblée coloniale,” March 28, 1790, ADG, Collection Chatillon, 61 J 15, piece 27.

107. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 28-29; on the meeting in London, see Hochschild, Adam, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), p. 191.Google Scholar

108. Dubois, and Garrigus, Slave Revolution, pp. 75–8;Google Scholar for the French originals, CARAN Dxxv 65, dossier 658.

109. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 44–50; Ogé, Jacques, Testament de mort d’gé et adresse de Pinchinat aux hommes de couleur, en date du 13 décembre dernier: avec la réfutation de cette adresse par un habitant de Saint-Domingue: suivi d’un un récit des journeées des 9 et 10 novembre dernier, Saint Marc (Philadelphia: Chez Parent, 1793).Google Scholar

110. Blanc, François, “Copie de la deposition faitte par le nommé Blanc, à la municipalité du Dondon,” 1790, CARAN Dxxv58;Google Scholar for Verneuil, see Popkin, Jeremy D., “Facing Racial Revolution: Captivity Narratives and Identity in the Saint-Domingue Insurrection,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 36: 4 (2003), pp. 46–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

111. Ogé, Testament de mort d’Ogé.

112. See the discussion in Garrigus, , Before Haiti, pp. 247–250.Google Scholar

113. Madiou, Thomas, Histoire d’Haiti, vol. 1 (Port-au-Prince: Impr. de J. Courtois, 1847), p. 76;Google Scholar Ogé, Testament de mort d’Ogé.

114. Bocquet de Prevent, Extrait des minutes, 92-5; for a more detailed account of the military aspects of the Ogé “revolt“ and its historiography, see Garrigus, , “Thy Coming Fame, Ogé! Is Sure’,“ pp. 32–3.Google Scholar

115. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 144–148.

116. On events in Santo Domingo, see Rodríguez, Melania Rivers, “Los colonos americanos en la sociedad pre-rrevoludonaría de Saint Domingue. La rebelión de Vicente Ogé y su apresamiento en Santo Domingo (1789–1791 ),” Memorias: Revista digital de historia y arqueología desde el Caribe 2: 2. Google Scholar

117. Ogé, Testament de mort d’Ogé.

118. Bocquet de Frévent, Extrait des minutes, 19–23, 77, 81, 100, 124–125.

119. Brissot, Jacques-Pierre, “Preface,” in Observations sur l’origine et les progrès du préjugé des colons blancs contre les hommes de couleur by Julien Raimond (Paris: Belin, 1791), 8.Google Scholar

120. This fear of veterans of the Ogé/Chavanne episode resounded especially in 1791. Many colonists believed that the free black Jean-Baptiste Cap, who was said to have been part of the Ogé movement, had helped organize the August 1791 slave uprising. However his name does not appear in any of the records generated by Ogé or Chavanne. Cap was executed in Cap-Français in September 1791. Benot, Yves, “The Insurgents of 1791, Their Leaders and the Concept of Independence,” in The World of the Haitian Revolution, eds. Geggus, David P. and Fiering, Norman (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), pp. 100–101;Google Scholar Fick, , Making of Haiti, p. 103.Google Scholar

121. Français, Conseil Supérieur de Cap, Arrêt de Conseil Supérieur du Cap contre le nommé Ogé jeune & ses Complices (Cap-Français: Imprimerie Royale, 1791).Google Scholar

122. For references to Ogé's death by rebel slave leaders, see the translated documents in Dubois, and Garrigus, , Slave Revolution, p. 102.Google Scholar