British Opinion and the Emergence of Haiti, 1791–1805

Abstract

The British public by the autumn of 1791 was well-familiar with the topic of West Indian slavery, perhaps even growing tired of it, when on 26 October rumours raced around London that there had been a huge and gory catastrophe in the Caribbean. The campaign to abolish the slave trade was already four years old and was reaching a new climax, after being set back in the spring by news of a brief rebellion on the island of Dominica.¹ Now reports began to arrive from the French colony of St Domingue of a slave revolt far greater than anything the New World had ever known. The great northern plain of St Domingue, the West Indies’ wealthiest colony and Europe’s main source of both sugar and coffee, had been devastated. Over 100,000 slaves were in revolt, and with firebrands and machetes had taken a terrible revenge on their masters. Hundreds of plantations lay in ashes. Hundreds of whites had been slaughtered, sometimes in the most grisly of circumstances. As lurid tales were told and retold in the coffee shops and counting houses of the City, the price of sugar shot sky high and stocks fell immediately by 1 per cent.²