d with negro slaves. About 1630 the
buccaneers, or hunters of wild bulls, made it their haunt, and as these
were mostly French, the western part of the island was ceded to France in
1697. During the century that followed Africans were brought over in
multitudes, until there were nearly half a million blacks in Hayti,--the
Indian name of the island,--while there were less than forty thousand
whites and thirty thousand mulattoes, the latter being neither citizens
nor slaves. These facts are given as a necessary introduction to the story
we are about to tell.

It was the white revolution in France that brought about the black
revolution in Hayti. In 1789 the States-General met in France and
overturned the ancient system of oppression in that land. Liberty for all
was the tocsin of its members, and it was proclaimed that not only the
whites of France and her colonies, but the blacks also, were entitled to
freedom and a voice in the government. The news of this decree created a
ferment of passion in Hayti. The white planters of the island, who had
long controlled everything, burst into fury, for-swore all allegiance to
France, and trampled the national flag under foot in their rage.

But they had others than the French Assembly to deal with. The mulattoes,
or free people of color, rose in arms for the rights of which they had
been deprived. They were soon put down, but in the following year (1791) a
much more terrible outbreak took place, that of the slaves. There followed
a reign of terror as sanguinary in type as that of France. The revolt
began on the night of August 21, on the plantation of Noe, near Cape
Haytien. The long-oppressed and savage blacks mercilessly killed all the
whites who fell into their hands. Down from the mountains they poured on
every side, their routes marked by blood and devastation. Hills and plains
were swept with fire and sword, atrocities of the most horrible kinds were
committed, and nearly all the residents on the plantations, more than two
thousand in number, were brutally slaughtered, while a thousand sugar and
coffee estates were swept by fire.

In the first revolution the mulattoes aided the whites of the cities to
repel the blacks, but later, believing themselves betrayed by the whites,
they joined the blacks, and the revolt became a war of extermination. It
did not end until the negroes became masters of all the country districts,
and gained a control of the mountainous interior of the