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1791 |
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| South America & Caribbean:Previous Hispanola: 1790's As the 1790s approach the unique culture of Saint Domingue begins to show the strains of a prosperous but varied population. There are 40,000 whites, 30,000 free men of color and nearly 500,000 black slaves. Divisions that are pulling the population apart are: coffee planters vs. sugar planters Gran blancs vs petit blancs (merchants and lawyers.) Whites vs. mulattoes and blacks vs. mulattoes. Prosperity in Saint Domingue sets it apart from other colonies in the New World, even the mineral rich Spanish provinces in South America. Mulattoes often own slaves and plantations, learn trades. Some have been educated in Europe. |
From 1785 to 1790 the number of new blacks brought to the French portion of the island of Hispanola exceeds 30,000 per year. Although their treatment is still very harsh, a near 50% mortality rate, the total number of slaves increases .
Blacks at this time do not perceive any power to revolt. August 1791; Free coloreds are preparing for civil war with whites in the South and West Provinces. Neither whites or mulattoes anticipate a slave insurrection brewing. Now that the free people of color have invoked the "Rights of Man" extended by the French Assembly, black slaves begin to realize that there is a power other than their slave masters (both white and mulatto.) August 14 1791; Boukman Dutty, who was born in Jamaica, as a high priest performs a vodun (voodoo) ceremony stiring up black emotions. August 21 1791; a slave rebellion burns cane fields and plantations on the northern plain near Cap Française. The rebels are moroons (run-away slaves) armed with machetes and 1,200 slaves from 200 plantations In 1791 future leader François-Dominique Toussaint Breda is reading in Raynal: "A courageous chief only is wanted." He is a coachman and Manager of livestock at the Breda Plantation. He is a former slave and slave holder who moves easily among whites and free coloreds. Two years later he is known as Toussaint L’Ouverture (the opening.) Toussaint’s lieutenants will be Jean-Jacques Dessalines who is 40 years old and a dutiful slave and Henri Christophe who works at a hotel. The slave rebels elude soldiers from Le Cap (Française). The white government begs 15,000 rifles from Jamaica, then asks for military aid from Jamaica, Santo Domingo and the United States, all of who are alerted to the possible spread of a slave rebellion Savagery of torture, rape and murder know no color lines. At the end of 1791 battle lines seem to be : in the West Province - white and free colored planters vs. urban radicals; in the South - free coloreds vs. whites; and in the North - slaves against the whites. Next South America & Caribbean: Free Men of color gain voting rights in French West Indies; Saint Dominque shows open signs of rebellion. Sugar is harvested before plantations begin burning. |
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| North America:Washington President; Congress passes Whiskey tax; Vermont enters union as 14th state; Bill of Rights becomes law. Robert Gray discovers Columbia River, later basis of U. S. claim; Bank of United States; Joseph Peabody, Privateer settles in New England; John Finch - steamboat; Canada - Act of Britain’s Parliament divides Canada at Ottawa River- British Upper Canada and French Lower Canada have separate elected legislatures and governors. | |||||||||||
| Europe: French national Assembly elects Mirabeau president who dies at 42; Louis XVI , Marie Antoinette flee Paris and are apprehended in Lorraine; Thomas Paine issues Rights of Man; Society of United Irish formed to foment independence from England. House of Commons narrowly votes to maintain slave trade. French Academy of Sciences creates standard measurements as Universities are forced to close and French crops fail; James Boswell; London’s The Observer; Doctor Johnson; Mozart succumbs to typhoid at 35; Robert Burns; Haydn; de Sade; Captain Bligh ; Brandenburg Gate. | |||||||||||
January 1791
 Spanish Officials:Alcaldes Ordinarios: Primer - Juan Ventura Morales Segundo - Pedro Marigny. Sindico Procurador General : Francisco de Riaño; Mayordomo de Proprios: Matias Alpuente. |
February 1791
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March 1791
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April 1791
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May 1791
A royal order on May 28, 1791 continues the trade decrees of 1782 until the crown formulates new regulations. |
June 1791
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July 1791
Crimes pursued by the Cabildo courts in 1791 include an arsonist and a band of thieves plaguing the city. July 1791; Juan, a slave belonging to Colonel Piernas is arrested and sent to Havana for six years hard labor for arson, starting at least six fires. |
August 1791
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September 1791
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October 1791
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November
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December 1791 December 30, 1791 Carondelet becomes governor of Louisiana. He also serves as Intendant until 1794. He is the first governor to spend municipal revenues without Cabildo authorization. The councilors paid the bills because the city benefited they did not object to his use of the money. The custom of celebrating the arrival of a new governor begins with Carondelet in December 1791. He is greeted down the river by the ranking regidores, Almonester and Ducros, and gives him a reception in its temporary chambers. |
Revolution breaks out in Saint Domingue, the French portion of the Island of Hispanola. sending refugees to New Orleans and directing some of Napoleon’s attention toward the Caribbean. Louisiana planters become apprehensive about blacks in their midst and lenient slave laws under the Spanish administration that allow actions such as coartacion, or self purchase by slaves, notaries granting letters of freedom, the right of slaves to complain about treatment by their masters, and to seek new owners as well as limitations on punishment. As the planters try to resurrect parts of the French Code Noir the Cabildo increases its control over slave laws throughout the colony. The events in Saint Domingue in 1791 begin a civil and international conflict that continues in various forms on the island until 1822. |
The Tulane family of Huguenots had fled France during the revolution and had settled in Saint Domingue in 1791, only to flee the slave uprising there to find sanctuary in Princeton , N. J. Paul Tulane was his father’s favorite because of his shrewdness and knack for business. Young Paul toured America with a wealthy cousin from France and stayed at the house of Andrew Jackson in Tennessee and Henry Clay in Kentucky. He settled in New Orleans and began opening stores with dizzying success. His partner was Isaac Baldwin and together they purchase a factory in New Jersey that manufactured men«s clothing, shoes, harnesses and other leather goods. Tulane never married and considered the university as his child. He dies of pulmonary disease at the age of 86 on March 27, 1887 in Princeton, New Jersey . In the 1790s the Cabildo begins to elect alcaldes de barrio (ward commissioners) and sindicos de distrito (district syndics). Both cotton and sugar become profitable crops during the late 1790s, replacing indigo and tobacco, but for a while capital formation rested in the hands of the merchants of New Orleans. They provided credit for the planters and regulated prices of agricultural commodities that they purchased from them. In the late 1790s the sindico procurador general removed the monopoly that Charity Hospital had on selling coffins. |
A raised cottage with walls of bousillage (mud and Spanish moss between wooden posts) is built on high ground overlooking the flood plain of the Mississippi River near Baton Rouge and will be known as Magnolia Mound. It will be enlarged in the early 1800s. Today it is furnished in the style of the Federalist period and is located on Nicholson Drive in Baton Rouge between the LSU campus and the downtown business district.
Viala Plantation, built in 1791 was moved in the 1960s and today is Lafitte’s Landing Restaurant just off the West bank River Road in the shadow of the Sunshine Bridge. The privateer Lafitte is said to have visited the house when business brought him to the area. Famous guests said to have visited La Maison Blanche (White Hall Plantation) a Spanish colonial plantation home, erected in 179? include the Duc d’Orleans, later King Louis Philippe of France, and General Andrew ³Old Hickory² Jackson. General W.C.C. Claiborne was a guest in 1806. It is built in St. James Parish by Marius Pons Bringier who grows indigo and tobacco and amasses a fortune. Noted Revolutionary War Colonel Wade Hampton purchased the property in 1825. White Hall changed hands several times before it burned about 1850. Construction on Ormond Plantation is begun in the late 1780s by Pierre Trépagnier on the East Bank of St. Charles Parish. The house«s heavy cypress structure is tenoned, mortised and pegged by hand and packed with bricks, mud and moss. It is designed in a square plan, four rooms on each floor. Pierre received the land as a grant from Governor Galvez for his service against the English around Natchez. He disappeared mysteriously into the swamps in 1798, never to return to his magnificent house. It will be purchased in 1812 by Richard Butler who had served under the Marquis de Lafayette in the Continental Army and named the plantation after a relative, the Earl of Ormond of Ormond Castle in Ireland. The Butler plantation prospers until many in the family die in the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1820. A later owner, Samuel McCutchon, whose family married into Butler family, demolished two square pigeonniers and added the two story brick garçonniéres on each side. The plantation again prospered under the McCutchons, who were merchant marines. It will be restored in the 1940s by the Alfred W. Browns of New Orleans. |
Military units from Mexico and Havana are added to the Fixed Louisiana Light Infantry Regiment, adding about 500 troops and contributing to the city«s commercial life. A military school which had closed briefly will re-open in 1791 and will last through the rest of the Spanish era. It never has more than 30 or 40 students at one time. Most cadets are French Creoles whose parents wanted their sons to advance in the community or sons of the Spanish army officers and government officials. |
Denis Prieur | |||||||
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