Recalling the scene a few days later on January 17, a correspondent to the Louisiana Gazette described a road that “for two or three leagues was crowded with carriage and carts full of people, making their escape from the ravages of the banditti—negroes, half naked, up to their knees in mud with large packages on their heads driving along toward the city.” Rumors ran rampant through the city. “The accounts we received were various. Fear and panic had seized those making their escape and it was not possible to estimate the force of the brigands.”
Fresh memories of Haiti fueled panic and terror among the city’s white inhabitants. They had heard the stories of the Haitian revolution, when rebel slaves strapped white planters to racks and cut them in pieces, raped their daughters and wives, and decapitated men, women, and children alike. They feared that the German Coast had become, as one resident put it, a “miniature representation of the horrors of St. Domingo.” Women and children fled through the streets toward the redoubt at Faubourg Marigny to take shelter with the small garrison located there.
Sometime before noon, Governor Claiborne heard the news from his top general Wade Hampton, who had arrived a mere two days earlier to help with an ongoing war with the Spanish over West Florida. His first thought was for the safety of the city. He feared not only that the rebel army would arrive before his troops could prepare, but also that there might already exist some communications between the rebels and the urban slaves and free black people. In a city where the majority of the population was black, he feared the opening of a second front. If the rapidly closing rebel army were able to take advantage of an urban slave riot, Claiborne knew white New Orleans would stand little chance of survival.
Holed up with the mayor and other officials in the government buildings surrounding the Place d’Armes, Claiborne dispatched orders to the militia and the military to seal the city. His first terse writings on January 9 were to General Hampton: “Sir, I pray you to have the goodness to order, a Guard to the Bayou Bridge, with instructions to the Officer to permit no Negroes to pass or repass the same.” He wanted to prevent the flow of information from the black residents of the German Coast to the black residents of New Orleans, to quarantine the city from the contagion of revolt.
After securing the bridges, Claiborne targeted the taverns next. “All the Cabarets in the City and Suburbs of New Orleans are ordered to be immediately closed,” he decreed from his headquarters. Claiborne feared such halls of entertainment provided sites not just for the mixing of the lower classes, but also for the spread of revolutionary ideas. He was not the first to make this connection. A 1781 Spanish report detailed the troubles caused by black men during the Carnival season. “People of color, both free and slaves, were taking advantage of carnival,” wrote the Spanish official, to go about “disguised, mingling with the carnival throngs in the streets, seeking entrance to the masquerade balls, both society balls and those charging admission, and threatening the public peace by introducing enemies of the king into assemblies under mask,” and even committing robberies.
Claiborne put the city into lockdown. “No male Negro is permitted to pass the streets after 6 o’clock,” he ordered. The city garrison would fire a gun at dusk—the final warning to any black man still in the streets. The gun shot left little to the imagination of what would happen to any male slave found outdoors at night.
With these orders in place, Claiborne set his sights on the slave army now approaching his city. As reports of atrocities spread through the city, Claiborne turned to General Hampton. As Hampton later recalled, “about 12 O’Clock on the Morning of the 9th the governor came to me with the unpleasant information that a formidable insurrection had commenced among the blacks, on the left bank of the river, about 40 Miles above this city, which was rapidly advancing toward it, and carrying in it’s train fire, Murder, & pillage. The regular force in the City was inconsiderable, and as there was nothing like an organized Militia, the confusion was great beyond description.” Over the next six hours, Hampton scrambled to respond to Claiborne’s request for help. By six o’clock he had marshaled two companies of volunteer militia and thirty regular troops to meet the rebels. With the exception of a small garrison at the fort, this small force was the extent of American military power in New Orleans. The company set out after sunset along the River Road to face what some of them feared was a slave army of equal ferocity to the revolutionaries of Haiti.
Commodore John Shaw, the naval commander of the fleet at New Orleans, expressed skepticism of General Hampton’s force, calling it a “weak detachment.” Shaw feared that the insurgents might triumph over Hampton’s troops, that “the whole coast [would exhibit] a general sense of devastation; every description of property [would be consumed]; and the country laid waste by the Rioters.” The vulnerability of New Orleans contributed to the sense of panic. The majority of the American military force (in particular the highly effective dragoons) were in West Florida. With the departure of the soldiers, the volunteer militia, and the seamen, New Orleans was left virtually defenseless. “All were on the alert . . . General confusion and dismay . . . prevailed throughout the city,” Shaw wrote. “Scarcely a single person in it possessed a musket for the protection of himself and property.” The slave-rebels had forced the utter evacuation of military power from New Orleans. And now they faced the sum total of the military might of the Orleans Territory—at this time a mere sixty-eight regular troops.
Driving wind and a steady rain prevented armed ships from moving up the river. Bur Commodore Shaw made the quick decision to arm the sailors and send them in support. He lost no time in attacking by land. He sent his lieutenants Charles Thompson and Harvey Carter to lead a detachment of forty seamen on the expedition. The combined force now reckoned about 100 men—barely 20 percent of the size of the slave army. Moreover, they had little sense of the terrain, having come recently from the East Coast. This small detachment seemed to have little chance of success.
With the fate of the city in the hands of the army and the navy, Claiborne sat down as night was falling to draft his official reports. Claiborne knew he was in danger of losing control over the city he had governed since 1804. But the matter was out of his hands; he would have to rely on Hampton and Shaw to defend the city. Religion was his last resort. “I pray God that the force sent from this City may soon meet the Brigands and arrest them in their murdering career,” he wrote late on the night of January 9. With the white residents of the area clustered behind the city gates and the black slaves marching from the fields, it seemed all Claiborne could do was pray.
* * *
While Claiborne took frantic action to secure the city, his soldiers began to encounter frightened fugitive planters. But to the soldiers’ surprise, some planters chose to fight rather then flee. As they met the American army, they turned their horses around, facing back now toward their homes and the slave-rebels. Though lacking leadership, the planters formed a party of volunteer cavalry and agreed to join in the attack. Not waiting for Hampton’s troops, the horsemen led the way along the River Road and into what was now enemy territory. Many of these men were from families who had built New Orleans; they were patriots and lovers of their homeland. And now, in the face of perhaps the city’s greatest challenge, they rode out to defend it. In their minds, the slave-rebels were not freedom fighters but terrorists. As they passed scores of refugees heading toward safety through the pouring rain, they soon had to answer the questions posed by the revolt—and the changed world, post–Gilbert Andry and François Trépagnier’s deaths.
Riding along the River Road, the planters heard the clip-clop of a lone horse heading toward them at a fast clip. Suspecting the rider might be another escaping planter, Jean Noël Destrehan, Alexandre Labranche, and René Trudeau rode out in front of the troops to greet and debrief with the comrade they expected to emerge. But as the rider approached closer, they realized the horseman was black. Taking out their guns, they ordered the black rider to slow his horse. With no other clea
r option as he rode into an army of white planters, the slave brought his horse up next to the planters. He was unarmed. René Trudeau, recognizing his own slave Jacob, “stopped near the said negro, and said jokingly: ‘As brigand are you not at the head of the negroes?’ ” It was a loaded question—Jacob’s answer would make the difference between life and death. Jacob sought to defuse the charge. “My master, you know me, that I am not capable of such a thing,” he responded. Jacob’s choice of phrases was deft, born of long experience with the charged pleasantries and lies of plantation life. He had emphasized his state of servility by addressing Trudeau as “my master.” Jacob next asserted his familiarity, saying, “you know me,” relying on a mutual acknowledgment of good intentions, on a reputation for loyalty that he had presumably built up with Trudeau. Finally, Jacob denied that he would ever participate in a revolt. “I am not capable of such a thing,” he told Trudeau. What he implied, however, was not merely that he could not possibly fathom revolting, but that he lacked the facility or agency to do this. Having heard Jacob’s response, Trudeau decided to spare his life, to merely imprison Jacob until the revolt was over and a trial could be held to determine what exactly Jacob was doing. With Jacob in chains, the planters continued their ride toward the chaos of the German Coast. Their encounter with Jacob left them again feeling in control—as though the rebels they would soon face were just the same slaves they had known for years.
Chapter Ten
A Second Wind
As the day waned, the rebels were confronted with a new reality. They found each plantation home they came upon empty except for the slaves. The planters they had intended to surprise and kill were gone. As the chaos of insurrection had spread along the German Coast, the balance of power had shifted into the hands of the slaves. The planters no longer felt safe in their homes, in the flat, visible space between the river and the swamps. But as much as Charles, Kook, Quamana, and the rebel army reveled in the speed and efficiency of their conquest, they knew they had not heard the last of the planters. They also knew they had to strike hard and fast in order to achieve their goals. They would need an early victory against a substantial planter force in order to persuade wavering slaves to join them and to ensure ultimate victory.
The new recruits were bursting with energy, but the long walk was taking its toll on others. The slaves who had joined the rebellion at Manuel Andry’s estate were feeling the long march in their legs. But fortunately for these tired souls, Bernard Bernoudy kept a substantial collection of horses on his estate. As they marched into the plantation, the slave Augustin, a highly valued sugar worker, drove the horses toward the slave army. Horses were powerful military tools, enhancing the speed, power, and stature of the slaves. With the infusion of these new beasts of burden, about half the slaves were able to ride instead of walk, accelerating the pace of the rebels’ progress toward New Orleans and increasing their standing in the minds of the slaves they met as they proceeded further.
At the plantation of Butler and McCutcheon, the slave Simon was waiting. Simon had grown up with his family in Baltimore. But when Simon was in his late teens, his old master had sold him down south to New Orleans—forcing him to leave behind a family he would likely never see again. The twenty-year-old slave had tried to escape just months before, to flee and rejoin his family in Baltimore. But Butler and McCutcheon were well-connected slave masters, and after they placed an ad in the local newspaper, Simon was quickly apprehended and returned to the German Coast. There he was savagely beaten for the transgression of attempting to reunite with his family. Scars on his left cheek and his forehead marred his handsome features. Simon had rallied eight other young men in their twenties—Dawson, Daniel, Garrett, Mingo, Perry, Ephraim, Abraham, and Joe Wilkes. This young gang added youth and strength to the insurgent band. Between the horses and the new young faces, the rebel army was gaining a second wind.
Continuing east toward New Orleans, the insurgents passed the Red Church, where François Trépagnier would later be buried. Sparing the minister, they swept down the River Road, passing the two-story Destrehan mansion with its bold architecture and imposing presence. Here Jasmin, Chelemagne, and Gros and Petit Lindor joined the insurrection. Jean Noël Destrehan himself had long since fled for the city.
Here, finally, maroons began to join the insurrection. At the plantation of Alexandre Labranche, the longtime maroons Rubin and Coffy left the swamps and joined the revolt. Following Rubin and Coffy’s lead, a wave of swamp denizens gave up the security of their wooded retreats to fight with the rebel army.
As the maroons emerged in triumph from the swamps, the planters continued to flee for safety. Alexandre Labranche, who had waited in the swamps until he was assured the slaves had passed, sneaked through the fields and down to the river, where he took a boat to the other side. From there, he fled toward New Orleans in search of safety. He left his loyal slave François “to keep an eye on the situation”—vision, that essential element of slave discipline, was now in the eyes of the slaves themselves. François was in some sense Charles Deslondes’ mirror image—a slave driver who chose to command slaves not in service of rebellion and freedom but in service of the status quo and security. François would fight to hold the plantation world together—even as Charles and his men tore at its seams.
At points, the insurgents were not above inflicting their own punishments on fellow slaves, forcing those who wavered to join them. While several of the slaves on the Trépagnier plantation willingly joined the slave army, others obstinately refused. So Charles, Kook, Quamana, and their allies raised the stakes, threatening to kill any slaves who would not join. The rebels knew that many slaves preferred slavery and security to freedom and death, and to adjust the odds in this complex calculus they threatened violence, too.
As they moved on to New Orleans, the insurgents set fire to the home of the local doctor. Though a doctor might seem an unlikely target, doctors were often hated figures among slaves. Slave masters employed doctors to manage the health of their slaves—a position that put doctors in direct, intimate, and often objectionable relationships with slaves. These slave patients often had very different approaches to medicine and healing, involving herbal medicine and traditional practices with which they felt more comfortable. They were wary of white doctors, who clearly had in mind not their interests but those of the slaveholders. In the pouring rain, burning down a house took a lot of effort. But the slaves were willing to put in the effort to torch the home of the doctor who had violated the most intimate spaces of their bodies with white medicine.
After burning the home of the local doctor, the rebel army arrived at the Meuillion plantation. Here, at the wealthiest and largest plantation on the German Coast, at least thirteen more slaves joined the insurgency. The rebels then laid waste to Meullion’s grand home, pillaging and destroying much of the wealth that the planter had accumulated. They also attempted to set fire to the home, but in the words of one planter, the slave Bazile “did alone fight the fire set to the main house” and “alone, prevented them from stealing many of the effects of the late Meuillion.” Half Native American (probably Natchez), Bazile might have felt less of a bond with the largely African slave insurgents.
The slaves marched on through the dark and rain. Well after nightfall, they reached Cannes Brûlées, about fifteen miles northwest of New Orleans. On a clear day, the white spires of the New Orleans cathedral and the masts of the ships assembled in the harbor would have been easily visible. There they entered the Kenner and Henderson plantation, one of the hotbeds of insurrection. Harry Kenner, a light-skinned son of a planter father and a slave mother, was one of the original plotters who had met at the home of Manuel Andry—according to other slaves, one of the “most outstanding brigands.” Harry garnered the support of over a dozen men from his plantation. Five men whom owners described variously as carters or plowmen—Peter, Croaker, Smillet, Nontoun, and Charles—laid down their tools and joined the fight. A set of skilled laborers also cho
se to side with the rebels. Elisha, a driver on the plantation, enlisted, as did the blacksmith Jerry, the hostler Major, the coachman Joseph, and the skilled sugar hand, Harry. Guiam, also a coachman and sugar worker, appropriated one of his owner’s horses and, armed with a saber, led all the black males on the plantation toward the nearby home of Cadet Fortier. Lindor, a coachman and carter, assisted the organization of this new charge, acting as the group’s drummer.
By this point, the band of slaves had traveled twenty-one miles, a march that would have taken probably seven to ten hours. Documentary evidence links 124 individual slaves to the revolt, while eyewitness observers estimated their numbers at between 200 and 500—rivaling the size of the American military force in the region. The rebel army was now composed almost entirely of young men between twenty and thirty who had been employed as unskilled or low-skilled workers. These men had accomplished much on the first day of the insurrection. They had set fire to the houses of Pierre Reine and Mr. Laclaverie, and killed François Trépagnier and the son of Manuel Andry. They had driven their masters into hiding and seized control of the plantations that had been the sites of their labor and captivity.
Despite their impressive numbers, some guns, and horses, the slave army was not well armed. According to later accounts, “only one half of them were armed with bullets and fusils, and the others with sabers and cane knives.” Without proper weapons or means of fighting, the slaves could be outmatched by a small group of well-armed men. However, the fear the slaves had engendered among the planters had been enough to drive the planters from their homes and send them into flight. But intimidation and rumor would only go so far. While the slave-rebels’ march had thus far met with little resistance, the white planters had been mobilizing, collecting force, and preparing for a counterattack that would strike that night.
American Uprising Page 9