Were We Grateful?

April 25, 1998

The loom of history weaves strange and unpredictable patterns. Different threads must be interwoven to understand consequences. If you live west of the Mississippi, you might not be in the United States had it not been for Toussaint L’Ouverture. If you are in the river cargo business on the Mississippi, you might have to pay custom duties to another country if President Thomas Jefferson had not ignored the Constitution and his own principles and expediently embraced opportunity. If Napoleon’s plans had not been totally frustrated, you might be speaking French when you celebrate Mardi Gras in New Orleans. If it had not been for rebellious slaves in Haiti, the United States might be comprised of the 26 States east of the Mississippi River. I thought of a paragraph in a letter received the other day from my grandson, Carl A., who was commenting on “chaos theory”: “Chaos is interesting in that it may outline some of the boundaries of what humans can know. The Butterfly Effect, in miniature: a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, causing small air currents that, through a complex chain reaction, lead to a thunderstorm in New York. Such is a succinct example of why weather prediction is, and always will be, generally unreliable past a couple days.”

I believe that history has, sometimes, parallels to nature, particularly akin to weather causes and predictions. In this summary of events, 1801-1803, I am following closely Herbert Agar, THE PRICE OF UNION. Most historians would not differ substantially from his recounting of events. The quotations from Henry Adams and Thomas Jefferson are from Agar’s text.

Napoleon wanted the French Empire restored to its former position of strength on the North American continent. In 1801, his brother Lucian obtained a treaty from Spain which ceded Louisiana to France. Napoleon agreed to preliminary articles of peace with Great Britain, freeing his troops for a Louisiana invasion.

Then the focus shifted to the Caribbean, the island of San Domingo (today’s Haiti), where French commercial interests were central. Napoleon needed a base for troop support for his anticipated conquest of Louisiana. Of the 600,000 inhabitants of the island, 500,000 were Negro slaves (I am using “Negro” because then it was the common term). Under the leadership of a remarkable man, Toussaint L’Ouverture, the slaves revolted at the time of the French Revolution. Whites were massacred. But during the Revolution, the French National Assembly abolished slavery. Toussaint became a General of the Republic; and ruled San Domingo, convinced and asserting that it was a sovereign State. When Napoleon came to power in France, Toussaint refused to obey his edicts.

In 1801, Napoleon dispatched a large army commanded by General LeClerc (his brother in-law) to defeat Toussaint and to re-institute slavery. The plan was for General LeClerc, after subduing the island, would lead his 36,000 man army to conquer Louisiana.

The danger was recognized in our young nation. President Jefferson wrote to Livingstone, the American minister in Paris:

“It (the cession of Louisiana to France) completely reverses all the political relations of the United States .... There is on the globe one single spot the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans, through which the produce of the territory must pass to market.... The day that France takes possession of New Orleans... we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation.”

In January, 1803, Jefferson sent James Monroe to join Livingstone in Paris, with orders to buy New Orleans. Jefferson had no constitutional authority or congressional sanction for this action. But, seemingly, he believed there were times when one “must arise above principle.”

Meanwhile, the French were doing badly in San Domingo. Brigades meant for Louisiana were being destroyed by the Negroes of San Domingo. Although Toussaint was captured and died in French captivity, the savage war continued. Napoleon experiencing overwhelming losses in his forces, and seeing no prospect of victory, told Talleyrand to sell the whole territory of Louisiana.

Thus, on April 30, Louisiana was purchased by the United States for $11,250,000, plus an additional sum to subsidize debts owed by France to American citizens.

Henry Adams wrote, “The prejudice of race alone blinded the American people to the debt they owed to the desperate courage of five hundred thousand Haytian Negroes who would not be enslaved.”

Historical events are less subtle than a butterfly wing in Tokyo, but frequently unpredictable. History has a way of surprising even the most assured and astute of predictors. There is a “law of unintended consequences.”

Shakespeare has King Henry IV say to Warwick:

“O God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea! and, other times, to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors!”

(KING HENRY IV, Part 2, Act 3, Sc. i)