Léger-Félicité Sonthonax (7 March 1763 – 23 July 1813) was a French politician and colonial administrator. He was a Jacobin before joining the Girondins, which emerged in 1791. During the Haitian Revolution, he controlled 7,000 French troops in Saint-Domingue. His official title was Civil Commissioner. From September 1792, he and Polverel became the de facto rulers of Saint-Domingue's non-slave population. Because they were associated with Brissot’s party, they were put in accusation by the convention on July 16, 1793, but a ship to bring them back in France didn’t arrive in the colony until June 1794, and they arrived in France in the time of the downfall of Robespierre. They had a fair trial in 1795 and were acquitted of the charges the white colonists brought against them.
Sonthonax believed that Saint-Domingue's whites were royalists or separatists, so he attacked the military power of the white settlers and by doing so alienated the colonial settlers from their government. Many gens de couleur (mixed-race residents of the colony) asserted that they could form the military backbone of Saint-Domingue if they were given rights, but Sonthonax rejected this view as outdated in the wake of the August 1791 slave uprising. He believed that Saint-Domingue would need ex-slave soldiers among the ranks of the colonial army if it was to survive. In August 1793, he proclaimed freedom for all slaves in the north province. Historians have debated his motives for abolishing slavery, with some arguing that he was influenced by revolutionary ideals of equality, and others alleging that he was forced into ending slavery in order to maintain his own power.
Early life
Born in Oyonnax, France on March 7, 1763, the son of a prosperous merchant, Sonthonax was a lawyer in the Parlement of Paris who rose in the ranks during the French Revolution. Sonthonax's wealth was due to his father's business, which employed many people from the region, and had made his father the richest man of the village. Sonthonax finished his studies at the University of Dijon, becoming a well-known lawyer with the help of his wealthy father. Following the proclamation, Sonthonax wrote a reply to those that were opposed to his and Polverel's decision in 1793 to grant these select slaves this new freedom. He declares his never ending belief that civil rights should be granted to these Africans and defends his decision to free the slaves was not erroneous to do. Sonthonax's Proclamation Au nom de la République explained his role in the Revolution. He was committed to make drastic decisions to prevent Britain and Spain from succeeding in their attempts to assume control over Saint-Domingue.
Emancipation and conflict
In February 1793, France declared war on Great Britain, which presented a new problem for Sonthonax. All those he had alienated in trying to uphold the French Revolution in Saint-Domingue proceeded to try and flee to the British West Indies (primarily Jamaica), where the colonial authorities gave shelter to the French counter-revolutionary émigrés. The white population in the colony declined significantly until only 6,000 remained after June 1793.
On June 20, 1793, a failed attempt to take control of the capital by a new military governor sympathetic to whites, François-Thomas Galbaud, led to the bombardment and burning of Cap-Français (now Cap-Haïtien). The burning was likely done by the roughly 1,000 non-native sailors among Galbaud's forces. Sonthonax made General Étienne Laveaux governor and expelled Galbaud from the colony after a promise of freedom for ex-slaves who agreed to fight on behalf of the commissioners and the French republican regime they represented. Up to this point, the commissioners had still been pursuing the fight against the black slaves, whose insurrection had begun in August 1791. Their emancipation was a momentous victory for all slave forces, and oral histories suggest a boost in their morale. On June 24, 1793, 60% of the white population left Saint-Domingue with Galbaud, most never to return. On August 29, 1793, with rumors of emancipation rampant, Sonthonax took the radical step of proclaiming the freedom of the slaves in the north province (with severe limits on their freedom).
From August 27 to October 31, 1793, on his side, Polverel emancipated the slaves in the west and south provinces.
Return to France
Toussaint, in the meantime, was consolidating his own position. The black general arranged for Sonthonax to leave Saint-Domingue as one of its elected representatives in 1797. When Sonthonax showed himself to be hesitant, Toussaint placed him under armed escort onto a ship bound for France on August 24. In France, he continued to participate in political life as a deputy, and remained involved in debates over colonial policy and the future of slavery in the French Republic. He died of natural causes in his home town of Oyonnax on July 23, 1813, after sixteen years back in France.
Bibliography
- 1793 – Proclamation nous, Étienne Polverel & Léger Félicité Sonthonax, commissaires civils, que nation française voyé dans pays-ci, pour mettre l'ordre et la tranquillité tout par-tout
- 1793 – Proclamation. Au nom de la République. : Nous Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, commissaire civil de la République, délégué aux Iles françaises de l'Amérique sous le vent, pour y rétablir l'ordre & la tranquillité publique
- 1793 – Copies des lettres écrites au Ministre de la Marine, par le citoyen Santhonax, commissaire civil délégué à St Domingue, en date du Cap-Français, le 11 février 1793, l'an I de la République
- 1793 – Sonthonax, commissaire-civil de la République française à Saint-Domingue a la société des amis de la liberté & de l'égalité ...
- 1798 – Motion d'ordre faite par Sonthonax, sur la résolution du 27 thermidor dernier, relative aux domaines engagés
- 1799 – Sonthonax, représentant du peuple, à ses collègues du Corps législatif