These are the men who dared to
stir Saint Domingo, under whose influence Hayti became the first
country of the New World, after the United States, to throw off
European rule. The connection between the siege of Savannah and the
independence of Hayti is traced, both as to its spirit, and
physically, through the black legion that on that occasion saved the
American army. How this connection is traced to the republics of South
America, I will allow a Haytian statesman and man of letters, honored
both at home and abroad, to relate. I translate from a work published
in Paris in 1885:
"The illustrious Bolivar, liberator and founder of five republics in
South America, undertook in 1811 his great work of shaking off the
yoke of Spain, and of securing the independence of those immense
countries which swelled the pride of the catholic crown--but failed.
Stripped of all resources he took flight and repaired to Jamaica,
where he implored in vain of the governor of that island, the help of
England. Almost in despair, and without means, he resolved to visit
Hayti, and appeal to the generosity of the black Republic for the
help necessary to again undertake that work of liberation which had
gone to pieces in his hands. Never was there a more solemn hour for
any man--and that man the representative of the destiny of South
America! Could he hope for success? After the English, who had every
interest in the destruction of Spanish colonial power, had treated him
with so much indifference, could he hope that a new-born nation, weak,
with microscopic territory, and still guarding anxiously its own
ill-recognized independence, would risk itself in an enterprise
hazardous as the one he represented? Full of doubt he came; but Petion
gave him a most cordial welcome.
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