Barely 22 years after the abolition of slavery, the rift between former slaves and their executioners is far from over. The path to a better life promised to the newly freed in the wake of the decree is not in sight. On the contrary, freedmen very often found themselves forced to work for those who had mistreated, humiliated, and despised them two decades earlier. The resentment and even enmity between the two components of society suggest that reconciliation seems impossible, and even that the healing of the wounded will require the explosion of hatred and anger towards their ex-torturers. It was against this backdrop of heightened social tension and opposition that the Southern Insurrection broke out.
Because many freedmen had refused to return to their former masters' estates at any cost, it quickly became necessary to find a docile workforce to work the fields in exchange for a subsistence allowance. So the French colonists turned first to Asia, and India in particular, imitating the British who had already brought in thousands of “Coolies” (Immigrant workers going to the Caribbean after slavery, mostly from India) since the abolition of slavery in their colonies in 1833. The French also turned their attention to Africa, and so it was that Central Africans, the “Kongos”, once again landed in Martinique, this time as indentured servants rather than slaves, with a 5-year work contract guaranteeing them the right to reapply or be repatriated to their country of origin at the end of their contract.
But conditions in the sugar cane fields were identical to those experienced by the slaves, and it was not the caïdon (a coin specific to each Habitation at the time, forcing the employee to spend at his boss's place) that could compensate for what the new employees had to endure. It wasn't long before the Kongos and Coolies became close to the new freedmen, as they were all at the bottom of the ladder and experiencing the same tribulations. Their common adversary was the white man, the rich landowner, often still nostalgic for slavery, who made them live in the worst misery in the sugar cane fields and factories.
In April 1870, a report from the Director of the Interior noted the Coolies' lack of involvement:
Desertion from the workshops is a deplorably frequent occurrence... Indians use every possible means to avoid their work obligations.
In July, the Governor takes steps to regulate the supervision of hired labor more effectively.
The economic situation was not much better. In August of the same year, the Franco-German War broke out. As a direct consequence, prices rose.
In the Habitations, the situation becomes chaotic. The circulation of money was affected by the lack of cash, which allowed the Bank of Martinique to issue banknotes. Vouchers were issued, but without solving the problem. Commission agents in Saint-Pierre reduced or halted cash and merchandise advances. This had direct repercussions for Habitation owners, who found themselves in the worst difficulty paying wages and providing food for their workers.
It's at this point that a case shakes the island and brings to the surface the racial tensions that existed after the abolition of slavery.
The Lubin case
In February 1870, a young black public works contractor, Léopold Lubin, was brutally attacked by two white men, Augier de Maintenon, aide-commissaire of the Navy, and his friend Pellet de Lautrec, while out riding in Le Marin. Léopold Lubin was reproached by the two men for not having greeted them and for not having hurried to move his horse aside to let them pass. He is whipped by the two friends, who intend to teach him to “respect the whites”.
Lubin took the case to court to obtain reparations, but in the current context of Martinique, a black man could not be right against a white man. Seeing that his request was met with nothing but closed doors, he decided to take justice into his own hands.
On April 25, he went to the village of Le Marin and waited for Augier de Maintenon, who used to go to mass there, and whipped him in turn. On August 19, 1870, Léopold Lubin was arrested, imprisoned, and sentenced to 5 years in prison and 1,500 francs in damages, which at the time was a veritable fortune. The jury was composed entirely of white men.
The sentence provoked scuffles in Rivière-Pilote and Le Marin, where the newly freed Blacks denounced the injustice of the judgment. He appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Paris, where the public prosecutor's office deemed the sentence harsh and commuted it to 5 years' imprisonment. He was pardoned after serving 2 years in prison.
To understand the sense of injustice among the black population, you need to know that a few months earlier, in another case, a white man who had killed his pregnant colored mistress had also been sentenced to 5 years in prison. Justice was equally severe in the case of a black person beating up a white man and the murder of a pregnant black woman by her white lover.
While tensions were already running high in Martinique, the news that the people of Paris had imposed the Republic had repercussions on the island, as the Governor reported
Racial antagonisms were reawakened, more ardent than ever... The disasters of the French armies and the proclamation of the Republic... overexcited this antagonism.
In the countryside of Saint-Pierre, lower-class blacks declared: “We're going to avenge the whites, dispossess them...”.
In September, the Attorney General La Rougerie warned of
The prevailing unrest was the precursor of a popular movement that was soon to erupt.
The insurrection
On August 20, 1870, in Rivière-Pilote, the day after Léopold Lubin's trial, his friends organized a kitty to pay the costs of the appeal judgment. The commune of Rivière-Pilote was at the heart of this mobilization, not only because Léopold Lubin was well known as a local merchant, but also because the commune had the largest number of small farmers. As soon as he was sentenced to the penal colony, the population mobilized, and unrest began.
On September 17, the Mayor of Rivière-Pilote, Auguste Cornette de Venancourt, reported that “things have got a lot worse, and the worst remarks are circulating openly.”
On September 19, in the Rivière-Pilote countryside, groups of workers threaten the Habitation Codé, where an attempted fire occured the previous week. They shouted “Vive la République, mort aux Blancs” (“Long live the Republic, death to the whites”). The owners of the Habitation take security measures and seek the protection of Governor Menche de Loisne. Similarly, the then Mayor of Rivière-Pilote, Auguste Cornette de Venancourt, also a landowner, appealed to the Governor to reinforce security in his town.
On September 21, the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique liner La Louisiane arrived. Its task was to transport decrees and other official documents to the island. As soon as it arrived on the island, Rivière-Pilote cavalrymen set off in all directions.
At 7 a.m. the following day, following Napoleon III's abdication of power in France, the Governor proclaimed the Republic in Fort-de-France, and a few hours later, the Mayor of Rivière-Pilote did the same in front of an effervescent crowd demanding the annulment of Lubin's conviction.
Secretly for several days, a group of men - Louis Telgard, Eugène Lacaille, Auguste Villard and Daniel Bolivard - had been meeting to prepare the revolt, and had already chosen the date - the day of arrival of the liner La Louisiane. Their demands were:
- Dispossess the Békés of their land and break their economic over-power
- Distribute confiscated possessions among peasants and farm workers
- Disarm Békés, who used their weapons to injure or kill Blacks, claiming to be acting in self-defense
- Inflict punishment on the most racist whites
- Declare the Republic of Martinique, following the example of Saint-Domingue. To this end, the flag with a red triangle and two green and black quadrilaterals (see above) was flown.
On the afternoon of the Mayor of Rivière-Pilote's proclamation of the French Republic, they got the word out. The time had come to take action. The context was favorable: France had just lost to Germany, and colonial power was weakened.
At around 3 p.m., Eugène Lacaille went to the village accompanied by 300 people, while Louis Telgard arrived with over a thousand people shouting “Death to the Whites and Death to Codé”. Louis Codé was a landowner who owned the Habitation La Mauny. He publicly boasted that he had played a decisive role in Lubin's conviction. In addition, he had a white flag installed at the entrance to his property, which was perceived by the blacks as a symbol of royalty and also a nostalgia for slavery. Finally, he was also known for his brutal treatment of his newly freed employees.
The demonstrators leave the village for the Codé estate. One of the guards was killed, and his house was set on fire. Calls for action continued throughout the night.
Two insurgents are killed by soldiers from neighboring Marin. Several dwellings (la Mauny, la Jossaud, Beauregard, and three in Garnier-Laroche) were set on fire.
The following day, discussions between Mayor Auguste De Venancourt and representatives of the insurgents failed to reach an agreement. With the insurgents awaiting concrete announcements, De Venancourt offered his resignation to the Governor and appointed one of the insurgent leaders to replace him. Jean-Baptiste Le Breton, another white man, took over as mayor pending elections.
For the Governor, the current priority is to eradicate the social movement and restore calm to the commune. Reinforcements were mobilized, and the army took control of the town, with the insurgents fleeing to the countryside and other surrounding communes, where several habitations were set on fire, notably the Trois-Rivières Habitation in Sainte-Luce.
By September 23, the insurrection had spread to all the communes of southern Martinique, with farm workers, village workers, peasants, small farmers, and artisans joining the revolt.
Women played an important role in the revolt. Although there were only a hundred or so women on the insurgents' side, their role in relaying information and supporting their male comrades by supplying them with food was not insignificant. Some, like Lumina Sophie, armed themselves with torches and sticks and took part in the looting and burning of habitations.
Coolies and Kongos also took part in the exactions, setting fire to several Habitations where they were employed at the time, particularly in the commune of Le Vauclin. On joining the movement, they had been promised the end of their contracts by one of the insurrection's leaders, Eugène Lacaille.
The insurgents took control of the situation in southern Martinique. The Governor mobilized even more armed forces to regain control. Over a thousand sailors and soldiers were mobilized, and he called for volunteers and sent ammunition to the forces already on the ground. The Békés of northern and central Martinique sent all they could to the aid of those in the south, who had left their properties for safety for fear of reprisals from their former employees.
The Békés are appealing to the governors of the surrounding islands and to their metropolitan friends to come to their aid and repossess their Habitations and other landholdings. M.A. Lalauriette, a landowner in Sainte-Marie, wrote to Viscount de Monti on September 26:
Let all Creoles and landowners resident in France meet in Paris and go to see the President of the Republic, and get us some help!
The petty and middle bourgeoisie had sympathized with the insurgents. They believed that universal suffrage would bring them to power. On the other hand, the more affluent had joined the camp of the threatened Békés, identifying more with them because they possessed wealth.
The insurgents' actions took place mainly at night, and on the night of September 24 to 25, new homes in Sainte-Anne, Le Marin and Le Vauclin were set on fire.
Louis Codé, who had been hiding on the Rivière-Pilote hills, was found and killed by the insurgents. The insurrection claimed a total of 4 victims, including two whites.
September 24 was the peak of the revolt, which was put down by the authorities on the 25th. The Governor decreed a state of siege in 15 communes in the south, central and even north Atlantic regions that had experienced fires or nocturnal incidents: Rivière-Pilote, Le Marin, Sainte-Anne, Rivière-Salée, Ducos, Lamentin, Saint-Esprit, Sainte-Luce, Diamant, François, Trinité, Le Robert, Gros-Morne, Trois-Îlets, and Le Vauclin.
In Fort-de-France, armed mobile patrols were present everywhere. A curfew was declared after 10:30 pm, and anyone on the street after this time was automatically arrested.
The entire island was patrolled by the gendarmes, with even the most remote areas under surveillance. A total of 1,500 armed forces were mobilized. They were authorized by the governors to crack down hard on any infraction. On September 26, following a dispute at the Habitation Aubermesnil, where insurgents were present, the armed forces intervened. 18 insurgents were killed or wounded, while Émile Romanet, a black man on the side of repression, lost his life.
In Sainte-Anne, Marin, Rivière-Pilote and Saint-Esprit, repression was severe, with looters killed or wounded in each case.
Government troops launched a manhunt, killing dozens of insurgents and imprisoning over 500 in the island's forts.
In all, during the five days of the insurrection, some fifty habitations were burnt down, either totally or partially.
The Governor decided on a partial amnesty for some of the detainees, as he felt that overly harsh sentences could have rekindled tensions. Trials of the remaining prisoners took place the following year, often with white juries and white defense lawyers. 75 people were convicted in what were often speedy trials.
The main leaders of the revolt were sentenced to death and shot. Only Louis Telgard, who had fled to Saint Lucia, escaped execution.
Eugène Lacaille, Furcis Carbonnel, Louis Gertrude Isidore, Cyrille Nicanor and Louis Charles Hutte were all executed in December 1871. 8 death sentences were handed down in absentia. 28 insurgents were sentenced to hard labor for life, Auguste Villard, another insurgent leader, was sentenced to simple deportation to a fortified enclosure, 8 to deportation and 33 to hard labor ranging from 10 to 20 years. In 1880, 65 were pardoned and only 20 returned to Martinique. Auguste Villard, who was in New Caledonia at the time, remained there. 15 women were sentenced for having taken part in the exactions and also for not having had the correct image of women at the time. Lumina Sophie, a new mother, was sentenced to hard labor for life. She died in prison 8 years after her sentence.
Several protests took place in Martinique and France against the bias and methods of Commandant Lambert, who was then President of the Conseil de Guerre. Among the protesters was Victor Schoelcher, who had fought for the abolition of slavery in the French colonies. At the end of the war, Commandant Lambert was recalled to France.
Conclusion
The Insurrection du Sud was probably a major event in the history of Martinique, being the first major post-slavery revolt by blacks. However, it couldn't have been a turning point in history, as the revolt failed to bring about the change so eagerly awaited by the newly freed. The repression that followed the revolt was bloody, and the convictions of the movement's leaders showed that the road to a better life for blacks was still a long one.
The Blacks who had managed to extricate themselves from poverty and reach the bourgeoisie were torn between the Békés and the other, poorer Blacks. Universal suffrage was the reason. The freedmen, who wanted to see people like themselves in important positions, were voters not to be ignored.
Although Martinique would see a few scattered revolts in the years to come, a movement of this magnitude would not see the light of day again anytime soon. Black resentment against Whites was growing, and at the slightest incident, the unquenched sparks raised fears of new uprisings by a majority of the oppressed.
References
Histoire de la Martinique, de 1848 à 1939, Tome 2, Armand Nicolas