. The storied West Indies . ning dwellings and cane fields, massacringall whites who fell into their hands; and the furyof this horrid rabble host was only spent after morethan two thousand men, women, and children hadfallen victims to their savagery and a thousand sugarand coffee estates had been destroyed by fire. All, or nearly all, the white residents of the in-terior were killed—the elite of the island; but inthe cities they rallied after the first shock, and final-ly, with the assistance of the colored people, repulsedthe savage mountaineers. The horrors of that up-rising exceed belief;
. The storied West Indies . ning dwellings and cane fields, massacringall whites who fell into their hands; and the furyof this horrid rabble host was only spent after morethan two thousand men, women, and children hadfallen victims to their savagery and a thousand sugarand coffee estates had been destroyed by fire. All, or nearly all, the white residents of the in-terior were killed—the elite of the island; but inthe cities they rallied after the first shock, and final-ly, with the assistance of the colored people, repulsedthe savage mountaineers. The horrors of that up-rising exceed belief; they outrage the sensibilities ofhumanity. Later on, when the colored people imagined that 160 THE STORIED WEST INDIES the whites had betrayed them, they allied themselveswith the blacks, and a veritable war of extermina-tion was conducted. All the planters were massacredor compelled to emigrate and the country districtswere given over entirely to the blacks, in whose; pos-session they have since remained. In the mountain. valleys of Haiti darkness and desolation yet envelopthe habitations of semisavage negroes, as ignorant andpaganish as their African ancestors, devoted to ser-pent worship and the cannibal practices of thevoodoo. Anarchy, bloodshed, and dissolution reigned su-preme in Haiti until 1798, the natives, the French,and the English (who had come to the assistance ofthe planters) being engaged in insensate warfare. THE CONQUEST OF HAITI 161 Then out of the chaos of strife was evolved a leaderfor the blacks, the son of an African chief who had >een taken in war and sold into slavery. He was bornin 1743, on a plantation near Cape Haitien owned bythe Count de Breda, and his name was int. He had taught himself reading, writing, a little a anetry, and Latin, and as he became . he was promoted from the field to the position of coach-man by the count When the revolt of 171H occurred, and the blackmof- _ the country for vietir: it, who was devoted to the ?er, hid him and
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