" Colonel Malenfant says that when many of his
neighbors, proprietors or managers, were in prison, the negroes of their
plantations came to him to beg him to direct them in their work. "If you
will take care not to talk to them of the restoration of slavery, but
talk to them of freedom, you may with this word chain them down to their
labor. How did Toussaint succeed? How did I succeed before his time in
the plain of the Cul-de-Sac on the plantation of Gouraud, during more
than eight months after liberty had been granted to the slaves? Let
those who knew me at that time, let the blacks themselves be asked. They
will all reply that not a single negro upon that plantation, consisting
of more than four hundred and fifty laborers, refused to work; and yet
this plantation was thought to be under the worst discipline and the
slaves the most idle of any in the plain. I inspired the same activity
into three other plantations of which I had the management. If all the
negroes had come from Africa within six months, if they had the love of
independence that the Indians have, I should own that force must be
employed; but ninety-nine out of a hundred of the blacks are aware that
without labor they cannot procure the things that are necessary for them;
that there is no other method of satisfying their wants and their tastes.
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