Appendix 1

The Petition to President James Madison
(translated from the original French)¹

To Monsieur President of the United States of America

The French from Saint Domingue who have taken refuge on the Island of Cuba

Monsieur President,

We, the French who have taken refuge on the Island of Cuba, who have been battered for twenty years by the storms of revolution, have for the past five years enjoyed a calm on this island which nothing seemed to suggest would change for us. However, the government of this country, in a sudden reversal of its prior decision, has just issued a declaration dated the 12th of last March ordering us to promptly depart from the colony, lest we face the pressure of being obliged to leave by force.

One cannot reproach us with any offense against the laws of hospitality or those of the state, which we have obeyed religiously. The universe itself will grant us justice for having introduced here all of the arts, with their calming effect upon the affairs of men; and for having implanted here among others the art of agriculture on a scale hitherto unknown, and all this without the assistance of any of the nationals of this island.

We have likewise caused commerce to blossom; and we have, despite all of the obstacles that we have had to overcome, brought this colony to a state of splendor which, when examined from the perspective of philosophy, is one of the most remarkable achievements which should forever give reason for us to be regarded by an agricultural and enlightened people as the most useful kind of citizens.

But knowing only obedience to the apparatus of the law, and choosing to overlook all of the evils that have been dealt to us, so as to remember only the first asylum that was granted to us, we now look to the United States of America: a knowledgeable and wise people, founded on the experience of all political systems that have yet existed in the world, having accepted all that is good in them while placing insurmountable barriers to any abuse.

We come, therefore, to beg you to agree to receive us among you.

Thus, Monsieur President, we ask that you allow us to seek a more generous land in whatever part of the south of the country you find most appropriate, and to transport our domestics there alongside us, not in order to sell them, but rather in order to draw our subsistence from the land there. These are men who were raised among us, who are attached to us, and whom we love, they having always displayed the greatest proofs of loyalty, and without whom, by the force of habit, we would no longer be able to undertake any activity whatsoever.

Monsieur President, deign to cast the sensitive gaze of humanity upon us. No one has endured more suffering over the past twenty years without having deserved it. Several of us still remember with tenderness the assistance that you granted to them in some of the unfortunate circumstances that befell them.

You have a wide expanse of uncultivated lands that require only hands to work them in order to produce all of the crops that our shared mother nature abundantly provides for us. Allow us to open a furrow upon them, that they may soon pay a tribute of gratitude to the state.

For some time now, in stark discordance with the virtues of hospitality, the government of this colony has barred us from all commerce. Our means have evaporated in the futile anticipation of an imminent improvement of our circumstances; instead, the government has placed additional burdens upon us every day. Firmly resolved to suffer rather than to rebel, and bearing in mind the initial good deed accorded to us in the form of our admittance onto this soil, we obey orders, as we have already said, fearing an intensification of the sanctions that threaten us.

If, therefore, you find it in your wisdom to send for us (even to the government of this country) and to dispatch ships for the transport of the poorest among us, you will have performed the greatest act of generosity, and the annals of history, to which peoples as well as sovereigns are subject, will resound with your praises, but they will never match those within our hearts and those of our children, where the memory of your good deeds will pass from generation to generation and will be more deeply engraved upon them than upon the most indestructible metal.

We are, with the greatest consideration and the highest respect,

Monsieur President,

Your humblest and most obedient servants,

[Signatures follow.]