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48 SLAVERY & ABOLITION
Domingue and settled throughout the state. In July 1793, 53 ships from Cap
Francois arrived in Baltimore. Throughout the nation, donations were raised
to aid the emigrants. "The situation of the St. Domingo fugitives (aristocrats
as they are)', wrote Thomas Jefferson, 'calls aloud for pity & charity. Never
was so deep a tragedy presented to the feelings of man'.'2
As tales of the destruction and anarchy in Saint Domingue spread through-
out the state, altruism turned to fear. In 1792 the Maryland legislature allowed
French refugees to import their slaves. Over 500 blacks and mulattos entered
the state the following year. In 1797, however, this act was repealed. Blacks
from Saint Domingue were alleged to be 'guilty of disorderly conduct' and
'dangerous to the peace and welfare of the city of Baltimore'.6' Marylanders
feared that these dissidents would infect the large free-black population of
urban Baltimore as well as their own normally docile slaves with the revolu-
tionary 'spirit of liberty'. If this were to happen, many believed that blacks
would realize their degraded state and violently take the law in their own
hands as they had done in Saint Domingue. Governor John Henry wrote in
themid-1790s:
They [blacks] have now for several years been accustomed to think and
talk of liberty; and man will not long think of his rights and of injuries
for ages inflicted on his ancestors without entertaining the disposition to
reclaim and redress them. That he will remain tranquil when it is in his
power to assist the former and to avenge the latter, is not to be expect-
ed, without the influence of foreign causes. The progressive state of
things among ourselves, may place the master in the condition of the
debased African.64
To prevent such an event from occurring, many whites refused to discuss
slavery openly. The historian David Geggus has demonstrated that a similar
fear in France made slavery a 'taboo' subject which the Constituent Assembly
refused to debate. Despite the persistent efforts of the Amis des Noirs and
other gradual abolitionists, concern that a slave uprising might occur in the
Caribbean doomed any attempt to ameliorate the plight of blacks during the
early stages of the French Revolution. In fact, as Geggus notes, it 'fed mer-
chants' and planters' efforts to depict abolitionists as short-sighted, possibly
criminal fanatics'. It was only after the bloody insurrection in Saint
Domingue that emancipation was finally decreed."
The intense anxiety which pervaded Maryland during the latter half of the
1790s is vividly illustrated by an article which ran in The Maryland Gazette
in 1797. Entitled, 'Horrid-Horrid Murders!!!', it relayed the confession of a
female slave who claimed to have poisoned three of her master's children:
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