Diplomacy in Black and White: John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance

THREE: Edward Stevens: “Our Minister to Toussaint”

Dr. Stevens possesses more knowledge of the true state of things here than almost any other man. —Commercial Agent Tobias Lear, 1801 On 9 February 1799, President John Adams signed the Intercourse Act into law in the second-floor executive office of the President’s House. Administration officials quickly shifted their strategy to advance Dominguan-American relations beyond their public rhetoric. As Democratic-Republican leaders correctly feared and adamantly opposed, the administration planned to use the new law to build stronger political ties with the revolutionary colony. The president understood the link between Dominguan-American commerce and Louverturian sovereignty. To advance an Atlantic-focused strategy, Adams accepted the complexity of Dominguan diplomacy. He advised Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, “We had better leave the independence of the island . . . in commerce as well as legislation . . . to the inhabitants of the island.” Yet by the end of this letter, Adams concluded, “These questions may all be useless, because the independence of St. Domingo . . . may be brought about without our interference, and indeed in opposition to all we can do to prevent it.” According to Treasury Secretary Oliver Wolcott, the administration saw in Saint-Domingue an opportunity to “extend the commerce and political influence of the United States in the West Indies. The idea was fully approved by the President.” The Louverturian pledge to protect American trade and the potential for an amicable Atlantic ally provided Adams’s fledgling federal government with a domestic economic boost and with a small international advantage vis-à-vis hostile Europeans. Adams remained more hesitant than others to embrace Dominguan independence, but he prepared nonetheless for the plausible CHAPTER THREE Edward Stevens “Our Minister to Toussaint” Edward Stevens [69] contingency of working with a sovereign Toussaint Louverture. The president understood the political perils involved. The key to managing the risks was to find the right person to send to Cap Français and to equip him with suitable standing. In this endeavor, Adams’s Dominguan counterpart had provided a template. Toussaint Louverture faced similar domestic sensitivities and Atlantic angst when he opened relations with the slaveholding United States. In appointing Joseph Bunel to carry his message to the American government in late 1798, Louverture found someone who had traveled previously to the United States and possessed contacts on the ground. He chose someone whose background equipped him to negotiate political obstacles and to understand macro- and microvariables of Atlantic trade. Louverture’s selectee could effectively cultivate sensitive cross-cultural relationships in light of the potential racial barriers between their two peoples. Adams chose Edward Stevens to represent the U.S. government in SaintDomingue . Adequate treatment of Stevens and his importance to the U.S. achievement of national objectives in Saint-Domingue have remained absent from the historical literature. One reason is popular interest in the more illustrious American personalities involved in Dominguan-American diplomacy. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Timothy Pickering, and Alexander Hamilton garner much more historical attention. But no one, including these men, expended more to advance U.S. Atlantic interests in Saint-Domingue than Stevens. He became the chief instrument of diplomacy in the Adams-Louverture alliance. Stevens was more than the consul responsible for trade relations, as historians have traditionally described him; he was de facto minister and an indispensable diplomat sent to proffer relations with the first black-led government in the western Atlantic world. The president’s engagement with Saint-Domingue and his appointment of Stevens with a ministerial portfolio complicate the historical view that the second president did not act on his antislavery beliefs. Adams and his administration constructed a cunning diplomatic strategy that realized American interests in the Atlantic world and knowingly aided members of the African diaspora toward universal and perpetual emancipation. These U.S. leaders enacted this policy at a time when prominent U.S. politicians could still voice antislavery sentiments. Many Americans throughout the 1790s depicted the black freedom fighters of the Saint-Dominguan Revolution as bloodthirsty savages who raped innocent white girls and mercilessly slaughtered brave white men. The federal [70] Chapter Three government could do little to improve the plight of enslaved Africans of the United States, but the president and other American officials aided and abetted the freedom of black people in Saint-Domingue. John Adams was the first president to take unpopular action regarding race with notably positive results for both the United States and the African diaspora. The person and professionalism...