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ABSTRACT
In the wake of the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), tens of thousands of people – white colonists, free people of color, and slaves – left the French colony of Saint-Domingue for neighboring Caribbean colonies and North America. Scattered and diverse as they were, these refugees maintained diasporic bonds, constituting a community with distinct social, cultural, linguistic, and religious traits. Fraternalism, and Masonic lodges in particular, played a pivotal role in shaping these connections. Based on new empirical evidence from the major centers of the refugee community (the US, Louisiana, Cuba, Jamaica), this paper examines the emergence of these refugee lodges. Placing them in their social contexts and analyzing their membership practices, it argues that Freemasonry provided an important social infrastructure for a segment of the refugee population – an infrastructure that was used to cultivate diasporic connections, to (re)enhance internal hierarchies, and to build networks in the host societies.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the anonymous readers, as well as Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Peter Hinks, and Elizabeth Mancke, for their brilliant suggestions and comments on earlier drafts of the article. I owe a deep gratitude to the archivists and librarians at the following institutions for providing me access and guiding me through their rich collections: Archives de la Grande Loge de France, Paris; Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Aix-en-Provence; Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris; Etoile Polaire #1 Lodge, New Orleans; Grand Lodge of Maryland, Baltimore; Grand Lodge of New York, New York City; Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans; Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town; Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University, New Orleans; National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh; and United Grand Lodge of England, London. I am grateful to GHI editors Casey Sutcliffe and Mark Stoneman for copy-editing, and GHI interns Cora Schmidt-Ott, Alina Weishäupl, and Johanna Strunge for research assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Jan C. Jansen is a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. His research concerns colonial history and decolonization, with a particular focus on French colonial empires since the eighteenth century. His publications include Erobern und Erinnern: Symbolpolitik, öffentlicher Raum und französischer Kolonialismus in Algerien, 1830–1950. Munich: Oldenbourg, 2013; Decolonization: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017 (co-authored with Jürgen Osterhammel); and Refugee Crises, 1945–2000: Political and Societal Responses in International Comparison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019 (co-editor with Simone Lässig).
Notes
1. On Moreau’s life, see Elicona, Un colonial sous la révolution; on various aspects of his life and thinking, see Taffin, Moreau de Saint-Méry. Creole here means person born in the colonies.
2. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Voyage aux Etats-Unis. On the broader context of Francophone refugee literature about the United States, see Faÿ, Bibliographie; Echeverria, Mirage in the West.
3. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Voyage aux Etats-Unis, 61.
4. Ibid., 125, 202.
5. Furstenberg, When the United States Spoke French. The book provides an excellent account of Moreau’s time in the United States. See also Harsanyi, Lessons from America.
6. Moreau de Saint-Méry, Description, Vol. 1, 434, 554; Vol. 2, 408, 577, 700–1.
7. See, for example, his extensive notes about the Ancient and Accepted Scottish rite and its Supreme Council in Charleston, SC, Archives nationales d’outre-mer (Aix-en-Provence), Fonds Moreau de Saint-Méry, F3/112, fs. 379–395.
8. See the cases cited in Debien, “Réfugiés de Saint-Domingue,” esp. 1–3; Dessens, From Saint-Domingue, 146.
9. See Lambert’s certificate issued by the lodge La Réunion des cœurs (Union of Hearts) in Santiago de Cuba, 1807, Tulane University, Louisiana Research Collection (hereafter LaRC), Lambert Family Papers, 244, Box 1.
10. On the revolutionary period as a moment of crisis, see, for example, Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, 130–143.
11. Among the earlier studies that pointed to this were Childs, French Refugee Life, 107–108; Babb, “French Refugees,” 363–366; more recently, Dessens, From Saint-Domingue, 145–147; Debien, “Saint-Domingue Refugees,” 105–106; Renault, D’une île rebelle, 304–317; Renault, “L’influence de la franc-maçonnerie.”
12. For freedom papers, see Scott and Hébrard, Freedom Papers; Dun, Dangerous Neighbors, 137–139; for letters of introduction, see Furstenberg, When the United States Spoke French, 137–154.
13. The pioneering study in this line of scholarship is Scott III, “The Common Wind.” For the case of the Saint-Domingue refugees, see Meadows, “Engineering Exile.”
14. Perl-Rosenthal, “Atlantic Cultures.”
15. Excellent case studies of this elasticity and the tension between universalism and particularism are Hoffmann, Politics of Sociability; Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, 112–119.
16. Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 471.
17. The pathbreaking survey on this is Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood.
18. For discussions of these historiographic strands, see Harland-Jacobs, “Worlds of Brothers.”
19. Beaurepaire, L’Autre et le Frère, 95–152; Beaurepaire, “Universal Republic.”
20. Wright, “Refugee Lodges.”
21. Attempts at putting these refugee communities in the larger historical context are Jasanoff, “Revolutionary Exiles” and Jansen “Flucht und Exil.”
22. Good recent overviews are Jasanoff, Liberty's Exiles; Pestel, Kosmopoliten wider Willen.
23. There is no integrated history of these different communities. On different places, see White, Encountering Revolution; Debien and Wright, “Colons de Saint-Domingue,” as well as the references in note 11. On the estimates of the total size, see Babb, “French Refugees,” 370–384; Meadows “The Planters of Saint-Domingue,” 1–2.
24. At least two lodges, Les Frères réunis and La Benignité, seem to have been established locally in 1812 and 1818 but were never recognized by grand lodge authorities in London. See “List of lodges refused warrants due to insufficient information,” Provincial Grand Lodge of Jamaica, c. 1820. Library of the United Grand Lodge of England, London (LUGLE), HC 22/D/9; Jamaica Almanac, for the Year 1818, 91. See also Seal-Coon, Jamaican Freemasonry, 83, 86; Escalle and Gouyon Guillaume, Francs-maçons des loges françaises, 178–179. On the Masonic credentials of British governors, see Ranston, Masonic Jamaica, 104–110, 124.
25. On these two lodges, see Fondeviolle, député de La Réunion des cœurs, to Grand Orient de France (hereafter GODF), 22 October, 1807. Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris (hereafter BnF), Fonds maçonnique (hereafter FM), FM2/545, Dossier “Saint Domingue, La Réunion des cœurs”; Vérité séante à l’Orient de Baltimore to GODF, s.d. [1808]. BnF, FM, FM2/543, Dossier 1 “Saint-Domingue, La Vérité”; Tableau de La Vérité du Cap François, no. 42. Information on many other Saint-Domingue lodges in exile can be found in Escalle and Gouyon Guillaume, Francs-maçons des loges françaises; Combes, “La Franc-Maçonnerie aux Antilles.”
26. “Report of Committee of Correspondence to whom were referred sundry communications from the RW Provincial Grand Master of St. Domingo and Cuba, from the lodges no. 88, 98,” 15 September 1806. Archives of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (hereafter AGLPA), File Y.
27. On Moreau’s bookstore, see Rosengarten, “Moreau de Saint Méry”; Childs, French Refugee Life, 109. On refugee cafés in New Orleans, see Dessens, From Saint-Domingue, 145.
28. Furstenberg, When the United States Spoke French, 177. Further accounts of the social and intellectual life of French emigrants in the United States include Kennedy, Orders From France; Harsanyi, Lessons from America; Childs, French Refugee Life; Spaeth, “Purgatory or Promised Land?”; Faÿ, L’esprit révolutionnaire; Rosengarten, French Colonists.
29. Laujon de Latouche, Souvenirs, Vol. 2, 109–123, quoted on 110.
30. On Freemasonry’s transnational dimensions, see Beaurepaire, République universelle; Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, esp. chapter 2; Hoffmann, Civil Society.
31. Le Bihan, “La Franc-Maçonnerie”; Combes, “Franc-Maçonnerie aux Antilles”; Cauna, “Quelques aperçus”; Escalle and Gouyon Guillaume, Francs-maçons des loges françaises; Fouchard, Les plaisirs de Saint-Domingue, 96–97; Regourd, “Lumière coloniale,” esp. 198; McClellan III, Colonialism and Science, 105–106, 187.
32. Jansen, “Atlantic Sociability,” esp. 93.
33. “Tableau des loges avec lesquelles correspond celle de St. Jean de Jérusalem écossaise à l’orient du Cap [c. 1777].” BnF, FM, FM2/543, Dossier “St. Jean de Jérusalem écossaise, Orient du Cap.”
34. Saunier, “L’espace caribéen,” esp. 49–52. On Masonic membership as a marker of the slave traders’ milieu, see Pétré-Grenouilleau, L’argent de la traite, 107–109.
35. L’Anglaise, Bordeaux, to GODF, 5 January 1779. Archives de la Grande Loge de France, Paris, Archives russes, Opis 4 Boîte no. 9.
36. Copy of warrant by Saint James’ Lodge no. 1, Kingston, 1 July 1785. BnF, FM, FM2/545, Dossier “Saint Domingue, La Réunion des cœurs.” Saint James’ Lodge, created in 1765 in Gibraltar, seems to have never been officially recognized by one of the grand lodges in England. It appears, however, in local almanacs, e.g., Douglass and Aikman’s Alamanck, 81.
37. La Réunion des cœurs, Jérémie, to La Réunion des Etrangers, St. Thomas, 20 March 1800. Jamaica Archives, Spanish Town, VAS, “John” to H.M.S. “York,” 28 August, 1800.
38. J.L. Galbert Baron, Master of St. Jean d’Ecosse, Cap-Français, to George Washington, s.d. [July 1785]. AGLPA, BL Cape François 47 St John of Scotland at St Domingo.
39. The most important scholarship in this direction is by Meadows, “The Planters of Saint-Domingue”; Meadows, “Engineering Exile.”
40. On the role of Catholicism, see Babb, “French Refugees,” 250–265; Dessens, From Saint-Domigue, 100–103; Debien and Wright, “Colons de Saint-Domingue,” 107–111.
41. On Philadelphia’s trade with the French Caribbean, see Coatsworth, “American Trade,” 245–6; Doerflinger, A Vigorous Spirit, 242–250, 335–356; Dun, “Philadelphia’s Vantage”; for consumption, see Branson, Fiery Frenchified Dames.
42. Barrat and Sachse, Freemasonry in Pennsylvania, Vol. 2, 103–180; Huss, Master Builders, Vol. 1, 55–83.
43. “Copy of the Warrant of Lodge no. 47, La Réunion des cœurs franco-américains, Port-au-Prince, 18 December 1789.” AGLPA, File 47e.
44. For the lodges in Saint-Domingue, see AGLPA, Warrant Book, A, 81–82, 85–86, 95–96, 105–106, 119, 124–125; for the other refugee lodges, see Minutes of the Grand Lodge of of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1, 331–332, 471–472; Vol. 2, 33, 135, 211–213, 331–333, 354–356, 393, 477–478; Vol. 3, 46–47; Vol. 4, 274.
45. Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Vol. 1, 269–270; Tableau des frères, L’Aménité no. 73 (1797). L’Aménité was the most successful out of a cluster of French refugee lodges in Philadelphia. Other lodges created at the same time were Saint-Louis (1792–94) and Parfaite Union (founded in 1798 by the GODF); Minutes of the Grand Lodge, Vol. 1, 187–8; Tableau des membres, La Parfaite Union.
46. See, e.g., “Return of the members of lodge no. 73 [L’Aménité],” 1797–1798. AGLPA, BL PA 73. See also Huss, “Pennsylvania Freemasonry,” 160.
47. See the nearly complete returns of members for the years 1797–1820. AGLPA, BL PA 73.
48. Lists provided in Tableau des frères, L’Aménité no. 73 (1811), 11–15. See also Tableau des frères, L’Aménité No. 73 (1803), 7–8; Correspondance entre la R. Lo. Française l’Aménité No. 73.
49. See, e.g., Minutes of meeting of La Persévérance no. 4, New Orleans, 12 February 1832. Tulane University, LaRC, 895 Freemason lodges in Louisiana, Series 1: La Persévérance no. 4, Vol. 15: Minutes of La Persévérance no. 4, 1829–1839, 93r. On resistance against Anglicization, see Dessens, From Saint-Domingue, 162–165.
50. As late as 1810, for example, the lodge La Persévérance, transferred to New Orleans via Santiago de Cuba, still used a seal referring to its Saint-Dominguan hometown, Les Abricots (La Persévérance, New Orleans, to Parfaite Union, New Orleans, 29 February 1810. Tulane University, LaRC, 895 Freemason lodges in Louisiana, Series 1: La Persévérance, Box 1, 895-1-1).
51. Oraison funèbre des FF. Tanguy de la Boissière, Gauvain et Décombaz, 27.
52. Extrait des registres de la loge française L’Aménité no. 73, quotes on 1 and 4. The exact date of the January 1800 session is not mentioned.
53. L’Aménité no. 73 to Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, 22 June 1809. AGLPA, BL PA 73. Emphasis in the original document.
54. Tableau des frères, L’Aménité no. 73 (1797); Oraison funèbre des FF. Tanguy de la Boissière, Gauvain et Décombaz. On the broader political context, see Childs, French Refugee Life, 141–85; Marino, “French Refugee Newspapers”; Pierce, Discourses of the Dispossessed, 140–210; Dun, Dangerous Neighbors, 87–120.
55. Extrait des registres de la loge française L’Aménité no. 73, 3–4. On the debates surrounding freedom and philanthropy, see White, Encountering Revolution, 51–86.
56. Quotes are from “Extrait du livre d’architecture de la Grande Loge Provinciale de Saint-Domingue,” Baracoa, 6 April 1805; and Grande Loge Provinciale de Saint-Domingue, Baracoa, to Morel de Guiramant, Santiago de Cuba, s.d. [1805]. AGLPA, File Y.
57. Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, Vol. 2, 243–244; Renault, D’une île rebelle, 315.
58. “Extrait de la délibération de la loge La Vérité, Cap-Français, accidentellement à l’orient de Baltimore,” 1 March 1798. Archives of the Grand Lodge of Maryland, Scrapbook of Curiosities, Maryland’s Masonic Veterans Association.
59. Sermon exhibiting the Present Dangers. On conspiracy theories about the Illuminati and anti-Jacobinism in the United States, see Lienesch, “Illusion of the Illuminati”; Stauffer, New England; Cleves, Reign of Terror.
60. Federal Republican & Commercial Gazette (Baltimore), 14 August 1809; The Evening Post (New York), 16 August 1809.
61. Childs, French Refugee Life, 84–90; White, Encountering Revolution, 51–86; Debien and Wright, “Colons de Saint-Domingue,” 85–97; Meadows, “Planters of Saint-Domingue.”
62. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood, 186–198; Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, 51–63.
63. E.g., Petitions from M. Chédal, 16 April 1804 and S.M. Mareck, 16 July 1804. AGLPA, Vol. 8, 47 and 51a.
64. “Address delivered by the master of L’Aménité no. 73 to the Grand Master and Grand Officers,” 25 June 1805. AGLPA, BL PA 73. The “tigers of St. Domingue” was a trope in white planters’ accounts of the Haitian Revolution.
65. Saint-Méry, Voyage aux Etats-Unis, 191, 209–210; Childs, French Refugee Life, 122–125. His initial financier, Frank de la Roche, with whom Moreau soon broke, was not a Freemason.
66. Maydieu to Grand Lodge of New York, 7 August 1794. Archives of the Grand Lodge of New York (hereafter AGLNY), Scrapbook Vol. 62, L’Unité américaine.
67. La Candeur, New Orleans, to Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, 3 August 1800. AGLPA, BL 90.
68. Etoile Polaire, New Orleans, to Las Virtudes teologales, Havana, 14 July 1814. Historic New Orleans Collection (hereafter HNOC), T100818.9720 Etoile Polaire #1, Letter Book (3 March 1814–20 July 1815).
69. L’Aménité no. 73, state meeting of 6 August 1800. AGLPA, BL PA 73.
70. “Representation from Lodge no. 73 respecting Bro. Decombaz,” 4 May 1797. AGLPA, BL PA 73.
71. All quotes from ibid. On the characters involved in this affair, see also Childs, French Refugee Life, 122–123, 125. The bankruptcy is also documented in Courrier français (Philadelphia), 23 August 1797.
72. Oraison funèbre des FF. Tanguy de la Boissière, Gauvain et Décombaz, 34.
73. Petition of Joseph Marcadier, read in Grand Lodge, 15 June 1797. AGLNY, Scrapbook Vol. 57, L’Union française.
74. E.g., L’Union française, New York, to La Candeur, Charleston, and Etoile Polaire, New Orleans, 3 August 1819. AGLNY, Scrapbook Vol. 57, L’Union française.
75. L’Union française, New York, to Grand Lodge of New York, 8 August 1797. AGLNY, Scrapbook Vol. 57, L’Union française.
76. Grande Loge Provinciale de Saint-Domingue, Baracoa, to Morel de Guiramant, Santiago de Cuba, s.d. [1805]. AGLPA, File Y.
77. Funeral Oration on Brother George Washington, quotes on 3–4; Extrait des registres de la loge française L’Aménité no. 73, quote on 22. An account of the event also in Minutes of the Grand Lodge of Philadelphia, Vol. 1, 402–404.
78. Lettres écrites à la loge L’Aménité no. 73.
79. Huss, “Pennsylvania Freemasonry,” 159, 170, 181–186; Renault, D’une île rebelle, 313.
80. Combes, “Franc-Maçonnerie aux Antilles;” Beaurepaire, L’Autre et le Frère, 576–585; Harland-Jacobs, Builders of Empire, 215–220; Révauger, “Freemasonry in Barbados,” 85–86.
81. On Prince Hall Freemasonry as a cross-border network, see Scott, “The Common Wind,” 293; Kantrowitz, “African American Freemasonry,” 1005; on Saint-Dominguan membership, Davies, “Class, Culture, and Color,” 84, 92–93. A reason for the small number of colored Saint-Dominguans in these lodges may have been the close relationship between Prince Hall Freemasonry and African American Protestant churches; see Hackett, Religion, 151–174. On the contentious question of Black Freemasonry in revolutionary Saint-Domingue, see Garrigus, Before Haiti, 291–296; Garrigus, “Secret Brotherhood”; Cauna, “Thèse du complot.”
82. Hinks, “Perfectly Proper and Conciliating.”
83. See, for example, the report by Marquis de La Jaille to Lord Balcarres, Governor of Jamaica, 31 October 1798. National Library of Scotland, Muniments of the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, Papers of the 6th Earl of Balcarres, Acc. 9769/23/12/24.
84. Testimony by James Stewart Innes, 21 November 1823, Minutes of the Secret Committee of the House of Assembly. The National Archives, Kew, Colonial Office, CO 137/174, fs. 13–15. The deportation of Louis Lecesne and John Escoffery turned into a major legal battle and scandal.
85. On these developments, see Hinks, “To Commence a New Era.”
86. Chevallier, Première profanation, 34; Saunier, Révolution et sociabilité, 78, 161; Beaurepaire, République universelle, 24, 76, 167, 170.