Napoleon. Borne across the ocean, the doctrines of "Liberty,
Fraternity, Equality "stirred the ardent-minded to thoughts of
action, though the Spanish and Portuguese Americans who schemed
and plotted were the merest handful. The seed they planted was
slow to germinate among peoples who had been taught to regard
things foreign as outlandish and heretical. Many years therefore
elapsed before the ideas of the few became the convictions of the
masses, for the conservatism and loyalty of the common people
were unbelieveably steadfast.

Not Spanish and Portuguese America, but Santo Domingo, an island
which had been under French rule since 1795 and which was
tenanted chiefly by ignorant and brutalized negro slaves, was the
scene of the first effectual assertion of independence in the
lands originally colonized by Spain. Rising in revolt against
their masters, the negroes had won complete control under their
remarkable commander, Toussaint L'Ouverture, when Napoleon
Bonaparte, then First Consul, decided to restore the old regime.
But the huge expedition which was sent to reduce the island ended
in absolute failure. After a ruthless racial warfare,
characterized by ferocity on both sides, the French retired. In
1804 the negro leaders proclaimed the independence of the island
as the "Republic of Haiti," under a President who, appreciative
of the example just set by Napoleon, informed his followers that
he too had assumed the august title of "Emperor"! His immediate
successor in African royalty was the notorious Henri Christophe,
who gathered about him a nobility garish in color and taste--
including their sable lordships, the "Duke of Marmalade" and the
"Count of Lemonade"; and who built the palace of "Sans Souci" and
the countryseats of "Queen's Delight" and "King's Beautiful