[Haiti]: Wigglesworth, John:

$850 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

[PARTIALLY-PRINTED BILL OF EXCHANGE FOR SUPPLIES, SIGNED BY JOHN WIGGLESWORTH, AGENT TO THE COMMANDER OF THE 1796 BRITISH OCCUPATION FORCE IN HAITI]. A rare pay order for supplies intended for the British occupation force in Haiti, made out to M. Juré Ainé. The document is signed by John Wigglesworth, agent to the Commander of the British forces in Haiti and later Britain's envoy to the leader of the Haitian Revolution, Touissant Louverture. By early the next century, Louverture would become, ever so briefly, chief of the first free Black Republic in Haiti. The payee, Jure, has docketed the verso in French, with an additional docket in French transferring payment to Dutilh & Wachsmuth, a Philadelphia mercantile house.St. Domingo, the French part of Haiti, was a highly prosperous sugar, coffee, and cotton slave-estate island whose produce was described as exceeding that of the whole of the British Leeward and surrounding islands. In 1789 it was said to consist of 10,000 white people, 24,000 free mixed-race people, and 455,000 negro slaves. Although free, local laws decreed that mixed-race individuals could not accept any office or employment other than as planters. As news spread of the revolution, this group revolted but were roundly defeated. Part of the white response to the uprising was to create their own local assembly which excluded those of mixed race and resolved to transfer the island's allegiance to Great Britain, whereupon France sent Commissioners who according to

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.