Страница 38 из 102
By now no one was going hungry in Zambo Boukman's camp, and people were begi
The camp was surrounded with stakes holding skulls and impaled bodies rotting in the sun. They kept the white prisoners in a corral, awaiting their turn to be executed. The women were converted into slaves and concubines, just as black women had been on the plantations. Gambo felt no compassion for the captives-he himself would finish them off if the need to do so arose, but he had not been given that order. As he had swift legs and good judgment, Boukman sent him out to spy and to carry messages to other chiefs. Gambo knew the region, which was dotted with rebel bands, very well. The worst camp for whites was the one headed by Jea
In one of the camps Gambo met Toussaint, who performed the double role of counselor for the war and doctor; he knew curative plants, and he exercised notable influence over the chiefs, although in that period he kept himself in the background. He was one of the few blacks able to read and write, and thus he learned, though with delays, what was happening on the island and in France. No one knew the mentality of the whites better than he. He had been born and lived as a slave on a plantation in Breda; he educated himself, embraced the Christian religion with fervor, and gained the esteem of his master, who even entrusted his family to him when the moment came to flee. That relationship raised suspicions; many believed that Toussaint subjected himself to whites like a servant, but many times Gambo heard him say that the goal of his life was to end slavery in Saint-Domingue, and nothing or no one would stop him. His personality impressed Gambo from the begi
In view of the disaster in the colony, France sent a commission to speak with the black chiefs, who declared themselves ready to return the hostages as a sign of goodwill. They arranged a meeting at a plantation in the north. When the white prisoners, who had survived months of the hell invented by Jea
The conversations took place outdoors, beneath trees on the patio, and from the first words the tension was palpable. Distrust and rancor reigned among the rebels, and blind pride among the colonists. Stu