No. 169.
Mr. Bassett to Mr. Evarts.

No. 516.]

Sir: In my No. 501, of the 10th of May last, I bad the honor to bring to your notice that phase of the religious question now occupying to some extent the public attention in this republic, in which the Roman Catholic archbishop and his clergy are shown to have assumed a [Page 311] pretension to supremacy over the civil code, notably in the matter of marriage.

In the present dispatch I desire briefly to invite your attention to another, but equally suggestive, aspect of the same subject, namely, the introduction and growth of Protestantism in Hayti, and its influence upon this government.

Although immediately after the declaration of Haytian independence in 1804, Romanism, then as now the faith professed by a great majority of the Haytian people, was declared to be the religion of the state and placed under the state’s special protection and support, and although it still continues to enjoy that protection and support, yet the feature of religious toleration and freedom was incorporated into the constitution of 1805, and has been maintained in all subsequent revisions and changes of that instrument. It may also be set down to the credit of the Haytian Government and people that, except upon one or two occasions under Boyer, and again under Soulouque, they have uniformly acted in good faith toward the different Protestant denominations that have sought to establish themselves in Hayti, and this top in spite of many strongly-directed and persistent, but truly uucommendable, efforts of the Roman priesthood to cause to be suppressed, or effectively placed under ban, every other form of worship and belief than their own.

President Canal, in his last annual message to the Corps L6gislatif, makes reference to the subject in these words:

By virtue of the principle of religious liberty and equality inscribed in the twenty-fifth article of the constitution and long since incorporated into our habits, the different religions—Catholic and Protestant—are freely exercised in this country.

As early as the year 1815 Henri Christophe, the autocratic King of the north of Hayti, engaged a clergyman of the Church of England— the Rev. Mr. Brown—to direct the royal college at Cape Haïtien. Mr. Brown prepared an abridged liturgy of the Church of England adapted to the then existing condition of things in King Henri’s dominions. The liturgy, of which I have seen a copy, of the original edition, was issued from the royal press at Sans Souci, in the English and the French languages, arranged in parallel columns, and was authorized by the King himself to be used in all the schools and garrisons of the kingdom. Under the protection and favor of the King, himself a Roman Catholic, Protestantism began to take root and grow in the north of Hayti. But in 1820 Christophe died by his own hand, and it is a fact that the Church of England did not then, and has not since, put forth any effort to follow up the beginning so auspiciously made by Mr. Brown.

Contemporaneously with the introduction of Protestantism by government request and authority at Cape Haïtien, President Pétion engaged teachers of the Protestant faith to come from England to take charge of schools in his republic. They arrived at Port au Prince in 1816, and the reports which they sent back to England of the encouragement given them in their new work induced the Wesleyan Missionary Commitee at London to open a mission here in 1818. This mission has been maintained ever since, and is now in a flourishing condition, both at Port au Prince and in other parts of the republic.

Protestantism in Hayti has also been augmented by emigrations, especially of colored people from the United States, under Boyer in 1824, and under Geffrard in 1861. From these emigrations and some British sources have sprung up churches of the Baptist, the Methodist, the African Methodist and other denominations.

But, notwithstanding the fair prospects of Protestantism under the earlier days of Haytian independence, and notwithstanding the fact [Page 312] that it has been allowed slowly but surely to develop itself on Haytian soil, yet no mention of the Protestant churches and schools appeared for many years in any message from the executive to the Corps Législatif. But, at the beginning of the Domingue administration, when Mr. Thomas Madison, the Haytian historian, was minister of public worship, Mr. Madison was induced, through a friendship which sprang up between himself and the Rev. Dr. Coxe, bishop of Western New York, to make favorable official mention and give some statistics of those, churches and schools. And again references to the subject are made in President Canal’s recent message.

It was more especially to explain the principal cause and spirit of these references in President Canal’s message that I thought it desirable to write this dispatch.

During the emigration of colored people from the United States to Hayti in 1861, the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States was pleased to establish a mission here, with the Rev. J. T. Holly, a native of the city of Washington, but now a Haytian citizen, as its pastor. In the conduct of his charge, Mr. Holly, from the very first, strenuously advocated and resolutely persisted in the important policy of raising up a national clergy in Hayti, a policy which seems never to have been thought of by any other religious denomination in this country, and which opened a new road and gave a new impetus to Protestantism here. The mission continued to grow. It was encouraged and visited in 1863 by Bishop Lee, of Delaware; in 1866, by Bishop Burgess, of Maine; and in 1872, by Bishop Coxe, of Western New York, and finally the Rev. Dr. Holly was, at Grace Church, New York City, in 1874, ordained bishop of Hayti. So that since 1874 there has been established in Hayti an independent Protestant church, with the distinguishing feature that all its clergy are citizens of the country, several of them educated in the United States under the vigilance of Bishop Holly. The facts just narrated have forcibly struck the attention of this government, as well as that of a number of patriotic Haytians.

President Canal, in his message, after noting in a tone of regret the fact that out of ninety-three Roman Catholic priests under government pay, ninety-one are Frenchmen and only two Haytians, and after noting the contempt manifested by the archbishop and his clergy for the civil laws of the country, says:

That propriety, as well as our interests, demands a body of native priests, cannot escape the attention of any one. The public well-being of the nation, our independence, and our dignity make it imperative to have Haytian elements in an order so elevated “and so powerful. For these reasons we have made sacrifices to sustain the grand seminary in France and the small seminary here. But the results obtained have been small. During a period of more than sixteen (thirteen?) years we have had only two ordinations of Haytian priests. There remains something more for us to do, in order to find and excite the desire for the sacerdotal vocation among our fellow-citizens.

President Canal thus speaks of the subject with evident feeling, in the light of the pecuniary interests of the country, and in the light of the dignity and independence of the nation. The French Roman Catholic priest, in coming to Hayti, leaves behind him all his social ties, in the hope of returning to them within eight or ten years, the average period of his labors here. All that he receives while in the country over and above his scanty personal wants, goes abroad to enrich France at the expense of the Haytian people, and he even bends his energies to accumulate. In addition to his salary from the government, which ranges from 20,000 francs to the archbishop to 1,200 francs to the country curate, he is allowed a tariff of prices for all public religious services performed by him. Baptisms, marriages, funerals, dispensations, indulgences, [Page 313] masses for the dead—services for each of these yield him by law a revenue ranging from 50 cents up to $50. Not only this, but he can collect offerings from the faithful, and it is even affirmed that many such offerings are made to him under the dread secrecy inspired by the confessional. It is not difficult to see that the moneys received by the foreign clergy in Hayti and promptly sent away to France amount in the aggregate to a considerable sum. I have heard it estimated by some of the most intelligent persons here, as equal to more than one quarter of the whole public revenue, or more than one million of dollars per annum.

It is true that France lost open political control over this island in 1804, but by means of the Roman Catholic clergy she has maintained almost exclusive control over the religious affairs of these people. Indeed, the domination which she once held over their bodies was hardly more complete than that which she still holds over their consciences and spiritual susceptibilities. The priests, in their present controversy with the government, which is outlined in my No. 501 already referred to, do not fail to rely upon the supposed spiritual subjugation of the Haytian to the papal system of Rome, in connection with their own supposed power over him as citizens of a country which once held him in physical bondage, and to whose interests they themselves are devoted.

In the light of these facts it is no cause for astonishment that the Haytian Government, aroused and inspired by the policy and success of the Protestant Bishop Holly, in raising up and establishing a national clergy for the Protestant Episcopal denomination, should seek to conserve its own integrity and the resources of its people, as well as to avoid continual misunderstandings with a class of foreigners resident here and shielded by the dignity of sacerdotal robes, by stimulating and encouraging the young men of the country to enter the ecclesiastical vocation.

Meanwhile it ought not to be unknown to those who feel bound by the holy injunction to have the gospel preached to all the world, that in Hayti the door stands wide open for every kind of Christian missionary work.

I am, &c.,

EBENEZER D. BASSETT.