Content Description
The passport is signed by Toussaint and bears the Customs stamp and has ten lines of manuscript handwriting in English specifying the terms of the Milford's visit, countersigned by Hugh Cathcart, a Jamaica merchant, who was at that time the British agent at Port-au-Prince, and Robert Ritchie, the American consul.
The top of the document features a wood-engraved cartouche of the French Republic. The figure of Liberty is seated on a cannon barrel, with a laurel wreath in one hand and a staff topped with a Phrygian cap in the other. An orb and a scepter lie beneath her feet.
Dates
- 1800 January 23
Creator
- Toussaint Louverture, 1743-1803 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Biographical / Historical
He had been born a slave on the Breda plantation in the French colony of Saint-Domingue but became self-educated, gaining his freedom, and worked for Bayon de Libertad. Eventually Louverture became the leader of the only successful slave revolt in modern history during the Haitian Revolution. Haiti became an independent nation and the first black republic.
The brig Milford was an American armed merchantmen vessel out of Baltimore equipped to fend off French privateers enforcing a blockade on ports under rebel control. Built in Mathews County, Virginia, 1798, and owned by Gabriel Wood, it was commissioned as a private armed vessel on July 25, 1799, with Littleton Waters as its commander ("Naval Documents related to the Quasi-War Between the United States and France").
Extent
0.04 Cubic Feet (1 legal folder)
Language of Materials
French
English
Immediate Source of Acquisition
- Title
- Brig Milford of Baltimore ship passport
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Sharon Defibaugh
- Date
- 2022
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library Repository
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library
P.O. Box 400110
University of Virginia
Charlottesville Virginia 22904-4110 United States