Guillaume-Silvestre Delahaye (1734

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...

- 1802/3 Saint-Domingue) was a French botanist, a botanical illustrator, and a Roman Catholic priest or

abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin ''abbas'', in turn from Greek , ''abbas'', from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is the title for lowe ...

who became embroiled in the 1791

slave rebellion A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by enslaved people, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of enslaved people have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freedo ...

Saint-Domingue Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer ...

on the island of

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...

. He was a native of Rouen and at one time had been a deacon in the parish of Church of St Joan of Arc, and had studied law in

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,le Cap in

Quartier-Morin Quartier-Morin ( ht, Katye Moren) is a commune in the Cap-Haïtien Arrondissement Cap-Haïtien ( ht, Kap Ayisyen) is an arrondissement in the Nord department of Haiti and is the second important city of the country. Known as the historical and ...

, and later as the curé of

Dondon Dondon ( ht, Dondon) is a commune in the Saint-Raphaël Arrondissement, in the Nord department of Haiti. It has 25,846 inhabitants. Notable people * Louis Moreau-Lislet Louis Moreau-Lislet ( Dondon, 7 October 1766 – New Orleans, 3 Decemb ...

, where for 23 years he busied himself researching the use of tropical plants, painting and describing them. He made the acquaintance of another French botanist, Palisot de Beauvois, who arrived on the island in 1788, and together they sent at least six shipments of seeds to

André Thouin André Thouin (10 February 1747 – 24 October 1824) was a French botanist. Thouin studied botany under Bernard de Jussieu, and in 1793 attained the chair of horticulture at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. He was a good ...

. He published two botanical treatises in Cap-Francais, one in 1781 and the other in 1789. The

Cercle des Philadelphes Cercle des Philadelphes was an academic scientific society in Saint-Domingue. It was founded in 1784 and ceased to function in 1791. It has been counted as the most prominent academic society in the Americas prior to the French Revolution ...

decided in March 1788 to publish Delahaye's work 'Florindie , ou Histoire physico-économique des végétaux de la Torride' by subscription and accordingly printed a four-page prospectus, which proposed a two-volume illustrated natural history of Saint-Domingue at 66

livres The (; ; abbreviation: ₶.) was one of numerous currencies used in medieval France, and a unit of account (i.e., a monetary unit used in accounting) used in Early Modern France. The 1262 monetary reform established the as 20 , or 80.88 gr ...

per volume. The manuscript was sent to France to have the plates engraved under the supervision of the botanist

Antoine Laurent de Jussieu Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (; 12 April 1748 – 17 September 1836) was a French botanist, notable as the first to publish a natural classification of flowering plants; much of his system remains in use today. His classification was based on an e ...

. However, the French Revolution intervened and the project was never completed. Had the book been published as planned it would have been one of the earliest and most significant contributions to colonial botany.'Colonialism and Science' - James E. McClellan III (University of Chicago Press, 1992) In 1791 the slave uprisings began, and Delahaye became an outspoken critic of the system, publishing his views in 'Feuille du Jour'. At one stage he prematurely announced the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue, causing consternation among the slave owners. Despite being arrested by

Jeannot Bullet Jeannot Bullet, often mononymed as Jeannot, was a leader of the 1791 slave rising that began the Haitian Revolution. With Biassou and Jean François, he was prophesied by Dutty Boukman to lead the revolution, and fought with the Spanish royalists ...

, one of the insurgent leaders, Delahaye was treated with courtesy and his counsel was actively sought. Delahaye himself owned some slaves, and it became evident that the reasons for insurrection were not necessarily about abolition alone, but embodied a wide range of grievances. There are conflicting accounts of Delahaye's death - one version holding that he drowned or was drowned at le Cap in 1803, while Adolphe Cabon (1873-1961), the Haiti historian, felt that he was killed by the rebels in 1802 for fear that he might betray them. A third view is that he was killed by the black insurgents during a massacre of French whites in July 1793.

References

External links

Gallery of postage stamps

Gallery

Gallery

A flexible quill: Abbé de Lahaye’s role in late colonial Saint-Domingue, 1787–1791 – the legend and the life

A Transatlantic Battle of Robes: French Priests in the Haitian Revolution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Delahaye, Guillaume Silvestre Botanical illustrators 1734 births 1800s deaths