Jefferson's Saint-Domingue Policy: Embargo and Non-Recognition

A composite of primary documents from the Founders Online Jefferson and Madison Papers covering the Jefferson administration's reversal of Federalist engagement with Saint-Domingue (1801–1803). The key documents are Jefferson's statement to British chargé Edward Thornton in March 1801 — articulating a policy of 'free and open trade' combined with 'prevention of all maritime exertion on the part of the Negroes' — and Dessalines's unanswered letter of June 23, 1803, which invoked the language of the American Revolution to appeal for commerce and recognition that Jefferson never acknowledged.