Event
Event · 1791 CE – 1804 CE
The Haitian Revolution, also known as the Haitian War of Independence, was a successful insurrection by enslaved Africans against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolution was one of the only known slave rebellions in human history that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery (though not from forced labour) and ruled by former captives.
Vincent Ogé's 1790 revolt by free Mulattoes (of mixed French and African ancestry) pressured the French Revolutionary government to grant them citizenship in May 1791, leading to further clashes with slave owners that destabilized Saint-Domingue and led to the slave revolt on 21 August 1791, which ended with the former colony's independence on 1 January 1804, with the ex-slave Toussaint Louverture emerging as its most prominent general. The successful revolution was a defining moment in the history of the Atlantic World and the revolution's effects on the institution of slavery were felt throughout the Americas. The end of French rule and the abolition of slavery in the former colony was followed by a successful defense of the freedoms the former slaves had won, and with the collaboration of already free people of color, of their independence from white Europeans.
The revolution was the largest slave uprising since Spartacus' unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Republic nearly 1,900 years earlier, and challenged long-held European beliefs about alleged Black inferiority and about slaves' ability to achieve and maintain their own freedom. The rebels' organizational capacity and tenacity under pressure inspired stories that shocked and frightened slave owners in the hemisphere.
Compared to other Atlantic revolutions, the events in Haiti have received relatively little public attention in retrospect: historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot characterizes the historiography of the Haitian Revolution as being "silenced" by that of the French Revolution.
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Background Slave economy in Saint-Domingue Much of Caribbean economic development in the 18th century was contingent on Europeans' demand for sugar . Plantation owners produced sugar as a commodity crop from cultivation of sugarcane , which required extensive labor. The colony of Saint-Domingue also had extensive coffee , cocoa and indigo plantations, but these were smaller and less profitable than the sugar plantations. [ 1 ] The commodity crops were traded for European goods. Starting in the 1730s, French engineers constructed complex irrigation systems to increase sugarcane production. By the following decade, Saint-Domingue, together with the British colony of Jamaica , had become the main suppliers of the world's sugar. Production of sugar depended on extensive manual labor provided by enslaved Africans . An average of 600 ships engaged every year in shipping products from Saint-Domingue to Bordeaux , and the value of the colony's crops and goods was almost equal in value to all of the products shipped from the Thirteen Colonies to Great Britain . [ 2 ] The livelihood of 1 million of the approximately 25 million people who lived in France in 1789 depended directly upon the agricultural imports from Saint-Domingue, and several million indirectly depended upon trade from the colony to maintain their standard of living. [ 3 ] Saint-Domingue was the most profitable French colony in the world, indeed one of the most profitable of all the European colonies in the 18th century. Slavery sustained sugar production under harsh conditions; diseases such as malaria (brought from Africa) and yellow fever caused high mortality, thriving in the tropical Caribbean climate. In 1787 alone, approximately 20,000 slaves were transported from Africa to Saint-Domingue, in comparison to the roughly 38,000 slaves that were imported to the British West Indies . [ 2 ] The death rate from yellow fever was such that at least 50% of the slaves from Africa died within a year of arriving, so while the white planters preferred to work their slaves as hard as possible, providing them only the bare minimum of food and shelter; they calculated that it was better to get the most work out of their slaves with the lowest expense possible, since they were probably going to die of yellow fever anyway. [ 4 ] The death rate was so high that polyandry —one woman being married to several men at the same time—developed as a common form of marriage among the slaves. [ 4 ] As slaves had no legal rights, rape by planters, their unmarried sons or overseers was a common occurrence on the plantations. [ 5 ] Demographics The largest sugar plantations and concentrations of slaves were in the north of the island, and the whites lived in fear of slave rebellion . [ 6 ] Even by the standards of the Caribbean, French slave masters were extremely cruel in their treatment of slaves. [ 2 ] They used the threat and acts of physical violence to maintain control and suppress efforts at rebellion. When slaves left the plantations or disobeyed their masters, they were subject to whipping or to more extreme torture such as castration or burning, the punishment being both a personal lesson and a warning for other slaves. King Louis XIV passed the Code Noir in 1685 in an attempt to regulate such violence and the general treatment of slaves in the colony, but masters openly and consistently broke the code. During the 18th century, local legislation reversed parts of it. [ 7 ] [ page needed ] In 1758, the planters began passing legislation restricting the rights of other groups of people until a rigid caste system was defined. Most historians classify the people of the era into three groups: The first group were white colonists, or les blancs . This group was generally subdivided into the plantation owners and a lower class of whites who often served as overseers or day laborers, as well as artisans and shopkeepers. The second group were free people of color , or gens de couleur libres , who were usually mixed-race (sometimes referred to as Mulattoes ), being of both African and French descent. These gens de couleur tended to be educated and literate, and the men often served in the army or as administrators on plantations. Many were children of white planters and enslaved mothers, or free women of color. Others had purchased their freedom from their owners through the sale of their own produce or artistic works. They often received education or artisan training, and sometimes inherited freedom or property from their fathers. Some gens de couleur owned and operated their own plantations and became slave owners. The third group, outnumbering the others by a ratio of ten to one, was made up of mostly African-born slaves. A high rate of mortality among them meant that planters continually had to import new slaves. This kept their culture more African and separate from other people on the island. Many plantations had large concentrations of slaves from a particular region of Africa, and it was therefore somewhat easier for these groups to maintain elements of their culture, religion, and language. This also separated new slaves from Africa from creoles (slaves born in the colony), who already had kin networks and often had more prestigious roles on plantations and more opportunities for emancipation. [ 7 ] Most slaves spoke a patois of the French language known as Haitian Creole , which was also used by island-born Mulattoes and whites for communication with the workers. [ 8 ] The majority of the slaves were Yoruba from what is now modern Nigeria , Fon from what is now Benin , and Kongo from the Kingdom of Kongo in what is now modern northern Angola and the western Congo . [ 9 ] The Kongolese at 40% were the largest of the African ethnic groups represented amongst the slaves. [ 4 ] The slaves developed their own religion, a syncretic mixture of Catholicism and West African religions known as Vodou , usually called "voodoo" in English. This belief system implicitly rejected the Africans' status as slaves. [ 10 ] Social conflict Saint-Domingue was a society seething with hatred, with white colonists and Black slaves frequently coming into violent conflict. The French historian Paul Fregosi wrote: "Whites, mulattos and blacks loathed each other. The poor whites couldn't stand the rich whites, the rich whites despised the poor whites, the middle-class whites were jealous of the aristocratic whites, the whites born in France looked down upon the locally born whites, mulattoes envied the whites, despised the blacks and were despised by the whites; free Negroes brutalized those who were still slaves, Haitian born blacks regarded those from Africa as savages. Everyone—quite rightly—lived in terror of everyone else. Haiti was hell, but Haiti was rich." [ 11 ] — The French historian Paul Fregosi Many of these conflicts involved slaves who had escaped the plantations. Many runaway slaves—called Maroons —hid on the margins of large plantations, living off the land and what they could steal from their former masters. Others fled to towns, to blend in with urban slaves and freed Blacks who often migrated to those areas for work. If caught, these runaway slaves would be severely and violently punished. However, some masters tolerated petit marronages , or short-term absences from plantations, knowing these allowed release of tensions. [ 7 ] The larger groups of runaway slaves who lived in the hillside woods away from white control often conducted violent raids on the island's sugar and coffee plantations. Although the numbers in these bands grew large (sometimes into the thousands), they generally lacked the leadership and strategy to accomplish large-scale objectives. The first effective Maroon leader to emerge was the charismatic Haitian Vodou priest François Mackandal , who inspired his people by drawing on African traditions and religions. He united the Maroon bands and established a network of secret organizations among plantation slaves, leading a rebellion from 1751 through 1757. Although Mackandal was captured by the French and burned at the stake in 1758, large armed Maroon bands persisted in raids and harassment after his death. [ 6 ] [ 12 ] Slavery in Enlightenment thought French writer Guillaume Raynal attacked slavery in his history of European colonization. He warned, "the Africans only want a chief, sufficiently courageous, to lead them on to vengeance and slaughter." [ 13 ] Raynal's Enlightenment philosophy went deeper than a prediction and reflected many similar philosophies, including those of Rousseau and Diderot . Raynal's admonition was written thirteen years before the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen , which highlighted freedom and liberty but did not abolish slavery. Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson , 1797 In addition to Raynal's influence, Toussaint Louverture , a free Black who was familiar with Enlightenment ideas within the context of European colonialism, would become a key "enlightened actor" in the Haitian Revolution. Enlightened thought divided the world into "enlightened leaders" and "ignorant masses." [ 14 ] Louverture sought to bridge this divide between the popular masses and the enlightened few by striking a balance between Western Enlightened thought as a necessary means of winning liberation, and not propagating the notion that it was morally superior to the experiences and knowledge of people of color on Saint-Domingue. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] Louverture wrote a constitution for a new society in Saint-Domingue that abolished slavery . The existence of slavery in Enlightened society was an incongruity that had been left unaddressed by European scholars prior to the French Revolution . Louverture took on this inconsistency directly in his constitution. In addition, he exhibited a connection to Enlightenment scholars through the style, language, and accent of his text. [ clarification needed ] [ 17 ] [ page needed ] Like Louverture, Jean-Baptiste Belley was an active participant in the insurrection. The portrait of Belley by Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson depicts a man who encompasses the French view of its colonies, creating a stark dichotomy between the refinement of Enlightenment thought and the reality of the situation in Saint-Domingue, through the bust of Raynal and the figure of Belley, respectively. While distinguished, the portrait still portrays a man trapped by the confines of race. Girodet's portrayal of the former National Convention deputy is telling of the French opinion of colonial citizens by emphasizing the subject's sexuality and including an earring. Both of these racially charged symbols reveal the desire to undermine the colony's attempts at independent legitimacy, as citizens of the colonies were not able to access the elite class of French Revolutionaries because of their race. [ 18 ] ^ Thomas E. Weil, Jan Knippers Black, Howard I. Blustein, Kathryn T. Johnston, David S. McMorris, Frederick P. Munson, Haiti: A Country Study . (Washington, D.C.: The American University Foreign Area Handbook Series 1985). ^ a b c Perry 2005 , p. 61. ^ Dubois 2005 , p. 21. ^ a b c Dubois 2005 , p. 40. ^ Dubois 2005 , p. 43. ^ a b Rogozinski, Jan (1999). A Brief History of the Caribbean (Revised ed.). New York: Facts on File. pp.  85, 116– 17, 164–65 . ISBN   978-0-8160-3811-4 . ^ a b c Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution . (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2004). ^ "Haiti – French Colonialism" . Archived from the original on 8 December 2006 . Retrieved 27 November 2006 . ^ Dubois 2005 , pp. 40–43. ^ Dubois 2005 , pp. 43–44. ^ Perry 2005 , pp. 61–62. ^ "The Slave Rebellion of 1791" . Archived from the original on 16 February 2013 . Retrieved 27 November 2006 . ^ " Antislavery Agitation: Abbe Raynal Archived 29 October 2017 at the Wayback Machine ", Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of the East and West Indies (1770), accessed 8 May 2014. ^ Goldmann, Lucien. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment: the Christian Burgess and the Enlightenment. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1973. ^ Paul B. Miller, "Enlightened Hesitations: Black Masses and Tragic Heroes in C. L. R. James's The Black Jacobins". MLN 116: 1069–1090. (accessed 8 May 2014). ^ C. L. R. James , The Black Jacobins : Toussaint Louverture and the San Domingo Revolution , 1st ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1963 p. 271. ^ Miller, 1069–1090. ^ Sylvia Musto, "Portraiture, Revolutionary Identity and Subjugation: Anne-Louis Girodet's Citizen Belley", RACAR: Revue d'Art Canadienne / Canadian Art Review 20 (1993): 60–71.
Post-Revolution era An independent government was created in Haiti, but the country's society remained deeply affected by patterns established under French colonial rule. As in other French colonial societies, a class of free people of color had developed after centuries of French rule here. Many planters or young unmarried men had relations with African or Afro-Caribbean women, sometimes providing for their freedom and that of their children, as well as providing for education of the mixed-race children, especially the boys. Some were sent to France for education and training, and some joined the French military. The Mulattoes who returned to Saint-Domingue became the elite of the people of color. As an educated class used to the French political system, they became the elite of Haitian society after the war's end. Many of them had used their social capital to acquire wealth, and some already owned land. Some had identified more with the French colonists than the slaves. Many of the free people of color, by contrast, were raised in French culture, had certain rights within colonial society, and generally spoke French and practiced Catholicism (with syncretic absorption of African religions.) Following the assassination of Dessalines, another of Toussaint's Black generals, Henri Christophe , succeeded his in control of the north, while Alexandre Pétion presided over Mulatto rule in the south. There were large differences in governance between Petion's republic, and what would eventually become Christophe's kingdom. While the southern republic did not have as much focus on economic development, and put more attention on liberal land distribution and education, the northern kingdom went on to become relatively wealthy, though wealth distribution was disputed. As a result of temporary trade agreements between Christophe, the United States, and British colonies, Christophe was able to rebuild the northern region. There were large investments in education and public works, military infrastructure, and many chateaux, the most notable being the Sans Souci palace in Milot. However, much like his predecessors, this was achieved through forced labor which ultimately led to his downfall. Contrarily, Petion was beloved by his people, but despised by his northern counterpart. A major effort by Christophe to capture Port-au-Prince in mid–1812 failed. The Mulattoes were harassed by a pocket of Black rebellion in their rear from February 1807 to May 1819 led by a Black leader named Goman in the southern mountains of the Grand-Anse, who resisted several Mulatto punitive expeditions. In 1819, the new Mulatto leader, Jean-Pierre Boyer, sent six regiments into the Grand-Anse to ferret out Goman, who was trapped and shot off a 1,000-foot cliff. In 1820, the island nation was reunified after Christophe killed himself. Boyer with 20,000 troops marched into Cap-Haïtien , the northern capital, shortly afterward to establish his power over all of Haiti. Not too long after, Boyer was able to secure cooperation with the general of the neighboring Spanish Haiti , and in February 1822 began a 22 year long unification with the eastern state, [ 1 ] which ended in 1844 with the outbreak of the Dominican War of Independence . Independence debt Main article: Haiti indemnity controversy The nascent state's future was hobbled in 1825 when France under Charles X forced it (with French warships anchored off the coast during the negotiations [ 2 ] ) to pay 150 million gold francs in reparations to French ex-slaveholders—as a condition of French political recognition and to end the newly formed state's political and economic isolation. [ 3 ] By an order of 17 April 1825, the King of France renounced his rights of sovereignty over Santo Domingo, and recognized the independence of Haiti. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] President Jean-Pierre Boyer believed that the constant threat of a French invasion was stymieing the Haitian economy and thus felt the need to settle the matter once and for all. [ 2 ] Though the amount of the reparations was reduced to 90 million francs in 1838, Haiti was unable to finish paying off its debt until 1947. The indemnity bankrupted the Haitian treasury and left the country's government deeply impoverished, causing long-term instability. Haiti was therefore forced to take out a loan from French banks, who provided the funds for the large first installment, [ 7 ] severely affecting Haiti's ability to prosper. Influence on other abolitionist and post-colonial movements While Haiti suffered major economic setbacks during the early years of the post revolutionary era, the ideals of freedom and anti-colonialism never ceased to be part of the Haitian consciousness. Citizenship was offered to any slave or oppressed person that made it to Haiti's shores as mandated by Dessaline's constitution. All four of Haiti's earlier rulers, Dessalines, Christophe, Petion, and Boyer all had programs that involved swaying African Americans to resettle there and assure their freedom. Slave boats that were captured and brought to Haiti's shores resulted in the liberation and integration of all captives on board into Haitian society. On one occasion, President Alexandre Petion protected Jamaican slaves from re-enslavement after they escaped their plantation and landed in the southern city of Jérémie . [ 8 ] On multiple occasions, Haiti's leaders offered asylum to liberal revolutionaries globally. One of the more notable examples of this included Haiti's involvement with Gran Colombia , where Dessalines and Petion both offered aid, ammunitions, and asylum to Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar , who even went as far as to credit Haiti for the liberation of his country. [ citation needed ] Dessalines offered citizenship and assistance to slaves in Martinique and Guadeloupe so that they could start their own uprisings. [ 9 ] Mexican nationalists, Francisco Javier Mina and José Joaquín de Herrera took asylum in Les Cayes and were welcomed by Petion during Mexico's War of Independence. [ 10 ] The Greeks later received support from President Boyer during their fight against the Ottomans . The end of the Haitian Revolution in 1804 marked the end of French colonialism on the island. However, the social conflict cultivated under slavery continued to affect the population for years to come. Mulatto domination of politics and economics, and urban life after the revolution, created a different kind of two-caste society, as most Haitians were rural subsistence farmers. [ 11 ] The affranchi élite, who continued to rule Haiti while the formidable Haitian army kept them in power. France continued the slavery system in French Guiana , Martinique , and Guadeloupe . [ 12 ] ^ "Dominican Republic – Haiti and Santo Domingo" . Country Studies . Library of Congress ; Federal Research Division. Archived from the original on 23 June 2011 . Retrieved 7 March 2012 . ^ a b Leyburn 1961 , p. 70. ^ "A Country Study: Haiti – Boyer: Expansion and Decline" . Library of Congress. 2000. Archived from the original on 1 June 2009 . Retrieved 30 August 2007 . ^ "La première ambassade française en Haïti" . Menu Contenu Plan du siteAmbassade de France à Port-au-Prince (in French). Government of France. Archived from the original on 8 April 2022 . Retrieved 27 October 2017 . ^ M. Degros, Création des postes diplomatiques et consulaires, Revue d'histoire diplomatique, 1986; in French ^ J-F. Brière, Haïti et la France, 1804–1848: le rêve brisé, Paris, Karthala 2008; in French ^ Girard 2011 , p.  [ page needed ] . ^ "Jamaica Observer Limited" . Jamaica Observer . Archived from the original on 29 October 2020 . Retrieved 17 September 2020 . ^ Jenson, Deborah (2011). Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution . Liverpool University Press. ISBN   978-1-84631-497-1 . ^ "Antecedentes" . embamex.sre.gob.mx . Archived from the original on 30 October 2020 . Retrieved 17 September 2020 . ^ Cite error: The named reference Ch6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page ). ^ Knight, Franklin W. (1990). The Caribbean The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.  212 . ISBN   978-0-19-505441-5 .
In popular culture Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier 's second novel, The Kingdom of This World (1949), (translated into English 1957), explores the Haitian Revolution in depth. It is one of the novels that inaugurated the Latin American renaissance in fiction beginning in the mid-20th century. Madison Smartt Bell wrote a trilogy called All Souls' Rising (1995) about the life of Toussaint Louverture and the slave uprising. C. Richard Gillespie, former Towson University professor, wrote a novelization of Louverture's life in the Revolution titled Papa Toussaint (1998). Though not referred to by name, Haiti is the backdrop for the 1990 Broadway musical Once on This Island by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty . The musical, based on the novel My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy , describes the social stratification of the island, and contains a song that briefly outlines the history of the Haitian Revolution. In 2004, an exhibition of paintings entitled Caribbean Passion: Haiti 1804 by artist Kimathi Donkor , was held in London to celebrate the bicentenary of Haiti's revolution. [ 1 ] In 2010, author Isabel Allende wrote a historical novel entitled Island Beneath the Sea , which documents the Haitian Revolution through the eyes of a slave woman living on the island. William Dietrich set his 2012 novel, The Emerald Storm during the Haitian Revolution. The television mini-series The Feast of All Saints features the Haitian Revolution in its opening scene. Philippe Niang directed the 2012 French two-part television film Toussaint Louverture , with Jimmy Jean-Louis playing the title role. The film Top Five refers to a fictional film within the film called "Uprize", ostensibly about this revolution. The role of Bois Caiman, Boukman, and Vodou generally, would become the subject of a controversial, discredited neo-evangelical theology in the 1990s that insisted that Haiti was pledged to the devil during the Revolution. [ 2 ] Jacobin , an American socialist periodical, uses an image of Toussaint Louverture for its logo. ^ Melbourne, Kamali (31 October 2005). "Caribbean Passion: Haiti 1804" . BBC Nottingham . Archived from the original on 14 February 2017 . Retrieved 22 August 2016 . ^ McAlister, Elizabeth (1 June 2012). "From Slave Revolt to a Blood Pact with Satan: The Evangelical Rewriting of Haitian History" . Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses . 41 (2): 187– 215. doi : 10.1177/0008429812441310 . ISSN   0008-4298 . S2CID   145382199 . Archived from the original on 11 December 2019 . Retrieved 26 September 2024 .
Literature about the Haitian Revolution An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President Bug-Jargal The Crime of Napoleon The Black Jacobins
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