World History: The Haitian Revolution

A painting of the 1803 Battle of Vertieres

On World History at the moment we're looking at the Age of Revolution where from the late-1700s to the mid-1800s revolutions, (political, social, and economic), ended up drastically changing the world we live in. Today we're looking at a unique revolution: the Haitian Revolution. This revolution saw the abolishing of slavery and the independence of Haiti, however, its perception has changed over the years. Originally it was seen as merely a successful slave revolt which had reactionary anti-white elements to it until the coming of the landmark The Black Jacobins by C.L.R. James which highlighted the influences of the French Revolution. James also highlighted the African elements of the Revolution which has now been brought back into the historiography. The Haitian Revolution shows how those lacking agency in a society can obtain it more pertinently than what we saw in the French and American Revolutions. 

Background

Free Women of Color with their Children and Servants, by Agostino Brunias, Dominica, c. 1764–1796. Although not from Haiti this scene was replicated in the pre-Revolution colony

The Haitian Revolution took place in the French colony of Saint-Domingue on the island of Hispaniola, the island where present day Haiti and Dominican Republic are. Colonised in the late-1600s Saint-Domingue was a plantation economy growing a variety of crops, largely sugar and coffee. In 1787 the island had 655 sugar plantations producing 131,000,000 pounds of sugar; 1,962 coffee plantations; and 398 cotton and indigo plantations. Saint-Domingue became extremely rich as a result as it provided most of the coffee and sugar to Europe becoming known as the 'Jewel of the Antilles'. Cities like Le Cap Francois and Port-au-Prince were larger than many cities in what would become the United States. The colony was heavily divided along regional, (North, South and West), lines as each competed for economic superiority. Society was also split into three groups: whites, gens de couleur, and slaves. Even then each group could be further divided. Les blancs numbered around 24,000 individuals and were heavily divided by class - planters, despite very small in number, dominated Saint-Domingue society compared to the more numerous petit blancs who served as labourers, small merchants, and workers on plantations. The plantation owners replicated their wealthy aristocratic counterparts in France embodying the finery of the aristocrats; French traveller Jean-Bernard Bossu told a story how some sailors went for dinner at the invitation of a plantation owner. Their host was decked out in fine clothing with rich food so they assumed a wedding was happening until their host told them that this was just a normal dinner. The gens de couleur were made of freed slaves and mixed-race individuals; most of the original colonials were male so would take advantage of female slaves. They could own property and some even owned slaves including the later hero of the Revolution, Toussaint Louverture (also spelt L'Ouverture). There was great tension between gens de couleur and petit blancs for various reasons. Although the 1685 Code Noir made them French citizens they were still legally barred from political activity where over the next century their political rights were eroded. In neighbouring Spanish America at this time it was possible for a wealthy mixed-race individual to 'buy whiteness' and it was possible for gens de couleur to do so as well, however, they had to be three generations removed from their last black ancestor. Meanwhile, petit blancs in theory were 'superior' to gens de couleur but as they often lacked property, and worked for gens de couleur, they heavily resented this and expressed this through racism. Women also took part in this racism fostering hostility to neighbours who entered interracial relationships or businesses.

A modern depiction of Vodou, even today you can see the synchronicity of Catholicism and West African imagery, https://adventure.com/real-vodou-haiti/  

Finally, we have the slaves who made up 90% of Saint-Domingue's population. As we saw when we looked at the Atlantic slave trade this time period was the height of the slave trade. In 1787 there was at least 408,000 slaves and in 1788 alone 29,506 slaves were imported to the colony. Due to harsh living conditions most slaves died at a young age, 50% died in their first year of arriving at the colony, so most had to be imported in. The Code Noir was on the surface benevolent, or as benevolent as a pro-slavery law could be, but in practice it was regularly violated. With the exception of market day slaves had to work long hours in the Caribbean sun and could be subjected to physical abuse, mutilation, and, for women, rape. Grands blanc owned them, petit blancs wanted to own them, and gens de couleur both owned and resented them - slaves reminded them of their black skin and apparent inferiority. Slaves did have some agency. Sometimes kind owners offered slaves the opportunity to buy their freedom. Slave rebellions did occur - maroon settlements existed and before the Haitian Revolution there were slaves uprisings. In 1700 300 slaves near the capital of Le Cap Francois rose up and between 1751 and 1757 a Vodou priest called Francois Mackandal led a popular rebellion until he was burnt at the stake in 1758. Slaves also got agency in less overt ways. They knew that they were worth something to their masters so would poison themselves, or others, to spite them. Go-slows were common as well. They also formed their own culture - most slaves came from the Kongo in modern Angola or the Bight of Biafra so a wide variety of different cultures, languages and religions were brought together. At times a slave could go through several owners in Africa before they were sent to the Caribbean. The journey was traumatic but not enough to destroy their heritage so all came together uniting old and new, shared ones. In particular, the imposition of French and Catholicism merged into this. Vodou, or voodoo, emerged from this combining Catholicism with West African belief. If you look at Vodou ceremonies you can see the Catholic influences such as chanting and holy water in purification rituals. However, as it combined African and Christian beliefs it was instantly distrusted by the pious French Catholics, and at times slaves could use this distrust for agency. Vengeful slaves at times cast curses against harsh overseers and owners. 

No that is the situation at the dawn of the Haitian Revolution. Each group distrusted one another in a colony that was extremely wealthy, albeit most of that wealth was in the hands of a small group, but based on chattel slavery. Historian Paul Fregosi describes it well 'Haiti was hell, but Haiti was rich.'

Beginnings of the Revolution

Normally we see the start of the Revolution as beginning in 1791 but in reality we must trace it back to 1789 to properly understand the ideology of it. Tensions in France fed into tensions on Saint-Domingue. Seeing that in 1788 the king was having to bring back the Estates-General the North seized the opportunity to grant themselves further rights and power. They formed a committee, illegal according to French law, to send to Paris wanting to abolish military justice, have legislation and taxes to be voted by a provincial assembly subject to only the king and Colonial Committee, and that they should elect their own delegates. However, as they restricted representation to property owners which excluded women and petit blancs. Gens de couleur did manage to send their own deputies, separate from whites, to Paris to negotiate their own freedom. There they made alliances with Parisian allies and an abolitionist group called the Amis de Noirs, formed 1788. Like their counterparts in Britain and the US they were largely an elite group who opposed slavery but they faced an issue in Revolutionary France. A large part of the French Revolution's rhetoric involved property rights and this was a society which viewed slaves as property, not people, and several key coastal cities had an economy reliant upon the slave trade, like Nantes. The gens de couleur's delegates offered the perfect way to boost their support. As they were also fighting for their liberty the Amis des Noirs could indirectly attack slavery. However, the colonial delegates remained deeply divided and the creation of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen terrified white delegates; it paved the way for emancipating the gens de couleur, and they initially embraced the revolutionary ideas. A way to get higher in society for non-whites was to take part in the colonial militia - in 1789 104 out of 156 companies were largely made of gens de couleur. They adopted the red cockade of the Revolution and started modelling themselves after the National Guard. Soon enough the support for the slavers started waning after those in France noticed the hypocrisy of demanding freedom while denying it to gens de couleur, however they remained quiet about slavery and women's rights. The Count of Mirabeau declared:

You claim representation proportionate to the number of inhabitants. The free blacks are proprietors and tax-payers, and yet they have not been allowed to vote. And as for slaves, either they are men or they are not; if the colonists consider them to be men, let them free them and make them electors and eligible for seats; if contrary to the case, have we, in appointing deputies according to the population of France, taken into consideration the number of our horses or our mules?

When news of the Fall of the Bastille arrived in the colony it served as a spark to a powder keg. Petit blancs, calling themselves Patriots, started their own political clubs which forced the Intendant to flee, while they attacked gens de couleurs and slaves protesting for rights. The French Assembly began slowly edging towards emancipation of gens de couleurs but due to them dragging their feet, and with continued white opposition, this upset many delegates. One delegate, Vincent Ogé, returned to Saint-Domingue to replicate the events in France in October 1790. He planned to lead a revolt of male gens de couleur and with between 250-350 men planned to lead a revolt. However, as argued by C.L.R. James, he was a 'good Liberal' he did not seek allies with the slaves and he was more a politician than a revolutionary. Ogé was soon defeated and in February he was brutally executed firing the flames of revolt. As Patriots forced the governor from Port-au-Prince the French Assembly on May 15 decided to emancipate the gens de couleurs. However, this angered the whites and the slaves remained in chains. In August things would change. On 22 August, quoting Thomas Ott, 'The slaves had joined the Haitian Revolution'.

The Slave Revolution

An image of slave leader Biassou

When the slaves entered the Revolution it became the largest slave revolt in history since Spartacus's revolt against the Romans, and it would turn out to be one of the few successful slave revolts. In August a Vodou priest named Dutty Boukman, and possibly a female religious figure called Cecil Fatiman, did a religious ceremony at Bois Caiman vowing that Saint-Domingue's slaves would be freed under the command of Jean-Francois Pappillon, Jeannot and Georges Biassou. This ceremony had much African folklore mixed in with Catholicism. James has argued as such a conspiracy on such a large scale had not been discovered serves as a 'testimony to their solidarity'. Not long after at a ceremony during a storm on August 22 1791 signalled the beginning of the slave rebellion. It has retroactively been descried as a Vodou ceremony although we cannot be sure how much Vodou influenced this ceremony. From the Noe plantation in the North slaves started rising up in their thousands often taking their revenge on their former masters. Within a few weeks 100,000 slaves were in revolt burning down plantations and killing several thousand whites. However, this was not universal. Some slaves opted to defend their masters through various and personal reasons including the future leader of the revolution, Toussaint Breda (later Louverture). Before he joined the slaves Toussaint made sure that Madame Bayou de Libertas went safely to Le Cap. Toussaint is a semi-unique case - he managed to gain his own freedom around 1776, became well educated very quickly, and even owned his own plantation and slaves. Despite the slaves being under-equiped they had their own armies. John Thornton is just one historian who has stressed an actual African origin of this - many male slaves were captured soldiers so were already used to military formations. The slaves were led by three main individuals: Jean-Francois, an intelligent maroon leader from long before the revolution; Biassou, a bold fighter who had belonged to a religious establishment instead of the regular planters; and Jeannot, a slave who readily enacted revenge on whites and gens de couleur. Directly quoting James 'Jeannot was a cruel monster who used to drink the blood of his white victims and commit abominable cruelties'. The African origins of the slaves, the solidarity among them, and efficient leadership ensured that the slaves were not immediately crushed as many others were. Although not a major player yet Toussaint acted in the background under Biassou offering advice. A letter from Toussaint on 15 October 1791 advised that 'make sure with the spy you have sent to have him clearly explain where the powder works are in Haut du Cap so we can succeed in taking the powder works.' 

As slaves rebelled in the North gens du couleur joined them in the West and some made common ground in September when the May decree was annulled. However, there were distrust among them. At times gens du couleur forced slaves to fight for them, and these slaves became known as 'Swiss', and slaves who surrendered themselves to their masters (through fear or being tired of fighting) were killed on sight. Clashes between whites and free blacks, and mixed-race individuals, actually caused Port-au-Prince to be set on fire in November which women took part in. Like the French Revolution we see the Haitian Revolution as a male affair but many women took part in both the fighting and radicalising of the revolution. As the slave revolt spread from the North France sent a new governor to bring the peace. Leger-Felicite Sonthonax was a radical Jacobin, although no abolitionist, and aimed to preserve the French Revolution in France, remove Royalism, bring racial equality, and quell slave uprisings. Although Thomas Ott's assertion that Sonthonax was 'anti-white' is hyperbolic (Sonthonax wanted to retain slavery as to not alienate whites) he did want to curb white power as he saw it as blocking equality. Sonthonax started enforcing the May 15 decree and exiled even radical whites if they opposed racial equality. He even barred whites from entering the militia at times as he thought this would allow white dominance and possible Royalism. However, he still kept in place slavery and then matters worsened when Britain and Spain declared war in 1793. In the Caribbean revolution was just as terrifying to them as it was in Europe. There was a fear that slave revolts could spread to Jamaica, Cuba, Santo Domingo and other slave economies inspired by Saint-Domingue as slave revolts had also broken out in the French colonies of Guadeloupe and Martinique. Jamaica's governor Lord Effington restricted entry to the colony in case revolutionary ideas, both French and slave, spread there as well. The British and Spanish both wanted Saint-Domingue to crush the revolt and to seize its wealth. Key leaders including Biassou and gens du couleur Andres Rigaud ended up joining the Spanish for various reasons.

African Ideology and the Revolution

It is curious how those inspired by the French Revolution ended up joining Britain, Spain, and French Royalists. After sacking Le Cap in June 1793 slave leader Macaya wrote that 'I am the subject of three kings: of the King of Congo, master of all blacks; of the King of France who represents my father; of the King of Spain who represents my mother. These three Kings are descendants of those who, led by a star, came to adore God made Man.' James saw this royalism as being part of a backward looking African thought which Toussaint Louverture weaned them out of. John Thornton has looked at the African royalism in a different way; many slaves were royalists but their royalism differed to European royalism. Many of Saint-Domingue's slaves came from the Kingdom of Kongo, such as Macaya, which saw turbulent times in the 1700s. A series of civil wars broke out over the power of the king; all accepted that there should be a king but a king's rule had to be tempered by generosity and selflessness. Christianity had been introduced to Kongo around three centuries prior and it had blended with local institutions and ideas. A member of the Antonian movement in Kongo, Beatriz Kimpa Vita, sought to end the civil wars by saying the king should be decided by Saint Anthony, and the selfishness of the rulers had to end for Jesus to allow a ruler to basically lead. Slaves often coalesced in groups from the region they came from so these ideas continued, even amongst creole communities, so at least amongst Kongolese slaves a form of royalism continued. As we saw earlier Vodou was formed through a mix of different West African beliefs so it is not out of the question to believe that this idea could have the potential to spread outside Kongolese communities. Of course, we also have Vodou's influence. It served as a way to connect each slave community by combining beliefs with Catholicism.

War, Abolition, and Toussaint

A posthumous painting of Toussaint Louverture

In May 1793 Biassou and Jean-Francois joined the Spanish forces taking their armies with them.  From 1793 to 1798 there is a lot of switching sides so I'll have to do a broad overview. Toussaint, now changing his name from Breda to Louverture, made his mark during this time. In June his force of 600 defeated a much larger French force putting Northeast Saint-Domingue under his control. As mentioned earlier Toussaint was educated in everything from economics to history to military strategy making him an ideal general. A big reason why the Spanish had so many early victories was due to Toussaint. Meanwhile, the British and Spanish were having issues thanks to supplies and disease. Yellow fever devastated their forces so they resorted to offering freedom to any slave who joined them, a tactic Britain also used during the American Revolution. Thanks to this the British troops ended up having more black than white troops. However, this did not stop intense violence - the British massacred insurgent slaves who had surrendered at La Charbonier and when Fort Dauphin was captured by Jean-Francois in July 1794 he had his troop kill as many French whites as they could. However, it was very evident since the slaves joined the Spanish in 1793 that the only victory they would accept involved the abolition of slavery.

Beset by the Spanish, British and French royalists, as well as the skills of figures like Toussaint, Sonthonax was desperate. He knew that slavery was the main concern of the insurgent slaves and their allies, not British or Spanish rule. In August he issued a decree abolishing slavery in the North and by October 1793 he had expanded it to include the entirety of Saint-Domingue. By this time the radical Jacobin faction had seized control of France and its leaders, like Robespierre, were sympathetic to abolition. Now in February 1794 the Convention abolished slavery in France and all of its colonies. However, this was more due to pragmatism as to appear more morally righteous compared to Britain. Sometime in the spring of 1794 Toussaint joined the French. Historians still do not know why Toussaint unexpectedly swapped sides but abolition must have been a major factor. The gap between his defection and the decree may have been due to Toussaint scoping to see if the abolition was genuine. Thomas Ott has suggested it was a mixture of abolition and pragmatism which caused the switch. Toussaint was blocked by Biassou and Jean-Francois so a switch to the French side would allow his promotion, and abolition convinced him that the French side were just. However, we may never know his exact reasoning. Despite almost being captured by an ambush by either Jean-Francois or Biassou, which killed his brother Pierre, in March 1794 his 4,000 troops proved highly useful for the French. Several key and skilled leaders joined him as well including Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Toussaint became popular for his intelligence and his willingness to work with whites and gens du couleurs. Toussaint fought the Spanish as Andre Rigaud fought the British and by 1798 both powers had been forced from Saint-Domingue, albeit with a lot of help from yellow fever, or the 'black vomit' as the British called it. Biassou and Jean-Francois went into exile by November 1796 and in 1795 France even took over Santo Domingo putting all of Hispanola under French control.

Toussaint in Control

An 1802 engraving of Toussaint

Even before the British and Spanish were defeated Toussaint had started to move himself into power in the North and West. Defending Governor Laveaux from a coup by gens du couleur soldiers in March 1796 this allowed him to become deputy-governor; Laveaux would declare him the 'black Spartacus, the negro Raynal [an earlier writer] predicated would avenge the outrages done to his race'. When he was declared Commander in Chief in May 1797 he used this to oust Sonthonax and when the British were defeated in 1798 he had enough power to sign a trade, and non-aggression, treaty with them. However, in 1799 he clashed with Andre Rigaud. Rigaud was a threat in two ways: first, he was a powerful figure controlling a large section of Saint-Domingue; and, Rigaud wanted a society where gens du couleurs were on top of blacks despite his respect for Toussaint. For almost a year, June 1799-July 1800, the 'War of Knives' was waged between the two resulting in Rigaud to flee to France and Dessalines to massacre mixed-race troops; Toussaint even chastised him saying that he didn't want him to 'tear up the roots'. In 1801 he also invaded Santo Domingo formally annexing it into Saint-Domingue. However, he started to become a ruler. Toussaint at this stage was not willing to declare independence but he knew that he had to create a state. What they had done was ambitious and there was a widespread belief in Europe that blacks were mentally inferior to whites. He wanted to show that they could hold revolutionary ideals while making Saint-Domingue a thriving and wealthy state.

In this section we see his radicalism and his moderation. As early as 1797 he had planned to resuscitate the plantation system, something James refers to as one of his few mistakes. Many former slaves wanted to divide the former plantations into smaller holdings for subsistence farming or regional markets. Toussaint feared that if Saint-Domingue's economy failed this would bring back slavery, and he saw this desire to break the plantation economy as allowing that. Using the military he made sure former slaves remained on the plantation, would allot people found vagrant to a plantation, and even offered white planters a return of their property if they renounced slavery. Naturally this was very unpopular and his own adopted nephew, Moyse, supported a revolt in October 1800 against the plantation system. Moyse was later executed for his role. Like his contemporary Napoleon, he is sometimes referred to as 'the Black Napoleon', he also made himself governor-for-life. However, at the same time he was fairly radical. In May 1801 a constitution was declared which vowed that slavery should never return, an Assembly shall be voted in every two years, prohibiting racial discrimination, and equality before the law. It did have its limits - equality only applied to men and divorce was prohibited. Like in the US and France citizenship was for active men. Racial equality, nevertheless, was a radical idea for this time period.

Independence

An 1845 painting of the Battle for Palm Tree Hill

The radicalism of the constitution made Britain and the US fearful, and both informed Napoleon that they would not do anything if he wanted to depose Toussaint. Napoleon wanted to build a French empire to rival Britain and to do that he needed two things: Saint-Domingue and slavery. Saint-Domingue was very important to the French economy and empire; now that Louisiana was back in French hands it served as a useful link to protect the American continental holdings. Napoleon sent his brother-in-law Charles Emmanuel Leclerc on February 1802 with a force of 1,200 to bring back French power over the island. Toussaint saw Napoleon's attack as a violation of the ideas that they had fought for. He ordered Henry Christophe to burn down Le Cap and wrote to Dessalines saying:

Do not forget, while waiting for the rainy reason which will rid us of our foes, that we have no other resource than destruction and fire. Bear in mind that the soil bathed with our sweat must not furnish our enemies with the smallest sustenance. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the foundations, burn and annihilate everything in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of the hell which they deserve.

He saw how well yellow fever had ravaged European forces so all he did was wait for disease to take its toll before attacking. It proved to be a good tactic. France sent around 80,000 battle hardened troops to Saint-Domingue of which 50,000 died of disease, including Leclerc himself. However, Toussaint would not see French defeat. At Gonaives he was betrayed and arrested by Leclerc; we do not know who betrayed him and one theory is that Dessalines did so. He told his captors:

In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty; it will spring up again from the roots, for they are numerous and they are deep.

The hero of the revolution would die in a French prison on 7 April 1803 through malnutrition, infection and exposure. Dessalines soon took over and continued the fight, and when war in Europe began again in May Napoleon decided to abandon Saint-Domingue. On 31 December Saint-Domingue declared its independence as a new nation called Haiti. Rejecting its European name it took an indigenous name reflecting the island's mountainous geography. Dessalines soon began a massacre of the white population claiming up to 5,000 victims, declared himself emperor, and continued the plantation system with some debating whether they were still slaves.

An 1806 engraving depicting Dessalines as a brute holding the severed head of a French woman

Aftermath and Conclusion

Haiti's first steps to independence were fragile. The rigid plantation system continued, the mixed-race population monopolised power, Dessalines was soon assassinated, and the Santo Domingo half would try to break away (it eventually did so as the Dominican Republic). Haiti's economic prosperity soon came to an end. Colonial powers feared that Haiti would inspire slave revolts in their lands, and occasionally it did fund slave revolts. To ease peace between the two Haiti had to pay France 150 million francs, (bearing in mind it sold Louisiana Territory to the US for just 80 million), so Haiti had to turn to the US for a loan. The US forced them to take such a large loan that it took until 1947 to pay off. Furthermore, Haiti hoped to trade with its old trading partners of France, the UK, and the US who all refused to do so - for a long time they continued to blockade the island. They only recognised independence when each state abolished slavery, and as late as 1898 US politicians were warning about the Haitian threat. Everything about Haiti was distorted into being negative. For example, in the North Atlantic world we see Vodou as a superstitious, devil-worshipping cult where its followers create zombies and do sacrifices for the spirits - a very different view of what Vodou is.

Ann Whitney's 1870 carving of Toussaint

However, the Haitian Revolution had a truly revolutionary aspect to it. For one, it was a successful slave revolt which tried to bring about racial equality - this was at a time when slavery was seen as morally right by many people. Abolitionists even pointed to Haiti as a way to bring their aims about; either they were encouraged by it as there was a chance that a slave revolt could be successful, or as a warning to what happens when slavery continues. Haiti was not only Latin America's first successful independence revolution but also when an 'other' truly succeeded. A marginalised group in society managed to overthrow their oppressors and bring about a new society. It explains why many Afro-Caribbean writers and historians are still inspired by the Haitian Revolution. Afro-Trinidadian historian C.L.R. James wrote The Black Jacobins and a play about Toussaint to bring the Haitian Revolution back into view instead of just being a slave revolt on the world's periphery. Truly that is the radical legacy of the Haitian Revolution.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-David Geggus, (ed.), The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2014)

-C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, Second Edition, (New York: Vintage Books, 1963)

-Jean-Bertrand Aristide, (ed.), Revolutions: Toussaint L'Ouverture, The Haitian Revolution, (London: Verso, 2008)

-David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies, (Indianapolis: Indian University Press, 2002)

-Jeremy Popkin, Your are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)

-Thomas Ott, The Haitian Revolution: 1789-1804, (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973)

-Carolyn Fick, 'The Haitian Revolution and the Limits of Freedom: Defining Citizenship in the Revolutionary Era', Social History, 32:4, (2007), 394-414

-John Thornton, '"I Am the Subject of the Kong of Congo": African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution', Journal of World History, 4:2, (1993), 181-214
-'The Haitian Revolution', In Our Time, BBC

Thank you for reading. Next time on World History we'll be looking at perhaps the most important revolution which created our modern world: the Industrial Revolution. For other World History posts please see our list here. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.