The Haitian Revolution

How Hatian slaves disrupted Western politcal thought

The French colony of Saint-Domingue (contemporary Haiti) was heralded as ‘the Pearl of the Antilles’, the slave-driven sugar economy making it the richest of the French colonies and a central component in France’s imperial vision. This was due to the ‘exclusif’, a trade deal that meant Haiti could only trade with France, monopolizing Saint Domingue’s main product, sugar - a highly lucrative import catering to Europe’s fledgling sweet tooth. Haitian society consisted of a small percentage of white elites, the grand blancs, some freedmen who had achieved manumission through interracial relationships, known as mulattoes, and the remaining 90% of the population consisted of chattel slaves, brought to the Caribbean from Africa. In the eyes of the grand blancs, however, this slave population did not represent a distinctive majority, rather than an object of their possession; this proved to be a fatal estimation.

In August 1791, a slave leader named Dutty Boukman presided over a secret voodoo ceremony that would precipitate the revolution in Saint-Domingue. In the Bois Caïman jungle in the northern mountains Boukman rallied the crowd to ‘throw away the image of the God of the whites who thirsts for our tears. Listen to the liberty that speaks in all our hearts.’ In the following days, the northern plains of Saint- Domingue were in flames, with the slave population baying for the blood of their oppressors, and liberty from France’s colonial grip. Following the destruction of crop plantations and murder of plantation owners, the nascent French National Assembly was forced to respond to the crisis, and attempted to placate the revolution and restore economic stability. As a result of the slave revolt, Saint-Domingue became a highly contested space amongst other colonial powers such as Britain and Spain who hoped to capitalise. The French government’s remedy was the proclaimation of the abolition of slavery, espousing manumission as a continuation of French revolutionary principles, while attempting

Toussaint Louverture

to morally outmanouevre the British and Spanish forces, and reclaim the slave revolt.

However, the French failed to win over the support of Saint Domingue’s key revolutionary leader, Toussaint Louverture, a self-educated former domestic slave, who remained suspicious of France’s sudden support of abolition. Louverture used shrewd Machiavellian acumen to benefit from Spanish and British interest in Saint Domingue, garnering support and supplies to develop a formidable revolutionary army. Proclaiming himself leader of Saint Domingue, Louverture promulgated a groundbreaking constitution grounded in the freedom of all men, for the first time equating political liberty with racial liberty. This enraged Napoleon, prompting further wars between 1801 and 1802. Louverture was eventually captured and died in France. However, the seed of liberty that Louverture had planted was deep-rooted. When it became apparent that the French intended to reinstate slavery, as they had in Guadeloupe, a subsequent revolution erupted led by Jean-Jacques Desaillines against the brutal Vicomte de Rochambeau. A hero of the American Revolution, Rochambeau instigated a genocidal massacre of the newly proclaimed Haitian freedmen, using sulphur-dioxide gas as a means of mass execution for the first time ever. Rochambeau’s brutal actions, in contrast with his international image as an eminent figurehead of liberté and égalité led many French soldiers to question the integrity of their battle. With fatigue and disease devastating the French forces, Napoleon grew restless with his western endeavours and decided to focus on growing continental threats. Acknowledging defeat in Saint-Domingue, Napoleon withdrew his forces and sold Louisiana to the United States. The revolution of 1791 and subsequent developments resulted in the withdrawal of Napoleonic forces from the Americas, and the establishment of a continental America.

In 1791 the idea of insurrection led by black slaves against a colonial force such as France was incomprehensible. Colonial figureheads bragged of slaves’ docile nature and obedience. This racially-oriented contention was grounded in European-white supremacy, and an ethnographic belief in the inherently subservient characteristics of African slaves. For white colonialists, the enslaved could not comprehend political concepts like freedom or equality, let alone articulate a political movement grounded in ideas that confront European colonial epistemology. Yet, Louverture was able to present one of the most sophisticated political treatises

of its time. Not only did the Haitian revolution affront an established racial order and set the precedent for various future liberation movements and revolts, it also challenged the self-proclaimed liberatory tenets of enlightened modernity; a critique of 18th century Enlightenment values that remains relevant to this day. What is staggering about the Haitian revolution is that it has only gained scholarly attention in the last two decades.

A depiction of the 'Bois Caïmon' ceremony

As well as economic punishment, with France imposing a 150 million gold franc bill to pay compensation for ex-slaveholders, the revolution has been denied status in historical discourse as a legitimate revolution, as a worthy historical moment. The rebellion was incomprehensible in eminent Western political discourse, so the wider world left reeling by Louverture’s battle was forced to interpret the revolution in palatable terms, thus silencing the agentive Haitian qualities of the revolution. This necessarily Eurocentric comprehension of the revolutionary wars saw French involvement in the conflict as a necessary component of its success – the Haitian people relied on the fertile ideas of the continent to promote their revolution. Because the mode of organisation did not fit neatly into the state-oriented revolutionary projects of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the historiography has largely ignored the complexity and skill with which slaves were able to mobilise under such a brutally pervasive chattel system. Meetings such as the one at Bois Caïman were more frequent than initially assumed, and provided a way for the slave community to reformulate the transatlantic political ideas that flowed into their island. If we move away from an understanding of revolution centered in Western political discourse, we can begin to understand the Haitain revolution as more than merely a slave revolt, but as a sophisticated act of political violence - a revolution - which changed the history of the nation forever.

Wilf Kenning