Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) PDF

Haitian Revolution Citation metadata Date: 2024 From: Gale World History Online Collection Publisher: Gale, part of Cengage Group The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was one of the most successful colonial uprisings in the Western Hemisphere, paving the way to the formation of the world's first Blac...

Haitian Revolution Citation metadata Date: 2024 From: Gale World History Online Collection Publisher: Gale, part of Cengage Group The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was one of the most successful colonial uprisings in the Western Hemisphere, paving the way to the formation of the world's first Black republic. Main Ideas The Haitian Revolution is regarded by historians as one of the most successful colonial uprisings in the Western Hemisphere, and it resulted in the formation of the world's first Black republic. The French Revolution that broke out in 1789 and its later foundational document, Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1793, inspired the people of Saint-Domingue by declaring that all men were equal and had certain inalienable rights. Saint-Domingue's population was a mix of rich white people and poor white people, free Black people and enslaved people. The initial conflict was between the white people and free Black people, but in 1791 the enslaved people rose up in rebellion. Emancipation came for some of the enslaved people in 1793, but the conflict among the different groups continued until 1804. During that time span, the French military under Napoleon attempted to retake Saint-Domingue in 1802. The last battle was a victory for the enslaved people, as Jean-Jacques Dessalines led the charge against their enslavers, and the Republic of Haiti became an independent country. Along with being the world's first Black republic, Haiti was also the second colony of the New World to successfully gain independence from a European power. The aftermath of the revolution, however, led to further problems for the fledgling nation. Background Known as the "Pearl of the Antilles," eighteenth-century Haiti, then a French colony known as Saint-Domingue, was one of the most envied colonial holdings in the New World from the perspective of other colonizing nations because it was a highly profitable source of coffee, sugar, indigo, and cotton. The colony's production, however, was sustained by a large population of enslaved Africans brought to Haiti through the Atlantic slave trade (c. 16th–19th centuries). When the French Revolution (1789–1799) broke out in 1789, it redefined politics not only in Europe but also in its overseas colonies, with its ideas of freedom and individual rights eventually reaching the people of Saint-Domingue and inspiring its population—both Black and white people—to rebel against France. One of the fundamental documents of the French Revolution, and indeed of world history, was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1793. It was drafted by the Marquis de Lafayette and adopted by the National Constituent Assembly in Paris in 1789. Among its principles was the declaration that people had basic "natural and inalienable rights," and that these included the right to liberty and the right to resist oppression. The Declaration was and has been enormously influential, as it has inspired people all over the world to claim those fundamental rights for themselves. One of the people inspired by these values was Vincent Ogé, a free Haitian mulatto (his ancestry was both white and African). Ogé was in Paris in 1789 and started advocating for free Black people to have the same rights as white people. He was initially unsuccessful, as the white population of France was not fully committed to the concept that these rights extended universally. So Ogé returned to Saint-Domingue and in 1790 coordinated an uprising. At the time, white people in Saint-Domingue were divided ideologically, with the poor in favor of the French Revolution and the rich remaining loyal to France's monarchy. Nonetheless, the white factions came together to suppress the mulatto uprising. Ogé was captured and then executed, which shocked people back in Paris. In May 1791, the Assembly in Paris declared that free Black people who had been born to free parents had the same rights as white people. The decree by the National Assembly led to more fighting between white people and free Black people, and Saint-Domingue became the center of several political interest groups, with its mixed-race population wanting to rebel for its own reasons. Britain went to war against France and wanted to exploit the turmoil in Saint-Domingue and take control of the wealthy colony for itself; while Spain, Britain's ally and colonizer of neighboring Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), eventually joined in the fight over Saint-Domingue. This chaos both inspired the enslaved community and provided an opportunity for them to plot their own revolt. Rebellion The first of the colony's enslaved uprisings began on a stormy evening in 1791 when those committed to forcing change turned on their enslavers and instigated a violent civil war. When the revolution began, the Black and white populations were divided in their political interests for the colony, with the white people wanting to be recognized as French citizens because they were frustrated by trade limitations and tariffs imposed on the colony by France, and the Black people being more divided on considerations of French citizenship. At the time, Saint-Domingue's Black population consisted of three groups: the enslaved, runaways (Maroons), and freed slaves, about half of whom were of mixed race. Some of the freed Black people held considerable social and economic status within the colony. Many were even richer than the majority of lower-class white people (petit blancs) and received more political privileges from France than did the petit blancs. At first, the freed Black population, the planters, and the petit blancs were all vying for their own freedoms in a tripartite civil war, but their efforts were quickly overwhelmed by the enslaved people, as they made up the majority of Saint-Domingue's population. The situation in France also deteriorated, with the killing of the king at the beginning of 1793 and the Reign of Terror beginning in September of that year. The new civil commissioner in Saint-Domingue, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, was a revolutionary, and he removed royalists from power and replaced them with free Black men. Sonthonax continued to face resistance from the white community, especially the enslavers who feared that the revolutionaries planned to emancipate the enslaved people. To buttress his support, Sonthonax made an agreement with the enslaved people to free them if they would fight on the side of the revolutionaries. This may have been a practical rather than a principled decision on Sonthonax's part, given the growing momentum behind the uprising. The alliance led to the abolition of slavery in Saint-Domingue by the end of 1793. When word reached the National Convention in Paris, the Convention ratified what the enslaved people had already committed and sacrificed to achieve, the abolition of slavery, and declared that all formerly enslaved people were citizens of France. Not all of the enslaved people on the island were free, however, as the declaration only came into effect in the northern part of the colony. Led by the charismatic, formerly enslaved Toussaint Louverture (1743–1803), however, the enslaved people began overwhelming the rest of the colony's white minority, with violence intensifying as the decade wore on. Louverture served France's interests by expelling the Spanish and British, who had hoped to exploit the chaos for their own spoils. In return for his loyalty to France, he was appointed governor of the colony in 1797. Along with the large number of casualties, the revolution also saw the destruction of much of the island's important infrastructure, including many of its highly lucrative plantations. How to integrate the formerly enslaved people into society also proved a challenge. Initially, Louverture required them to continue working on the plantations in exchange for a wage, and they were also given the right to elect their managers and move to other plantations. The fact that they could not easily acquire land for themselves and start their own farms, however, led to resentment, and Louverture started conscribing some formerly enslaved people as an unofficial military regiment to suppress the others. By 1801, Louverture had declared himself governor-general for life. Meanwhile, the French Revolution and its aftermath ended with Napoleon Bonaparte's (1769–1821) rise to power in 1799. He soon became frustrated with Louverture's independence and decided in 1801 to send his brother-in-law General Charles Leclerc to invade Saint-Domingue with ten thousand troops and subject it again to French control. Louverture did not trust Napoleon, however, and he expected that Napoleon would reintroduce slavery throughout the colonies, so Louverture was prepared. One of the conflict's most famous battles, the Battle of Crête-à-Pierrot, highlighted the enslaved people's fighting abilities, as they killed a significant number of French troops. Despite that, the French forces ultimately overwhelmed Louverture's military, and Louverture himself was captured and perished in prison in 1803. As it happened, disease soon began decimating Napoleon's forces. Furthermore, the enslaved people—led by Jean-Jacques Dessalines (1758–1806), a formerly enslaved person and one of the leaders at Crête-à-Pierrot—began to employ guerrilla tactics against the French army. As news spread that France planned to reinstitute slavery, additional formerly enslaved people took up arms to fight against the French. Finally, on November 18, 1803, Dessalines led his troops to victory at the Battle of Vertières, and he followed that up by ordering the massacre of the remaining white population in the colony, even those who had been friendly to the rebels' cause. At the beginning of 1804, Dessalines proclaimed the country's independence and named it Haiti, after the Indigenous "Ayti" which means "mountainous land." Haiti became the world's first Black republic as well as the second colony of the New World to successfully break its colonial ties with a European power, a victory that changed how Europeans perceived Black people, whom they once deemed weak and cowardly. Furthermore, the revolution scared the Europeans, because they feared that Haiti would inspire other colonies to rebel. Word of the Haitian Revolution quickly spread across the Caribbean and inspired enslaved people throughout the region. Even before the Saint-Domingue uprising began in 1791, there was a revolt on the British island of Dominica. In 1793, an uprising on the French island of Guadeloupe precipitated an invasion by the British in 1794. When the French retook the island and abolished slavery, more than a thousand French colonists were killed. The death toll there and in Saint-Domingue sparked fear throughout the Caribbean. By 1793, edicts in some places had been declared that prevented people traveling from one island to another, so as to forestall the possible spread of revolutionary ideas and actions. Enslavers and colonial officials were on edge, fearing where the next uprising might occur. Uprisings were numerous in 1795, with slave revolts taking place in Grenada, St. Vincent, Cuba, and Curacao. That same year in Jamaica, the Second Maroon War broke out when the colonial governor, Alexander Lindsay, ordered an attack on a group of free Black people because he feared they were about to start a revolution. Historians have disagreed over how large an impact the Haitian Revolution had on the course of slavery in the Caribbean. It certainly inspired the major uprisings that occurred in Barbados in 1816, Demerara (modern-day Guyana) in 1823, and Jamaica in 1831. That last revolt was pivotal in shifting public opinion in Britain, which finally abolished slavery throughout its empire in 1833. As for the United States, President Thomas Jefferson, who was an enslaver, refused to recognize the new country of Haiti and imposed an economic embargo on it that lasted until the U.S. Civil War. Haiti's first years as a country were chaotic. It adopted three different constitutions in its first three years. After Dessalines was assassinated in 1806, the country split into two, with the Republic of Haiti controlling the southern part of Haiti. The country would only be reunified in 1820. Haiti's troubles were only beginning, however, with Europe refusing to acknowledge Haiti as a nation. Furthermore, the intense fighting during the revolution destroyed much of the colony's plantations, which were its economic base, leading to a weak start for Haiti as a nation. The economy was further crippled in 1825 when France demanded that Haiti pay 150 million francs in "reparations." It would seem outrageous that formerly enslaved people had to pay reparations to their enslavers, but Haiti's economic frailty and lack of support from either Europe or the United States meant that it had few allies. With France threatening to invade again, Haiti decided to pay what amounted to extortion. Except that it did not have 150 million francs, so France forced the fledgling nation to take a loan, which took 64 years to pay off, to a conglomerate of French financial institutions. A study in 2022 estimated that paying off the loan cost Haiti anywhere from $21 billion to $115 billion in lost economic growth. Although the Haitian Revolution was a significant historic moment in the New World, the nation of Haiti has struggled every since. Critical Thinking Questions Was the diversity of people in Saint-Domingue an advantage for the revolution or a hindrance? Explain. Why might the Haitian Revolution been an inspiration for many people in the twentieth century? Do you agree with the Declaration of the Rights of Man that people have a right to resist oppression? If so, what kind of resistance is allowed, and when might it be appropriate for them to resort to violence to throw off their oppressors?