Haiti and the Meaning of Freedom

Why study the backward country of Haiti?

The Haitian Revolution (1789-1903) is a world historical event because: It provided one of the 1st examples of colonial representation in a metropolitan assembly It produced the world's first example of wholesale emancipation in a major slave-owning society The 1st independent state run by former slaves and their descendants First state to proclaim and uphold full racial equality in a European colony the Haitian Revolution involved the greatest degree of mass mobilization, and brought the greatest degree of social and economic change.

Histories of Freedom: Haiti

The island of Saint-Domingue had extensive sugar, coffee, cocoa, indigo, and cotton plantations. In 1789, the island produced 60% of the world's coffee and 40 % of the world's sugar imported by France and Britain. The colony was the most profitable possession of the French Empire. Commerce with Saint-Domingue employed 1000 ships and 15,000 French sailors. This plantation system was very important in the French economy. It was also the greatest individual market for the African slave trade. Sugar production depended on extensive manual labor provided by enslaved Africans in the harsh SaintDomingue colonial plantation economy.

Historical Conditions of the Haitian Revolution

When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, there were four distinct social groups in Saint-Domingue, with distinct sets of interests.

1. Whites

2. Free People of Color (gens de couleur)

3. Black Slaves

4. Maroons

Historical Conditions of the French Revolution

The Planters
1. Wealthy plantation and slave owners
2. Wanted independence from France 3. During the last decades of the 18th century France imposed strict rules , such as prohibiting trade between the colony and any other commercial partners

Whites
There were approximately 20,000 whites, mainly French, in Saint-Domingue. They were divided into two main groups:

4. This group was revolutionary, independenceminded and defiant of the laws of France.

Petit Blancs
1. They were artisans, shop keepers, merchants, teachers and various middle and underclass whites 2. They often had a few slaves, but were not wealthy like the planters

3. They tended to be less independence-minded and more loyal to France

3. They were committed to slavery and were especially anti-emancipation and full citizenship rights for all

Historical Conditions: The Colonial Caste System

Free Persons of Color
There were approximately 30,000 free persons of color in 1789, about of them were mulattoes

Mulattoes (gens de couleur)

1. These gens de couleur were often children of white masters and enslaved women.

2. The free persons of color could own property (plantation and slaves) could not practice certain professions, own carriages, wear the same color clothing as the whites, or eat in the same restaurants 3. Mulattoes did not have citizenship rights 4. Pro-independence and anti-emancipation

Emancipated Ex-Slaves The other half of the free persons of color were black slaves who had purchased their own freedom. They could own property (plantations and slaves) Pro-independence and pro-full emancipation

Black Slaves

There were some 500,000 slaves on the eve of the French Revolution. This means the slaves outnumbered the free people by about 10-1. About 100,000 of the slaves were domestics who worked as cooks, personal servants and various artisans around the plantation manor, or in the towns. They were usually born in the colony and had strong kinship relations. There was a large group of runaway slaves . They were antislavery. Most scholars believe there were tens of thousands of them prior to the Revolution of 1791. Two of the leading generals of the early slave revolution were maroons.

Domestic Slaves Field Hands

Maroons
The 400,000 field hands were the slaves who had the harshest and most hopeless lives. Rates of mortality were very high. There was a high amount of importation

Historical Conditions: The Colonial Caste System

The Haitian Revolution

The process began in 1790 and by 1803 Haitians succeeded in ending slavery and French control over the colony
The Haitian Revolution was a complex process, which consisted of several revolutions going on simultaneously These revolutions were influenced by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizens and constant slave rebellions in the colony

The Revolution Begins

1676 Padre Jean led a slave rebellion near Port de Paix, in the north of Saint-Domingue. He assassinated his slave master and organized 25 other slaves for a rebellion. They began their uprising near Port Margot killing slave holders and then retreated into the mountains nearby. Padre Jean was killed by pirates in 1679 alongside several of his fellow fighters. The rebellion was one of the earliest recorded in Saint-Domingue.

The Fight for Freedom Begins: Slave Uprisings

1757. The Makandal Conspiracy. Franois Makandal (alternately spelled "Mackandal" or "Macandal"), a maroon leader, conspires to poison all the whites in the North in a plot intended to spread to all corners of the colony. Across the North, Makandals vast network of collaborators mostly trusted domestics begin poisoning their masters' households, including other slaves who cant be trusted. The whites search frantically for the cause of the illnesses and deaths. After an interrogated female slave betrays the rebel leader, the planters launch a massive manhunt.

Limited Citizenship
Article 59 of Louis XIVs Code Noir of 1685 stipulated that the free people of color by virtue of their status as free individuals in a French colony were guaranteed full French citizenship and the right to own property.

However, free people of color were prohibited from sitting with whites at the theaters, churches, in restaurants, public transport and could not practice law, medicine, pharmacy or any learned profession. They were also excluded from the right to vote and could not hold public office.

The Revolution Begins

1791 Julien Raimond He was born a free man of color, the son of a French colonist and the mulatto daughter of a planter. Raimond owned over 100 slaves by the 1780s, and was one of the wealthiest men in his racial class in the colony. But he is most famous for challenging the French government to reform racially discriminatory laws in SaintDomingue. In the 1780s, he moves to France and becomes part of the French Colonial Ministry.
On March 8, 1790, Raimonds lobbying paid off. The French National Assembly declared that all property-owning free men, who were 25 and had been paying taxes for two years were able to vote. This event created upheaval in the colony. White planters and petit blancs violently opposed the law and refused to follow it.

"Report on the Basis of Political Eligibility" (29 September 1789) Although the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen stated that ALL men were created equal, it introduced a fundamental and differential concept of citizenshipactive and passive. The passage below establishes this fundamental difference: The Committee proposes that the necessary qualifications for the title of active citizen in the primary assembly of the canton be: (1) to be French or to have become French; (2) to have reached one's majority [be a legal adult; the age was set at 25]; (3) to have resided in the canton for at least one year; (4) to pay direct taxes at a rate equal to the local value of three days of work, a value that will be assessed in monetary terms by the provincial assemblies; (5) to not be at the moment a servant, that is to say, in personal relationships that are all too incompatible with the independence necessary to the exercise of political rights. To be eligible for office, either at the town or departmental level, one must have fulfilled all the conditions cited above with the sole difference that instead of paying a direct tax equal to the local value of three days of work, one must pay one equal to the value of ten days of work. Based on this decree, the vote was granted to approximately 4.3 million Frenchmen, out of a population of around 29 million.

The French Revolution Must Not Spread to the Colony

In July 1789 several slave women arriving in French ports were detailed and sent back to the colonies, under the pretext that they might hear or learn things in France that could be dangerous in the colonies. Planter representatives recommended that any writings in which the term liberty appeared be seized, and that free people of colour arriving from Europe be intercepted. In September, the colonial government requested that merchants in port towns prevent those of African descent from embarking for the colonies In April 1790, local ofcials in Le Cap directed the towns postal director to stop all arriving or departing letters that are addressed to mulattos or slaves and to deliver these letters to the municipality.

Haitian Revolution Timeline (1)

Jacques Vincent Og, a representative of the colony in France, leads a revolt against the white colonial authorities in Saint-Domingue. He amasses 300 men, consisting primarily of mulattoes and some free blacks. The group, fully armed, marches to Grande-Rivire, just south of Le Cap, and joins with others with the intention of taking the city and disarming the white population.

21-28 Oct 1790

Og Rebellion

15 May 1791

Freedom, almost

French National Assembly grants full citizenship rights to free blacks and people of color who can demonstrate that their parents were born free and that have property, are older than 25, and pay taxes. News of white planters refusal to implement full citizenship rights spreads to islands and slave mobilization is fueled.

14 Aug 1791

Haitian Revolution Begins

The Bois Caman ceremony and subsequent insurrections are the result of months of planning and strategizing. There are two hundred slave leaders involved from around the North. Through strategic maneuvering these leaders successfully unite a vast network of Africans, mulattoes, maroons, commandeurs, house slaves, field slaves, and free blacks.

Haitian Revolution Timeline (2)

The National Assembly in France revokes the May 15 decree, which had granted limited rights to free blacks and mulattoes, and names three commissioners to restore order in Saint-Domingue. In response, mulatto agitation in the South becomes open, armed rebellion in collaboration with the black slaves. Rebels in the west seize Port-au-Prince capital, cut its water supply and block all access to incoming food supplies before they are overcome by the French troops. Louis XVI affirms the Jacobin decree, granting equal political rights to free blacks and mulattoes in Saint-Domingue. Lger Flicit Sonthonax is sent to enforce the ruling. Spain declares war against England, then France. In Saint-Domingue, the European powers battle for control of the lucrative colony. Blacks and mulattoes in the South ally with the British and begin an open rebellion.

24 Sept 1791

Fighting intensifies

4 April 1792

Freedo m again?

21 June 1792

Everyone wants Haiti

Over 10,000 slaves in Le Cap are now in open revolt. Threatened on all sides, French colonists realize that they need the slaves support to keep control of Saint-Domingue. Civil commissioners issue a proclamation guaranteeing freedom and the full rights of French citizenship to all slaves who join them to defend France from foreign and domestic enemies.

Haitian Revolution Timeline (3)

Republicans+ Imperialist+ Slave rebels=civil war

Feb 1793

Rebel leaders, including Toussaint Louverture, join Spanish forces to fight against the French. Louverture offers to aid General Laveaux, Chief Commander of the republican forces in the North. Louverture offers his support and 5,000-6,000 troops in exchange for full amnesty and general emancipation. Laveaux refuses and Louverture continues to aid the Spanish for another full year. The city of Le Cap is consumed by flames and deserted by white residents. 10,000 white refugees fleeing the destruction arrive in the United States fleeing the destruction.

June 1973

Promises of Freedom by all

The French continue to court the support of the rebel troops. A new decree is issued proclaiming that any slave wishing to join republican army will be granted his freedom. Soon after the offer is extended to troops wives and children.

War August between the 1793 French

Polverel (representative of petit whites and white planters) declares that the certain slaves are now free, specifically those on plantations in the West, those belonging to migr planters and deportees, all remaining insurgent maroons, and all those who are fighting for France.
Sonthonax (representative of France) issues a General Emancipation decree abolishing slavery in the North. More slaves in the colony have their freedom than ever before.

Haitian Revolution Timeline (4)

The (Non) Abolition of Slavery
The Convention officially abolishes slavery in France and French territories, including Saint-Domingue. Ex-slaves are still regulated by the government, legally bound to the same plantations and masters. Their daily lives change little. Widespread resistance continues, with many slaves appropriating abandoned land for themselves.

4 Feb 1794

Spring 1794

France looses the colony

France has lost control of nearly the entire colony, aside from Le Cap and Port-de-Paix. The British and Spanish control most of the North, Mle St. Nicolas in the West, and Jrmie and Grand-Anse in the South. Many mulattoes and blacks are aiding the foreign forces with the goal of expelling the French. Louverture abandons the Spanish army in the east and joins with the French forces after the Spanish refuse to take steps to end slavery.

4 June 1794

The British Want SaintDomingue

The British capture Port-au-Prince led by General Thomas Maitland. British troops occupy most major seaports in the west and south. Spanish troops, along with a number of former slaves, occupy much of the western provinces. A few months later, Louverture and Rigaud along with other military leaders begin launching simultaneous attacks against the British.

Complexities of the Haitian Revolution

The king served as a gathering point for demands for abolition because he was seen as a counter-weight to the planters. He tried to reform slavery by issuing laws in 1784 and 1785. One article, for instance, declared strongly that in cases where managers of masters killed one of their slaves, the king wished them to be pursued as murderers.

The reforms, furthermore, promised changes that would have had a great impact on the daily lives of slaves, particularly by securing for them both the right to cultivate their own garden plots and the right to receive food from their masters or managers.
Had these reforms been followed, the amount of prot slaves could have gained from their own work would have increased

Haitian Revolution Timeline (5)

Haitians defeat the British Army Louvertures army conquers most of British-occupied Saint-Domingue in the West. The British surrender their fight for Saint-Domingue and negotiate peace with Louverture. Louverture agrees to grant full amnesty to French citizens who didnt fight with the British, all black troops enrolled in the British army, and to the migrs who had abandoned the British prior to the opening of negotiations.

1798

1799

Bonaparte New Ruler of Europe

Bonaparte invades France, destroys the democratic republic and its antislavery principles. He declares himself Consul-for-Life, restores the preRevolution status quo of white rule in Frances colonies. The new French constitution proclaims that colonies are to be governed by a set of special laws that take into the account the particularities of each territory. It states that Saint-Domingue is not to be represented in the French legislative body and will not be governed by laws for French citizens.

30 Aug 1800

Louverture in Power

Louverture is proclaimed the colonys Supreme Commander-inChief. He institutes a new set of policies enforcing a plantation system so that the colonys shaken economy can produce exports . This is an extension and reinforcement of earlier work codes imposed by French civil commissioners. The laborers see the policies as an effort to re-impose slavery. They further object to Louvertures plan to import Africans to increase the SaintDomingues labor force and bolster its economy.

Haitian Revolution Timeline (6)

Louverture proclaims the new constitution in Saint-Domingue and is declared Governor General for life. Slavery is abolished forever and the constitution eliminates social distinctions of race and color, stating all individuals be admitted to all public functions depending on their merit and without regard to race or color. All individuals born in the colony were to be equal, free, and citizens of France. Voodoo is outlawed, mandatory labor is codified and Catholicism is established as the colonys official religion. Black slaves, chafing against Louvertures mandatory labor requirements, reject the measures through various forms of resistance. In the United States, President Thomas Jefferson reassures the French that he opposes independence in Saint-Domingue and pledges to support Napoleons agenda.

8 July 1801

Slavery No More!

19 July 1801

No to Haiti!

October 1801

Black Freedom, finaly!

A massive uprising against Louvertures regime breaks out. 250 whites are killed. Rebels declare Saint-Domingue independent. The rebels support popular land distribution and charge Louverture with exploiting the masses at Frances benefit. Mose is known to oppose his uncle, and has refused to make his laborers work, saying was not the executioner of his own color and that the blacks had not conquered their liberty to labor again under the rod and the whip on the properties of the white.

Haitian Revolution Timeline (7)

25 March 1802

Colonies, again

France, England and Spain sign the Treaty of Amiens, achieving peace for 14 months during the Napoleonic wars. By this point France has gained back control of many of the colonies it had lost in recent years. A month later, A warrant is issued in the colony for the arrest and capture of Louverture and Christophe.

Bonaparte approves a decree reestablishing slavery and the slave trade in Martinique, Tobago and Sainte-Lucie. Bonaparte insists that slavery wont be restored in Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe.

27 April 1802

Slavery Restablished

Black popular movements reemerge in the South of the island with the objective of expelling the French. The blacks and mulattoes see that, despite Frances claims, Leclerc (Napoleons ambassador) fully intends to reinstate slavery.

7 July 1802

Slavery Restablished

News reaches Saint-Domingue slavery has been restored in Guadeloupe, in keeping with the law passed by the French government to reopen slave trade.

Haitian Revolution Timeline (8)

Dessalines proclaims Haitis independence, signaling the formation of the worlds first black republic. He publishes a Declaration of Independence, signed by himself and Christophe, and the colony Saint-Domingue is abolished forever. The original Taino name of Hayti is officially restored.

1 January 1804

Free at last!

France actively lobbies England, Spain and the United States to isolate Haiti commercially and diplomatically. France emphasizes that Haiti is a threat to the countries plantation system and slaveholders. The global community shuns Haiti, a major contributing factor to Haitis later impoverishment.

Haitian Revolution Timeline (8)

1 January 1804

Free at last!

Non recognized Haitis Independence until 1825, when France imposed a large indemnity as reparations for its colonists.
The United States and the Vatican withheld recognition until the 1860s. The U.S. imposed a trade embargo between 1806 and 1810, and Haitian ships were excluded from British colonies until the 1840s.

Constitution of Hayti (1804-1805)

[In the name of] the people of Hayti, who have legally constituted us faithfully organs and interpreters of their will, in presence of the Supreme Being, before whom all mankind are equal, and who has scattered so many species of creatures on the surface of the earth for the purpose of manifesting his glory and his power by the diversity of his works, in the presence of all nature by whom we have been so unjustly and for so long a time considered as outcast children. Do declare that the tenor of the present constitution is the free spontaneous and invariable expression of our hearts, and the general will of our constituents, and we submit it to the sanction of H.M. the Emperor Jacques Dessalines our deliverer, to receive its speedy and entire execution. Preliminary Declaration.

1. The people inhabiting the island formerly called St. Domingo, hereby agree to form themselves into a free state sovereign and independent of any other power in the universe, under the name of empire of Hayti.
2. Slavery is forever abolished.

Constitution of Hayti (1804-1805)

3. The Citizens of Hayti are brothers at home; equality in the eyes of the law is incontestably acknowledged, and there cannot exist any titles, advantages, or privileges, other than those necessarily resulting from the consideration and reward of services rendered to liberty and independence. 4. The law is the same to all, whether it punishes, or whether it protects. 5. The law has no retroactive effect. 6. Property is sacred, its violation shall be severely prosecuted. 9. No person is worth of being a Haitian who is not a good father, good son, a good husband, and especially a good soldier. 10. Fathers and mothers are not permitted to disinherit their children.

Constitution of Hayti (1804-1805)

11. Every Citizen must possess a mechanic art.

12. No whiteman of whatever nation he may be, shall put his foot on this territory with the title of master or proprietor, neither shall he in future acquire any property therein.
13. The preceding article cannot in the smallest degree affect white woman who have been naturalized Haytians by Government, nor does it extend to children already born, or that may be born of the said women. The Germans and Polanders naturalized by government are also comprized (sic) in the dispositions of the present article. 14. All acception (sic) of colour among the children of one and the same family, of whom the chief magistrate is the father, being necessarily to cease, the Haytians shall hence forward be known only by the generic appellation of Blacks.

Contradictions of the Haitian Revolution

Despite the radical principles of the French Revolution, the French government depended on crucial revenues from the colonies. Millions of jobs in port cities depended on the slave trade and the plantation economy. The Haitian Revolution was used to popularize the conviction that slave emancipation in any form would lead to economic ruin and the indiscriminate massacre of white populations The Haitian Revolution did not create a Republican State. Instead, it created monarchies and empires Fear becomes a political strategy to mobilize political sentiment Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad want to replace Haiti in the world market as the main suppliers of sugar. The destruction of the slave system in Haiti bolstered the plantation system in the United States, the Caribbean, and Brazil In the United States, The Haitian Revolution was used to restrict manumission laws and campaigns to deport free blacks to distant lands The failure of British and French armies fostered discussions of alternative forms of labor , specially to the islands of Trinidad and Guiana