Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)

The Haitian Revolution
(1791-1804)

Age of Atlantic Revolutions
18th and 19th Century political, social and economic revolutions in the Americas and Europe that transformed the world including, in part:
US War of Independence (1775-1783)
The French Revolution (~1789-1799)
Haitian Revolution (1791-1804)
Independence movements in Latin America (1808-1826)
Numerous European revolutions in 1848, among others
British industrial revolution (mid-18th century to about 1830)

Haitian Revolution (Saint-Domingue), 1791-1804 was the second in the Americas
Revolutionaries embraced French Revolution’s mantra of “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity”
Haitian Revolution was the first of these Atlantic revolutions to adopt a paradigm of freedom and equality that included blacks and the enslaved
Haitian Revolution can be described as a successful rebellion of the enslaved/formerly enslaved and their allies, and the only one that resulted in independence

Important Questions the Haitian Revolution Posed for the International Community during the Age of Revolutions:

Do/can the so-called universal principles of freedom, liberty, and equality apply to blacks?

Are all men truly equal?
Are the other revolutionary movements incapable of establishing the new world order they promised?
If so, can the Haitians fill that role?
Did Haitian revolutionary leaders have their own inconsistencies?

Between 100,000 to several million indigenous resided on Hispaniola pre-European contact
Christopher Columbus first encountered the Taíno in Hispaniola (Española = Little Spain) in 1492
The Spanish enslaved the indigenous in gold mines; harsh labor and disease decimated the indigenous and by the mid-1530s, the Taíno culture in Hispaniola had been destroyed
Spanish abandon Hispaniola when their mines were exhausted
The French had a strong presence in Hispaniola and had brought thousands of enslaved Africans by the late 17th century

The 1697 Treaties of Rijswijk in part gave the western 1/3 of the island to the French, at which point it took on the name Saint-Domingue
As Saint-Domingue brought in more enslaved Africans to work primarily on sugar plantations, the colony became France’s most profitable in the Americas
By 1789, the enslaved black population was about 500,000 Saint-Domingue’s total of 556,000 residents
(We’ll discuss the resistance of the enslaved next week)

In Saint-Domingue, even free people of color were deprived of equal rights
There was widespread agitation for equality during the late 18th century
By the late 1780s, just a few years before the revolution would start among enslaved and black Maroons, mulattoes and free blacks pushed for political rights as free people and property owners, but white colonists obstructed these efforts (free blacks in Saint-Domingue were the largest, wealthiest, and most politically radical population of all the French colonies)

1789 – French Constituent Assembly accepted the Saint-Domingue petition to grant and protect the rights of “free citizens of color”
1790 – Saint-Domingue Colonial Assembly received full legislative power and nearly complete autonomy from France; planter elite set out to prevent the “bastard and degenerate” mulattoes from attaining political power; no people of color were elected to the new Colonial Assembly
French Constituent Assembly dissolved the Colonial Assembly later that year
Jacques Vincent Ogé led a rebellion with a “common front of free people of color against the forces of white supremacy” to resist Saint-Domingue’s colonial authorities; was killed and came to represent the injustices suffered by Saint Domingue’s population of color

The French Revolution (1789-1799): Legal and Ideological Backing for the Haitian Revolution

1789: Marks the end of the ancien régime (the old political and social system under the monarchy in which feudalism was practiced)
Dissatisfaction with the ancien régime included:
The bourgeoisie wanted more political power and respect than feudalism allowed
Landowning peasants wanted more rights than feudalism allowed
The texts and ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers-–who argued over various political, social, and economic problems—were read widely and were very influential in France
France was dealing with economic hardship and famine (including widespread crop failures in 1788 and 1789)
The French monarchy was losing legitimacy, especially in its inflexibility and inability to address these issues

The French Revolution (1789-1799): Legal and Ideological Backing for the Haitian Revolution, cont’d

During the revolution, the French National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism, expanded voting rights among men, and introduced the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August of 1789
The Declaration guaranteed, in part, liberty, equality, property rights, and the right to resist oppression
The revolutionaries overthrew the monarchy, executed Louis XVI, and established a republic
The French Revolutionary Wars and military conflicts with other European powers would follow, and had an impact on the situation in Saint-Domingue

What we know about Toussaint L’Ouverture
He was born enslaved as Toussaint Bréda in Saint-Domingue in 1743
His father was a West African aristocrat sold into slavery around 1740
At some point Toussaint received his freedom and gained modest wealth as a landholder whose property used enslaved labor
We are not sure what role he may have played in the initial uprising of 1791, but he was not the main leader
Toussaint would eventually become the primary military leader of the revolution against various oppositional groups in Saint-Domingue, the Spanish, the British, and of course the French
He adopted the name Toussaint L’Ouverture in August of 1793
He fought for both Spanish and French forces, eventually becoming the most powerful commander of French troops in Saint-Domingue

Some Key Moments in the Haitian Revolution

May 1791 – Enslaved and black Maroons (including African-born Boukman Dutty whom the French would kill a few months later) planned and began a rebellion; Marked the start of the Haitian revolution
September 1791 – Repeal of the May 15th law in which the French Assembly had granted full political rights to mixed-race citizens caused many mulattoes to join the rebellion
1793 – War declared between France and Spain; Spanish recruit Saint—Domingue’s black soldiers and leaders of the Haitian revolution, such as Papillon, Biassou, and L’Ouverture, side with the Spanish
1793-1798 – British occupied parts of Saint-Domingue
1795 – Treaty of Basel ends war between France and Spain (Spain is forced to give up much of eastern Hispaniola)

Some Key Moments in the Haitian Revolution, cont’d

1798 – Toussaint expelled the French commissioner from Saint-Domingue; Toussaint ordered all non-enlisted black adults to return to plantations for obligatory wage labor
1801 – Toussaint invaded and occupied Spanish-speaking side of Santo Domingo; He promulgated a constitution for Saint-Domingue which abolished slavery universally and prohibited all racial discrimination; He also named himself governor for life
1802 – Napoleon sent troops to defeat L’Ouverture and the rebels; Revolutionaries managed to hold the French off, but Toussaint was arrested by French
1803 – Toussaint died in a French prison
1804 – Toussaint’s more militant deputy, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, declared Haiti independent and ordered the death of the remaining white French population in Saint-Domingue

Returning to the thematic questions the revolution raised for the international community during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions…
Do the tenets of liberty, freedom, equality, and control over one’s destiny apply to blacks? Are all men truly equal?
The revolutionary leaders provide us with three rhetorical strategies to answer these questions:
They challenge the notion that blacks are inferior by using the adjectives of inferiority normally applied to blacks to describe the actions of slaveholders.
They argue that revolutionaries act in the spirit of the French revolution, that they are almost truer French revolutionaries than the originals. Here they use the France’s own legal standards to defend their cause.
The argue that God almighty is opposed to their exclusion from the benefits of liberty, freedom, equality.
Yet Toussaint had many inconsistencies as well. As biographer Girard wrote, Toussaint was not an “abolitionist saint.” He was “representative of an age that had to reconcile Enlightenment principles and the labor requirements of plantations.” That said, he did not intend for anyone to be permanently enslaved. Regardless, the Haitian Constitutions stood out as arguably the most humanitarian and egalitarian of their time