Haiti and the Age of Democratic Revolution

“The Armed Black”

Haitian Revolution, 1790-1804

John Trumball, “The Surrender of Cornwallis”

Annual Slave Imports to Saint Domingue

05000100001500020000250003000035000400004500050000

1700-1724

1725-1750

1751-1774

1777 1790

thousands

Saint Domingue Society

Grande Blancs

Petite Blancs

Gens de Couleurs

Slaves

Whites: 25,000

Free Colored: 25,000

Slaves: 450,000

Versailles

Estates General, Paris, 1789

National Assembly

Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the CitizenApproved August 26, 1789 1. Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social

distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

2. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression.

3. The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

4. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can only be determined by law.

Honore Gabriel Riquetti,Count of Mirabeau

Are the colonies placing their Negroes and their gens de couleur in the class of men or in that of the beasts of burden? .. The free blacks are proprietors and taxpayers, and they have not been allowed to vote.”

If the colonists want the Negroes and gens de couleur to count as men, let them enfranchise them first; that all be electors, that all may be elected. If not, we beg them to observe that in proportioning the number of deputies to the population of France, we have taken into consideration neither our horses nor our mules.

Free Citizens of Color

“Address to the National Assembly”

How do the free citizens of color argue that they deserve representation in the National Assembly?

What evidence do they offer that they deserve full rights as citizens?

Saint Domingue 1790-91 “All mortals are free”

Petits Blancsrebellion in St. Marc

Grand Blancarm slaves vs Petit Blancs

Vincent Oge Rebellion (gen de couleur)

Boukman Rebellion, August 1791

Leger Felicite Sonthonax

Representative French Republic

Enforce law enfranchising all Gens de Couleur

Aug. 29, 1793 emancipation

French Emancipation February 4, 1794 “to punish white traitors”

Andre Rigaud Toussaint Louverture

Napoleon & Death Toussaint (1802)

Capture Toussaint (Jacob Lawrence, 1936)

TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE (Wordsworth)

TOUSSAINT, the most unhappy of men!O miserable Chieftain! where and whenWilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thouWear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow:Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behindPowers that will work for thee; air, earth, andSkie …;Thy friends are exultations, agonies,And love, and man's unconquerable mind.Morning Post, London, February 2, 1803

Haitian Independence (1804)Charles Leclerc, , “we must

destroy all of the blacks of the mountains – men and women – and only spare children under 12 years of age. We must destroy half of those of the plains and must not leave a single colored person in the colony who has worn an epaulette.”

Brutality Rochambeau Jean-Jacques Dessalines

declares indepdendence, “Haiti”

Two American Republics:US & Haiti

Adams Administration aid Toussaint vs Rigaud

Jefferson Administration denies recognition

James Weldon Johnson (1920) “The unfitness of the Haitian people to govern themselves has been the subject of propaganda for the last century”

Ntozake Shange, For the Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide; When the Rainbow is Enuf

…Toussaint L’Ouverture was the beginin uv

reality for me in the summer contest for who colored child can read 15 books in three weeks

I won & raved abt Toussaint L’Ouverture at the afternoon ceremony was dis-qualified cuz Toussaint belonged in the ADULT READING ROOM & I cried & carried dead Toussaint home in the book he wuz dead & livin to me cuz

Toussaint & them they held the citadel gainst the french wid the spirits of ol dead africans from outta the ground walkin cannon ball shootin spirits to free Haiti & they waznt slaves no more…

Langston Hughes (1934): The Emperor of Haiti

DESSALINES  : (Who has remained standing, begins to berate his guests) Drums in the Court! The idea! Suppose we had guests from abroad, what would they think of us? They'd think we were all savages, that's what. Savages! Here I am, trying to build a civilization in Haiti good as any the whites have in their lands. Trying to set up a Court equal to any Court in Europe. And what do I find---voodoo drums in the banquet hall! Who gave orders for that?

(He pauses as the distant drum continues its throbbing beat) The peasants, up all night playing drums! And the fields only half productive. But not only the peasants are to blame. You Lords and Ladies, Dukes and Counts are to blame, too. I give you land, and you neglect to work it.