history 8A--Discussion of Lecture/Reading 13
From Slave Revolt to Revolution
The Age of Democratic Revolutions
Slavery in Saint Domingue
Haitian Independence
Booming 18th Century Economy
Luxury Crops
Sugar
Coffee
Indigo
Tobacco
Who does this work?
500,000 slaves
31,000 whites
28,000 free people of color (gens de couleur)
Who profits from it?
1 million French depend on colonial trade
Cap Français harbor by Gustave Alaux
4
The major port city for European trade – emphasize bustling nature of it
1943? This is date given on Garrigus’s website.
Saint Domingue: Social Makeup
Grands Blancs: wealthy planters, merchants, slaveowners
Petit Blancs: poor, artisans, shopkeepers
Free Blacks and gens de couleur: propertied, educated, slaveowners
Policing the boundary
5
Vincent Ogé’s rebellion in Dondon parish
Conditions of Slave Life
Code Noir, 1685
5-6% mortality/year
1789: most African born
Voyage àl'Isle de France, àl'isle de Bourbon, au Cap de Bonne-Espérance, etc., by Bernardin de St. Pierre, 1783, Moreau le Jeune
France, 1789
Universal Rights?
Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
Societé des Amis des Noirs
7
Freedoms Debated
Civic Freedom v. Personal Freedom
Fear of Democracy in France and Empire
New World Neighbors: American Revolution and Constitution
Colonial parallels
“Unholy Trinity”
Enlightenment ideals
3/5 clause:
Slavery Preserved
Section 2 of Article I: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states . . . by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons."
Free Blacks: Class v. Race
Full citizenship, 5/1791
Resisted by whites
Rescinded 9/91
Back again 3/92
“Portrait du CitoyenBelley”
10
Vincent Ogé and the gens de couleur
Land, slaves, education
18th C: marginalized
Militias
“Rights of Man”
Ogé’s revolt, October 1790
Boukman Uprising August, 1791
Legend: Bois Caïman Ceremony
Known:
Careful organization
Elite slave driver leaders
Knowledge of “rights of man”
Contemporary Haitian Painting of Bois CaïmanCeremony
1791 Fires outside Cap Français
Slave Revolt in Saint Domingue, August 1791
Slave Emancipation: At whose behest?
Slave Uprising: 1791
Slavery abolished on Saint Domingue: 1793
Slavery abolished in France: 1794
Sonthonax
Boukman and comrades
Caribbean Rivalries: Britain and Spain enter the Fray
Toussaint Louverture 1743-1803
Changing sides
Governor for Life: 1801
Haitian Revolution
1802: Napoleon re-imposes slavery (or tries!)
Toussaint’s capture
Jean-Jacques Dessalines
18
Republic of Haiti
1804-1818: civil war and division
1818: united under mulatto president Boyer
Flag of the Republic of Haiti, Tricolorewithout the white
J.-P. Boyer, President 1818-1843
21
Goegraphy: 3 separated provinces, mountain ranges, sea travel: sugar cane in plains; coffee in mountainais regions, also indigo ;
Santo Domingo; spanish territory the bulk of the island (Dominican Republic)
North has Le Cap & large sugar plantations; south is closely connected to Jamaica and British trade,
"The Heroes" by Smith Georges
(Toussaint Louverture, Dessalines, Petion, Christophe, Boukman)