 The recent destruction in Haiti, and the disgraceful US response, adds salt to the wounds of a nation founded on the greatest slave rebellion in history.
From 1791-1804 a revolutionary movement of African slaves in then French-controlled Saint Domingue led to the birth of Haiti, the second independent republic in the Americas and the first “black republic” in the world. It was the biggest slave revolt in human history – and there is no better account of this than The Black Jacobins.
Between 1500 and 1800, some 30 million slaves were taken from Africa by force by British slavers to work the plantations of the West Indies and North America. Sold to French colonists at Saint Domingue and other Caribbean colonies, slaves were forced to work the sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo and tobacco plantations, producing exports commodities valued at two-thirds of the gross national product of France.
Conditions for slaves in Saint Domingue were lethal – sadistic masters forced slaves into cruel submission. In The Black Jacobins, author CLR James writes:
“There was no ingenuity that fear or a depraved imagination could devise which was not employed to break the slaves spirit…irons on the hands and feet, blocks of wood that the slaves had to drag around with them wherever they went, the tin-plate mask designed to prevent the slaves from eating the sugar-cane, the iron collar. Whipping was interrupted in order to put salt, pepper, citron, cinders, aloes and hot ashes on the bleeding wounds. Mutilations were common, limbs, ears and sometimes the private parts to deprive them… Their masters poured burning wax on their arms and hands and shoulders, emptied boiling sugar cane over their heads, burned them alive, roasted them on slow fires, filled them with gunpowder and blew them up with a match…”
But resistance continued – slaves poisoned their masters’ drinking wells, burnt the valuable crops, or escaped to form ‘maroon’ colonies in the mountains rising above the towns. But when the French revolution broke out in 1789, the masses of Saint Domingue gathered the confidence to confront the whole colonial system head-on.
A revolt broke out across the island in 1791. The meticulous planning of the struggle had grown out of the forced organisation of the slave workers in the huge plantation industry, where gangs of hundreds of slaves worked and lived side by side. For this co-ordinated attempt at liberation, a plan was conceived: the slaves in the suburbs and outskirts of the capital, Le Cap, would set fire to the plantations as a diversion for the colonialists – and a signal to the slaves in the town. Town-dwelling domestic slaves would then quickly massacre the whites and secure the town.
That such a plan – involving thousands of conspirators – could even be considered is a testimony to the immense solidarity that existed amongst the slaves. That it succeeded the without the slave-owners getting forewarning is proof of the horror of the system.
That such a plan – involving thousands of conspirators – could even be considered is a testimony to the immense solidarity that existed amongst the slaves. That it succeeded the without the slave-owners getting forewarning is proof of the horror of the system.The military leader of the Haitian revolution was Toussaint L'Ouverture, a self-educated former domestic slave. After the British had invaded Saint-Domingue, he decided to fight for the French if they would agree to free all the slaves, which was done on 29 August, 1793. L'Ouverture worked with a French general to ensure all slaves would be freed. He brought his forces over to the French side in May 1794 and began to fight for the French Republic. Many enslaved Africans were attracted to Toussaint's forces. He insisted on discipline and restricted wholesale slaughter. Under his leadership, the forces made up mostly of former slaves defeated English and Spanish armies but Toussaint did not wish to surrender too much power to France. He defeated a British expeditionary force in 1798, and even led an invasion of neighbouring Santo Domingo, freeing the slaves there by 1801. But Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 dispatched a large expeditionary force of French soldiers and warships to the island, led by Bonaparte's brother-in-law Charles Leclerc, to restore French rule, and under secret instructions to later restore slavery. L'Ouverture was asked to integrate his remaining troops into the French Army and was promised he would not be arrested. L'Ouverture agreed to this but was deceived, seized, and shipped off to France. He died months later while imprisoned at Fort-de-Joux in the Jura region.
But Napoleon was unable to quash the slaves desire for freedom and Haiti was declared independent in 1804. The revolution shook slavery to its core. This process was finished off later when the slaves of Jamaica overthrew British slavery in 1831, and southern slaves in America joined white people in America’s North to fight a civil war that abolished American slavery two decades later. Slavery ended because of the actions of slaves themselves – and Haiti has a special place in this history.
The Black Jacobins is an exhilarating account, and a must-read for anyone who is angered by barbarism that modern-day imperialism dishes out in Haiti, or in the numerous war-torn or impoverished regions of the world.
Yet despite over two centuries of Haitian independence, imperialist powers have continued to meddle in its affairs. World powers refused to recognise its independence, and eventually in 1825 France forced the country – through isolation – to agree to pay gargantuan compensation to plantation owners for loss of land. France exacted over 120 years of revenge, in the form of a $21 billion debt (indexed to current value) for the crime of people liberating themselves.
The debt was funded by loans from a French bank. This unjust agreement created a cycle of debt that would impoverish Haiti until repayments ended in 1947. In addition, the US occupied Haiti for 20 years from 1915, and then later propped up a brutal dictatorship that lasted until 1990.
The US, and its agent the UN, continue to dominate Haiti today, and has stepped this up further to take advantage of recent catastrophe. So when we read of the need to maintain supposed “stability” and “order” in Haiti today, we must ask ourselves – whose stability? It was the stability of imperialism, with its profiteering, racism and oppression, that the Haitian revolution so rightfully smashed.
Paul C |
