The Roots of Liberty: Freedom and Violence in the Haitian Revolution

Sophia Hayes Senior Division Historical Paper Paper Length: 2,170

Revolutions, in a solely ideological and hypothetical sense, exist as a sort of political utopia—the rights of a person, so rarely able to be defined, are allowed to become a priority and an entirely new society is birthed from the ideas that emerge from the definition of these rights.

Revolutions, throughout history, have represented rebirth and a reclamation of the self and one’s own freedom. The American and French Revolutions are probably the most respected and recognized revolutions that fall into this archetype—they were, in particular, influenced by the writings of the Enlightenment and the introduction of the concept of the natural rights of man.

But what these revolutions obviously failed to do was allow an opportunity for change within the racial hierarchy of the time period. In the late 1700s, the economy of the world depended on the large scale trafficking of African peoples, and revolutionaries refused to acknowledge the grave violation of human rights occurring because of this economic dependency. The hypocrisy of these revolutions should not be overlooked; freedom from colonial governments and oppressive monarchies was apparently only entitled to white citizens.

The Haitian Revolution, which took place in the late 1700s, in close proximity with the

French Revolution, was similarly an uprising against colonial rule inspired by Enlightenment ideals. It was not perfect by any means, but what it ultimately accomplished that the aforementioned revolutions were unable to was a society with citizenship and equality for all people, as well as a complete dismantlement of oppressive and unequal economic institutions.

The brutality of French colonial rule made a lasting impression on the people and culture of ​ Haiti, but their successful revolt against the French empire allowed them to reclaim their natural rights and make an important impact on history.

1 The colony of Saint Domingue, as it was known under colonial rule, was located on the west side of the island of Hispaniola, with the eastern part of the island under Spanish rule.

Following its official occupation in 1697, the colony, with its easily accessible ports and ideal climate for growing sugarcane, indigo, and coffee in the more mountainous central regions, quickly grew to be the most prosperous colony in the Caribbean. Sugarcane, the main and most profitable crop grown on Saint Domingue, became industrialized and completely inseparable from slavery by the early 1700s. Slavery, as an economic institution, was becoming “deliberately and obsessively racialized,” with the labor of Saint Domingue almost entirely of African descent at the start of the eighteenth century, supplied by the indomitable machine of the Atlantic slave trade. Due to this continual influx of labor from Africa, almost 90 percent of the colony’s population was to be enslaved by the late 1700s. These changing, and massively disproportionate, racial demographics would eventually have a considerable effect on the growing economy of Saint Domingue as well as the French colonial empire.1

The violence of Saint Domingue’s century-long existence was brutal, continual, and built into the very societal foundation of the island. The unease that white planters felt at being the minority was a feeling that was only able to be relieved by their ability to exert brutal violence on the slave population, justified by the suspicion of revolution among the slaves.2 But beyond these fears of insurrection, the basic societal structure on Saint Domingue was one built on violence and terror. The colonial-era planter society of the island required a massive amount of

1 Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. (Harvard University ​ ​ ​ Press, 2004), 18-19. 2 Dubois, Laurent. “Avenging America: The Politics of Violence in the Haitian Revolution” in The World ​ ​ of the Haitian Revolution, ed. by David Patrick Geggus & Norman Fiering (Indiana University Press, ​ 2009), 112-113.

2 labor to function, and the only way that this system could be sustained on Saint Domingue was through slavery, a violent institution in and of itself. The mass dehumanization and abuse of

African slaves on the colony was experienced on a scale never before seen in colonial history.

Slaves died in massive numbers in Saint Domingue. On average, over 50 percent of the slaves that arrived in Saint Domingue from Africa died within a few years, and every year about 5 to 6 percent of the slave population in the colony died.3 The sheer amount of death on the island gives an insight into just how brutal the treatment of slaves was and reveals how deep the ethical crisis on Saint Domingue ran. The slaves were worked to death on the plantations, and then immediately replaced when their managers simply purchased new ones without a second thought.4 When colonial documents such as the Code Noir, issued by King Louis XIV in 1685, ​ ​ attempted to place restrictions on the punishment and abuse of slaves in the colony, they were widely undermined by plantation owners. The Code Noir outlined stipulations for the feeding ​ ​ and clothing of slaves as well as the punishment of masters who failed to meet these requirements, in order to prevent “barbarous and inhumane treatments of masters towards their slaves.”5 However, the document was widely regarded by plantation owners and abolitionists alike as an economic and humanitarian failure, and had little power over plantation owners. It was largely ignored in Saint Domingue.6 The planter society was entirely dependent on systematic violence, and those in power in the colony realized that any scrutiny or attempted regulation of slave-master relations would disable the entire plantation system.7

3 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 40. ​ ​ ​ 4 Ibid., 40-41. ​ 5 Le Code Noir, 1685. Art. 26. Trans. John Garrigus. ​ ​ 6 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 30. ​ ​ ​ 7 Dubois, “Avenging America: The Politics of Violence in the Haitian Revolution”in The World of the ​ ​ Haitian Revolution, 112. ​

3 The Code Noir, interestingly enough, also granted to “manumitted slaves the same rights, ​ ​ privileges, and liberties enjoyed by persons born free.”8 This was the first recognition of the large population of free people of color in the French empire, living both in France and its colonies, including Saint Domingue. While tensions rose between the large slave population of the island and the minority whites, free people of color also pushed for a recognition of their rights, both in

France and in Saint Domingue. Many of these individuals were wealthy landowners—and even ​ slave owners—who held power in the aristocratic society of Saint Domingue. However, for years they had been systematically denied full civil and political rights by colonial leaders. Citizens of

Saint Domingue who were of mixed race could not vote, nor could they participate in any political assemblies.9 In 1789, prominent members of the community of free people of color journeyed to Paris where they argued their case in front of the National Assembly of Colonists, a panel of wealthy white planters. Vincent Ogé, a wealthy landowner from Saint Domingue, asked his audience: ¨Freedom, the greatest, the first of goods, is it made for all men? Should it be given ​ to all men?¨10 Ogé certainly thought so—frustrated with the slow progress made through ​ litigation, he mustered a small force of armed free-coloureds and led a brief uprising in Saint

Domingue. However, it was quickly put down by French soldiers. Ogé was condemned to death and brutally executed, his body publicly dismembered and his head placed on a pike to discourage further potential revolutionaries. 11

The death of Vincent Ogé became one of the initiating events of the revolution, especially for free people of color, who previously had wanted to align themselves with the white

8 Le Code Noir, 1685. Art. 59. Trans. John Garrigus. ​ ​ 9 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 74-75. ​ ​ ​ 10 Ogé, Vincent. “Motion Made by Vincent Ogé the Younger to the Assembly of Colonists.” 1789. ​ 11 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 88. ​ ​ ​

4 planters, given their similar economic interests. They were often slave owners themselves, and many of them did not support the abolition of slavery, again due to their economic interests.

They, like the white planters, feared that a slave uprising in Saint Domingue would destroy the planter system, and therefore their wealth. But after the death of Vincent Ogé, tension grew in the colony as black landowners realized that they were never going to enjoy equal rights or political power in the colony. Because of the rising unrest within Saint Domingue’s black slave population, white planters feared any indication that they were willing to grant rights to people of color would cause the slaves in the colony to revolt.12 However, in their attempt to exert their dwindling control over the colony’s population and with their violent reaction to Vincent Ogé’s insurgency, they had shattered what little peace remained on the island. Ogé became a sort of martyr to the now-revolutionary free people of color, and amidst the escalating French

Revolution, an ocean away, another revolution was beginning to develop.13

Vincent Ogé’s death in 1791, in addition to multiple slave uprisings in the colony throughout the following years, brought Saint Domingue precipitously close to revolution.

Author Carolyn E. Fick speculates that the French Assembly’s proclamation of abolition in all

French colonies in February 1794 was a “fundamental turning point that eventually revealed the necessity of political independence.”14 The Jacobins, radical as they were, with their 1789 cries of the “corruption of governments” and their “ignorance, forgetfulness, and contempt of the rights of man” had again, echoing the American Revolution just a decade earlier, failed to

12 Dubois, Avengers of the New World, 83-84. ​ ​ ​ 13 Ibid., 88-89. ​ 14 Fick, Carolyn E. “The Saint-Domingue Slave Revolution and the Unfolding of Independence, ​ 1791-1804” in The World of the Haitian Revolution (Indiana University Press, 2009), 178. ​ ​ ​ ​

5 examine the ethical and moral challenge that the French empire and its colonies presented.15

Although the Assembly’s proclamation seemingly furthered the revolution’s goals, it was unable to dispute the problematic implications of the colonies’ very existence.16 Less than six months later, however, their administration was overthrown and replaced by the more conservative government of the French Directory, which surprisingly upheld the prospects of emancipation in the colonies. This was mostly to pacify the revolutionaries of Saint Domingue, who had successfully fought for the end of slavery in the French colonies and threatened violence if it was institutionalized yet again.17 Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the slave rebellion on Saint

Domingue, wrote a letter to the Directory in 1797, fearing the reinstatement of slavery on the island. “But if, to re-establish slavery in [Haiti], this was to be done, then I declare to you it would be to attempt the impossible: we have known how to face dangers to obtain our liberty and we shall know how to brave death to maintain it,” he wrote.18 The abolition of slavery on the island, although successful, ultimately made revolutionaries on Haiti realize that the only way to achieve true emancipation was through independence.

Liberty, then, was to be obtained. As the revolution progressed, Louverture came to the conclusion that in order to maintain his power in Saint Domingue, he would need to cement it with the “institutional force” of a Constitution.19 The Constitution that was ratified in 1801 made no mention of independence; it still referred to the island as Saint Domingue and its third article

15 Déclaration des Droits de L'homme et du Citoyen, 1789. ​ 16 Fick, “The Saint-Domingue Slave Revolution and the Unfolding of Independence, 1791-1804” in The ​ ​ World of the Haitian Revolution, 178. ​ 17 Ibid., 178. ​ 18 Louverture, François Dominique Toussaint. “Letter to the French Directory.” 1797. ​ 19 Fick, “The Saint-Domingue Slave Revolution and the Unfolding of Independence, 1791-1804” in The ​ ​ World of the Haitian Revolution, 181. ​

6 declared that “all men are born, live, and die free and French.”20 It did, however, declare

Toussaint Louverture governor for life, with complete sovereign rule.21 The significance of this

Constitution, despite its provisional and unsustainable elements, should not be lost.22 Louverture, whose focus was ending slavery more so than liberating Saint Domingue, was still able to move the island “in the direction of self-determination as a black self-governing territory of the French empire.”23 The measures that Louverture undertook to ensure that there would be no possibility of a reinstatement of slavery within the colony actually managed to propel the colony’s existence towards that of an independent black state, the first of its kind. Indeed, after Louverture’s death,

General Jean-Jacques Dessalines’ defeat of the Napoleonic French army in a brutal four year conflict allowed for the creation of the independent nation of Haiti. The first article of the subsequent 1805 Constitution read: “The people inhabiting the island formerly known as St.

Domingo, hereby agree to form themselves into a free state sovereign and independent of any other power in the universe.”24 And with this proclamation, the Haitian Revolution was able to deliver a now incontrovertible truth: the concept of liberty could not and was never meant to be ensnared in racial and economic barriers. Freedom was shown to be a universal and unequivocal truth. The emergence of this independent, democratic black state, so seemingly radical in its existence, presented a view of true, equal democracy, as well as an opportunity and an inspiration for future change.

20 Saint-Domingue Constitution of 1801. 8 July 1801. Art. 3, Sec. 2. ​ ​ 21 Ibid., Art 27-28, Sec. 8. ​ 22 Indeed, Louverture was arrested and extradited to France only a year after the Constitution’s ​ ratification, and died in prison soon after. For more analysis on Louverture’s life and political aspirations, refer to C.L.R. James’ seminal work The Black Jacobins (1938), as well as the writing of Carolyn Fick in ​ ​ ​ ​ The World of the Haitian Revolution (2009). ​ 23 Fick, “The Saint-Domingue Slave Revolution and the Unfolding of Independence, 1791-1804” in The ​ ​ World of the Haitian Revolution, 182. ​ 24 Second Constitution of Haiti (Hayti). 1805. Art. 1-5, Sec. 1. ​ ​

7 The reclamation of the Haitian people’s rights, after more than a decade of conflict and a century of French occupation and brutality, represent a massive accomplishment in and of itself.

In 1803, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Haiti’s liberator and first leader, and whose revolutionary ideals were heavily inspired by Enlightenment thought, wrote to Thomas Jefferson, “The people ​ of Saint-Domingue, tired of paying with our blood the price of our blind allegiance to a mother country that cuts her children’s throats, and following the example of the wisest nations, have thrown off the yoke of tyranny and sworn to expel the torturers.”25 Dessalines, indeed, shows his respect for the American thinkers and their revolution, and alludes to the similarities between the two conflicts. Jefferson, a Virginia plantation owner, never replied, assumably uncomfortable.26

But Dessalines’ exultant assertion shows that the triumph of the Haitian revolution was so much more than the successful creation of the first independent black state, although even that was a historic feat. The Haitian Revolution allows the rights of man, the right to freedom and self-determination, to finally be recognized by and for all men, and represents the reclamation of the black identity after centuries of abuse. “The air we breathe is the pure air of Liberty,” cried

Dessalines in an 1804 proclamation to the people of Haiti, “august and triumphant. Yes, I have saved my country; I have avenged America!”27

25 Dessalines, Jean Jacques. “Letter to Thomas Jefferson.” 23 June 1803. ​ 26 Gaffield, Julia. “Meet Haiti’s Founding Father, whose Black Revolution was Too Radical for Thomas ​ Jefferson.” The Conversation, The Conversation US, last modified 30 August 2018. ​ ​ 27 Dessalines , Jean Jacques. “Liberty or Death, Proclamation.” New York Commercial Advisor , 4 June ​ ​ ​ 1804, pp. 2–3.

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