In the Face of These Socioeconomic Ills, the French Nation Rose in Revolution in 1791

Haitian Revolution Seventeenth-century France had a myriad of problems - the nation had fought lengthy and expensive wars such as the Seven Years War and had provided monetary support to the American colonists in their revolt against Britain. The king and nobles lived in extravagant style in contrast to the ordinary French citizenry who were barely surviving. There was also the issue of heavy taxation affecting primarily the Third Estate (wage earners, peasants and middle class) while the First and Second Estates lived virtually tax free. In addition, many of France's peasants were living under a decayed system of feudalism.

In the face of these socioeconomic ills, the French nation rose in revolution in 1791. A new form of government - a republic was set up in 1791 and two years later the King, Queen, and many of the nobles, who did not manage to escape to other countries, were put to death. The French had hopes of spreading republican ideas throughout the world. Their watchwords were Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Liberty, Equality and Fraternity).

The French Revolution had far-reaching effects which swept over Europe and reached the New World. It was not merely a national revolution; it was the expression of a new spirit, a demand for greater freedom and for the rights of man. Its famous 'Declaration of the Rights of Man' stated that men are born free and should remain so to enjoy their rights and freedoms.

At the time of the French Revolution, the population of St Domingue included French men, creoles, free coloured and slaves. The French men were small in number and were either government servants or planters who were trying to make a quick fortune and return to France. The creoles was the most significant group among the whites and they can be divided into: grand blancs (great whites), the big plantation owner, and petits blancs (lesser whites) - small farmers, overseers, shopkeepers, etc. The free coloured population was quite a large group as many planters had availed themselves of the right to free their children which they had by enslaved women. The Code Noir of 1685 had given this group many of the rights of free men, so by the 18th century a class of well-educated free coloureds had grown up with many having obtained their education in France. They had also been given the privilege of acquiring and holding property to any amount. Several of them were the owners of considerable estates and since slaves were property, they owned slaves.

By the middle of the century, however, the rights previously allowed to free Negroes and people of 'mixed blood' were curtailed. In addition, they were no longer allowed to go to France. At the same time the treatment of the enslaved became more and more brutal under the heyday of sugar, with little interference from the authorities. All these changes caused great resentment and bitterness. Even though the enslaved experienced brutality at the hands of their owners, their numbers were quite small. In 1791 there were 30,000 whites to 24,000 free coloured and 480,000 slaves.

The whites and free coloured were divided from each other by a great gulf, but they had this in common: both had an interest in maintaining slavery. The whites aimed at preserving their power and property while the free coloureds wanted equality and a share in political power. The blacks, who were neither much better off nor much worse off than their fellow slaves in the other plantation colonies, notwithstanding the Code Noir, had only one commitment - to freedom. When the revolution in France first began with the cry of liberty, the planters in St Domingue also raised the cry of 'liberty.' History is full of examples of the extraordinary carelessness with which people who live in powder magazines handle naked lights. If ever a body of responsible people played recklessly with fire, it was the planters of St Domingue, or at least a vociferous group among them.

There was nothing inherently surprising in the spectacle of a land-owning, slave- owning aristocracy raising the cry of 'liberty,' in the sense of liberty to run their colony in their own way. Something of the sort had already happened with the English North American colonies and was to happen soon in Spanish America. The St Domingue planters, however, were very vulnerable to attack. The 'liberty' which they sought was obviously liberty to proceed even more drastically than before against slave and free coloureds, but the institution of slavery was under fire in France, particularly from the Amis des Noirs (Friends of the black), a radical body recently formed in France to secure the abolition of slavery in the French colonies.

The 'Rights of Man' were fashionable table talk; there was every possibility that the new revolutionary government in France, if asked for 'liberty,' might interpret the term in a sense very different from that desired by the whites of St Domingue. The situation in the colony was full of danger. At any moment the planters might need regular troops to deal with servile outbreaks. Their best policy was to lie low and say nothing which might bring colonial affairs into the public eye in France. The more prudent among them understood this, but to the more hot-headed the revolution in France seemed too good an opportunity to be missed. The matter was openly and endlessly discussed, even in the presence of mulattoes and the enslaved. To discuss the 'Rights of Man' before such people was like fanning a naked flame.

As a result of the demands and arguments of the colonial whites, the Amis des Noirs got into the long oratorical duel. Whenever the colonial whites pushed for colonial autonomy, the Amis des Noirs made their counter demands for the new revolutionary government in France to legislate on the rights of the free coloureds in St Domingue. The French government came down on the side of the Amis des Noirs and issued a decree on 15th May 1791 stating that all persons of colour born of free parents could vote. The colonists refused to obey the decree; the governor refused to enforce it and there was such wild talk of secession from France.

THE MULATTO REVOLTS

The mulattoes (free coloureds), headed by Vincent Oge, organised a revolt in 1790 demanding what they regarded as their rights. The uprising however was suppressed by 1791 and their leader put to death on the wheel. In addition, the refusal of the whites to honour the decree, further incensed the mulattoes so a second mulatto uprising was planned.

Whites and mulattoes were so absorbed by their own conflict that they were both aken by surprise when, in August 1791, the slave population in the north, rose in revolt systematically setting fire to cane fields and houses and murdering the white inhabitants.

THE SLAVE REVOLT The northern rising was the first concerted slave revolt on a large scale in the history of the Caribbean. On the night of 14th August 1791, 200 of the leading slaves met in a forest, the Bois Caiman, and solemnly swore to strike for liberty. At 10 o'clock in the evening on the 22nd August, the slaves from the Turpin and Flaville plantations poured out of their quarters, some armed with machetes, others with long knives tied to poles. Buildings were set on fire as well as the cane fields. Soon a hundred thousand slaves were in revolt. Once it had begun, it clearly could not be suppressed by the few thousand white inhabitants and the handful of regular troops available, without help. The free coloureds feared the slaves as much as the whites did, but suspicion and prejudice amounting to hatred prevented any effective alliance. Within two months, 220 sugar plantations, 600 coffee plantations and 200 cotton and indigo plantations were destroyed. Two thousand whites and 10,000 slaves had also been killed. Cap Francais and a string of fortified camps in the western mountains were soon the only places under white control in the north. In the west there was as yet no slave revolt, but whites and free coloureds were at war with one another. In the south, the white planters had armed their slaves who had remained obedient against the free coloureds. Everywhere was in confusion as whites, free coloureds and slaves fought each other in shifting alliances.

Troops were despatched from France to restore order. It was not until September 1792 before an army reached St Domingue, and then it was a revolutionary army sent out to enforce the rule of liberty, equality and fraternity. Royalist resistance on the part of the whites met their leader and in June 1793 entered and sacked the town of Cap Francais. In August, there was the proclamation of conditional emancipation, which was subsequently confirmed by decree by the government in France. This decree alienated the free coloured, many of whom were or had been slave owners; it did not affect the slaves who, in the north at least, had already thrown off all civil authority. Of the surviving whites in the north, those who could get away fled either to the United States or to other Caribbean islands.

In 1793, both Spain and England became involved in war with revolutionary France - both governments sent expeditions to invade St Domingue. The immediate purpose of these invasions was to rescue the white colonists and help them to suppress the slave rising and, ultimately, to annex all or part of the colony. A small British army from Jamaica entered the country through a port in the south. They were welcomed as deliverers by the French colonists. In March 1794 they took Port-au-Prince. With the outbreak of the second Maroon War in Jamaica in 1795, however, adequate reinforcements could not be sent from Jamaica. Though considerable forces eventually arrived from England, they were all fresh, 'unseasoned troops.' After four years of fighting, the invasion petered out, defeated by yellow fever, by force of numbers and by the military skill of Toussaint - it, however, cost them £20 million and 40,000 men. Toussaint's forces had also been successful against the Spanish army. By 1794, Spain had given up the part of St Domingue she had held.

TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE

Toussaint was a slave from a plantation in the north. He was the son of a Dahomey man called Pierre Baptiste, who had come to St Domingue as a slave. In his early years, Pierre had been sold to some Jesuit fathers who taught him the Catholic religion. He had also learnt a good deal about books from them. When the Jesuits left St Domingue he was freed with the other slaves. Toussaint's father taught him to read and write the French language, but he was too poor to buy his son out of slavery. Toussaint apparently read many books during his spare time which were lent to him by the plantation overseer. He was not a field slave but worked in the stables, where he had plenty of time to listen to the conversations of the whites.

Toussaint had little or no part in the 1791 rising, but in the subsequent confusion became the leader of one of the many marauding bands which roamed the plain. At first he offered his services to the Spanish in Santo Domingo as a mercenary, but by 1794 he offered his services to the republican army of France and directed all his energies against the English invaders and their allies, the French planters.

He quickly became the dominant figure on the republican side, commanding an army devoted to his person and enjoying the respect, indeed the friendship, of powerful people abroad. It was his friendship with John Adams that enabled him to secure from the United States the ships and supplies he needed to fight the English. By 1798, he had so worn down the invaders that the English commanding officer was glad to withdraw this depleted force.

The English expelled, Toussaint turned upon the mulatto faction of the west and south, defeated its leader Riguad, himself a soldier of considerable ability, and sacked the town of Les Cayes which had been its headquarters. There followed a systematic round-up mutilation and murder of some 10,000 mulatto men, women and children.

Politically, by 1800 Toussaint was supreme within the colony. He was able to secure either the compliance or the removal of all officials sent out to the colony from France. He had already, in 1799, been formally appointed governor general by the government in France. After 1800, Toussaint put a stop to indiscriminate massacres and ordered the now ex-slaves back to work. He even induced some of the white émigrés to return to their estates and revive. Toussaint later drew up a constitution in which he proclaimed himself governor general for life; a step which Napoleon himself (the new ruler of France) had not yet ventured to take.

There was no room within the French empire for two dictators and Napoleon's irritation at the prestige and pretensions of 'gilded Africans' was partly responsible for Toussaint's fall. Napoleon had other motives, however, more practical than mere irritation. His political plans called for alliance with Spain but Toussaint, in 1801 in defiance of Napoleon's orders, had carried out a rapid and successful invasion of Santo Domingo and had, in the past, been a source of great wealth to France and could be so again. Napoleon also wanted to restore the old system, slavery and all. None of these plans could be executed while Toussaint rule St Domingue and his removal could only be achieved through a military re-conquest of the island.

A formidable army of 20, 000 troops was sent to St Domingue under General le Clerc, Napoleon's brother-in-law. This was the largest military expedition ever to sail from Europe for the Western hemisphere. Le Clerc landed at Cap Francais in the north and demanded its surrender. Toussaint's commander there refused and set fire to it instead. The French, therefore, decided to use force. They were successful at first, especially with the mulattoes fighting on their side, but Toussaint, Christophe and Dessalines conducted a series of brilliant campaigns which had the French by, April 1802, on the edge of disaster. As well as having to fight Toussaint's troops and guerrillas, they were beginning to succumb to yellow fever like the British before them.

Toussaint, however, did not realise this, so instead of pressing home his advantage he came to terms with Le Clerc who had insisted that all Napoleon wanted was their oath of allegiance and the surrendering of their guns. Dessalines and Christophe were to accept commands under the French and he would retire to his country estate. However, Toussaint was tricked and he and his family were arrested and sent to France where he died in prison.

The betrayal of Toussaint had confirmed the suspicions and worst fears of the blacks in St Domingue. It was impossible for them to accept the word of the French and armed bands of freedom fighters began to form in the mountains. Their numbers multiplied as news arrived that slavery had been restored in the other French West Indian colonies. Christophe, Dessalines and others broke with the French and took up their position again at the head of their own forces. A period of intensely savage fighting followed. The French eventually gave ground as they were decimated by the ex-slaves and by yellow fever. Reinforcements were sent out from France, but in 1803 war broke out between France and Britain, and St Domingue was soon blockaded by British ships which effectively cut off men and supplies from the French forces in the island. The French leader was, therefore, forced by circumstances to evacuate his troops. He preferred to surrender to the blockading British than to the black rebels.

Dessalines thereafter took control of events in St Domingue. He embarked on a campaign of literal extermination of the surviving whites. He had been the most able and ruthless of Toussaint's generals. Unlike Toussaint he was Africa-born. At the outbreak of the revolt he was a slave on the plantation of a free black whose name he assumed and whose property he seized as soon as the insurrection gave him the opportunity of murdering his master. He quickly rose to power in the entourage of Toussaint and was Toussaint's enthusiastic agent in the massacre of mulattoes in the south in 1800. He was the obvious successor to Toussaint and in 1804 he proclaimed himself emperor of independent Haiti (the original Taino name).

He ruled until 1806. His policies, however, spurred the mulattoes to rebellion against him. In fact, he was killed by a 14-year-old mulatto assassin.

After his death, Haiti was divided between rival successors, the black Christophe in the north and the mulatto Petion in the south. This continued until Christophe's death in 1820 when Jean Pierre Boyer, a mulatto leader educated in France, succeeded in uniting blacks and mulattoes and became president in 1820.

EFFECTS OF THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION ON HAITI AND THE CARIBBEAN

Caribbean There were a series of sympathetic revolts, for example in Jamaica (Maroons), St Vincent (Black Caribs) and Grenada (Fédon) in 1795.

 There was an increase in sugar prices with the decrease production from St Domingue. The British Caribbean prospered during this period.  Islands such as Jamaica, Cuba and Puerto Rico profited immensely from planters fleeing St Domingue who introduced and developed agricultural crops in these areas. For example, these émigrés created coffee estates in Jamaica.

Haiti Emancipaion for the enslaved - Haiti became the first black state in the Caribbean and in fact the Americas.

 It created political instability, especially after 1818 where dictatorship marked the nation's history.

 The economy was destroyed as farming declined considerably. For instance, sugar production fell from 163,000,000lbs in 1791 to 1,800,000lbs in 1818.