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SAINT-DOMINGUE, HAYTI, “PEARL OF THE ANTILLES” (COMPARING OUR STORIES AS TO THE TWO AMERICAN REVOLUTIONS RESPECTIVELY CREATING TWO AMERICAN NATIONS: THE USA, AND HAITI) “The San Domingan revolution is a minor episode at best, now, in the cavalcade of American history. It has been confined to insignificance, because it does not serve that saga well.” — Michael Zuckerman, ALMOST CHOSEN PEOPLE: OBLIQUE BIOGRAPHIES IN THE AMERICAN GRAIN, 1993, page 176 We have taken the American revolution which created our USA as an initial step in the establishment of a nation based upon the principles of freedom for all and of human dignity for all. There’s a little problem in this, however. The revolution which created the USA did not free very many of America’s slaves. Or, we say, it did not free them except potentially, after we had fought another war, a “Civil” one. –But, we ask, we were on our way weren’t we? The short answer to this is, no. Michael Zuckerman begins his paper “The Color of Counterrevolution: Thomas Jefferson and the Rebellion in San Domingo” (in Loretta Valtz Mannucci’s THE LANGUAGES OF REVOLUTION, Quaderno 2, Milan Group in Early United States History, no date) by offering that “Victorious rebels rarely maintain their revolutionary fervor after they secure their own ascendancy.” Actually, that is very much of an understatement. The reality of revolution is that the very first thing that victorious rebels always do, immediately that they secure their own ascendancy, is turn entirely against the sort HDT WHAT? INDEX SAINT-DOMINGUE HAYTI of revolutionary fervor which had secured for them their new ascendancy. There has never been and there never will be any instances in which victorious rebels maintain their revolutionary fervor after they secure their own ascendancy. That’s because revolutionary fervor isn’t about being revolting, but is about creating and then maintaining a new ascendancy. This has been termed “the recirculation of the elites.” It is the iron law of revolution and has a succinct expression: “Revolution? Just what for Heaven’s sake might that change?” The case of the American revolution which created Haiti at the turn of the 19th Century, however, and more particularly, the case of the extremely negative reaction which obtained in the United States of America to this slave revolt, can offer us another and quite revealing perspective on these events — if and when we choose to pay attention to it. We are reminded that at the time of the American revolution which created these United States of America, England was in the process leading toward the eventual freeing of English slaves in the New World while France was in the process leading toward maintaining the French slaves in the New World in their condition of servitude — and we had in this revolution sided with the French enslavers in opposition to the English liberators. Which, in itself, might have been enough to have given our historians pause, had they been paying attention to this, which they had not, as a surd of our history. The simple fact of the matter is that the freedom for which we fought in the American revolution was a freedom for some to enslave others. The American revolution was about this peculiar sort of freedom, freedom for some which was to be obtained specifically at the expense of the unfreedom of others, and was not at all about the sort of thing which today we associate with a term such as “freedom.” Now it should be clear that, in order to expand a freedom which is obtained specifically through unfreedom, it is necessary to expand unfreedom (one simply cannot expand a freedom for some which is being obtained at the expense of the unfreedom of others, through the freeing of others). –For logically, the freeing of others could only operate to diminish such a strange sort of freedom. Therefore there is no linear scale of developing freedom to be discerned in the history of the United States of America from its foundation as a nation forward into the present era. Quite to the contrary, the sort of freedom1 which our forefathers originally established here was a sort of freedom on the basis of which we could not build anything noble or lasting. It would first need to be eradicated root and branch, before a real freedom, a freedom2 which was not a freedom for some obtained at the expense of the unfreedom of others, could be dreamed. Have we at this point established such a freedom2? Or is what we have still merely a refined and carefully masked evolutionary product of the originary freedom1? Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Did our vast American Civil War switch us over from a freedom1 to a freedom2, or was it, as our Revolutionary War had been, a mere cover story?1 HDT WHAT? INDEX SAINT-DOMINGUE HAYTI 15TH CENTURY 1492 August 3, Friday (Old Style): Cristóbal Colón, with the ships the Niña, the Pínta, and the Santa María and 119 men, departed Palos, Spain, traveling toward the west across the ocean to a new land that they would name Nuéva España and Tiérra Nova (New Spain and New Found Lands). The 100-ton Santa María has a crew of 52. Martín Alonso Pinzón, a shipowner, was part owner of the Niña and Pínta. Don Pinzón procured crews, prepared the ships and was commander of the Pínta during this expedition. Don Pinzón’s brother Vicente Yañez Pinzón commanded the Niña in 1492 and 1493 and remained with Cristóbal Colón throughout the expedition. Hempen sails, hempen caulking, and hempen rigging would help these little ships to reach the New World of their dreams. 1. I have been a participant in a scholarly Internet discussion group, on the topic of whether the 18th-Century uses of the terms “freedom” and “liberty” made them synonyms, or whether there was a detectable difference between the uses of these two terms. When the discussion concluded that these two terms had been used essentially as synonyms, with no fixed differentia between the two, I proposed that we actively create a differentia, by declaring a new definition. I proposed that, in the context of the 18th Century, we ought to be restricting such a term to the meaning it actually did have in the 18th Century, a period in which the people who were deploying the term uniformly presumed that their liberty was being enhanced when they were able to own other human beings as property (the slaveholder Patrick Henry for one fine example, with his immortal “give me liberty or give me death” trope), and uniformly presumed that their liberties would be impeded were they to be deprived of their property in other human beings. The other term, “freedom,” I proposed, we ought now to restrict to our usage as of the 20th Century, a usage in which we presume that the freedom of one is contingent upon the freedom of all, a usage according to which (we express this as an adage) while even one person is enslaved, none of us are free. By such an act of creative definition, I proposed, we would make it much easier to study the difference between our Founding Fathers and ourselves, a difference which generation after generation of our students have been finding incredibly puzzling. Well, since this was a moderated list having to do with our memories of Thomas Jefferson, I anticipated that such a submission would be rejected out of hand by the moderators — but in fact the next day it appeared as one of the contributions to the discussion list (the other discussants must have ignored my suggestion, however, for it provoked no response either pro or con). HDT WHAT? INDEX SAINT-DOMINGUE HAYTI Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673. Christopher Columbus sent to discover the West- Indies by Ferdinando King of Arragon, and Isabella Queen of Castile, who descended from Edward the Third King of England. The Caribby-Islands the Antilles or Canibal, or Camerean-Islands now discovered by Christopher Columbus, who took possession of Florida and Hispaniola for the King of Spain. From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent. HDT WHAT? INDEX SAINT-DOMINGUE HAYTI CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS December 1, Saturday (Old Style): Christopher Columbus sailed toward a large island the local Arawak knew about, which they termed Haiti but which he would redesignate as La Isla Española, or Hispaniola. December 6, Thursday (Old Style): Scouting Europeans first sighted an island shaped like a turtle, which they termed Tortuga, and then a large island which they would like to have, which the local Arawak knew as Haiti but which Christopher Columbus would redesignate La Isla Española, or Hispaniola.2 HDT WHAT? INDEX SAINT-DOMINGUE HAYTI 2. The western portion of this island would later be ceded to the French under the name Saint-Domingue, and would eventually loom like a large dark cloud on the horizon of the hegemonic history of the Western Hemisphere, as a free kingdom again known as Haiti. But all this is later, as is the reputation of the “discoverer.” It would not be until 1552 that it would be suggested (by Francisco López de Gómara to King Charles V) that the conquest of the Americas had been the most significant event since the divine Creation of the universe, or, at least, since the first Coming of Christ. For the longest time, only a rather small group of Spanish intellectuals and bureaucrats would have any interest in this crazed figure, Christopher the Christ Carrier, who supposed the hill of the Garden of Eden to be at the origin of every strong ocean current which he encountered.

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