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The Enlightenment and Its Effects on the Haitian Revolution of 1789-1804

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The Enlightenment and Its Effects on the Haitian Revolution of 1789-1804 McNair Scholars Journal Volume 10 | Issue 1 Article 11 2006 The nliE ghtenment and Its Effects on the Haitian Revolution of 1789-1804 Rebekah Nicholson Grand Valley State University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair Recommended Citation Nicholson, Rebekah (2006) "The nlE ightenment and Its Effects on the Haitian Revolution of 1789-1804," McNair Scholars Journal: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 11. Available at: http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mcnair/vol10/iss1/11 Copyright © 2006 by the authors. McNair Scholars Journal is reproduced electronically by ScholarWorks@GVSU. http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/ mcnair?utm_source=scholarworks.gvsu.edu%2Fmcnair%2Fvol10%2Fiss1%2F11&utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages The Enlightenment and Its Effects on the Haitian Revolution of 1789-1804 Throughout history, revolutions have Several historians have analyzed the started because of new ideas that Haitian Revolution of 1789-1804. change thinking and disrupt the There are three authors, T. Lothrop status quo. The Haitian Revolution Stoddard, Thomas Ott, and C.L.R. of 1789-1804 is no exception. The James, who wrote extensively on Enlightenment ideas of equality for men the subject. Stoddard’s book gives and representative government were an excellent in-depth overview of crucial to the insurrection. However, the revolution, but it has an obvious how did Enlightenment philosophy racist interpretation. Ott’s book has make its way to the Caribbean and a basic outline of the revolution, but influence the people to free themselves gives a view concentrating primarily from their colonizer, France? One slave on the slaves. James’s book is a great in particular was strongly influenced source of information on L’Ouverture by Enlightenment ideas: Toussaint and the revolution, but it has a racist L’Ouverture, the leader of the revolution. interpretation as well. Ultimately, the Enlightenment inspired Stoddard’s 1914 book, The French a successful slave revolt in Haiti. While Revolution in San Domingo, is an traditional scholarship has depicted the excellent source of information dealing slaves in the revolt as brutes blindly directly with the revolution. It is a Rebekah Nicholson following their cynical leader, in fact narrative about the events during the McNair Scholar L’Ouverture actively used the ideas of revolution. Stoddard’s book gives a European philosophy, which empowered detailed account of the revolution that them to become agents. other books do not have. The book explains the beginning of the slave insurrection. Stoddard has an in-depth description of the August 22-23 uprising in the northern section of the country among the enslaved Africans. That is the date that most historians agree the Haitian Revolution began. Stoddard argues that the insurrection by the slaves caught the colonists unprepared.1 After hearing about the slave uprising in the North Province, colonists elsewhere on the island began to take up arms at an astonishing speed.2 The insurrection had two leaders, Boukman and Jeannot, both were killed near the beginning and were replaced by Jean-François and Biassou.3 Toussaint L’Ouverture joined the army lead by Biassou. The slaves used guerilla warfare tactics; they never attacked the whites openly, unless their numbers overwhelmed the colony’s militia.4 Stoddard also describes an uprising Grace Coolidge, Ph.D. David Eick, Ph.D. that began in the West Province of the Faculty Mentor Faculty Mentor island by the free mulattoes. In other 1 T. Lothrop Stoddard, The French Revolution in San Domingo (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2003, reprint), 128. 2 Stoddard, 134. 3 Stoddard, 137. 4 Stoddard, 138. GVSU McNair Scholars Journal VOLUME 10, 2006 89 books, this insurrection was mentioned Another historian, Thomas O. Ott disunity, exploitation of the gens de only in passing. The mulattoes argues that the groundwork for the couleur, maltreatment of the slave, and rose against whites for refusing to revolution lay in the social structure the abolition movements all contributed implement the Decree of May 15. of the island. There were three to the explosive situation. Yet violence This decree was made in response distinct social castes: whites; gens de might never have erupted had it not been to the Decree of March 8, 1790 that couleur, which consisted of mulattoes for the social shock waves of the French stated all property owning men, who and free blacks; and the slaves.8 The Revolution.”14 Second, slaves felt an had paid taxes for two years, and had whites and gens de couleur held slaves. intense hatred toward their slave masters. attained the age of twenty-one had the The gens de couleur were sometimes On one occasion, a planter bought nine ability to vote. The Decree of May 15 harsher to their slaves than the whites slaves and before he could return home, revoked the right to vote to most of were because they felt that they had all had committed suicide. Last, many the second caste, mulattoes and free something to prove.9 slaves had a reverence for Louis XVI and blacks. It allowed only a small number The question that many historians have viewed him as father figure and wanted of the second caste the ability to vote. raised, according to Ott, is why did the to see him reinstated to the throne.15 The cause for alarm among the whites slaves join the Haitian Revolution? The Ironically, the king represented the Old rested with the Rewbell amendment. author gives many plausible explanations Regime, which approved slavery. Many It stated, “…[T]hat the people of color regarding the reasons and causes. revolutionary writers made the charge born of free father and mother shall First, and perhaps the most obvious, is that the Royalists incited the slaves to be admitted to all the future parish the French Revolution. The enslaved revolt in the hope of frightening the and Colonial Assemblies, if in other Africans were inspired by the ideology colonists back to the Old Régime because respects possessed of the required of the French Revolution.10 The slaves among the enslaved Africans the cry of qualifications.”5 Once the Decree of heard about the ideas of equality of all “God and the King” rose throughout the May 15 became a law, the cause of men through the pamphlets the Amis ranks.16 In addition, the Royalist insignia mulattoes was won, at least morally.6 des Noirs group passed out in Saint was assumed by the slaves, and the clergy Stoddard’s writing had obvious racist Domingue as well as the conversations were often spared from the violence.17 leanings. “The negro women made no of their masters regarding France.11 The For all of the useful information that resistance. They lacked the European pamphlets written by Abbé Grégoire had Ott had on the Haitian Revolution, ideal of chastity, and they had strong wide circulation among the mulattoes his analysis focuses primarily on the reasons for welcoming their master’s and eventually filtered down to the slaves and their condition. Although favor.”7 This was a typical sentence found slaves themselves; the basic theme the Haitian Revolution was a successful within Stoddard’s book. It is obvious was emancipation of all slaves in the slave revolt, the gens de couleur and the that he was influenced by the scientific French West Indies.12 According to Ott, whites were important to the revolution. data of his day, which was that there the slaves often construed the idea of In a letter to the People of Verrettes in was a natural hierarchy between the emancipation to fit their own frame March 1795 he wrote, “The French are different races with Anglo-Saxons being of reference, defining freedom from brothers; the English, the Spanish, and the most intelligent and Africans the slavery as meaning freedom from work, the royalists are ferocious beasts…”18 It least. Stoddard’s book was an excellent a problem that continually plagued can be inferred from his argument that source of information on the different key Toussaint Louverture.13 Ott further the Enlightenment philosophy from aspects of the revolution, but only offered states, “By 1789 Saint-Domingue was France affected the slaves. Ott argues the view of the white planters. on the verge of a social upheaval. White that the slaves were mostly deeply 5 Stoddard, 122. 6 Stoddard, 143. 7 Stoddard, 37. 8 Thomas O. Ott, The Haitian Revolution 1789-1804 (Knoxville: The University of Tennessee Press, 1973), 9. 9 Ott, 13. 10 Ott, 40. 11 Ott, 41. 12 Ott, 41. 13 Ott, 41. 14 Ott, 21. 15 Ott, 41-42. 16 Stoddard, 140. 17 Stoddard, 140. 18 Katharine J. Lualdi, Sources of The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures Volume II: Since 1560 (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2001), 59. 90 The Enlightenment and Its Effects on the Haitian Revolution of 1789-1804 influenced by the French Revolution. because France was in debt due to the viewed France as his mother country. He does not, however, discuss how the large-scale war that they had lost against He would remain loyal to France slaves and the gens de couleur heard of their former slaves.21 Many people in as long as France remained loyal to the ideas. Many of the slaves, including the United States feared that another blacks. After the British were defeated, Toussaint L’Ouverture, approved of the Haiti was going to happen because of Toussaint took control of the island. Republican government, which existed the influx of mulattoes and enslaved The French representative was a puppet because of the Enlightenment ideas from Africans from Saint Domingue. In South for him and did not question him. the philosophes. Carolina, during the revolution in Haiti, L’Ouverture, however, always kept An important article, The International the state forbade free Blacks from the the governor informed of what he Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution by West Indies and Africa to enter the state was doing.
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