SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... Inventing the Creole Citizen: Race, Sexuality and the Colonial Order in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue A Dissertation Presented by Yvonne Eileen Fabella to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Stony Brook University December 2008 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Yvonne Eileen Fabella We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Herman Lebovics – Dissertation Co-Advisor Professor, Department of History Kathleen Wilson – Dissertation Co-Advisor Professor, Department of History Jennifer Anderson – Chairperson of Defense Assistant Professor, Department of History Aisha Khan Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology New York University This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Lawrence Martin Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation Inventing the Creole Citizen: Race, Sexuality and the Colonial Order in Pre-Revolutionary Saint Domingue by Yvonne Eileen Fabella Doctor of Philosophy in History Stony Brook University 2008 Inventing the Creole Citizen examines the battle over racial hierarchy in Saint Domingue (colonial Haiti) prior to the French and Haitian Revolutions. It argues that cultural definitions of citizenship were central to that struggle. White elite colonists, when faced with the social mobility of “free people of color,” deployed purportedly egalitarian French enlightenment tropes of meritocracy, reason, natural law, and civic virtue to create an image of the colonial “citizen” that was bounded by race. The purpose of the “creole citizen” figure was twofold: to defend white privilege within the colony, and to justify greater local legislative power to French officials. Meanwhile, Saint Domingue’s diverse populations of free and enslaved people of color, as well as non-elite whites, articulated their own definitions of race and citizenship, often exposing the fluidity of those categories in daily life. Throughout the dissertation I argue that colonial residents understood race and citizenship in gendered ways, drawing on popular French critiques of aristocratic gender disorder to contest the civic virtue of other racial groups. iii To put these competing voices in conversation with one another, the dissertation is structured around a series of practices through which colonial residents fought over the racial order. Those practices include participation in local print culture, the consumption and display of luxury goods, interracial marriage and sex, and the administration of corporal punishments. French legal structures and cultural traditions were imported directly to the colony, strongly influencing each of these practices. However, I examine how these practices changed—or were perceived to change—in the colonial setting, and how colonial residents used them to negotiate local power relations. iv Table of Contents List of Figures viii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 Chapter One 19 Free People of Color and the “Stain” of Slavery Manumission and Early Administrative Opposition to the Free 21 People of Color The Social Mobility of the Gens de Couleur of Saint Domingue 27 The Gens de Couleur and the Threat of Slave Resistance 33 Legislating Hierarchy and Enforcing Respect 36 The 1780’s: Rethinking the Role of the Gens de Couleur 39 Holding Fast to White Privilege: Local Resistance 47 Chapter Two 60 Inventing the Creole Citizen The Political Context: Moreau and the Desire for Legal Autonomy 65 Climate Theory and Creole Degeneration 69 Taste, Immorality and the Creolization of Culture 79 Defining the Creole Citizen 85 Chapter Three 103 Creolizing the Enlightenment: Print Culture and the Limits of Colonial Citizenship A Tropical Public Sphere 106 Colonial Print Culture 112 v The French Affiches 119 The Affiches Américaines and the Imagined Community of Colonial 122 Citizens Printing the Racial Order 131 Contesting the Racial Order 137 Chapter Four 141 “Rule the Universe With the Power of Your Charms”: Marriage, Sexuality and the Creation of Creole Citizens Official Encouragement of Marriage in the Early Colonial Period 143 Marital Law and Mésalliance in France and Saint Domingue 147 Colonial Mésalliance 157 Concubinage and Miscegenation 163 Regulating Interracial Marriage and Miscegenation 172 Affectionate Colonial Marriage, Populationism and Colonial Citizenship 180 Gens de Couleur, Affectionate Marriage, and Familial Virtue 200 Chapter Five 208 Legislating Fashion and Negotiating Creole Taste: Discourses and Practices of Luxury Consumption Fashion and Luxury Consumption in Old Regime France 210 Colonial Luxury Consumption and Its Critics 219 Coding Colonial Luxury Consumption 228 I. Creole Slave Consumption: Colonial Meritocracy and 229 Enslaved Savagery II. The Gens de Couleur and Luxury Consumption: Emasculation 235 and Sexual Immorality III. White Creole Fashion: Transparency and Civic Virtue 245 vi Colonial Women, Fashion and Resistance 250 Chapter Six 264 Spectacles of Violence: Race, Class and Punishment in the Old Regime and the New World Old Regime Punishments in the New World 266 White Elite Violence, Respectability, and Gendered Colonial Reform 275 Punishing the Insolence of Gens de Couleur 286 The Insolent Mulâtresse 293 Conclusion 300 Bibliography 307 vii List of Figures Figure 1 “Affranchis des Colonies” 238 Figure 2 “Costumes des Affranchies et des Esclaves des Colonies” 239 viii Acknowledgements Researching and writing a history dissertation can be a lonely, austere endeavor. I am fortunate to have had the generous support of funding agencies, other scholars, friends and family along the way. Their support made this dissertation possible, and it often made the process enjoyable. I would like to offer my thanks to them here. The Evan Frankel Foundation funded my first year of Ph.D. work with a generous fellowship, and the Stony Brook Department of History and Department of Africana Studies supported me with teaching assistantships for the next two years. The University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies funded a fruitful trip to use the Smathers Library’s rich collection of Caribbean sources early in my dissertation research; I thank librarian Richard Phillips for his enthusiastic research assistance. A fellowship from the Camargo Foundation made me the envy of graduate student friends as well as faculty, providing housing for a semester in a spectacular seaside writers’ colony within commuting distance of the French Colonial archives. The McNeil Center for Early American Studies brought me to Philadelphia and provided a lavish office as well as a collegial atmosphere in which I wrote and revised the bulk of this dissertation. I thank Dan Richter for his tireless (and successful) efforts to build a lively community of scholars of early America and the Atlantic world. My research also benefited a great deal from a fellowship from the Library Company of Philadelphia; thanks to Jim Green for overseeing the fellows and Phil Lapsansky for sharing his expertise with the LCP Africana collection. At Stony Brook I had the good fortune to work with a first-rate faculty. Gene Lebovics taught me much about French imperialism, national identity, and cultural history, and his encouragement and guidance have steered me out of numerous research dead-ends. Kathleen Wilson’s passion for eighteenth-century history was contagious, and her sharp observations about gender and imperialism consistently sparked my own research questions. She has shaped this project by example and through her straightforward, insightful criticisms. Aisha Khan believed in this project from the beginning, and her unflagging support helped quash my own doubts. Over the years, she has patiently helped me articulate my arguments while keeping me focused on the big picture. Jenny Anderson graciously stepped in late in the process and made extremely helpful comments at the defense. Ashli White’s contributions have been invaluable due to her extensive knowledge of Atlantic world history and keen historical insights. Brooke Larson helped shaped the dissertation prospectus, but more importantly she first taught me the political stakes of history writing. Scholars outside of Stony Brook have been generous with their time and resources. David Geggus and Michel Giraud provided valuable criticisms on the dissertation prospectus, and Dominique Rogers offered comments on portions of the dissertation. Marie-Jeanne Rossignol and Marcel Dorigny invited me to present my research in Paris before the Association pour l’Etude de la Colonisation Européene, an experience that helped me fine-tune my arguments as I finished writing. Victor Wexler, Rebecca Boehling and Reid Mitchell oversaw my master’s thesis at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County and encouraged me to pursue my interest in French colonial history in a Ph.D. program. Stony Brook graduate students have been faithful writing partners as well as friends. Sarah Hoglund, Steve Patnode, Brenda Elsey, Alex Tolin Schultz, and Billy Wharton all commented on chapters for me; the Dissertation Reading group of Amanda Bruce, Ann Becker, Dianne Creagh and Ed O’Connell workshopped