Haitian revolution independence

Haitian Revolution / Independence Annotated Bibliography
Bhambra, G. K. (2016). Undoing the epistemic disavowal of the Haitian revolution: a contribution to global social thought. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37(1), 1-16.
Bhambra (2016) looks at global historical interconnections with relation to the Haitian Revolution and asks what can be learned from this important historical event. The purpose of the article is to identify problems in sociological thought and how by ignoring the Haitian Revolution sociology studies tend to marginalize the black experience. The author refers to this marginalization as a cognitive injustice and that a decentralization of European self-understanding is needed to see the significance of the Haitian Revolution. The author calls for a connected sociologies approach and argues that in this way the revolution can be better seen in its appropriate context. The article is helpful for indicating how sameness of perspective over time can limit one’s understanding of different cultures.
Garrigus, J. D. (1996). Colour, class and identity on the eve of the Haitian revolution: Saint?Domingue's free coloured elite as colons américains. Slavery and Abolition, 17(1), 20-43.
The article by Garrigus (1996) focuses on the role that color, class and identity all played in the Haitian revolution. The author looks especially at how creole and French labels were used to ingrain racist mentalities and behaviors in the Haitian society, which contributed in part to the popular uprising. The article is helpful for explaining the demographics of Haiti in the decades leading up to the revolution; it shows who the people were in the various neighborhoods, what was being sold, who was where, and what the beliefs of the people were. It is not just race and labels but also the politics of class that entered into the environment. What Garrigus (1996) does is interesting because he goes family by family and really puts a human face on what was happening in Haiti, who the landowners were in specific neighborhoods, what their plantations consisted of, and how prosperous they were. The point of the article is to show that mixed-race families in certain neighborhoods did have the same rights and socio-economic strategies as white families—but it was not universal throughout all Haiti. The landed rural class did come under the threat of growing racial disparities and discrimination; new laws focused on keeping white families from mixed-race families; the French race was something legislators wanted to preserve insofar as was possible. The article is useful in explaining some of the background in the years leading up to revolution, in terms of race, class and identity.
Garrigus, J. D. (2007). Opportunist or patriot? Julien Raimond (1744–1801) and the Haitian revolution. Slavery and Abolition, 28(1), 1-21.
Garrigus (2007) looks at the story of the indigo farm Julien Raimond and his role in the Haitian Revolution. The purpose of the article is to more clearly define Raimond’s authenticity in his fight for racial reform. Raimond is often remembered as a hypocritical free-colored lawyer who believed Haitians owed a debt to revolutionary France. Garrigus (2007) argues that there is more to the man than his reputation over the centuries has allowed. The article is helpful for painting a colorful picture of an individual whose role in the Haitian revolution has to this point not be well reviewed.
Joseph, C. L. (2012). ‘The Haitian Turn’: an appraisal of recent literary and historiographical works on the Haitian Revolution. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 5(6), 37-55.
Joseph (2012) argues that the Haitian Revolution is one of the most important world events in history and should be studied more closely. Haiti’s independence was declared in 1804 and it marked a new moment in how the world thought about freedom and human rights as well as social justice and equality. It marked a post-colonial turning that should be better reflected in modern scholarship. The author points out that there has been a “Haitian Turn” in terms of how scholars address the Haitian Revolution. It is this “Haitian Turn” that the author wants to emphasize and it is this emphasis that makes the article helpful in understanding the revolution’s place in world history as well as what it can contribute to modern thought.
Knight, F. W. (2000). The Haitian Revolution. The American Historical Review, 105(1), 103-115.
In Knight’s (2000) article, it is shown that the Haitian Revolution was different from the revolution in America of 1776 in that in Haiti the revolution was not merely political as it was in the US but rather was also social and economical. The revolution in Haiti was motivated by an inherent push and desire for equality of rights, and it was unique among the other revolutionary states of the times because it went from being a slave-state to abolishing slavery completely and staying slave-free. This unique outcome is what really separates Haiti from other revolutions, socially, politically and economically. The overthrow of the French government by the slaves was not easily won, and others made an attempt to assist the French, including the British; yet disease and circumstances allowed former slaves to establish a government that was more socially aware of the humanity of the oppressed than was the case in the US, when the Founding Fathers pushed for political rather than actual social or economic revolution. The article is helpful for situating Haitian independence within the wider historical context of other revolutions and for highlighting what sets it apart from other states wherein the oppressed population rose up to assert its right to self-government. Other states were less successful at defending themselves over time and were less successful at abolishing slavery and the slave trade. Yet the leaders of the Haitian Revolution were organized and consistent, and they were thus able to establish an original administrative model that had no forerunner. Indeed, the Haitian Revolution served as an example for later revolutions because of its uniqueness, particular with respect to African uprisings against colonial empires.
Lacerte, R. K. (1978). The Evolution of Land and labor in the Haitian Revolution, 1791-1820. The Americas, 449-459.
Lacerte (1978) makes the argument that the Haitian Revolution transformed the most prosperous plantation economy in the world “into a republic of peasant proprietors” by 1820 (p. 449). At the height of Haiti’s prosper, there 8000 leases upon plantations from the French royal governors. The population was roughly 10 to 1 slaves to freed men and whites. When the slaves freed themselves, the problem of how to maintain production became apparent: the solution implemented was to tie labor to the plantations with annual contracts; and in return for contracted labor, the laborers were to receive a portion of the produce. The freedom of the freed slaves was more or less recognized as a “freedom to work,” as Lacerte (1978) puts it (p. 450). These contracts were not really what the freed people had in mind, and the trouble was pointed out by some as an economic absurdity. The freed people wanted their own land—not land that was worked for an owner; how was such any different from slavery after all? Freedom was to be associated with land ownership. That was the bottom line. The Constitution of 1801 sought to reintroduce what was in essence slavery; workers were to be tied to the plantation, and owners were to be viewed as fathers to the workers. The freed slaves rebelled, but the rebellion was put down. Economically, the policy worked, as the plantations continued to be prosperous, but prospering came at the expense of what was once again forced labor (Lacerte, 1978). A larger revolt occurred in 1802 and this time the revolt was not crushed. Haiti became independent in 1804. With independence came hardship, however; sugar exports cratered, though coffee exports remained consistent—the reason being the white had managed the sugar trade since the beginning of the revolution a decade ago. However, bitterness among the people, classes and colors soon arose as well, and Haiti became a quagmire of internal strife. The demands of the freed slaves would not be satisfied for at least another generation, i.e., mid-19th century (Lacerte, 1978).
Reinhardt, T. (2005). 200 Years of forgetting: Hushing up the Haitian revolution. Journal of Black Studies, 35(4), 246-261.
The article by Reinhardt (2005) looks at the revolution in Haiti and discusses why it is not better known or understood in the West. The author argues that the very fact that the revolution started in Saint Dominique, where Christopher Columbus established the first European settlement in the New World serves as part of the reason the West has chosen to neglect the Haitian Revolution as an important historical event. The fact that the revolution was set in motion by slaves who assumed control of the government and kept control is another reason, argues Reinhardt (2005). There is one exception to this point, Reinhart (2005) explains: in the US, the memory of the Haitian Revolution has been kept alive by the black community—but that is all, and for that same reason, Reinhardt (2005) argues, it has continued to be ignored by the rest of Western society. In fact, the author points out that the US did not even recognize the independent Haiti until the Civil War. And up to then it sought to prevent the spread of news about the revolution. The author argues that it is because the Haitian Revolution was a Black Revolution that the US failed to embrace it, even the US had had its own revolution just a few years before the Haitian revolution. The Founding Fathers and the generations that followed, however, could not comprehend the revolution in Haiti because it was a Black Revolution, and to them such a revolution was simply incomprehensible. The West was “equipped with a whole ontology based on the nation that Blacks are inferior to Whites, unable to take care of themselves, naturally designed for slavery, the bottom rung of the ladder of human evolution” (Reinhardt, 2005, p. 250). The author highlights the example of historical treatment of Toussaint Louverture to make his point: although he was a black leader of the Revolution, he is treated historically in the West almost as a European, as being like a European, and as only incidentally being black. This kind of characterization, the author argues, is why the Haitian Revolution has disappeared from the Western consciousness.
Scott, R. J. (2011). Paper thin: Freedom and re-enslavement in the diaspora of the Haitian Revolution. Law and History Review, 29(4), 1061-1087.
As Scott (2011) notes in her article, however, those who had been freed by the Haitian Revolution labored under conditions of duress because it was the ambition of the new Haitian government to maintain maximum production of the coffee, cotton, sugar and other plantations. Scott (2011) also questions how individuals who had been supposedly freed from slavery after the Haitian Revolution could be documented as slaves upon reaching the port of New Orleans in 1809, which is what happened to 3000 persons that year. At best, Scott (2011) argues, these individuals should have been in the process of asserting their own property rights. Therefore, how was it that they came into the US as slaves? Scott (2011) suggests that it had something to do with the move from Saint-Dominique to Santiago. Santiago in Cuba was controlled by Spain and Spain was not sympathetic to the revolution and saw abolition as dangerous. The free 3000 who landed in Spain-controlled Santiago were thus very likely rebranded as slaves and that rebranding stayed with them as they set sail once more, this time for America. Landing in New Orleans these individuals thus found themselves without the freedom they had held when they left the war-torn region of Saint-Dominique, where Napoleon’s forces sought to re-establish French control of the colony. The history of this loss of personal sovereignty serves as a reflection of the complicated relationship among states and ideologies at the time, and shows that even freedom, once procured, was not a lasting guarantee or even a necessary stepping stone to an improvement in quality of life. The article by Scott (2011) is helpful in reminding the reader of that fact and for giving more details on the nature of the relationship between France, Spain and the US in the wake of the Haitian Revolution.
References
Bhambra, G. K. (2016). Undoing the epistemic disavowal of the Haitian revolution: a contribution to global social thought. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 37(1), 1-16.
Garrigus, J. D. (1996). Colour, class and identity on the eve of the Haitian revolution: Saint?Domingue's free coloured elite as colons américains. Slavery and Abolition, 17(1), 20-43.
Garrigus, J. D. (2007). Opportunist or patriot? Julien Raimond (1744–1801) and the Haitian revolution. Slavery and Abolition, 28(1), 1-21.
Joseph, C. L. (2012). ‘The Haitian Turn’: an appraisal of recent literary and historiographical works on the Haitian Revolution. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 5(6), 37-55.
Knight, F. W. (2000). The Haitian Revolution. The American Historical Review, 105(1), 103-115.
Lacerte, R. K. (1978). The Evolution of Land and labor in the Haitian Revolution, 1791-1820. The Americas, 449-459.
Reinhardt, T. (2005). 200 Years of forgetting: Hushing up the Haitian revolution. Journal of Black Studies, 35(4), 246-261.
Scott, R. J. (2011). Paper thin: Freedom and re-enslavement in the diaspora of the Haitian Revolution. Law and History Review, 29(4), 1061-1087.