"The defeat of the Spanish, British, and French armies of occupation is especially remarkable in view of the persistent division between blacks and mulattoes, which continued to dominate the history of independent Haiti. The distinction of color partially overlapped the distinction between the 'anciens libres,' those who owed their freedom to prerevolutionary acts of manumission, and the 'nouveau libres,' the recently emancipated slaves. Color and the timing of freedom both symbolized the degree by which a person was removed from the degradation and humiliation of bondage. The 'anciens libres' included large landholders who had themselves owned slaves. Their interests and outlook were often at odds with those of the black military elite associated with Toussaint Louverture. Toussaint did not win mastery of Saint-Dominque until he had crushed mulatto resistance and defeated the mulatto general, Andre Rigaud.
"On the other hand, Toussaint himself was an 'ancien libre' who had owned land and slaves and had become reasonably affluent. His ex-slave lieutenants, Henri Christophe and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, made fortunes from Toussaint's reinstitution of the plantation system. Black and mulatto leaders shared a common interest in encouraging exports that could pay for the arms and supplies, mainly imported from the United States, needed for the island's defense. Their experiences with white oppression already gave them the sense of sharing a common African heritage. Although Toussaint was willing to acknowledge nominal French sovereignty, and even tried to induce refugee white planters to return to Saint-Dominique, he and his black and mulatto followers were determined to prevent either the restoration of slavery or the color line. Toussaint's constitution of 1801 abolished slavery forever, prohibited distinctions according to color, and affirmed equal protection of the law--measures that were appended to the U.S. Constitution in compromised form only after the Civil War.
"General Charles LeClerc, whom Napoleon dispatched with some ten thousand troops to subjugate Saint-Dominique as soon as Europe was at peace, knew he would have to pledge support for those high principles. Yet, Napoleon had secretly resolved to restore colonial slavery, the African slave trade, and white supremacy. LeClerc hoped to deceive and divide the blacks and mulattoes while wooing their leaders, pacifying the countryside, and reestablishing French sovereignty. LeClerc was wholly unprepared for the skillful and heroic resistance he encountered. But after incredibly bloody warfare, the French succeeded in enlisting the services of Christophe and Dessalines, and in seizing Toussaint by a ruse after first negotiating a surrender. But LeClerc's army, though reinforced by more than thirty thousand men, could not subdue the black guerrillas in the hills."
P.74-75, THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY IN THE AGE OF EMANCIPATION, by David Brion Davis (Knopf:2014)
Sunday, May 4, 2014
THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY IN THE AGE OF EMANCIPATION
"The defeat of the Spanish, British, and French armies of occupation is especially remarkable in view of the persistent division between blacks and mulattoes, which continued to dominate the history of independent Haiti. The distinction of color partially overlapped the distinction between the 'anciens libres,' those who owed their freedom to prerevolutionary acts of manumission, and the 'nouveau libres,' the recently emancipated slaves. Color and the timing of freedom both symbolized the degree by which a person was removed from the degradation and humiliation of bondage. The 'anciens libres' included large landholders who had themselves owned slaves. Their interests and outlook were often at odds with those of the black military elite associated with Toussaint Louverture. Toussaint did not win mastery of Saint-Dominque until he had crushed mulatto resistance and defeated the mulatto general, Andre Rigaud.
"On the other hand, Toussaint himself was an 'ancien libre' who had owned land and slaves and had become reasonably affluent. His ex-slave lieutenants, Henri Christophe and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, made fortunes from Toussaint's reinstitution of the plantation system. Black and mulatto leaders shared a common interest in encouraging exports that could pay for the arms and supplies, mainly imported from the United States, needed for the island's defense. Their experiences with white oppression already gave them the sense of sharing a common African heritage. Although Toussaint was willing to acknowledge nominal French sovereignty, and even tried to induce refugee white planters to return to Saint-Dominique, he and his black and mulatto followers were determined to prevent either the restoration of slavery or the color line. Toussaint's constitution of 1801 abolished slavery forever, prohibited distinctions according to color, and affirmed equal protection of the law--measures that were appended to the U.S. Constitution in compromised form only after the Civil War.
"General Charles LeClerc, whom Napoleon dispatched with some ten thousand troops to subjugate Saint-Dominique as soon as Europe was at peace, knew he would have to pledge support for those high principles. Yet, Napoleon had secretly resolved to restore colonial slavery, the African slave trade, and white supremacy. LeClerc hoped to deceive and divide the blacks and mulattoes while wooing their leaders, pacifying the countryside, and reestablishing French sovereignty. LeClerc was wholly unprepared for the skillful and heroic resistance he encountered. But after incredibly bloody warfare, the French succeeded in enlisting the services of Christophe and Dessalines, and in seizing Toussaint by a ruse after first negotiating a surrender. But LeClerc's army, though reinforced by more than thirty thousand men, could not subdue the black guerrillas in the hills."
P.74-75, THE PROBLEM OF SLAVERY IN THE AGE OF EMANCIPATION, by David Brion Davis (Knopf:2014)
