Haiti: The back story

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW

Ken Fuller

02/09/2010

It had been this outsider’s intention this week to write about the widely-expressed concern regarding the USA’s current intentions in Haiti, which bear all the signs of military occupation. And I did, but then I thought that readers might be interested to learn something of the history of this small Caribbean nation. Contemporary events will, therefore, be discussed next week.

According to Trinidadian historian Eric Williams in his history of the Caribbean, From Columbus to Castro (Andre Deutsch, 1970), in the years between 1783, when the USA gained its independence from Britain, and 1789, the year of the French Revolution, Haiti — or Saint-Domingue as it was then called — “supplied half of Europe with tropical produce. Its exports were one-third more than those of all the British West Indies combined; its commerce employed 1,000 ships and 15,000 French sailors. Saint-Domingue was the world’s premier sugar producer, the gem of the Caribbean.”

But this prosperity for the few rested upon the enslavement of the many. Saint-Domingue imported 40,000 African slaves a year and the mortality rate, says Williams, was “frightful.” In 1789, the population consisted of 40,000 whites, who were divided into three social classes, (rich planters, French colonial officials, and poor whites), 28,000 mulattoes and free blacks, and 452,000 slaves.

In that year the French Revolution, which curtailed the power of royalty and abolished feudalism, sent shock-waves around the world. While there was agitation for greater freedom in Saint-Domingue, however, this merely resulted in votes for those whites able to satisfy a property-qualification. Two years later, when France proposed that mulattoes born of free parents be granted social and political rights, this was rejected by the planters.

The disgruntled mulattoes thereupon called the slaves into revolt. “Everywhere,” Williams writes, “mulattoes and slaves were victorious,” as a result of which mulattoes were granted equality with whites. But, having learned that the French National Assembly had reversed its earlier position and was now leaving the matter to the colonial assemblies, the whites refused to honor their agreement.

When, a few months later, the National Assembly relented and granted equality to mulattoes and free blacks, the planters simply decided — “Patriotism was all very well in its way,” mocks Williams, “but patriotism and slavery were very much better” — to sever their ties with their mother country and transfer their allegiance to Britain. Perfidious Albion went along with this proposition to the extent that it promised to “extend the protection of His Majesty’s Government” to the French West Indies if and when war broke out between the two major powers, at which time it would ensure that mulattoes and slaves were denied equality. And, of course, war did break out.

But the slaves, now led by the slave coachman Toussaint Louverture, were still at war with the planters, and when in 1794 the French Revolution, having shifted to the left, abolished slavery throughout the French colonies, the game was up for the planters. British troops attempting to conquer Saint-Domingue were defeated by the slaves and mulattoes.

In 1801, Toussaint oversaw the drafting of a constitution for the liberated island which gave the impression that he was intent on self-government, with a Central Assembly passing laws with no reference to France. Such was the power of colonial consciousness, however, that Toussaint was “passionately devoted” to France, and trusted the colonial power. Thus he submitted the constitution to Napoleon Bonaparte for ratification.

Bonaparte, who had seized power in a coup, was, however, obviously of the view that the revolutionary principles of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” did not extend to Saint-Domingue. The constitution, he said, “whilst including many good things, contains some which are contrary to the dignity and sovereignty of the French people, of which Saint-Domingue is only a part.”

Far from being cowed, Toussaint replied that he could see nothing wrong with Saint-Domingue “showing a tendency to independence. Why should this not be so? The United States of America did exactly that; and, with the assistance of monarchical France, succeeded.”

Responding to Bonaparte’s attempt to bribe him, Tousssaint responded: “You ask if I desire consideration, honours, riches. Certainly; but not from you. I put my consideration in the respect of my fellow-citizens, my honours in their love, my fortune in their disinterested fidelity. This paltry idea of personal advantage which you hold out to me, does it not give rise to the hope you entertain that I might be induced to betray the cause I have embraced? ...The power which I hold has been as legitimately acquired as your own, and nothing but the expressed wish of the people of San Domingo will force me to give it up.”

With such fighting talk, Toussaint gave Bonaparte the finger. The latter sent a large expedition, led by his brother-in-law, to topple Toussaint and restore slavery. Although the proud but too-trusting Tousssaint was betrayed and taken prisoner (he died in a prison in the French Alps in 1803), the slaves led by his successors Dessalines and Christophe combined with yellow fever to defeat the French just as they had defeated the British, and in November 1803 the French army surrendered.

On Jan. 1, 1804 Dessalines declared independence and restored the country’s ancient “Indian” name — Haiti.

As we will see next week, however, this promising beginning did not lead to a prosperous future.

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