The Haitian Revolution that took place in the late 1700s often serves as a source of pride for many Haitians today. Through that revolution, Haiti was able to become the “first independent Black republic in the world” (Girard 61). Haiti was a big exporter of sugar and thus deeply entrenched within the clutches of the powerful French empire. The fact that the Haitian slaves were able to rally together, and defeat Napoleon and his French army have oftentimes been viewed as a miraculous feat. While this revolution was a great victory in terms of winning the pride and freedom of the slaves, it ultimately crippled the country due to its deep-rooted identity as a sugar-producing slave colony.
The history leading up to the Haitian Revolution shows how Haiti’s identity was structured around it being a slave colony—a colony fully devoted to using slaves for the benefit of a mother country. Haiti was originally known as Saint-Domingue, the French colony on the island of Hispaniola (Girard 18).
A map of Hispaniola. The western third would go on to be known as the French colony of Saint – Domingue.
The slaves on Haiti were packed into large plantations for the main purposes of growing and exporting goods such as sugar. In fact, Haiti was Europe’s “largest supplier” of sugar (Ross 240). The sugar market’s reliance on Haiti as a producer was so evident that after the Haitian Revolution sugar prices spiked (Ross 240). Haiti was seen as a prized colony because of how much it was needed to supply sugar on a global scale. What further contributed to Haiti’s identity was the fact that a large part of the population within Saint-Domingue were slaves evidenced by the fact that by 1790 the “slave population topped 500,000” (Girard 24). Therefore, Haiti was not only externally identified by the slave-produced sugar, but it was also internally identified by its number of slaves. This identity combined with the seeds of dissent among the slaves by their inhumane treatment ultimately led to a revolt that sought to strip the country of its identity that was over one century in the making.
Leading up to the revolution, slaves and freedmen of color alike had many reasons to be angry with the white colonists. People of color were often “victims of scorn and fear, and often of violent attacks” (Geggus 13). What’s more is that there were external pressures from France.
A copy of the “Black Code”
The picture depicts the “code noir” which translates to “black code.” This was a code for dealing with “Negres dans les Colonies Françoifes” which means “Blacks in the French colonies.” The code was actually an “enlightened piece of legislation for its time” as it sought to pave ways to give respect to the slaves (Girard 25). Unfortunately, the colonists of Haiti did not care about this code and “simply ignored it” (Girard 25). Ultimately, much like in the Americas, blacks were treated as subhuman in Haiti, regardless of whether or not they were slaves. This, combined with Haiti’s large slave population stirred a pot that was ready to explode. By 1791, the revolution was underway and in 1804, impendence within Haiti was announced to the world (Geggus 179).
With the revolution won, Haitian leadership took the next steps to rid themselves of their identity as a slave colony, opting to do so in the most brutal ways possible. Under the rule of Jean Jacques Dessalines, Haitians committed what was close to a genocide as they purged the country of whites in hopes of separating themselves from a history and identity as slaves (Girard 60).
As can be seen in the image, not even women and children were spared. This massacre was obviously not looked upon well by the other countries. The narrative that was painted was that Haiti’s first diplomatic act as an independent black country was to murder all foreigners (Girard 62). This would undoubtedly be the first blow to Haiti’s “economic development” (Girard 62). Haiti would continue to grapple with how it could decouple itself from its history. Many plantations were burned down during the revolution and in its aftermath (Girard 65). Ultimately, many leaders rose up within Haiti which resulted in a fractured and divided country. In fact, after a particular series of civil wars, Haiti was divided between the north and the south where the north was sympathetic to the plantation system while the south did away with it, opting for sustenance farming instead (Girard 66). Sugar plantations continued to take massive hits until sugar exports completely ceased after Haiti was reunited (Girard 67). Haitians chose happiness while being poor over continuing to be big sugar producers (Girard 67). Of course, there are arguments that if Haiti would have stuck to sugar production they would have still gone down a bad path (Girard 68). However, the point in all this is that Haiti was focused on ridding themselves of a dark past and this ultimately proved to be problematic to their economic stability as it hindered them from looking forward to the future.
Today, Haiti is still a proud and loved country, but it has its issues. A lot of poor people in Haiti continue to eat a traditional type of sugar, showing that Haiti hasn’t caught up with increased standards of sugar production (Ross xx). When we look back to the Haitian Revolution we see a great victory for the Haitian people and a momentous occasion in our world’s history. However, in retrospect, we realize that Haiti’s deep ties to an identity of forced labor and sugar production resulted in a brutal reaction that sought to rip all ties to that identity. Instead of looking to see how they could put their country in a position to dominate the future, Haitian leaders felt it necessary to look back at their history, and we can hardly blame them for doing so.
Works Cited
Code Noir. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web.
Geggus, David Patrick. The Haitian Revolution: a Documentary History. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2014.
Girard, Philippe R. Haiti: the Tumultuous History–from Pearl of the Caribbean to Broken Nation. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Haitian Revolution – Blacks murdering white civilians. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web.
Map of Hispaniola. Digital image. N.p., n.d. Web.
Ross, Clark G., and Sidney W. Mintz. “Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History.” Ethnohistory, vol. 34, no. 1, 1987, p. 103., doi:10.2307/482268.
Chocolate Class 