Abstract
The Haitian Revolution is one of the most popular yet untaught revolution in our history classes in schools. This Revolution was a model for others to be inspired and follow in the footsteps of the Haitians. What makes this Revolution so great was that it was the first success of black reclaiming their right to a life of their own. Also, it shows that determination of wanting something better than being a property or commodity of another that does not respect you as an human being. It is important to know the struggles of our ancestors and how the overcame their situation despite the odds against them.
Introduction
Haiti’s did not receive any interference from other colonizers until Christopher Columbus landed and laid claim on Haiti in 1492. As we are told in our history classes, Christopher Columbus was the first to discover Haiti. However, the Tainos, which were an Arawak indigenous population, inhabited Haiti way before Columbus landed. Haiti which was previously Saint-Domingue after the French took over in the late 16th century. During this time sugar and coffee were the main and popular industry. This made Saint Domingue the richest producers in all the world. As rich as Haiti became like many other countries it fell victim to the condition of slavery. Even with slavery in Haiti and the growing population of Mulattos, Haiti became the first country to be declared a black republic. This paper will examine and entail detailed information on Haiti’s colonization, enslavement, and liberation/ liberatory process from the French.
Colonizers
Before getting into the rest of the topics that will further explain what led to the Haiti Revolution, we must first talk about the colonizers that played a role in Haitian history. After the time when Columbus was proclaimed to have discovered and uncharted land, he founded a Spanish settlement. Around the same time British and French were setting up colonies. The first settlement that the French founded was on Tortuga. Tortuga was a prosperous place because it was “healthy with and in the forest of western San Domingue roamed millions of wild cattle which could be hunted for food and hinds” (4, James 1989). However, as times were getting dire and the need too gain more land became evident the French, British and Spaniards started to kill each other to gain the others land. Each colony would try to sabotage the other businesses in hopes of driving the other out. They continued these actions until 1695 where the France and Spain created the Treaty of Ryswick and it entails the French had legal right to the western part of the island (James 1989). Due to this treaty, it shows how France got a hold of Haiti and became the sole colonizer.
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Industry / Enslavement
In Haiti during the time in the 1700s when it was once called Saint Domingue there was several plantations like cotton and cacao which is used to make chocolate. However, the main industries that thrived and made Haiti the richest country in the world was sugar and the introduction of coffee. Although sugar and coffee became the popular industry, cultivating the crops became a tedious. The sugar plantations “demanded an exacting and ceaseless labor” (James 1989) that the French could not handle. So, like the rest of the world they pushed to import Africans began to rise. Once they received and bought the slaves they are forced to labor the fields.
Consequently, this was only the beginning of the slave’s nightmare. On top of being forced to do back breaking labor, they were treated badly. However, due to this policy it gave slaveholders and/or owners authority to punish slaves through force. The slaves were punished in the cruelest way any person can image. In Haiti it went beyond being beaten with whips and branded like cattle. In some cases, punishment included them receiving irons on their hands and feet, having hot wood placed on the buttocks, have condiments like salt and pepper and cinder, citron, aloes and hot ashes be placed on the open wounds of the slaves (James 1989).
Furthermore, slaves also faced tortures like lynching, which is the most inhumane way to die. The most common punishment is mutilations. When a slave is mutilated slave holders most commonly go after limbs, ears and in some occasions the private parts (James 1989). The reason for slaves’ holders to conduct such brutal act can be of two reason to humiliate them and break their spirits and to make examples of them for others to show the punishment for disobedience. This is not even half of the slaves experienced.
Along with the brutal punishment, slave life was not easy. For example, slaves worked like animals in which they received short breaks during times of great harvest. Most times working in scorching weathers that doing hard labor may prove to be challenging. Nevertheless, slaves were given two hours in the middle of the day, on holidays and feast days, but these days the slave still do not get rest because during this time they are cultivating their own piece of land to gain food to eat (James 1989). Living conditions for the slaves where not as good either. While the slave masters lived in comfort where they had beds, windows, and other essential for a home, the slaves had to make do with the living conditions they were forced in. The houses were considered huts where slaves had to lived using straws as bed and had no windows (James 1989). Slaves had it rough. I was impossible to even escape the fate that they were dealt with. From the brutality of the punishment to the living conditions, slaves in Haiti had to go through the treatment of being considered property or less than human.
Even women suffered under the bad conditions of the slaves. As some would think that women who were pregnant should not be doing any work, not the black slave women of Saint Domingue. Although their workload was less taxing, the are still working regardless if they are pregnant or not (Boisvert 2001). Women were also in fear, or raped. To the male slave master’s slaves especially the women were considered property to use as they please (Boisvert 2001). However far is too far? For slaves the constant brutal treatment and the lack of accountability on the end of the white slave master was enough for the slaves to start thinking of way to take revenge and little did they know that the little acts of revenge will lead to a bigger fight that resulted in Slaves winning.
Liberation
Today the Haitian Revolution has become a hallmark of a revolution due to the success of outcome. What makes the Haitian revolution stand out more than any other Revolution in history is the fact that instead of the colonists claiming the islands the slaves were able to claim Haiti making it the first black republic. During 1791 to 1804 slaves and key players like Macandal, Boukman, Dessalines, and Toussaint L’ Ouverture have pushed for the reclaiming of Haiti.
Resistance to the slavery started as early as on the slave ships. Slaves would rather have died then to be taken away by force. Some would jump overboard just to get away. Other even started to starve themselves. In one case a nameless girl on a slave ship was so affected about the situation she was in, that she refused everything that was given to her (Boisvert 2001). This was only the beginning. Women played an important role in the resistance to the colonizers. Since slaves worked for long hours at a time with hardly any break, it had impacted the workers in terms of their strength to complete. A most commonly used tactic in a situation like this would be refusal to work. In Saint Domingue slaves were to put 18 hours a day in to mills and the job of slave women were to feed the mill, but because people often get caught and died in the mill, two slave women took a stand and refused to work and even one of the women threatened the “conducteur” (Boisvert 2001).
Another popular form of resistance is Marronage. Marronage during this time is the act of slaves running away from plantations. They ran away for several reason that include, fear of being punished, brutality of the slave holder, and being tired of the constant no stop working doing taxing jobs. More than not men are the ones who commonly run away because for women it was difficult especially if they were pregnant or children are involved, but with this marronage was a crucial step in the unification of slaves and opened different forms of resistance (Boisvert 2001)
Slaves living in a society of imbalance where their labor is being monopolized could not have lasted long even with the little resistance of those previously still nothing is being done about the climate that is happening. The slaves were resisting trying to stall for an event where they can terminate slavery and social justice for good. This event was the French Revolution. In 1789 A year before the Haitian revolution, France was having a social and economically issues between them and the colonies they created. Due to this event it motivates mulattos and slaves to push to carry out their agenda in terms of renewing (William 1984). Mulattos, those born as European Americans, were living well off than slaves, however they we still subjected because they are deemed black. Along with the resisting, several battles like the one Dessalines led to bring about the first black republic changed the course of Haiti for the better.
Conclusion
Looking at the Haitian Revolution, I learned more about the treatment of the slaves as it involves punishment. It was placed that blacks were viewed as monsters and bad people, but I cannot find a single person who can think of such tortures as those in Haiti had to go through. As I did research on the liberation process, I did not realize the impact in which woman had to the early forms of liberation which was the resistance protest and how from that it grew into some thing big like a revolution. As I state before that Toussaint L’ Ouverture is one of several key figures in the revolution but he was only a minor figure. This is because Toussaint was basically pushed into the history books as a key figure but really Dessalines and others were the true heroes of Haiti.
References
- Boisvert, J. (2001). Colonial Hell and Female Slave Resistance in Saint-Domingue. Journal of Haitian Studies, 7(1), 61-76. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.mec.ezproxy.cuny.edu/stable/41715082
- James, C. L. R. (1989). The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo
- Revolution. New York: Vintage Books.
- Williams, Eric (1984). From Columbus to Castro : the history of the Caribbean, 1492-1969 (1st
- Vintage Books ed). Vintage Books, New York
