Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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Formanyyears,the islandof Hispaniolaservedas a prototypefor the European conquest of the New World. It also gave home to the world's first
Black Republic. Between 1791 and 1804, an army of former slaves successfully overthrewthe colonial regime. This event, however (despite its
enormous effect on future developmentsin the Westernhemisphere),is
almostforgottenin the Westtoday.This articleexploresthe reasonsfor the
deletion of the HaitianRevolutionfrom the West's historicalmap.
Keywords: Haitian Revolution; ToussaintLouverture;historical discourse; memorypolitics
246
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enormous effect that revolution would have on future developments in the Westernhemisphere.
And enormousindeed it was: It not only resultedin the creation
of the independentstate of Haiti- a nationled by Blacks, the second republicin the Americas,and the first modernstate to abolish
slavery- but without the Haitian Revolution, the United States
today quite likely would be little morethana small stripof land on
the easterncoast of NorthAmerica.Thatis, if therewere a country
called the United States of America at all.3
Prospectsfor the 164states in the Union didn't look too good
duringthe firstyears of the 19thcentury.The Britishhad anything
but given up their plans to reconquertheir former colonies, and
with Napoleonic France, a new powerful enemy had enteredthe
stage.
Napoleon's objectives were as clear as they were ambitious:
Having acquiredthe vast LouisianaTerritoryfrom Spain in 1800,
he aimedat nothingless thanan empirestretchingfrom the Rocky
Mountainsto India,from northernRussia to the Sahara.And with
Europe'smostpowerfularmyathis disposal,who shouldstophim?
Certainlynot the UnitedStates,with their"pathetic3,000-manregular army"(Fleming, 2001, p. 144).
Napoleon decided, however, to let his troops make a small
detourto end a tiresomelittle slaverevoltin one of the Frenchcolonies in the Caribbean, Saint Domingue. Nothing serious. Six
weeks, by his estimate, certainly should be more than enough to
end the insurrection,restore French rule, and move on to North
America (Fleming, 2001, p. 141).
Or so he thought. Two years and almost 60,000 dead French
troops later, a disillusioned Napoleon, fed up with reportsabout
losses and defeats in the colony, abandonedhis plans for a transatlantic France.
The U.S. emissaries Monroe and Livingston, sent to Paris in a
desperateattemptof the Jeffersonadministrationto at least sign an
agreementthat allowed U.S. citizens to navigate the Mississippi
andstoretheirexportgoods in New Orleans,5musthavebeen quite
surprisedwhen they were offeredto buy the whole Louisianaterri-
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Justopen an averagehistorytextbookdealing with the "revolutionaryperiod."Whatareyou likely to find?Pages andpages dedicatedto the Boston TeaPartyandthe stormingof the Bastille. But if
you check the index for Haiti- nothing. Toussaint Louverture,
Jacques Dessalines, Andre Rigaud, or Henri Christophe?Dead
loss. As if therehadneverbeen such a thing as a revolutionin Haiti.
Its leadersburiedin the depthsof historicalinsignificance.Its economic, political, and social effects in the Caribbeanand abroad
hushedup, hiddenundermultiplelayersof silence. The questionof
course is, why is this so?
True,the political situationon the island was extremelycomplicated. But does this really entitle historiographyto say, "Oh,that
Of coursenot. History
topic is just too difficult.Webetterskip it."10
to
be
And
it
is
tends
complicated.
historiography'stask to
always
understandit nevertheless.Or at least to try.
One mightfurtherarguethathistoryis writtenby the winners.If
you lose (and France,England,and Spain definitely lost in Haiti),
you won't make a big fuss over it. Thattoo, however,can't explain
the joint silence of almost all Westernhistoriography.The United
States, without any doubt, had profitedfrom the revolution.Yet,
theynot only activelytriedto preventthe spreadingof news aboutit
by prohibitingall trade with Haiti; they wouldn't even acknowledge the very existence of the independentrepublicuntil well into
the Civil War.11
And what'smore,even if it made some sense for slave ownersto
hushup the revolution,why shouldthe UnitedStatescontinueto do
so, once slaverywas abolished?It would be easy to just blameit on
the malevolenceof racisthistorians.I think,however,thatthereis
moreto it thanjust malice. I believe thattherewere (andare) structuralfeaturesof Westernhistoricaldiscoursethatcan (andmust)be
held responsiblefor it.
To be more precise, I shall argue that the main difference
between the Haitianand the French and Americanrevolutionsis
that the former was utterly incomprehensible for its White
contemporaries.And by incomprehensibleI don't just mean that
they didn'tunderstandits details- what I want to say is that there
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was no way they could possibly have understood it. Not only
becausehistoryis such a mess for those who live it, butbecausethe
very fact of a Black revolutionwas in itself unthinkable(Trouillot,
1995, p. 73) at the time it happenedand for many years to come.
Why is that? Knowledge (be it scientific or philosophical)
doesn't evolve in steady progression.It doesn't follow a straight
path from past to future.It takes detours,makes wrong turns,gets
stuckin deadends, andstartsover again.At anymomentin history,
there are ideas that can be thought and others that simply can't.
Well, of course they can. But they won't make any sense in the
opinion of most contemporaries.To think them, one has to break
with the very foundationsof contemporaryknowledge. An earth
orbitingthe sun?That'snotjust an astronomicalstatement.It shatters fundamentaltruthsof theology andphilosophyas well. If you
happen to live in, say, 16th-centuryEurope, it is definitely not a
thoughtthatyou would come up with easily.
The confines of reasonablethinking are defined by discourse.
One mightcall these discursivelimits worldviews.Otherscall them
paradigmsor commonsense. But whatevernametag we give them,
it is they that determinewhat is right and wrong, true and false,
thinkableand unthinkable.12
They determinewhat is and what is
not, whatcan be andwhatcan't. And for Westernhistoriographyin
the 19thandearly 20th centuries,a revolutionby Blacks definitely
was somethingthatcould not be.
Slaves could run away, alright.They could kill their overseers
(not nice, but it had happenedbefore). They could even gang up
against their mastersand burndown whole plantationsand cities
(very unpleasantbutpossible). But they were certainlynot capable
of organizingthemselves and combating(let alone successfully) a
well-trainedEuropeanarmy.
Yet, they did. Here was the West, equippedwith a whole ontology basedon the notionthatBlacks areinferiorto Whites,unableto
take care of themselves, naturallydesigned for slavery,the bottom
rungof the ladderof humanevolution- andthese Blacks keptwinning battleafterbattle.They defeatedthe French,they defeatedthe
British, they defeated the Spanish. This simply could not be.
Impossible.
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ing against a Black army for about 2 years. One might think that
this shouldhavebeen time enoughto somehowrealizethathis enemies had neither White faces nor were they fighting under the
Union Jack.But havingbeen beatenby Blacks, very obviously,was
not somethingthathe considereda possibility.
Finally and third, the events are judged from an exclusively
Westernvantagepoint. This, too, was a powerfulsilencer.According to Westernstandards,the revolutionhad been a failure.It had
been a failureon the economic level, andit hadbeen a failureon the
politicalandsocial levels. No matterhow muchdamage 13 yearsof
civil warandthe subsequentembargoesby France,Britain,andthe
United States had done to the local economy, the fact is that
althoughFrenchSaint Domingue once was the richest colony the
world had ever seen, the independentstate of Haiti soon was to
become the poorestcountryin the Westernhemisphere.And freedom?Sure,the countrywas now ruledby Black dictators.But does
the absence of a White ruling class alreadyqualify as freedom?
Dealing with the Haitian Revolution, the critical question for
historiographyusually was, Did it improvethe living conditionsof
the people accordingto Westernstandards?And the verdict was
almostunanimous:No, it didn't.Thingschanged,butthey changed
for the worse. This assessmentis certainlytruefor largepartsof the
20th century.The situationwas, however, less clear in the years
immediately following the revolution. The enormous death toll
amongthe slaves, which requiredconstantimportationof Africans
to keep the laborforce at least to some extentstable,droppeddown
to a level thatcould be evened out by births.And comparedto the
living conditions of working class people in Europe,the Haitians
wereprobablyratherbetteroff thanmanyof theirWesterncontemporaries(notto mentionthe slavesin the southernUnitedStates).
The underlying principle of the latter argument makes no
attemptto disguise its teleological nature. It is deeply rooted in
an understandingof history as evolution. Revolution, in this
worldview,is seen as nothingmore thana shortcutof evolution- a
greatleap towarda brightfutureinsteadof many small steps. And
this brightfuture,of course,is one accordingto Westernstandards.
It leaves no space for alternative value systems or lifestyles.
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NOTES
1. The idea is generallyascribedto Schleiermacher,who definedthe goal of hermeneutics as "to understandan authorbetterthanhe understoodhimself."This betterunderstanding, of course,does not referto the objectof the textbutto the text itself, not to the referentof
the text but to the text as referent(Gadamer,1990, p. 195f).
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States" (Senator Thomas Hart Benton, 1825, Register of Debates in Congress, cited in
Montague,1940, p. 53). SenatorRobertY. Hayneof SouthCarolinachimed in: "Ourpolicy
with regardto Hayti is plain. We never can acknowledgeher independence. . . which the
peace and safety of a largeportionof our Union forbidsus to even discuss" (Benton, 1825,
cited in Montague, 1940, pp. 47, 53).
Whenthe U.S. Senatefinally decidedto acknowledgethe existence of its southernneighbor,the seats from which over the past six decades Southernplantershad pronouncedtheir
vetoes were mostly vacant,due to the secession of the confederatestatesprecedingthe civil
war.The Senatepasseda bill recognizingHaition April4, 1862, by a decisive vote of 32 to 7.
The House of Representativesvoted 86 to 37, andthe presidentgave his assenton the 5th of
June {CongressionalGlobe, cited in Montague, 1940, p. 86).
Europeangovernmentswere a little faster.France,England,anda numberof otherstates
formallyacknowledgedHaiti'sindependencein 1825. A final satisfactorysettlement(thatis,
satisfactoryfor France) was eventually reached in 1838, when the Haitian government
agreedto pay reparationsto France,thus de facto buying its independencevery much as a
slave might have boughthis freedombefore (Montague, 1940, pp. 13-14, 52-53).
12. The literatureon paradigmchangesis abundant.Among the most importantthinkers
that(independently)developedthe conceptareKuhn(1962), Bourdieu(1980), andFoucault
(1968).
13. In the absence of a word foxfreedom in most non-Westernlanguages,see Patterson
(1982, p. 27), Miers and Kopytoff(1977, pp. 17, 54), and Geggus (2002, pp. 42, 232).
14. Therearefew exceptionsto this rule, notablyRainsford(1805), Lundy(1847), Buch
(1976, 1986), and Geggus (2001, 2002).
15. Both termsareborrowedfromTrouillot(1995, p. 96). AlthoughI thinkthatTrouillot
is too pessimistic in his conclusions, he is certainlycorrectin identifyingthe rhetoricalelements in the strategiesof silencing.
16. The earliestexample of this theme is Loverture(1804). Since then, however,it has
been adoptedby almost everybodywritingon Haiti (e.g., Barskett,1818; Parkinson,1978;
Phillips, 1954, to name only three). A very skeptical view of Toussaint'scharacterand
actions is first elaboratedin Carruthers(1985).
17. Perhapsthe most strikingexample for the "Europeanization"
of Toussaintcan be
found in a quite successful youth novel, publishedin Englandin the last decade of the 19th
century.In it, we encountera ToussaintLouverturemakingthe following remarkablestatement:"We[the Blacks] have had no trainingfor self-government.We shall have destroyed
the civilization that reigned here, and shall have nothingto take its place, and I dreadthat
insteadof progressingwe may retrogradeuntil we sink back into the conditionin which we
lived in Africa. . . . When I say equal rightsI do not mean thatthey [the Blacks] shall have
votes. We are at presentabsolutelyunfitto have votes or to exercise political power.I only
mean thatthe law shall be the same for us as for the whites" (Henty,n.d., p. 313).
18. Fleming(2001), for example,succeedsin puttingdownthe outcomeof the revolution
completely to the workof a tiny insect, Aedes aegypti,thatdecimatedthe Frenchtroopsby
infectingthemwith yellow fever.True,his essay is apiece of "counterfactualhistory,"trying
to determinewhat could have been. Still, it is astonishinghow (at the beginningof the 21st
century)Fleming managesto presentthe Black leaders of the revolution- withoutexception- as mere playthingsof the (White) actorsin the Haitiandrama.
19. Aurora General Advertiser,January 14, 1804. Rochambeau'snegotiations with
Dessalines andthe commanderof the Britishfleet, a CaptainLoring,arewell documentedin
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REFERENCES
Aptheker, H. (1940). The Negro in the American Revolution. New York: International
Publisher.
Barskett,J. ( 18 18). Historyof the Island of St. Domingo. Fromitsfirst discoveryby Columbus to the presentperiod. Edinburgh:ArchibaldConstableand Co.
Bethel, E. R. (1997). The roots of African-Americanidentity:Memoryand history in free
antebellumcommunities.New York:St. Martin'sPress.
Blumberg,R. (1998). What'sthe deal? Jefferson,Napoleon, and the Louisiana Purchase.
Washington,DC: The NationalGeographicSociety.
Bourdieu,P.(1980). Le senspratique[Thelogic of practice].Paris:Les editionsde Minuit.
Brown,J. (1837). The historyand present conditionof St. Domingo (Vol. II). Philadelphia:
William Marshall& Co.
Buch, H. C. (1976). Die Scheidung von San Domingo: Wie die Negersklavenvon Haiti
Robespierrebeim Wortnahmen[Thedivorceof San Domingo:How the Negro slaves of
Haiti took Robespierreat his word]. Berlin:Wagenbach.
Buch, H. C. (1986). Die Hochzeit von Port-au-Prince [The wedding at Port-au-Prince].
Frankfurt/Main:
Suhrkamp.
Bullock, J. C. (n.d.). Blackpatriots of the AmericanRevolution,1775-1783. n.p.
Carruthers,J. H. (1985). The irritatedgenie: An essay on the Haitian Revolution.Chicago:
The Kemetic Institute.
Debien, G., Fouchard,J., & Menier, M.-A. (1977). Toussaint Louvertureavant 1789:
Legendes et realitees [Toussaint Louverture before 1789: Legends and realities].
Conjonction:RevueFranco-Haitienne,134, 67-80.
Dew, T. R. (1849). An essay on slavery.Richmond:J. W Randolph.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1915). TheNegro. New York:HenryHolt & Co.
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