Resistance to Slavery & The Haitian Revolution

Conceptual Framework: Domination & Resistance

  • Foundational quote from previous lecture: "What the enslaved hated most about slavery was not merely hard work, but their lack of control over their lives and freedom."
  • Slavery = a culture of domination; every sphere of life (labor, family, marriage, discipline, sexuality) controlled by owners & overseers.
  • Domination operates along a spectrum:
    • Hegemony → attempts to win partial consent from the dominated.
    • Coercion → brute force.
    • Enslaved experience is a continuous negotiation between accommodation (for survival) and resistance (for dignity).
  • Visual chart (lecture slide) framed domination as a matrix: hegemony ⇄ coercion; accommodation ⇄ resistance.

Film Connection – “The Last Supper” (Cuba, 1976)

  • Two guiding questions to ponder while writing about the film:
    1. Why was the suppression of the revolt (demanding only one day off) so disproportionately brutal? → reveals endemic violence of slavery.
    2. How is white solidarity cemented & protected in the film’s finale? → illustrates trans-class racial unity among whites.

Fundamental Premises on Resistance

  • Resistance was built into slavery; owners & enslaved engaged in an unending tactical struggle.
  • Purposes of resistance:
    • Assertion of humanity in a system defining Africans as chattel.
    • Response to violence; the system’s brutality normalized violent counter-action.
    • Strategic push toward emancipation – without resistance there is no abolition.
  • Three truths reiterated:
    1. Enslaved Africans were not passive.
    2. They sought escape by myriad means over 2–3 centuries.
    3. Despite elaborate surveillance, conspiracies & rebellions were frequent.

Typology of Resistance

  • Two overarching categories (Robinson / lecture):
    1. Contextual Resistance – day-to-day acts within slavery; improves life but does not overturn system.
    2. Transformative Resistance – rare revolts that destroy slavery & colonial rule; the sole successful example = the Haitian Revolution.

Contextual Resistance – Detailed Modes

1. Resisting Capture

  • Pre-Atlantic actions: flight from raiding parties, communal defense, mass suicide.
  • Middle Passage: suicides & revolts at sea (jumping overboard, mutiny).
  • Upon landing: immediate runaways, often assisted by Indigenous peoples.

2. Maroonage (Runaway Communities)

  • Definition: flight to mountains / swamps; creation of fortified, self-governing settlements; guerrilla war with planters.
  • Geography matters – more feasible in rugged terrains (e.g., Jamaica, Suriname, Brazil).
  • Notable maroon states & treaties:
    • Jamaica Maroons – multiple wars; treaty 1739 grants freedom.
    • San Lorenzo de Los Negros (Mexico, 17^{th} c.).
    • Palmares (Brazil, 1605–1695) – lasts ≈100 years.

3. Everyday Plantation Resistance

  • Tactics: work slow-downs, tool breakage, arson, crop destruction.
  • Bodily actions: self-mutilation, suicide, infanticide (notably of girls) to spare children bondage.
  • Covert violence: poisoning or assassinating brutal owners.

4. Building Community & Culture

  • Amílcar Cabral: "Within the culture we find the seeds of opposition."
  • Cedric Robinson: plantation docility often a mask hiding inner defiance.
  • Key sites of cultural resistance:
    • Family – despite forced separations, marriage non-recognition & sexual exploitation, kin networks endure; post-emancipation family-search ads testify to its power.
    • Religion – retention & syncretism of African faiths under Catholic icons; independent Black churches; clandestine worship circles; community through ritual.
    • Language, music, dance, folklore – preserve memory & solidarity.

5. Armed Rebellion (Pre-Haitian)

  • Early case: 1526 S. Carolina revolt – enslaved kill masters & seek refuge with Native nations.
  • Stono Rebellion 1739 (SC) – large march toward Spanish Florida.
  • Owners’ reprisals universally savage: burning, limb-breaking, sale to Caribbean, lynching.
  • U.S. conspiracies & uprisings:
    • Gabriel Prosser 1800; Denmark Vesey 1822.
    • Nat Turner (Southampton VA, 1831): kills 57 whites; militia kills ≈200 Blacks; leads to laws banning Black education & assembly.

The Haitian Revolution (St. Domingue) – 1791–1804

A. Pre-Revolution Landscape

  • St. Domingue = western half of Hispaniola; richest colony on earth (late 18^{th} c.).
  • Economic output (~1780):
    • 40\% of French foreign trade.
    • \tfrac{2}{5} of world sugar; \tfrac{1}{2} of world coffee.
  • Demography:
    • Whites ≈20{,}000–25{,}000 (\textit{grands blancs} vs \textit{petits blancs}).
    • Free people of color (\textit{gens de couleur}) ≈30{,}000 – wealthy, many slave-owners, demand citizenship.
    • Enslaved Africans ≈500{,}000 (ratio ≈10:1 over whites); lifespan \approx7 years → constant imports; maroons 10{,}000–15{,}000.

B. Catalysts & Ideological Cross-Currents

  • French Revolution (liberté-égalité-fraternité) fractures colonial society.
  • White planters crave independence yet keep slavery.
  • \textit{Gens de couleur} seek equal citizenship; rebuffed by whites → turn toward alliance with Blacks.
  • Enslaved masses conduct rising waves of revolt 1789–1791; surprise general uprising Aug. 1791.

C. Key Personalities

  • Toussaint Louverture – former slave; literate; brilliant strategist; initial demand: abolition, not independence.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte – later seeks to crush revolt & restore slavery.
  • Jean-Jacques Dessalines – successor who proclaims independence 01/01/1804.

D. Shifting Military Alliances (Chronology Synopsis)

  1. 1791–1793: Toussaint fights French; briefly allies with Spanish; British attempt invasion → defeated.
  2. 1793: Desperate, French abolish slavery in colony to gain support.
  3. Toussaint now sides with French Republic, expels British & Spanish; by 1801 controls whole island (incl. Spanish east).
  4. Negotiations falter; Napoleon dispatches largest expeditionary force in French history: \approx40{,}000 troops (Gen. Leclerc).
    • Orders: “Show no mercy … inspire great terror.”
  5. Catastrophe for France: within months 24{,}000 dead (battle & yellow fever), 8{,}000 wounded.
  6. France abandons Western-Hemisphere dreams; sells Louisiana Territory to U.S. for \$9\;million.
  7. Toussaint tricked, captured, dies in French prison 1803; Haitian army under Dessalines prevails.
  8. Independence declared 01/01/1804; colony renamed Haïti (“Land of Mountains”).

E. Global & Regional Consequences

  • Haiti = first Black republic; second independent state in Western Hemisphere (after U.S.).
  • Electrifies enslaved populations; terrifies slaveholders (“This must not become another St. Domingue!” – line echoed in The Last Supper).
  • Triggers migration waves: whites & free Blacks to Louisiana; others to Cuba, Puerto Rico, U.S. Atlantic ports.
  • Spurs relocation of sugar & coffee industries to Cuba & P.R.; intensifies security & brutality elsewhere.
  • Deals fatal blow to Napoleon’s American empire scheme.

F. Punitive Isolation & Indemnity

  • No nation (U.S., Britain, France) recognizes Haiti; trade embargoes.
  • France threatens reconquest; 1825: forces Haiti to pay 150\;million francs compensation for lost "property" (≈ 21\;billion today).
    • Debt serviced until 1960s → cripples economy.
  • European powers tighten grip on remaining colonies; France re-enslaves Martinique & Guadeloupe until 1848.

G. Intellectual & Political Significance

  • Demonstrates that enslaved can defeat premier European army → shatters ideological foundations of white supremacy.
  • Haitian Constitution extends citizenship as “Blackness” to all allies (Polish soldiers, etc.) – radical, inclusive anti-racism.
  • Long marginalized in historiography; only recently discussed alongside U.S. & French Revolutions.

Post-Emancipation Timetable in the Caribbean & Latin America

  • Comparative abolition dates (slavery → independence):
    • St. Domingue 1793 (indep. 1804).
    • British Caribbean 1838.
    • French Caribbean 1848.
    • Danish 1848; Dutch 1863.
    • Puerto Rico 1873; Cuba 1886; Brazil (last) 1888.

Aftermath: Racial & Socio-Economic Reordering

  • Across Americas, end of slavery = compensation to owners, not to freed people.
  • States import European or Asian labor to “whiten” demographics:
    • Brazil 5\;million Europeans (1870–1960); Argentina 7\;million (1869–1914).
    • Jamaica recruits Indian & Chinese indentured workers.
  • Result: entrenched economic disenfranchisement & political marginalization of Afro-descended masses.

Overarching Legacy of Slavery & Resistance

  • Slavery = socio-economic complex foundational to European wealth & modern nation-states.
  • Bequeaths: racial hierarchy, color discrimination, economic inequality, yet also vibrant diasporic cultures.
  • Resistance – from maroon wars to Haitian Revolution – affirms Black agency & shapes trajectories of global emancipation.
  • For Black Studies: these historical experiences constitute a distinct field of inquiry into culture, politics, economics & identity formation across the African diaspora.