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Between the Family and the Nation: Lamartine, Toussaint Louverture, and the “Interracial” Family Romance of the Haitian Revolution

Marlene L. Daut

in Tropics of Haiti: Race and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1789-1865

This chapter considers the French abolitionist Alphonse de Lamartine’s verse drama, Toussaint Louverture (1850), showing how writing that narrates the life of Louverture as not simply a ‘colonial ... More

This chapter considers the French abolitionist Alphonse de Lamartine’s verse drama, Toussaint Louverture (1850), showing how writing that narrates the life of Louverture as not simply a ‘colonial family romance,’ but as an “interracial” family romance further demonstrates anxieties about the psychological effects of the plantation system. Attempts to explain Louverture’s life using a grammar beholden to the “mulatto/a” vengeance narrative, and especially that of the tragic “mulatto/a,” suggests that the epistemological problems created by slavery and revolution engendered an Oedipal tendency in people of color who, in the revolutionary hour, might either symbolically or literally occasion the death of their parents and vice versa when faced with a choice between their family and the nation.Less

Kidnapped Narratives: The Lost Heir of Henry Christophe and the Imagined Communities of the African Diaspora

in Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution

This chapter examines narratives of the kidnappings that haunted leaders of the Haitian Revolution as well as their families, with special emphasis on the families of Toussaint Louverture and Henry ... More

This chapter examines narratives of the kidnappings that haunted leaders of the Haitian Revolution as well as their families, with special emphasis on the families of Toussaint Louverture and Henry Christophe. It interprets these narratives as a paradigm for Haitian engagement with manuscript and print culture itself that repeatedly inscribes threats to speakers' basic autonomy and security, mapped over forced movement between metropolitan and colonial spaces. The chapter discusses the emblematic nature of kidnapping in the imagined communities of the African diaspora, arguing that the liminal and urgent depictions of kidnappings in the families of Louverture and Christophe vividly revisited the Middle Passage as a founding history of forced migration. Drawing on the work of Benedict Anderson, it explores how layers of African diasporan and Haitian revolutionary kidnappings intruded into the connection between novel and nation in the imagining of New World communities.Less

Toussaint Louverture, “Spin Doctor”? Launching the Haitian Revolution in the Media Sphere

in Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution

In ‘Hegel and Haiti’, Susan Buck-Morss argued that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's dialectic of master and slave was considerably informed by his reading of news stories about the slave revolution in ... More

In ‘Hegel and Haiti’, Susan Buck-Morss argued that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's dialectic of master and slave was considerably informed by his reading of news stories about the slave revolution in Saint-Domingue during his time in Jena. This chapter examines the Haitian Revolution as public relations, focusing on how Toussaint Louverture entered the media sphere and the French reception of Haitian correspondence and proclamations. It discusses the ‘politics’ of a decolonisation discourse articulated in French, Toussaint's legacies primarily in texts in the Ancien moniteur and the Gazette de France between 1797 and 1802, and his use of French rather than Creole. The chapter also shows how Toussaint established a field of sympathy in order to navigate around the racism inherent to the metropolitan tolerance of colonialism and slavery, and concludes by looking at Léger Félicité Sonthonax's access to the press after his return to France.Less

Fort de Joux

Cilas Kemedjio

in Postcolonial Realms of Memory: Sites and Symbols in Modern France

Toussaint Louverture was defeated by la mort blanche, a phenomenon that incarnates the implacable logic of the slave ship. On February 4, 1794, the Convention proclaimed the general abolition of ... More

Toussaint Louverture was defeated by la mort blanche, a phenomenon that incarnates the implacable logic of the slave ship. On February 4, 1794, the Convention proclaimed the general abolition of slavery in the French colonies. Toussaint Louverture, governor for life since 3 July 1801, was captured by French forces on 7 June 1802. Deported aboard the frigate La Créole, Toussaint and his family were kept aboard the frigate Le Héros for more than two months in the port of Brest. Louverture, transported to the prison in Château de Joux on the French-Swiss border, died on 9 April 1803, unable to survive the harsh winter. Efforts have been made to revalorize his memory, despite the inability to locate his remains. The postcolonial memorialization of the hero of the Haitian Revolution would always face an intractable question: how do past heroes square with the contemporary fate of today’s Haiti. The following essay does not answer such a question, but it seeks to provide elements that may move the discussion with the awareness of the pitfalls of postcolonial memorialization.Less

Santo Domingo and the Rise of Toussaint Louverture, 1795–1801

Graham T. Nessler

in Islandwide Struggle for Freedom: Revolution, Emancipation, and Reenslavement in Hispaniola, 1789-1809

This chapter details the military history of Hispaniola from 1795, when the French Republic ejected the rival Spanish empire from the island, to 1801, when Toussaint Louverture unified the island ... More

This chapter details the military history of Hispaniola from 1795, when the French Republic ejected the rival Spanish empire from the island, to 1801, when Toussaint Louverture unified the island under his rule. This is the first of two chapters to focus on the rise and governance of Louverture, a former slave who rose rapidly through the military ranks and, like his eventual nominal superior Napoleon Bonaparte, parlayed his military triumphs into political power. As Toussaint formulated an independent foreign policy, repelled British invaders from Hispaniola, and waged a brutal civil war against rival André Rigaud, Santo Domingo factored centrally into his strategic thinking, diplomacy, and military leadership. This chapter details these dynamics and culminates in Toussaint’s successful but short-lived invasion of Santo Domingo, which exacerbated a growing rift between the black general and France’s ruler, Napoleon Bonaparte.Less

Uprooting the Tree of Liberty?: Toussaint Louverture in Santo Domingo, 1801–1802

Graham T. Nessler

in Islandwide Struggle for Freedom: Revolution, Emancipation, and Reenslavement in Hispaniola, 1789-1809

After taking control of the central state apparatus in Santo Domingo, Toussaint attempted to create a profitable plantation economy by imposing restrictive labor regimes on former slaves and offering ... More

After taking control of the central state apparatus in Santo Domingo, Toussaint attempted to create a profitable plantation economy by imposing restrictive labor regimes on former slaves and offering economic incentives to plantation entrepreneurs. This chapter details the efficacy of these efforts along with that of Toussaint’s attempts to eliminate slaving in both parts of Hispaniola during this time. This part of the work grapples with Toussaint’s place in Dominican history and the role of Santo Domingo in his broader political and economic vision. This vision increasingly clashed with that of Napoleon, who in late 1801 deployed a huge military expedition to Hispaniola (and other key colonies) in order to reassert Paris’s authority. Though this expedition succeeded in deposing Toussaint, it set in motion processes that fatally undermined Napoleon’s dream of creating a new French empire in the Western Hemisphere.Less

Introduction: Race and Voice in the Archives: Mediated Testimony and Interracial Commerce in Saint-Domingue

in Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution

This book examines the literature that arose from the Haitian Revolution, focusing on political manuscripts issued by former slaves turned revolutionary leaders, including correspondence, ... More

This book examines the literature that arose from the Haitian Revolution, focusing on political manuscripts issued by former slaves turned revolutionary leaders, including correspondence, proclamations, and manifestoes. In particular, it looks at the French and Creole African diasporan texts dating from the era of the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803) until the Haitian independence (1804–1806) of the Dessalines era. The book focuses on early African diasporan literature in the context of independence and postcolonial transition in Haiti, rather than on the presumed posterity of slavery that provides the background for much of the early African American tradition. It explores the narrative structures arising from defensive awareness of hegemonic incursions, especially the dialogues recreated by General Toussaint Louverture between himself and his political rivals, to Jean-Jacques Dessalines's rhetorical construction of colonial identity around the contagion of conquest and guilty mastery. The book also discusses the culture and politics of the Haitian Revolution as well as the libertine sphere in the French colony of Saint-Domingue.Less

Garveyism Root and Branch: From the Age of Revolution to the Onset of Black Power

Michael O. West

in Global Garveyism

The Garvey movement was at once an end and a beginning. Although very much a product of its time – the immediate post-World War I era – Garveyism was an end in that it summarized much of the thought ... More

The Garvey movement was at once an end and a beginning. Although very much a product of its time – the immediate post-World War I era – Garveyism was an end in that it summarized much of the thought and struggle of nineteenth-century pan-Africanism and black nationalism. Marcus Garvey, not so much the man as the metaphor, and the United Negro Improvement Association, not so much the institution as the inspiration, sealed up a certain tradition (which included Toussaint Louverture’s Haitian Revolution and black revivalists) in the movement for black liberation in the modern world. At the same time, Garveyism was also a beginning, casting a long shadow on contemporary and subsequent movements against colonialism and white supremacy throughout the black world, including phenomena such as the Moorish Science Temple and Rastafari. This chapter places Garveyism at the center of a narrative spanning from the emergence of pan-Africanism in the eighteenth century to the Ethiopian crisis of 1935.Less

Haitian Catholicism and the End of Pluralism

Elizabeth Fenton

in Religious Liberties: Anti-Catholicism and Liberal Democracy in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture

This chapter shows that anti-Catholicism contributed to antebellum writers’ confrontation of slavery. Abolitionist documents of this period often equated the plight of the African American with that ... More

This chapter shows that anti-Catholicism contributed to antebellum writers’ confrontation of slavery. Abolitionist documents of this period often equated the plight of the African American with that of the persecuted Protestant. At the margins of this anti-Catholic abolitionist rhetoric, however, stands the specter of the free, black Catholic. Recognizing the prominent position Haiti held in the minds of Anglo-Americans, the chapter argues that Haitian Catholicism threw a wrench in the abolitionist schema. The chapter reads Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1853) alongside contemporary biographies of Toussaint Louverture and Herman Melville’s novella Benito Cereno (1855) to show that liberal Protestants of the period presented African American citizenship as a product of the rejection of Haiti and its Catholicism. The chapter argues that although Stowe and Melville equally engage with the project of aligning slavery with Catholicism, where Stowe finds hope in such a project, Melville finds only the end of liberal politics.Less

Patriarchy and Abolition: Germaine de Staël

in Fathers, Daughters, and Slaves: Women Writers and French Colonial Slavery

This chapter examines Germaine de Staël's complex representation of fathers in relation to slavery and abolition, focusing on her own father, Jacques Necker, who features in many of her works. In ... More

This chapter examines Germaine de Staël's complex representation of fathers in relation to slavery and abolition, focusing on her own father, Jacques Necker, who features in many of her works. In particular, it looks at the conflict experienced by Staël between paternal figures of authority on the one hand and the rights of women and slaves on the other. Staël claims to have loved, throughout her life, God, her father, and freedom, a claim analysed in the chapter, which offers a reading of her early short stories, including Mirza, Histoire de Pauline, and Corinne. It discusses symbolic allusions to slavery in Corinne and considers biographical and historical works in which Staël constructs her father as the personification of benevolence and concern for the welfare of others. Finally, the chapter compares Staël to Isaac Louverture, the son of the Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture, in terms of their relationship with their fathers.Less

Epilogue

in Beyond the Slave Narrative: Politics, Sex, and Manuscripts in the Haitian Revolution

This book has documented the rise of a mediated Haitian literature consisting of texts produced by leaders of the Haitian Revolution, particularly Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, as ... More

This book has documented the rise of a mediated Haitian literature consisting of texts produced by leaders of the Haitian Revolution, particularly Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines, as well as lyrical representations of courtesans' experience. It has examined the voluminous correspondence written by Louverture to navigate diplomatic relations, communicate military plans, and justify his schemes, and has also considered Dessalines's letters in relation to the courtesans' poetic claims. Moreover, the book has analysed the relentless threats faced by Haiti as a new black nation, especially that of being redefined as a French colony given France's lingering colonial presence on the island of Hispaniola.Less

Servants turned masters: Santo Domingo and the black revolt

Maria Cristina Fumagalli

in On the Edge: Writing the Border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic

This chapter discusses Carlos Esteban Deive's historical novel Viento Negro, bosque del caimán (Black Wind, Bois Caiman, 2002), which deals with the slave revolt of 1791 and its consequences for the ... More

This chapter discusses Carlos Esteban Deive's historical novel Viento Negro, bosque del caimán (Black Wind, Bois Caiman, 2002), which deals with the slave revolt of 1791 and its consequences for the Spanish side. Deive chronicles Toussaint Louverture's entrance to Santo Domingo and his decision to immediately abolish slavery, recasting it as a fugitive but glorious moment in the shared history of Hispaniola. He reconstructs the effects of the rebellion on Santo Domingo and depicts the borderland as a site for rich cross-cultural exchange. In recasting of Hispaniola's past, Deive revisits dominant discourses related to the magical world of the island and to the representation of Vodou, one of the many manifestations of the process of creolisation which shaped the life and culture of the slaves. In the Dominican Republic, Vodou has long been associated exclusively with Haiti.Less

Revolution and Cultivation

Paul Cheney

in Cul de Sac: Patrimony, Capitalism, and Slavery in French Saint-Domingue

Once the French Revolution broke out in in 1789, the elites of Saint-Domingue began fighting amongst themselves over questions of political representation in the metropolitan center and of the extent ... More

Once the French Revolution broke out in in 1789, the elites of Saint-Domingue began fighting amongst themselves over questions of political representation in the metropolitan center and of the extent of rights to be accorded to free people of color. This chapter recounts the years from 1789 to 1803 from the vantage point of the collaboration between planters like Ferron de la Ferronnays and successive revolutionary governments to reestablish control over the countryside and to get the plantation complex moving again. Even after the establishment of an independent Haiti, the landed military elite of that country--which resembled in several essential respects the white elite they succeeded--tried to restart sugar production based upon coerced labor taking place on large plantations. This chapter illustrates the broad failure of this policy over the revolutionary and post-revolutionary decades, as well as the struggles of newly freed slaves, such as those who worked on the Ferron de la Ferronnays plantation, to impose a post-revolutionary social order based upon independent peasant production.Less

War and Revolution in the Caribbean

Alan Forrest

in The Death of the French Atlantic: Trade, War, and Slavery in the Age of Revolution

Whereas the previous chapter focused on the effects of events in Saint-Domingue on the French merchant community and on political sentiment in the French ports, this one examines events in the ... More

Whereas the previous chapter focused on the effects of events in Saint-Domingue on the French merchant community and on political sentiment in the French ports, this one examines events in the Caribbean and especially in Saint-Domingue. It discusses the complexities of the race question on the island, and especially the status of free people of colour, which dominated discussion during the early months of the Revolution. It also shows how, with the slave revolts and insurrections, opinions hardened after 1791, how the French administration became more dependent on the support of the mulattoes, and how the situation in Saint-Domingue was complicated by foreign war and invasion. The chapter ends by discussing the role of Toussaint Louverture and Leclerc’s fateful expeditionLess

Revolting Revolutionaries

Dustin Ells Howes

in Freedom Without Violence

The signature violent political revolutions since the eighteenth century have been characterized by calls for freedom. The major participants in the American, French, Haitian, and Bolshevik ... More

The signature violent political revolutions since the eighteenth century have been characterized by calls for freedom. The major participants in the American, French, Haitian, and Bolshevik Revolutions had vigorous discussions as to the proper role of violence in liberating people from colonialism, monarchy, slavery, and capitalism. Each of these revolutions in turn influenced violent liberation movements throughout the world, creating independent states in South America, Africa, and Asia. The revolutions varied widely in their use of violence but were typically characterized by internecine violence that included purges and counter-purges, the raising up of tyrants or dictators, and the institutionalization of slavery or some other form of forced labor.Less

Epilogue: Bringing It Back Home

Beverly Bell

in Fault Lines: Views across Haiti's Divide

This epilogue discusses the fate of three individuals who have figured prominently in the efforts of social movements to improve the plight of Haitians after the earthquake: Tibebe, who still lives ... More

This epilogue discusses the fate of three individuals who have figured prominently in the efforts of social movements to improve the plight of Haitians after the earthquake: Tibebe, who still lives in poverty but has “been inspired” with a flood of poetry; Suze, a women's rights advocate who constantly answers 911-type calls from women like Tibebe; and Djab, a community organizer who is involved with the Toussaint Louverture Front. The chapter argues that Haitians will remain trapped regardless of the changes brought about by social movements as long as the rules of global political and economic power persist. It emphasizes the need for close collaboration between peoples from Haiti and other countries in order to have the chance to create another world and disprove Margaret Thatcher's claim that “there is no alternative.”Less