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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

Cousin that’s not what you told me

Mariana Past and Benjamin Hebblethwaite (eds)

in Stirring the Pot of Haitian History: by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

This final chapter opens with Toussaint Louverture in Santo Domingo in 1802, preoccupied with the possibility of a new French invasion. In February, General Leclerc invaded Cape Haitian in the north; ... More

This final chapter opens with Toussaint Louverture in Santo Domingo in 1802, preoccupied with the possibility of a new French invasion. In February, General Leclerc invaded Cape Haitian in the north; Toussaint was captured by French troops and taken to France as prisoner. Although his demise occurred for various reasons, most problematic are the tactics he embraced during the period of 1793-1799, wherein he neglected the interests of the former enslaved people and instead allied himself with the upper class and military interests. The rallying cry of “freedom for all” for the population of the former French colony did not imply that formerly enslaved masses could enjoy autonomy or freely cultivate edible crops on their own properties. While not all rebel leaders fit into the same social category, they did have different interests than the former slaves. Trouillot reminds readers that a true revolution produces profound social changes, inverting the old social order; and thus formerly-enslaved people should have all become property owners. However, the competing revolutionary leaders (including Rigaud, Beauvais, and Toussaint) stunted this possibility, neglecting the needs of the poor majority. It was chiefly the economic aspect of independence that divided Toussaint from the masses. After taking control of the former colony, Toussaint imposed import and export taxes that benefited European countries and the United States instead of Haitians; U.S.-built warehouses popped up on the capital’s wharf, and Saint-Domingue remained economically dependent. The former slaves benefited in no way from growing the sugar, coffee or cotton that they were required to produce during Toussaint’s reign; they were punished for planting food crops. Worse still, Toussaint required that the ex-slaves “respect” the integrity of former plantations by staying and working on them, while he distributed free land to rebel officers. The idea of “freedom” thus lost its resonance amongst the masses. Although members of the State of Saint-Domingue and the ruling class gained economically, it was at the expense of the former enslaved workers. From this point, the behavior of the Haitian State was that of sitting heavily upon the new nation, since their economic and political interests were at odds with one another. A host of contradictions emerged: Dependence/ Independence, Plantations/Small Farms, Commodity/Food crops, White/Black, Mulatto/Black, Mulatto/White, Catholic/Vodou, and French/Creole. Although the Constitution of 1801 abolished slavery and supposedly “guaranteed freedom” to all, it reinforced these fundamental contradictions. The “Moyse Affair” in late 1801 illustrates Trouillot’s understanding of Toussaint’s betrayal of the Haitian people. Moyse, Toussaint’s adopted nephew, had populist political ideas that attracted the black masses. Fearing his potentially subversive ambitions, Toussaint had Moyse judged by a military commission that included Christophe, Vernet, and Pageaux. Moyse was condemned to death and executed, effectively crushing the interests of the masses. Throughout the Revolution Toussaint maintained power by crafting coalitions amongst a wide variety of social classes and competing interests. The dominance of the new military class was a social contradiction that had to be masked, and Toussaint’s actions showed a will to conceal it. Aspects of this problematic behavior and ideology have reappeared in Haiti under Dessalines, Christophe, Salomon, Estimé, Duvalier and others. Official discourse is grounded in several central notions that are easily manipulated by Haitian leaders: first, the notion of “family,” allowing the concealed dominance of one group and the privileging the organized Catholic religion; second, the idea that Haitians should “respect property”; and, the myth of nèg kapab (“capable people”) who possess an inherent right to govern and oppress the people. The political concept of “family,” common throughout Africa and countries with African descendants, was employed by Toussaint as a form of social control: throughout the revolution Toussaint refers to the new Haitian society as a family in order to advance his own “paternal” political objectives and conceal its many contradictions. The state—which his ideology came to epitomize—began to take advantage of the people; it was akin to a vèvè, a matrix holding society together, and a Gordian knot, where complex and twisted socio-economic contradictions favoring a certain class were inscribed. Although Toussaint was kidnapped by the invasion of Leclerc in 1802, this motivated the Haitian masses to stand up and fight for independence from France, which ultimately led to freedom. Thus, living up to the surname of “Louverture” that was given him, Toussaint indeed opened the barrier to independence and warrants appreciation for that. When one revisits the ideology of Toussaint Louverture, and concurrently that of the state of Saint-Domingue, one must not forget that, in spite of all its weaknesses, libèté jénéral (“freedom for all”, or “universal freedom” in today’s terms) was originally a powerful unifying factor, which merits recognition: it helped Toussaint’s troops defeat the British, crush Hédouville, etc. Toussaint was betrayed by plantation owners and French and American commissioners alike, and he always maintained some faith in France, even if the masses did not. Trouillot implies that Toussaint understood the direction in which he wanted to go, but he got lost on the way. To his credit, Toussaint’s experience demonstrated that liberty without political independence was a senseless notion, and others (such as Dessalines) were able to break with his approach and capitalize on this lesson. The book closes with Grinn Prominnin declaring that he is exhausted and that everyone must return to discuss the situation tomorrow to reach a conclusion. The scene remains peaceful, the people complacent. Trouillot suggests that, more than 170 years after the revolution, the task of bringing about real social change in Haiti—and seeing the ambitions of the Revolution fulfilled—remains starkly inert. Readers easily infer that Haiti’s stagnant socio-economic and political situation (in 1977) is due not only to the as yet unfulfilled promises of the Revolution and War for Independence, but also to the escalating damages wreaked upon the Haitian nation by the Duvalier regime and its manipulative cronyism coupled with its totalitarian indigenist ideology.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

The little orange tree grew

Mariana Past and Benjamin Hebblethwaite (eds)

in Stirring the Pot of Haitian History: by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

The sixth chapter likens the Haitian Revolution to a cockfight and begins to question Toussaint Louverture’s uses of power. By January 26, 1801 Toussaint has become the dominant cock, largely due to ... More

The sixth chapter likens the Haitian Revolution to a cockfight and begins to question Toussaint Louverture’s uses of power. By January 26, 1801 Toussaint has become the dominant cock, largely due to his huge political organization in the Northern provinces. A hint of reproach echoes in the discourse of narrator Grinn Prominnin because of the unacknowledged debt owed by Toussaint to the masses of formerly enslaved people who participated in the Revolution. At this point the black rebels were often insufficiently armed or were pitted against one another. Some fought for personal interests, others on more general terms; the result was a weakened position. Their advantage lay in their sheer numbers and common determination to become free. In 1793 Toussaint tapped into this energy by declaring the goal of universal freedom and liberty for Saint-Domingue, a political and tactical move that assured the former enslaved people’s loyalty to him. Once his organization solidified, he allied himself with French forces, against the Spanish and British (on whose side other rebel leaders were fighting). By 1795, Spain was defeated, and Saint-Domingue was controlled by three sectors: the new French political commissioner (Lavaud), the freedmen (Vilatte, Beauvais, and Rigaud), and Toussaint’s army. Major contradictions—economic, political, and military—divided the masses from the leaders in the latter group; often the former enslaved people were forced to work the land for the benefit of the revolutionary generals. Meanwhile, both inside and outside of Saint-Domingue, people began to distrust the paper money issued by the revolutionary state, and its value decreased. The war in the South took form, with Toussaint positioned against Rigaud. France’s third civil commissioner, Sonthonax, arrived in 1796 and was determined to crush the British and the mulatto generals’ troops. Sonthonax named Toussaint the leading general and Rigaud an outlaw. But Toussaint had Sonthonax expelled from Saint-Domingue the following year due to their several disagreements (including the fact that Sonthonax promoted Moyse Louverture to the rank of general, passing over several other leaders in Toussaint’s army). Meanwhile, in France, the political situation was becoming more conservative, and Toussaint feared that the former colonists would return to seize their property. In a dog-eat-dog society, every class has economic, political, and ideological interests; the freedmen and newly freed slaves were at odds. Toussaint subsequently repulsed Hédouville (who was sent by France as an agent of the Directory, charged with implementing reforms) and fought a vicious war in the South against Rigaud, the dominant mulatto general, thus deepening the racial divisions in the general population. Although Rigaud took a racial approach himself, Toussaint’s demagogy encouraged this social poison to pit the masses of formerly enslaved people against the mixed-race people, a problem reflecting Haiti’s hereditary ideological disease. Toussaint’s primary interests were commerce, money and the trappings of power. So intent was Toussaint on keeping Saint-Domingue afloat economically that he imposed strictures on the formerly enslaved people through a “rural work code,” forcing them to either remain on the same plantations where they had previously toiled or face severe punishment (including death). The idea of “freedom for all” thus began to lose its meaning. England and the United States began to exert pressure on Saint-Domingue as well. Before the War of the South between Toussaint and Rigaud, blacks and mixed-race people were allied against France, but afterwards each group sought its own type of Haitian independence. The beginning of the end of Toussaint’s power came about when the rebel leader fell into the Rigaud’s trap in the afè Koray [Corail Affair]; he nevertheless continued to fight for several more years. Toussaint’s leadership style moved to demagogy, and after 1799, plots mushroomed everywhere against him. The other rebel general, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, did not play upon social tensions in the same way that Toussaint did: instead of using race as a wedge issue, he allowed a group of mixed race people to join the rebel army, which raised everyone’s spirits and frightened the enemy. Toussaint’s organization was closer to the interests of the masses than Rigaud’s. With Dessalines, he convinced several maroon groups to fight against Rigaud; Dessalines won the South soon afterwards. The war of the South helped advance the larger revolution in Saint-Domingue. Once Rigaud was defeated, Toussaint was the only serious cock in the former colony. Freedom for everyone was the main interest of his organization, and he unified the country around it; Dessalines and Pétion ultimately worked together to help repulse Leclerc’s invasion of 1802. The freedmen’s advantage was blunted before they could take advantage of others. The former slaves grew stronger as a result. Despite Toussaint’s demagogy, the revolution was holding strong; though Toussaint still occupied a position of authority, there remained many contradictions in his camp.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

Charles Young in Five Acts: Patriots, Traitors, and the Performance of American Militarism

Khary Oronde Polk

in Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948

This chapter considers the life and work of Charles Young, the third African American officer to graduate from West Point, and the first to reach the rank of colonel. Through his quest for leadership ... More

This chapter considers the life and work of Charles Young, the third African American officer to graduate from West Point, and the first to reach the rank of colonel. Through his quest for leadership in the U.S. Army and performances of martial valor, Young strove to prove by his own example that black people could—if given a chance—excel as officers in the U.S. military. Though committed to American military imperialism, Young became frustrated by the forms of racial discrimination that impeded his progress up the army chain of command. In 1906 he began to channel his critique of American militarism into a play he wrote about the Haitian Revolution and his idol, Toussaint Louverture. Never published during Young’s lifetime, the five-act drama is examined as an allegory of antiblack racism, prophetic memoir (Young chose exile in Africa rather than submit to racist rule in the United States), as well as the most pronounced articulation of the emergent Pan-African political awakening of America’s first black military imperialist of the twentieth century.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