Week 6 The French Revolution A Global Perspective

• Last week => How great principles are confronted with hard realities

  • Practically, what do we mean by the Rights of Man?
  • Tension essentially between:
    • a property-based perspective (active vs. passive citizens)
    • We saw the centrality of art. 17 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (property)
    • and an abstract perspective: every man (not much talk about women) should be both free and enfranchised

• This is already complicated in Europe, but what happens when these principles are exported to non-Western societies? What happens when they are exported to colonies?

• Today: The effect of French revolution on a slave society, that of San Domingo

  • Here the problem => the extension of political and civic rights is complicated by the fact that slaves ARE property
  • So on top of class as a central dividing line between people who have rights and people who are denied rights we're going to examine the construction of race as a dividing line

Hispaniola - Spanish Colonization and the Arawakan People

• Haiti first a Spanish colony, named Hispaniola => This contact is fatal to native Arawakan people (who actually name their island Ayiti)
  • forced labour in mines (gold, silver, copper), diseases and artificial famines, the native population drops from 500M to 60M in 15 years
• Tug-of-war between Great European powers for the control of San Domingo through their state-sponsored pirates
  • French snatch control of western third in 1659
    • The Western part of the island officially becomes French after the Treaty of Ryswick in 1695.

French Plantation Economy

• Under the French, economy of the island will shift and become essentially a plantation economy
  • Cultivation of coca, then indigo and cotton
  • In 1734 beginning of culture of coffee.
  • By 1754, there were 599 plantations of sugar and 3379 of indigo

Slave Trade Routes to San Domingo

• French pursue this tradition of import of slaves
  • They come from the coast of Guinea, past the Niger, down the Congo coast, past Loango and Angola, round the Cape of Good Hope and by 1789 even as far as Mozambique. Guinea is the main supplier

Code Noir and Control of Enslaved People

• After being bought, slaves are branded, and taught basic principles of Christianity
• Code Noir, promulgated in 1685 by Louis XIV meant to improve the nutrition of the slaves but authorizes whipping
  • but this is wholly ignored by the slaveowners
  • Cruel and arbitrary treatment
  • The reason for this is not (only) cruelty
    • It is security reasons => slaves become increasingly numerous and the point is to keep them in a weakened state
• Everything is done to keep the slaves from learning to read and write
  • Two reasons:
    • This can be politically dangerous
    • Maintain a distinction with their white knowledgeable masters

Slave Culture and the Origins of Toussaint

• This did not prevent local slave culture from developing
  • These slaves were brought from different parts of Africa, but some rituals created bonds
    • Their own language: Haitian creole French
    • Haitian Voodoo rituals
  • This culture created an autonomous space for them, which united them and remained away from their masters control
• Not all slaves work on plantations
  • A smaller caste of foremen of plantation gangs, coachmen, cooks, butlers, maids, nurses, female companions and other house-servants
  • Many of this caste will improve their situation through learning, which was forbidden to the plantation slaves
    • One of them was Toussaint L'Ouverture born Toussaint Breda, the son of an African chief made slave born himself in Saint-Domingue

Slave Revolts and Maroon Communities

• Slaves very often revolted and some of them managed to escape the state and the planters by settling in remote areas forming maroon communities
  • There were 3,000 maroons in 1751
  • One of the most famous maroon leaders = François Mackandal => poison to slaves who would put it in the drinks of their French owners

Social Hierarchy - Whites Mulattoes and Race

• Above slaves were freemen, essentially whites who belonged to one of three categories:
  • The big plantation owners, very often aristocrats who used slavery as a way to regain the power they had lost because of absolutism
    • They transform their birth privilege into a race privilege
  • The French royal bureaucracy, whom big plantation owners hated
    • From the very beginning there is a tension between France and San Domingo
    • Royal France imposes an exclusive trade pact on the colony
    • Whatever manufactured products Haiti needs it can only be bought from France
    • Haiti can sell their produce only to France
    • Goods can only be transported in French ships
  • The small whites who resent both the royal bureaucracy and the big whites
    • Small lawyers, agents of the absentee owners, notaries, clerks, artisans, grocers, etc.
    • And a group of legal and semi-criminal crowd
• Although they intensely dislike each other, all these whites are very anxious to keep the privileges attached to their skin colour
  • In 1789, against 500M slaves, there were only 40M whites
• Extended practice of concubinage => increasing number of people from mixed heritage, called mulattoes at the time
  • The fate of the mulatto really depended on their father
    • They were either freed or remained slaves
• Mulattoes that were freed became artisans or household servants and began to amass property, forming a property class on their own.
• Anxiousness of the whites who try to invent measures and distinctions of whiteness and index rights and privileges on percentages of whiteness
  • 128 divisions of race-mixing: quadroons, octoroons, quintroon
• Race becomes the structuring principle of the slave society
  • So much so that since rights and privileges becoming the greater the whiter a person is, Mulattoes themselves try to distinguish themselves from other slaves.
• Nonetheless, many mulattoes and whites had a common bond, namely property

French Bourgeoisie the Slave Economy and Abolitionists

• Slave economy had a huge impact in France: What is crucial to know is that many members of the French bourgeoisie that led the revolution in France in the name of the rights of man and of the citizen, made their fortunes through their trade with the colonies
  • Maritime bourgeoisie of La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Nantes, Marseilles
  • Bordeaux => Wines exported to the colonies
  • Has also factories refining the sugar produced in the colonies
  • Slave trade then makes many different industries and people work in France
    • Many of the workmen in the factories owe their livelihood to the sugar imported from San Domingo where it was produced by slaves
• In the 18th c. slavery also became attacked by Europeans themselves, of which we can distinguish two kinds:
  • British abolitionists
  • French abolitionists

British Abolitionists and Commercial Interests

• British abolitionists: The success and riches of Haiti => envy from British private interests who do not profit to the same extent from slave trade
  • At the same time with the loss of Americas => change of British commercial interests
    • The industrialists turned towards India become much more influential
    • All this conspires to generate the abolitionist movement
    • William Wilberforce used by Pitt

French Enlightenment and the Societe des Amis des Noirs

• The French Enlightenment attacks slavery:
  • Voltaire and Candide and the black from Surinam
  • One of the most vocal opponents of slavery who will become a central influence on Toussaint is the Abbe Raynal
    • Histoire Philosophique et Politique des Etablissements et du Commerce des Européens dans les Deux Indes
• Creation in 1788 in France of the Société des Amis des Noirs by Abbe Gregoire, Condorcet and Jacques-Pierre Brissot

The Revolutions Effects on San Domingo and the Mulatto Revolt

• When revolution actually occurs, slave-owners, resentful of state control actually join it
  • Send representation to the Estates-General
  • But already some powerful advocates of anti-slavery (Mirabeau) contest the perpetuation of slavery
• Strange effects of the revolution on a slave society: property becomes the axial force of political alliances in San Domingo
  • Small whites join the revolution against the privilege of the big whites and against the royal bureaucracy but also against Mulatto property-owners
  • As a result the Mulatto property owners join the royalist bureaucracy to shelter themselves
  • As a result of this big whites seek alliance with the royalist bureaucracy and with the Mulattoes
• Colonial and slavery questions important dividing factors in France
  • Jacobins entirely against slavery
    • April 1791: Robespierre: May the colonies perish rather than our principles
  • Club Massiac = pro-colonial lobby
• In France: Constitution giving the vote to property owners above 25 years
  • Anti-slavery activists (Abbe Gregoire) suggests that this includes Mulattoes
    • This is rejected
• Mulattoes revolt, in October 1790 under leadership of Vincent Ogé
• Compromise found during the year: If a Mulatto is born from two free parents then he can vote and is eligible
  • 400 men of colour acquire this right

August 1791 - Slave Uprising and Toussaint Joins

• August 1791, with the arrival of French revolutionary troops in Haiti fraternizing with slaves and Mulattoes, the slaves themselves begin to arm themselves => Dutty Boukman
  • Slaves begin to widely destroy the plantations
  • Soon Toussaint Breda, at the age of 45, joined them
• Colonial Assembly against emancipation seeks autonomy of San Domingo and establishes contacts with US, Britain and Spain
• Mulattoes still allied to big white plantation owners around common interest in property
  • Reconciliation against the small whites on 24 October 1791
• But after the news of the recall of the rights of the Mulattoes is given, the Mulattoes revolt again this time reaching out to the black slaves
  • Three potential revolts
    • Big whites against emancipation
    • Mulattoes wanting to preserve their rights
    • Black slaves for emancipation
• Too many hesitations on the part of the Revolutionaries with regard to slavery push slaves in the arms of the Spaniards who are now officially at war with France.
  • Toussaint is made a colonel by the Spaniards and fights for royalty

French Commissioners and the Free vs Slaves Distinction

• France sends commissioners to restore order and find a solution:
  • The distinction then is made, by Leger-Felicite Sonthonax, between the free, without distinctions of color, and the slaves
    • Conflict between emancipation and enfranchisement

Abolition of Slavery and Toussaints Rise

• What changed things is division among whites as big whites oppose republican commissioners
  • In retaliation, Sonthonax gives orders for the blacks to be armed
    • On 29 August 1793 he declares the abolition of slavery
    • This radical measure will slowly bring back the black leaders of the revolt, of whom Toussaint, closer to France
• In the new national convention dominated by the Montagnards, three deputies are sent by San Domingo
  • A former slave, Jean-Baptiste Belley
  • A Mulatto, Jean-Baptiste Mills
  • And a white man, Louis-Pierre Dufay
• 4 February 1794, the National Convention abolishes slavery
• When Toussaint L'Ouverture learns about the decree he immediately joins the revolution
  • He is invested by the Republic as a military commander and proconsul of the district of Gonaives
  • And later named Lieutenant-General of the Government of San Domingo in March 1796
• This is the beginning, for a while, of a more political phase for Toussaint who aspires to improve the daily lives of former slaves
  • Schools, regulation of work (no corporeal punishment)
• Meanwhile change of regime in France => Directory
  • Under the new regime (Directory), the planters and the maritime bourgeoisie acquire empowered role in politics from 1797 onwards.
    • Mutual suspicion grows between France and Toussaint
    • Toussaint thinks France wants to reintroduce slavery
    • France thinks Toussaint wants to make San Domingo independent
• General Gabriel Marie-Joseph, Comte d'Hedouville is sent to San Domingo to check Toussaint's power which he seeks to do by turning the Mulatto general Andre Rigaud against Toussaint
  • Toussaint with the aid of his own ex-slave officer of whom Jean-Jacques Dessalines will oust d'Hedouville
• Meanwhile Bonaparte comes to power and while he confirms Toussaint in his commission he also decides that San Domingo would be ruled by Special Laws.
  • Overruling Bonaparte's orders, in January 1800 Toussaint annexes Spanish San Domingo after defeating Spanish armies
  • Thorough reorganization of the island (6 districts), establishment of schools, agriculture encouraged
    • Toussaint even encourages the enactment of a new constitution => virtual independence.
• Bonaparte, who does not want to lose the colony, and goaded by the maritime bourgeoisie and former planters plans to check Toussaint
  • December 1801, 20M soldiers are sent to Haiti under the commandment of General Charles Leclerc

War with France and Haitian Independence

• War between the former slave generals and the expedition.
  • The Haitians practice scorched-earth policy destroying their own cities to cut supplies to the invading army
• But Toussaint is ambivalent, still believes that conciliation is possible
  • His General Dessalines is much more determined to burn the bridges with France and declare independence.
  • 7 June 1802 Toussaint is drawn into a trap, arrested and sent to France with his family.
    • He would die in prison one year later
• Mass insurrection against Leclerc begins
  • French suffer terrible losses both from war and yellow fever
• 20 May 1802 Bonaparte officially authorizes slavery to continue in Martinique and Reunion
• A little later slave-trade is reinstated for all colonies
  • The effect on the rebellion is immediate
• A true race war unravels between Rochambeau who replaces the deceased Leclerc and Dessalines. Very brutal.
• May 18th 1803, Dessalines unfurls new Haitian flag, Liberty or Death
• What will be of great help = resumption of hostilities between Britain and France
  • Haiti cut off from Britain who dominates the sea
  • British arm and help Dessalines
  • Rochambeau surrenders to the British
• 31 December 1803, proclamation of Haiti independence
  • On October 1804, Jacques Dessalines has himself crowned as emperor