United States and the Haitian Revolution

The United States was a very important contributor to the Haitian Revolution

The French colony of Saint Domingue was declared the independent state of Haiti in 1804 by its victorious black rebels. During the decades leading up to the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804, Saint Domingue had been widely considered the richest European colony in the world, indeed, the value of its imposts and exports exceeded the value of American commerce. Saint Domingue (or present-day Haiti) produced more sugar and coffee than any other colony. The wealthy French colony had hundreds of plantations, imported thousands of manacled African slaves each year, and exported so many products that it monopolized two thirds of all French foreign commerce.

The French colony of Saint Domingue had enormous African and African creole slave populations. By the eve of 1791,Saint Domingue had a population of about 500,000 African slaves, 23,000 members of the free colored caste, and about 40,000 whites. It is important to keep in mind when studying the Haitian Revolution and its evolution over 13 years that the vast majority of the African population of Saint Domingue had been born in Africa, had experienced the loss of freedom, the middle passage across the Atlantic, and had fresh memories of freedom and their homelands and indigenous African culture.

The so called free colored caste of Saint Domingue were like bourgeois people everywhere, intelligent, ambitious and eager to join the ranks of the rich plantation owners. The free colored had been born of free fathers and African or mulatto women, and their status in society followed that of the women, that is, they were nominally free but they had no civil or political rights, indeed, they were often victimized by the poor whites, who the French called "aristocrats of the skin."

The wealthy owners of large plantations dominated the island and its politics. The most important of them possessed hundreds of acres of land on the fertile north plain of Saint Domingue. The largest of these set the tone for society and were larger than the plantations of the other West Indies and Caribbean islands -- and some of them possessed more than one thousand slaves. So the whites of Saint Domingue had wealth and power, but the culture of the island was also greatly influenced by the African culture and its languages, habitations, mores, sex, and customs.

American policy toward the Haitian Revolution 1791-1804 was conditioned by a century of trade relations between the island of Hispaniola and the Continental Colonies of North America and the United States. New England merchants penetrated the island as early as 1715 and developed a profitable trade in salted codfish, ground wheat and cornmeal, lumber, livestock, and also manufactured goods. According to the French trade laws, promulgated by the French crown in the early 18th century, the commerce of Saint Domingue, which was then the name applied to the western third or French portion of the island, was to be monopolized by French merchants. But French merchants were often distracted by the English-French wars of the century and so the French merchants were unable to delivery enough of foodstuffs and other products to the island colony. As a result, the French Saint Domingue and American merchants joined in a tacit conspiracy to admit Americans to the 13 ports of the island. And so Americans developed a highly profitable trade to Saint Domingue, which involved hundreds of American ships and every American ports involved in the island's commerce.

Everywhere that slavery existed it was cruel; slave owners treated human beings like farm animals, deprived slaves of the fruits of their labor, and sexually exploited black women, and did not recognize slave families. But unlike the other slave colonies of the West Indies there had had been no large slave insurrection on Saint Domingue. The neighboring British colony of Jamaica had experienced dozens of substantial insurrections involving thousands of Africans over the 18th century. But Saint Domingue had experienced no large scale rebellion; instead, the slaves of Saint Domingue had developed a tradition of resistance to slavery involving maroon colonies, that is, African founded colonies located in the mountainous interior of the island that survived by raiding the plantations for food and women and growing their own foodstuffs in the interior mountain valleys of the island.

The slave revolution that broke out in Saint Domingue in 1791 had followed two years of political turmoil and agitation in the island. The ideas of the great French Revolution of 1789 -- liberty, equality and fraternity -- penetrated the island and found advocates among the whites, free colored, and slaves. The whites and free colored sent agents to represent them in Paris; that is they joined the French Revolution and unwisely supported the French assault on the power of the French crown. So as the power of the crown in Saint Domingue diminished and weakened, the African slaves plotted their own insurrection.

The slave revolt that broke out in Saint Domingue was well planned and systematic. Traditional communications networks among the slaves were used to spread the word that the whites of France and indeed Europe and America all favored the emancipation of the slaves. The French antislavery society, Amis des Noirs (Friends of the Blacks), flooded the island with antislavery pamphlets and the whites' boisterous celebrations of liberty,equality and fraternity created the impression among the slaves that they too might find support in Europe for their quest for freedom.

Less than 30 days after the outbreak of the slave revolt of August 22, 1791, American newspapers from Charleston, South Carolina to Boston, Massachusetts began publishing almost daily reports about the bloodshed, violence, and fighting in Saint Domingue. Americans objected to the violence of Saint Domingue, but they also reflected a concern about the commerce of the island, about the fate of Americans who lived and worked in Saint Domingue, about possible copycat insurrections in the Southern states, and about the possibility of a British intervention in the Caribbean.

The U.S. reaction to the Haitian revolution can be characterized from several different aspects. There was fear that the spread of slave rebellions might affect slavery in the United States. There was also a great deal of concern over how relations with Haïti might affect U.S. relations with France, the key American ally in Europe.

Some citizens of the United States were opposed to the revolution because they had close ties to the plantations of Saint-Domingue; many feared that the Haitian slave revolts could provoke similar revolts in their own country. They felt that the Haitian revolts were anti-plantation and anti-white, and feared that slave emancipation would result in domination of whites by former slaves.^[1]

Government policy

In 1791 Thomas Jefferson talked about gradual emancipation of U.S. slaves in his private correspondence with friends while publicly remaining silent on the issue.^[2] However by the time that the revolution was coming to an end and the debate over an embargo began, Jefferson's attitude shifted to an acknowledgement of the need to continue slavery.^[3] Louis Andre Pichon, the chargé d’affaires of France, felt that Jefferson would help to put down the slaves due to the fear of black rebellion in the USA. Jefferson in fact had pledged to help starve out Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haïti's leader, but due to fears of the ambitions of Napoleon Bonaparte Jefferson had not helped them.^[4]

Haïti attempted to establish closer ties with the United States during the Jefferson administration, but this was difficult to do, in part because of the massacres of French whites in Haïti by Jean-Jacques Dessalines in 1804. Dessalines sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson calling for closer ties between the two nations but Jefferson ignored the letter.^[5]

Jefferson had wanted to align with the European powers in an effort to isolate Haïti, but was unsuccessful due to Britain's lack of interest in joining the proposed accord. France pressured for the end of American trade with Haïti, which they saw as aiding a rogue element in their colony. Jefferson agreed to cease trade in arms, but would not give up trade for noncontraband goods. Madison showed the inherent racism in the minds of the politicians of the time, when commenting on the agreement to not continue the arms trade, by saying "it is probably the interest of all nations that they should be kept out of hands likely to make so bad use of them."^[6] The debate on an embargo on Haïti heated up in Congress and civil society, but it was not all one-sided. Many were at least sympathetic to the Haïtian revolution, even those who would not characterize themselves as being anti-slavery. Some federalist newspapers, for example the Columbian Centinel, compared the Haïtian revolution and the struggle for independence from a European power, with the United States' own revolution for independence.^[7]

However in Congress the proponents of an embargo had the clear advantage. Though the policy of John Adams was more constrained than others, it was still in favor of an arms embargo on Haïti. Federalists were in favor of his policy because they felt it would help to solidify U.S. dominance over the politics and economy of the country, and would help to bring security to the South who were fearful of a hemisphere-wide slave revolt. However the South thought Adams' pragmatic policy went too far and was equivalent to full-scale relations with Haïti. They were adamantly against reaching an agreement with people who had committed atrocities against white planters.^[8] When George Logan introduced a bill that would outlaw all trade with Saint-Domingue that was not under French control, it signalled a shift to the side of the hard-liners. Weapons could only be aboard ships for their own protection, and any violators of the embargo would lose their cargo as well as their ships.^[9] The embargo bill introduced by George Logan was adopted in February of 1806, and then renewed again the next year, until it expired in April of 1808. Another embargo had been adopted in 1807 and this one lasted until 1810, though trade did not again take place until the 1820s.^[10] However despite this, official recognition did not happen until 1862, after the southern states had seceded from the United States.^[11]

Southern fears

In the south it was generally thought that the revolution in Haïti could spell similar disasters on their own land. Haïti had an official policy of accepting any black person who arrived on their shores as a citizen.^[12]

The legislatures of Pennsylvania and South Carolina, as well as the Washington administration, sent help for the French whites of Saint-Domingue.^[13] In the debate over whether the U.S. should embargo Haïti, John Taylor of South Carolina spoke for much of the popular sentiment of the South. To him the Haïtian revolution exemplified that slavery should be permanent in the United States. He argued against the idea that slavery had caused the revolution by instead suggesting that the antislavery movement had provoked the revolt in the first place. According to historian Tim Matthewson, John Taylor's comments in the debate shows how attitudes shifted in the south from one of reluctantly accepting slavery as a necessity, to one of seeing it as a fundamental aspect of southern culture and the planter class.^[14] As the years progressed Haïti only became a bigger target for scorn amongst the pro-slavery factions in the south. It was taken as proof that violence was an inherit part of the character of blacks due to the slaughtering of French whites, and the authoritarian rule that followed the end of the revolution.^[15]

Footnotes

1. ^ Matthewson, Abraham Bishop, "The Rights of Black Men," and the American Reaction to the Haïtian Revolution, pp. 148-149
2. ^ Matthewson, Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haïti, p. 23
3. ^ Ibid, p. 23
4. ^ Ibid, p. 23
5. ^ Ibid, p. 24
6. ^ Ibid, p. 29
7. ^ Ibid, p. 30
8. ^ Ibid, p. 33
9. ^ Ibid, p. 32
10. ^ Ibid, p. 35
11. ^ Ibid, p. 37
12. ^ Matthewson, Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haïti, p. 24
13. ^ Matthewson, Abraham Bishop, "The Rights of Black Men," and the American Reaction to the Haïtian Revolution, pp. 148-149
14. ^ Matthewson, Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haïti, p. 26
15. ^ Ibid, p. 37

References

• Matthewson, Tim (1982). "Abraham Bishop, "The Rights of Black Men," and the American Reaction to the Haïtian Revolution". The Journal of Negro History. 67 (2): 148–154. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Matthewson, Tim (1996). "Jefferson and the Nonrecognition of Haïti". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 140 (1): 22–48. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

Further reading

• Brown, Gordon (2005). Toussaint's Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haïtian Revolution. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press. ISBN 1-57806-711-1.
• Matthewson, Tim (2003). A Proslavery Foreign Policy: Haïtian-American Relations During the Early Republic. Westport: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-98002-2.
• Hinks, Peter; et al. (2007). Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition. Westport: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-33144-8. {{cite book}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last= (help)