The Haitian revolution and the limits of freedom: Defining citizenship in the revolutionary era

Social History

Volumn 32, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 394-414

  Fick, Carolyn E ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 35848968653     PISSN: 03071022     EISSN: 14701200     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03071020701616696     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. An earlier version of this article appeared in French in a bicentennial volume of essays on the Haitian revolution: 'La révolution haïtienne dans l'Atlantique révolutionnaire: Les enjeux contradictoires de la liberté, de la citoyenneté et de l'indépendance nationale' in Franklin Midy (ed.), Mémoire de révolution d'esclaves à Saint-Domingue: La traite négrière transatlantique, l'esclavage colonial, la Révolution de Saint-Domingue et les droits de l'homme (Montréal, 2006), 145-77
2. and in Portuguese: 'Para uma (re)definAção de liberdade: a Revolução no Haiti e os paradigmas da Liberdade e Igualdade', Estudos Afro-Asiáticos, XXVI, 2 (May-August 2004), 355-80. The present article has been revised and slightly expanded.
3. For this discussion, I have drawn largely upon Lynn Hunt's reflective analysis of the varied historical relationships between the philosophical doctrine of natural rights and the articulation, through revolutions, of its specific content in the form of human rights; see L. Hunt, 'The paradoxical origins of human rights' in Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Lynn Hunt & Marilyn B. Young (eds), Human Rights and Revolutions (Lanham, MD, 2000), 3-17.
4. On the fulfilment of Hegel's dialectic of freedom in the Haitian revolution, see also the profoundly challenging article by Susan Buck- Morrs, 'Hegel and Haiti', Critical Inquiry, XXVI (Summer 2000), 821-64.
5. P. Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), 44.
6. See n. 12.
7. Cited in R. Stein, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic (London and Toronto, 1985), 76.
8. ibid., 86.
9. ibid. See also A. Cabon, Histoire d'Haïti, 4 vols [1895-1919] (Port-au-Prince, 192?-40), vol. III, 163 and, for the full text of the principal articles, 176-7. The proclamation also includes provision for 'any' slave to become free through marriage to a free person.
10. Cited in Stein, op. cit., 87.
11. On these, see C. Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below (Knoxville, 1990), 140, 146-7.
12. For the full text of the proclamation's thirtyeight articles, see Cabon, op. cit., 178-81.
13. On Toussaint's attitudes toward his Spanish protectors and his motivations for deserting them in 1794, see D. Geggus, 'From His Most Catholic Majesty to the godless République: The '"volteface" of Toussaint Louverture and the ending of slavery in Saint-Domingue', Revue française d'histoire d'Outre-Mer, LXV (1978), 481-99.
14. Initially three civil commissioners had been appointed by the Legislative Assembly in 1792 to administer the colony and restore order: Sonthonax for the North province, Polverel for the West and Jean-Antoine Ailhaud for the South. Ailhaud abandoned his post after three months in the colony and left for France in January 1793. He was replaced by Olivier Delpech, who assumed jurisdiction over the South province. Delpech died on 27 September 1793, thus leaving Polverel with jurisdiction over both the West and the South provinces.
15. Cited in H. P. Sannon, Histoire de Toussaint Louverture, 3 vols (Port-au-Prince, 1920), vol. I, 132.
16. The Preamble to the 29 August proclamation and a selected number of the articles are printed in ibid., 132-5.
17. All thirty-eight articles are printed in Cabon, op. cit., 178-81.
18. This, and other proclamations of the civil commissioners that relate directly to the working conditions of the plantation labourers, were promulgated both in French and in Creole. In his book Lééger-Félicité Sonthonax: Lost Sentinel of the Republic, historian Robert Stein refers to a 5 May 1793 proclamation, just preceding those issued between 21 June and 29 August, which aimed to ameliorate the slaves' conditions and protect them from planters' abuses. It was translated and read to the slaves in Creole, each Monday morning before work began. Similarly, Sonthonax's general emancipation act of 29 August was drafted and promulgated in both French and Creole (op. cit., 84, 89).
19. See also B. Ardouin, tudes sur l'histoire d'Haïti [1853-1860], 11 vols, ed. François Dalencourt (Port-au-Prince, 1958), vol. II, book 2, 38.
20. Further to Sonthonax's proclamation of 29 August was that of his colleague, Polverel, issued on 7 February 1794 (see 402-3), applicable in the West and the South.
21. Articles 22 and 23 of this proclamation, in essence a work code for the emancipated labourers, required that the district military commanders on the sequestered plantations, and managers and overseers on all other plantations, assemble the exslaves and explain to them clearly (in Creole) the dispositions of his preamble as well as the work expected of them in order to receive their full pay, and to ask them how many days per week they wished to work, being fully aware of the penalties for striking one or two days from their work week (see 402-3 and n. 21 below).
22. One may reasonably assume that the proclamations of 21 June and 2, 11 and 25 July 1793, although not aimed at the plantation labourers as such, but rather at extending manumission to the men who would join the French army, and to their families, were also issued in Creole or in some manner made known in Creole to the beneficiaries.
23. From the Preamble cited in Sannon, op. cit., in n. 13.
24. The term is that of V. Saint-Louis, 'Les termes de citoyen et Africain pendant la révolution de Saint-Domingue' in Laënnec Hurbon (ed.), L'insurrection des esclaves de Saint-Domingue: 22-23 août 1791 (Paris, 2000), 83.
25. Cited in Fick, Making, op. cit., 176. Polverel's intention was to have the district military commanders poll the workers on the abandoned plantations and ask them to vote on which of the two regimes they wanted.
26. See C. Fick, 'Emancipation in Haiti: From plantation labour to peasant proprietorship', Slavery and Abolition, XXI, 2 (August 2000), 37-38 n. 25.
27. ibid., 18, 37 n. 23.
28. Archives Nationales (subsequently AN), DXXV, 28, 286. Règlement sur les proportions du travail et de la récompense, sur le partage des produits de la culture entre le propriétaire et les cultivateurs petite habitation O'Sheill, Plaine-du-Fond de l'Isle-à-Vache, 7 fév. 1794, signed E. Polverel. The following section is based on Polverel's remarks in the preface to the Règlement and the articles accompanying it.
29. ibid. According to Polverel's calculations, if a sugar plantation yielded an annual average of 300,000 livres in revenue, based on a full six-day working week, the owner's portion would be 200,000 livres (100,000 for operating expenses and 100,000 as his share of the profits), and the workers' share 100,000 livres. Should the workers decide to take an extra day for themselves and work only five days out of six, the gross revenue would diminish by one-sixth; thus instead of 300,000 livres, the gross yield would be only 250,000 livres, not by any fault of the owner but by the workers' own choice. Therefore the owner's share would remain the same, at 200,000 livres, and the workers' share be diminished by half, to 50,000 livres. Should the workers wish to take a four-day week, the plantation revenues would diminish by two-sixths (or one-third) to 200,000 livres, with nothing left for the workers.
30. ibid. Polverel reasoned that, as wage earners, the emancipated workers no longer needed their small kitchen gardens, but as he did not want to take these away from them altogether he maintained the size of the plots to what it had been under slavery. On slave kitchen gardens in Saint Domingue,
31. see C. Fick, 'The French Revolution in Saint Domingue: A triumph or a failure?' in David B. Gaspar and David P. Geggus (eds), A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (Bloomington, 1997), 72-73 n. 21.
32. Unless otherwise noted, this section is based on the material presented in Fick, Making, op. cit., 168-79.
33. AN, DXXV 28, 286. Règlement.
34. One innovation that Polverel introduced, ostensibly to provide workers with some input into the decision-making process on their plantations, was the creation of elected administrative councils on which upper-ranking or skilled workers could serve. What real input the field workers might have had, however, is questionable. See Fick, Making, op. cit., 169.
35. But see also J. Cauna, 'Polverel ou la Révolution tranquille' in Michel Hector (ed.), La Révolution française et Haïti, 2 vols (Port-au-Prince, 1995), vol. I, 397.
36. Cited in Fick, Making, op. cit., 178-9.
37. AN, DXXV 28, 286. Règlement. In this latter respect, Polverel may have been anticipating the neo-colonialist doctrine put forward by the reconstituted Société des Amis des Noirs (from 1797 to 1799), which renamed itself the Société des Amis des Noirs et des colonies. See 408 and n. 33, below.
38. Cited in French in F. Gauthier, 'Le rǒle de la députation de Saint-Domingue dans l'abolition de l'esclavage' in Marcel Dorigny (ed.), Les abolitions de l'esclavage: De L.F. Sonthonax à V. Schoelcher, 1793 1794 1848 (Paris, 1995), 205 (my translation).
39. The following is based on les Cayes prison lists from 1 November 1793 through 28 March 1794 in AN, DXXV 27, 281 and 282. On the Legions see 397-8. For convenience, the English term 'citizen' will be used for the French 'citoyen' in these lists.
40. It is worth noting that Citizens Armand and Bernard (cited in the lists above as company captains) were among the original slave leaders of the rebellion in the South in 1792, in the mountains at Platons just outside les Cayes. They were manumitted, given the rank of captain in the Legion and, later, appointed as regional agricultural inspectors. Fick, Making, op. cit., 141-56, 178. Thus the military proved to be one of the most effective, if not the only real means, of upward social mobility for emancipated slaves, the vast majority of whom would remain attached to their plantations as field labourers.
41. See V. Saint-Louis, Aux origines du drame d'Haïti: Droit et commerce maritime (1794-1806) (Haiti, 2006), 89 and notes 97-8.
42. Cited in J. Guetata, 'Le refus d'application de la constitution de l'an III à Saint-Dominigue, 1795-1797' in Florence Gauthier (ed.), Périssent les colonies plutôt qu'un principe! Contributions à l'histoire de l'abolition de l'esclavage, 1789-1804 (Paris, 2002), 81.
43. See also L. Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2004).
44. For a discussion and critical analysis of these debates and of the trajectory of universal citizenship for the former slaves from the 4 February decree of the revolutionary Jacobin government to its subversion by the Directory in 1797 see Guetata, 'Le regus', op. cit. 81-90
45. and the two essays in Dorigny (ed.), Les abolitions, op. cit. (F. Gauthier, 'Le rǒle', op. cit., 199-211
46. and Bernard Gainot, 'La constitutionalisation de la liberté générale sous le Directoire (1795-1800)', 213-29).
47. Guetata, 'Le refus', op. cit., 87-90.
48. M. Dorigny and B. Gainot (eds), La Société des Amis des Noirs, 1788-1799 (Paris, 1998), 309-12
49. and Gainot, 'La constitutionalisation', op. cit., 222-9. The newly reconstituted Amis des Noirs et des colonies was short-lived, however, lasting only from 30 November 1797 to 30 March 1799. Although firmly wedded to emancipationism, it now looked forward to forging a new form of colonialism (in some ways prefiguring nineteenthcentury French colonialism in Africa) that would involve western modes of market and technology exchange between Europe and Africa, without slavery. Thus, even though some of the original members of the first Amis des Noirs (1788-91), like the Abbé Grégoire, were present, the Amis des Noirs et des colonies of 1797 to1799 had lost most of its earlier revolutionary idealism.
50. Dubois, op. cit., 298-9.
51. See Gainot, 'La constitutionalisation', op. cit.,
52. and Dubois, op. cit., 299-304 for a full discussion of the dimensions of political citizenship prescribed in the Law on the Organization of the Colonies, essentially leaing the black plantation labourers disenfranchised, while favouring those in the military.
53. For a much broader discussion of the Africain/citoyen paradigm, see Saint-Louis, 'Les Termes de citoyen et Africain', op. cit., 75-95.
54. Fick, 'Emancipation in Haiti', op. cit., 38 n. 35.
55. Cited in C. Moïse, Le Projet national de Toussaint Louverture et la Constitution de 1801 (Montreal, 2001), 66-7.
56. Cited in ibid., 5.
57. The full text of the Règlement de culture du 20 vendémiaire An 9 is printed in ibid., 130-40.
58. See also Fick, 'Emancipation in Haiti', op. cit., 24-6.
59. Cited in Moïse, Projet national, op. cit., 104, 106 (articles 3 and 14 respectively). The full text of the Constitution of 1801 is printed therein, 97-123.
60. Cited in ibid., 106 (article 16).
61. The revolt was assumed to have been inspired by his nephew, General Moïse, who, as agricultural inspector for the North, was known to oppose his uncle's land policies. The new police measures were enacted in Toussaint's Proclamation du 25 novembre 1801, the full text of which is printed in ibid., 141-55.
62. The constitution did provide for a Central Assembly of Saint Domingue, but its powers were merely to 'vote the adoption or rejection of laws proposed to it by the governor': ibid., 108 (article 24).
63. On the unbridgeable gulf between 'state' and 'nation' see the splendid work by Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Haiti: State against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism (New York, 1990).
64. Cited in C. Moïse, Constitutions et luttes de pouvoir en Haïti, 1804-1915: La faillite des classes dirigeantes, 2 vols (Montreal, 1988), vol. I, 33.
65. Also cited in English in M. Sheller, 'Sword-bearing citizens: Militarism and manhood in nineteenthcentury Haiti', Plantation Society in the Americas, IV, 2-3 (Fall 1997), 243.
66. Moïse, Constitutions, op. cit., 33.
67. See Fick, 'Emancipation in Haiti', op. cit., 31.
68. After the death of Pétion in 1818, the presidency of the republic was assumed by General Jean-Pierre Boyer, who ruled over a reunited Haiti after the death of Henri Christophe in 1820 in the North until he was overthrown in 1843.
69. Cited in Sheller, op. cit., 244. Sheller has significantly enriched our understanding of the dichotomy of a 'military-dominated state' exploiting a disempowered civil society by introducing a gender perspective by which women, being excluded both from the military and from public affairs, became the 'most disempowered group' of all.
70. Cited in Fick, 'Emancipation in Haiti', op. cit., 30.
71. Sheller, op. cit., 248-9
72. and Fick, 'Emancipation in Haiti', op. cit., 33-5.