Instructor: Mba Mbulu
Read the Essay below. Be able to answer and expound on the following questions.
(1) Did the intransigence of the whites prove that the Haitian
Revolution was more about race than human equality?
(2) What did Toussaint L'Ouverture do when he joined the San Domingo
Revolution? How important was his army to what he was able to
accomplish?
(3) What would Toussaint wave in the air while he told his People,
"Here is your liberty!'?
(4) What two things did Toussaint want for his people more than
anything else?
(5) Why didn't Toussaint abolish the slave trade when he assumed
control of San Domingo?
Class #14 Essay
Throughout the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution,
the whites remained intransigent. The little whites were more
intransigent that the others. Because so many elements were becoming
intimately intertwined, it is no wonder that many researchers
and historians began to define the Haitian Revolution as a social
fight that took on a racial appearance. But the opposite is just
as true, probably moreso than the former. The Haitian Revolution,
more than anything else, was a racial fight mired in an abusive
economic system that took on a social appearance because of events
associated with the French Revolution. However, the French Revolution
did not define the Haitian Revolution. The Haitian Revolutioin
pre-dated the French Revolution and maintained its core reason
for being even after the French Revolution surged to the political
forefront. White intransigence probably resulted in insurrections
led by Blacks like Jean Francois y Biassou and Hyacinthe, a slave,
in the north. These Blacks destroyed property of mulattoes and
small whites. Among the followers of Biassou was a man that some
called Pierre Dominique Toussaint. Others called him Francois,
but he became known to the world as Toussaint L'Ouverture.
Toussaint L'Ouverture was a driver on a plantation in Breda, close
to where Boukman had begun the final stages of the Haitian Revolution
in 1791. He was well known, respected, accustomed to exerting
authority and knew how to impose discipline without being brutal.
Because Toussaint was so well respected, he was able to keep the
slaves on the Breda plantation from participating in the insurrection
led by Boukman. Later, when Toussaint could no longer deny how
brutal the whites were, he and the Blacks from his plantation
joined Biassou and the revolution. Toussaint became Biassou's
assistant and was later put in charge of a column that operated
in the north of the colony.
In early 1792 Toussaint began to organize an army out of the thousands
of ignorant and untrained Black rebellers. He drilled them repeatedly
and taught them the art of war, recognizing all the time that
revolutionary troops, not talk, would be the deciding factor in
their struggle for freedom. By the end of 1792, he had developed
the core of a fighting Black army that would, within the next
decade, defeat the Spanish, British and French armies , the three
most powerful armies in the world at the time. He knew whites
were determined to recolonize San Domingo.
With his army as the instrument of his power and the masses as
its foundation, Toussaint scored some impressive victories on
the battlefield and gained the allegiance of other Black and mulatto
rebellers. He then made some early moves toward independence.
He proposed a plan to the Spanish that would eliminate the French
and grant freedom to all of the Blacks. When the Spanish refused,
he proposed a similar plan to the French. When the French refused,
Toussaint rallied his people, made his army more powerful than
ever and went on the offensive militarily. Within four years,
Black People were in complete political control of San Domingo,
and Toussaint L'Ouverture was their undisputed leader.
Recognizing that political power is only a means to an end, Toussaint
began to institute measures that would bring about the two ends
he desired most-- permanent freedom for his people and the development
of Black People as a race. He armed the laborers and would wave
a gun up in the air while shouting, "Here is your liberty!"
He created a constitution that abolished slavery, kept the church
subordinate to the state, barred French officials and authorized
the slave trade (The slave trade was authorized because the colony
needed laborers. As soon as slaves landed in San Domingo they
automatically became free people). And, even though he knew that
the owners of property were without principles, he refused to
persecute them because they had the knowledge and expertise he felt was needed
by the colony to return to prosperity.
But Toussaint did not declare that San Domingo was an independent
nation. That glory was left to his successor, Jean Jacques Dessalines.
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