Term Paper on "Haitian Revolution"

Term Paper 5 pages (1545 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804 occupies a distinct position in the history of humanity. Riding on the tail of the French Revolution, in which the Declaration of the Rights of Man paved the way for a new paradigm of social and political reality, the Haitian Revolution nevertheless embodies all the paradoxes of the modern world. Here, we have a nation colonized, its people oppressed, brutalized, and enslaved by white European imperialists drunk with greed. We have massive sugar plantations, the fruits of which were necessary to the survival of both the French occupiers and of the African slaves brought to Saint-Domingue. The aftereffects of the slave trade and of the subsequent revolt and revolution in Haiti include economic and political disenfranchisement, a nation embroiled in turmoil, violence, and instability. Still, historians cannot ignore the impact that the Haitian Revolution had on universal norms and codes of ethics. From the embers of the Revolution, the Haitian culture was also able to forge a unique, vibrant identity. For all of its violence and bloodshed, the Haitian Revolution paved the way for subsequent victorious slave uprisings and revolts, including those that occurred in the United States. Therefore, Haitian Revolution was ultimately successful in its promotion of universal emancipation, initiating the end to eighteenth-century economic infrastructures. The American Civil War, also a bloody affair, did not occur until almost a century later, testimony to the progressive nature of the Haitian Revolution and to its worldwide reverberation. Yet because of the current state of affairs on the Caribbean island nation, historians wonder how meaningful the Haitian Revolution actually was. Pessimists point to the plundering of the island by corrupt politicians as proof that the revolution was almost meaningless in the grand scheme of things. However, although the Haitian Revolution did not magically transform human nature and eliminate cruelty, avarice, and oppression, the affair marks a turning point in human history.

The Haitian people are poor, but they are, at least in theory, free. The literal chains of oppression bind their bodies no more, and while low wages and long working hours plague the lives of most residents of modern Haiti, anyone would agree that the current situation is an improvement over slavery. While some may say that the Haitian Revolution marked only a "movement from enslavement to a meaningless freedom," an optimist would note that no freedom is without meaning (Paravisini-Gebert 120). In his article "Troping Toussaint, Reading Revolution," Nick Nesbitt presents just such an optimistic viewpoint. Drawing upon the philosophy and theories of Hegel, Nesbitt notes that "The Haitian invention of decolonization and universal emancipation was a momentous rupture in being, one that obliterated the slaveholding logic of eighteenth century global capital," (30). Here, Nesbitt claims that the Haitian Revolution was entirely meaningful, not only for the Haitian people but for all disenfranchised people worldwide. One could easily respond by saying that the disenfranchised peoples of the world, from Haiti to Honduras to Iraq, remain enslaved in a mesh of economic and political oppression. It is true that revolutions like that which occurred in Haiti seem meaningless in light of the sadness and inequity that exists the world over. Haitian people are less free than their American counterparts on many counts, and like so many residents of the world, are symbolically enslaved by a corporate-controlled world market. Nesbitt acknowledges such grim socio-political realities when evoking the more realistic sentiments of Kant: "we can no longer have the faith of Kant that humanity is progressing irreversibly despite its local and temporary setbacks," (30).

Even if the freedom appears more symbolic than real, historians from outside Haiti should hesitate to place value judgments on the modern repercussions of colonialism there. Nesbitt notes the rich vibrancy of Haitian culture and the arts, for example, and Paravisini-Gebert accounts some of the intricacies of Haitian religion, as seen through the eyes of Spanish author Alejo Carpentier. As hopeless as it seems, situations across the world are bound to change for the better. Change takes time, effort, and energy; transformations to human cultures and societies do not happen overnight. For instance, Nesbitt repeatedly refers to the initial failures of the French Revolution even in France. The Declaration of the Rights of Man was not a big bang in the creation of universal justice and freedom. In fact, the French Revolution directly resulted in Napoleon's easy rise to power and despotism and fascism were emblematic features of the political landscape in twentieth-century Europe, a continent that many view as a model for social reform. Only recently has Western Europe crawled out from beneath a long history of tyrannical, authoritarian, despotic regimes. Immediately before the French Revolution, Europe was steeped in feudalism; in fact, feudalism remained a feature of European life after the French Revolution. Therefore, the consequences of grand-scale revolutions such as the one in Haiti do not always become immediately apparent. Even the United States also seems to have taken a step backwards with its imposition of laws like the Patriot Act on its people in the name of national security. In spite of these "local and temporary setbacks," human social progress is real.

Nesbitt calls the Haitian Revolution a definitively "successful guerilla war that for the first time forcefully expanded the universal human right of freedom from enslavement beyond the province of Western Europe," (19). As such, the Haitian Revolution was a key harbinger of similar movements in the future. While it may not have been the first time that slaves revolted against their maters, the Haitian Revolution was one of the first if not the first instances in which the slaves successfully deposed its colonial leaders, ousting them from power. Historians must be careful, though, to avoid romanticizing the Haitian Revolution. Phillipe R. Gerard, in his review of Laurent Dubois' book Avengers of the New World, states that "English language historiography of the Haitian Revolution has long been inadequate at best," (138). While some accounts "portrayed the rebellious black slaves as barbarians," other works "glossed over the horrors of the Haitian Revolution in order to describe its participants as heroes of the black race," (138). Because the Haitian Revolution was socially, economically, and politically complex, it is necessary to avoid generalizations or romanticism. The proposed hero of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint L'Overture, has been frequently portrayed as "a black Spartacus," even though he himself owned slaves and sympathized with exiled white leaders (Gerard 140). Like many such revolutionary figures, especially the ones glorified in the historiography of the dominant cultures, L'Overture straddled both fences: he appeased the oppressed while he pandered to the oppressors. Such tactics still work today. All oppressor nations know that such leaders make brilliant revolutionaries. Most of the despots put into power by the United States in nations around the world shared features in common with L'Overture.

With these facts in mind it is easy to denigrate the impact of the Haitian Revolution. The "incompleteness" of Alejo Carpentier's "fractured tale" of the Haitian Revolution proves the difficulty of providing a definitive or equivocal account. Similarly, Nesbitt and Gerard indicate the difficulties of summarizing the Haitian Revolution. Just as with all historiography, those of the Haitian Revolution remain confounded and inevitably colored by the author's background and belief system. Placing such a revolution into a global and temporal perspective can be difficult due to the limitations of first-hand accounts as well as to philosophical disagreements about the efficacy of human freedom in the modern world.

The Haitian Revolution, like all others, resulted in major fallout. In the Kingdom of this World, Carpentier points to the native ecosystem as one of the major victims of the Revolution: "the failure of the Revolution's leaders to imagine a landscape without plantation," (122). Carpentier's novel underscores the failure of the revolution to completely eradicate plantation mentalities and realities. However, it… READ MORE

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