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Archives Of Revolution Toward New Narratives Of Haiti And The Revolution
1. Reviews of Books
Archives of the Revolution:
Toward New Narratives of Haiti and the Revolution
Robert D. Taber, Fayetteville State University1
Cul de Sac: Patrimony, Capitalism, and Slavery in French Saint-Domingue.
By Paul Cheney. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. 274
pages. Cloth, ebook.
The Haitian Revolution and the Early United States: Histories, Textualities,
Geographies. Edited by Elizabeth Maddock Dillon and Michael
J. Drexler. Early American Studies. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2016. 430 pages. Cloth, ebook.
Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America.
By James Alexander Dun. Early American Studies. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. 350 pages. Cloth, ebook.
The Haitian Declaration of Independence: Creation, Context, and Legacy.
Edited by Julia Gaffield. Jeffersonian America. Charlottesville:
University of Virginia Press, 2016. 295 pages. Cloth, ebook.
An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom: Revolution, Emancipation, and
Reenslavement in Hispaniola, 1789â1809. By Graham T. Nessler.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. 312 pages.
Cloth, ebook.
We search with curiosity for the ruins of ancient civilizations
whose glory has inspired admiration, and we engage in painstaking
research and learned dissertations to arrive at imperfect knowledge
of the cultures and government of these peoples. Greece and Italy
call out to observers every day. Well! With this work, one may med-
itate on Saint-Domingue; and no doubt we may, in some respects,
1 The reviewer thanks Nathan Dize, Yvonne Fabella, Jennifer Palmer, Alyssa Gold-
stein Sepinwall, Douglass Taber, and Charlton Yingling for their comments and sugges-
tions on early versions of this piece. Any errors are the reviewerâs own.
William and Mary Quarterly, 3d ser., 75, no. 3, July 2018
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.75.3.0541
3. reviews of books 543
sake of present-day political arguments, is made more acute by a unique
aspect of Haitian Revolution historiography: the archives of the revolution
are, for the most part, in the hands of the former colonizers. By their ini-
tial design these archives amplify the voices of the defeated imperial forces
rather than the arguments of the silenced victors.
The books reviewed here draw on archives in the United States, the
United Kingdom, Spain, and France, as well as a few Haitian-created and
Haitian-preserved collections. Together, they point to three challenges in
advancing the English-language historiography of the Haitian Revolution.
First, the archives of revolution are vast and scattered. Second, as an event at
the fulcrum of key questions regarding human rights, citizenship, the devel-
opment of global capitalism, and postcolonial imaginings, the significance
of the Haitian Revolution for our conceptions of modernity has always been
contested, with defenders of white supremacy consistently striving to silence
or distort aspects of the revolution, particularly Black political agency.
Third, we must distinguish between the aspects of the Haitian Revolution
that are indeed unique and those aspects that are consistent with trends else-
where in the Americas, and we need to avoid simplistic narratives. In 1789,
the crops grown by the enslaved formed the linchpin for the Atlantic econ-
omy, but little of the wealth remained in the hands of the producers; thus
we must not call Saint Domingue the âwealthiest colony in the world.â4
Furthermore, though plantation uprisings were the sites of greatest unrest in
Haiti, transitions from slavery across the Americas often included organized
violence, mass desertions, and political lobbying for emancipation. Finally,
revolutionary and early national Haitiâs postemancipation society featured
arguments about forced labor and plantation-centered production that pre-
saged similar struggles elsewhere. Rigorous research into the Haitian past
therefore enables us to better understand larger histories of slave resistance,
emancipation, and postcolonial society in the Americas and beyond, and
Haitiâs role therein.
Due to Haitiâs colonial status (until 1804), its economic importance,
and the contemporary salience of the slave uprisings, most primary sources
for revolutionary events reside in foreign hands, particularly those of the
countries that lost the military, diplomatic, and cultural battles. France
houses the most, followed by the United Kingdom, the United States, and
Spain.5 This staggering archival spread is seen in the works under discus-
sion here. For example, in An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom, Graham T.
Nessler draws upon the Rochambeau Papers at the University of Florida,
Gainesville, and the records from the Audiencia de Santo Domingo in
Seville, Spain, as well as the Notariat de Saint-Domingue and the Collection
4 David Geggus, The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History (London, 2014), xi.
5 David Patrick Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington, Ind., 2002),
43â51.
7. reviews of books 547
of emancipationâdemonstrating that the questions of Reconstruction
regarding the distribution of land, legal changes to forced labor, political
representation, and obligations and opportunities for Black artists were
prevalent well before 1865.
Similarly, Latin American historians have long been interested in Haiti
because of its salience for questions regarding race and citizenship and, more
recently, state formation, making new works on early national Haiti critical
contributions to their field. Nesslerâs study is part of a new wave of works
in English on eastern Hispaniola in the nineteenth century, indicating the
potential this scholarship has to link events across the island with broader
theories about slavery, civilization, and belonging and with the conceptual
problems of reenslavement.13 Nesslerâs effort to reconceptualize the Haitian
revolutionary era âas ending in 1809, not 1804â (192) is less convincing; 1809
was both several years after the declaration of independence and well before
French recognition of Haiti, and the reassertion of Spanish sovereignty
in Santo Domingo that year did not end the threat to the new nation.
Gaffieldâs edited collection nicely complements the geographic, thematic,
and personal connections Nessler draws between the Haitian Revolution
and the Hispanophone Caribbean, as its essays cumulatively demonstrate
that Haiti belongs alongside Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Brazil, and other
Latin American polities in the state formation debates concerning oligar-
chies, military rule, âpeasantâ land ethics, and the stateâs role in religion.
Detailing these political debates is a key part of undoing the silencing
of the Haitian Revolution first described by Michel-Rolph Trouillot.14 Not
all these works take up his call to see the revolution through the eyes of the
enslaved as a complex, nuanced political movement. Cheney, for example,
preserves the narrative perspective of the plantation manager attempting to
turn a profit on a sugar plantation despite the chronic absenteeism of the
enslaved (and later the free). The managerâs letters include great detail about
the difficult choices people made concerning where to go during times of
turmoil, war, and food insecurity. Cheneyâs analytic focus, however, remains
on the white managerâs desire for a return of the ârespectâ (189) he felt the
free owed him and on the Ferronnaysâ struggle to assemble the paperwork
to claim compensation for their financial losses. The manager recognized
the revolutionâs complexity but did not accept the critique of colonial-
ism that was at the heart of the revolution and presented the events as
13 Charlton W. Yingling, âThe Maroons of Santo Domingo in the Age of Revolu-
tions: Adaptation and Evasion, 1783â1800,â History Workshop Journal 79, no. 1 (Spring
2015): 25â51; Anne Eller, We Dream Together: Dominican Independence, Haiti, and the
Fight for Caribbean Freedom (Durham, N.C., 2016).
14 For an overview of Michel-Rolph Trouillotâs statement and responses, see Alyssa
Goldstein Sepinwall, âStill Unthinkable? The Haitian Revolution and the Reception
of Michel-Rolph Trouillotâs Silencing the Past,â Journal of Haitian Studies 19, no. 2 (Fall
2013): 75â103. See also Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
(Boston, 1995).