Effects of the French Revolution in the Caribbean, or the effects of the Caribbean Revolution on the French.

1. “The revolutions – American, French, Haitian, and Spanish-American – should be seen as
interconnected, with each helping to radicalize the next.” (Blackburn, 117)
The French Revolution (FR) triggered the emancipation of slaves in the Caribbean only indirectly.
Fierce rivalries between white factions gave African slaves the opportunity to play one faction off
against the other in order to advance a freedom agenda.
Since the emigre groups were largely absent, and since the “petit blanc” Jacobin whites were incredibly
racist and hostile towards the coloreds, it was natural that African rebels would seek to ally themselves
with the emigres as the necessity for allies arose. While the whites of Port au Prince initially celebrated
the FR, the Africans sought alliances with royalist groups (including Britain and Spain) who were more
than happy to supply ammunition and weapons for use in depriving the French of their precious
colonies.
The political alignment needed to consummate African independence in the Caribbean was completely
opposite to that of the Sans-Culottes in Paris, for example. In contrast to the situation in Paris, African
freedom fighters had no interest in bourgeois ideas or bourgeois leadership. All of that was completely
irrelevant to them, except to the extent that it perpetuated a chaotic situation which created an
opportunity for freedom. In fact, from a broader perspective, the debates in Paris were absurd and even
ridiculous in comparison to the realities faced by the Africans.
Contemplating the Haitian revolution and the slave rebellions in French Guiana, comparing the matters
at stake, the FR seems by comparison to be a shallow, academic discussion. While the FR was
dominated by dilettante eggheads with simplistic notions about social justice, the Africans of Haiti and
French Caribbean were taking meaningful action in the midst of the reality of oppression and
exploitation.
While one might argue that the Caribbean was irrelevant to the evolution of European Civilization and
that the supposed benefits of the FR stood apart from events in the Caribbean, in fact, the Caribbean
was vitally important to Europe; and developments there had a major impact on European Civilization
and the FR, as I will now demonstrate.
The Evidence:
“Slaves died in stunning numbers in the colony; each year, between 5 and 10 percent of the slave
population succumbed to overwork and disease. Death outpaced births, and only a constant stream of
imports sustained the laboring population. Some contemporaries were dismayed by the brutality and
inefficiency of the system. . . . . But, it was cheaper to let slaves die and buy more from Africa, so that
is what planters did.” (Dubois, 2012, 21)
“French colonial slavery . . . had evolved into a major component of French capitalist and bourgeois
development. About a tenth of the members of the National Assembly . . . were colonial proprietors.
Bordeaux and Nantes . . . ports that virtual monopolized the colonial trade, were the hubs of the Jacobin
and Girondin network” (Blackburn, 117).
“The wealth of Bordeaux was owing to the slave trade. “Over the eighteenth century the profits of
shipping sugar from the Caribbean colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe and Saint-Domingue –
wealthiest of the sugar islands – had built fine new boulevards, squares and public buildings along the
Bordeaux waterfront.” (Andress, 1850

2. “By 1791, French Saint Domingue had developed into the world's major producer of both sugar and
coffee. It's half million slaves and 8,000 plantations made it easily the most important colony in the
Caribbean, exporting far more than the British and Spanish islands combined. Supplying some 40
percent of French overseas trade, it was a vital source of profits and foreign exchange for France's
otherwise stagnant economy and an object of international envy.” (Geggus, 171)
Faced with a huge slave insurrection, the Colonial Assembly in Saint Domingue rejected an urgent
proposal by the Marquis de Rouvray to enlist the support of free colored. (Dubois, Avengers, 118)
Victor Hugues, in charge of Guadeloupe, transformed Republican liberation into military coercion in
order to keep the plantation economy operational. (Dubois, Citizens, 278)
Prior to August of 1791, when the slave uprising began in Saint Domingue, no serious thought had
been given in France to ending slavery. (Blackburn, 118) When slavery was condemned by the decree
of 4 February 1794 (16 Pluviose), facts on the ground had already rendered emancipation a fait
accompli. Napoleon's later attempt to reinstitute slavery failed in Saint Domingue (Haiti) and in French
Guiana. Because he had failed to reinstitute slavery in Saint Domingue, Napoleon decided to turn the
828,000 squares miles of French territory in North America over to the United States for a nominal
price of $18 each. (accord, Blackburn, 134)
While the emancipation decree of 16 Pluviose was motivated in large part as a response to the British
invasion of the French Caribbean (Blackburn, 126), the “French Republic of 1794-99 should be given
credit for sealing an alliance with black emancipation and giving it a few years to consolidate itself in
Saint Domingue.” (Blackburn, 127). A French sponsored offensive by Victor Hugues [formerly
bourgeois trader in Port Au Prince], “tied down forty-five thousand British troops who could otherwise
have been deployed in Saint Domingue, and the British forces committed to the Caribbean exceeded
those sent to fight in continental Europe.” (Blackburn, 127)
Sonthonax, the Colonial commissioner appointed by the National Convention found it expedient to
abolish slavery in Saint Domingue on August 29, 1793, after the pro-slavery Governor of the colony,
Galbaud, was forced to flee. However, Sonthonax, shortly after his arrival in Saint Domingue on 17
September 1792 had announced in his first proclamation: “We declare that slavery until now has been
essential to the economic well being of the colony and that neither the Assembly in Paris nor the King
had the right to strike at any of the privileges of the inhabitants of this island.” (Ros, 48)
“Michael Hector and Laennec Hurbon argue that the Haitian revolution was not only a triple revolution
against 'slavery, colonialism, and racial oppression,' but also a revolution whose social base in the
former slaves gave it 'a strong orientation toward rejection of the plantation system.'” (Blackburn, 131)
“Haiti hosted a beleaguered Simon Bolivar, encouraging him to abolish slavery in his pursuit of
independence in South America.” (Dubois, Avengers, 303)
Denmark Vesey orchestrated the largest slave conspiracy in North American History relying upon aid
from 300 slaves called the “French band” who had fled Saint Domingue with their masters in the wake
of the 1791 slave revolt. (Rucker, 160-61, 169)
In May 1802, Napoleon stopped short of actually declaring slavery restored in Saint-Domingue and
Guadeloupe, but he wrote instructions to the governors of the two colonies giving them authority to

3. restore slavery at their own discretion. (James, 341)
Conclusion
The FR was tragic. The effect in Saint-Domingue was caught in a cross-fire. Saint-Domingue could
have made the transition to freedom without total economic and social destruction. But, the 1790's
proved that cruelty and barbarism are as much a part of European DNA as any other. In the words of
Alejo Carpentier:
“We forget the dead too easily. The dead of Paris, of Lyons, of Nantes and of Arras; those who had died
in the Atlantic prison ships, in the fields of Cayenne, and in so many other places; not forgetting those
whose deaths could never be reckoned, who had been abducted or defenestrated, or who had vanished.
To these must be added the living corpses, the men whose lives had been shattered, their vocations
frustrated, their work cut short; who would now eke out the rest of their days in misery, . . . “
(Carpentier, 260)

4. Works Cited
David Andress, The Terror. New York: Farrar. Straus, and Giroux 2005 (ISBN: 0-374-27341-3)
Madison Smartt Bell. Toussaint Louverturem, A Biography. New York: Pantheon Books 2007. (ISBN:
978-0-375-42337-6)
Robin Blackburn. “The Achievement of the Haitian Revolution, 1791-1804.” in Revolution! The
Atlantic World Reborn. London: GILES 2011 (ISBN: 978-0-916141-24-0)
Alejo Carpentier. Explosion in a Cathedral. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2001 (ISBN:
978-0-8166-3808-6) Originally published in Mexico as El Siglo de las Luces (1962)
Laurent Dubois. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean,
1787-1804. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2004 (ISBN: 0-8078-2874-2)
Laurent Dubois. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press 2004 (ISBN: 0-674-01304-2)
Laurent Dubois. Haiti, The Aftershocks of History. New York: Metropolitan Books 2012 (ISBN: 978-0-
8050-9335-3)
David Patrick Geggus. Haitain Revolutionary Studies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2002
(ISBN: 0-253-34104-3)
Michel Hector and Laënnec Hurbon, eds, “Introduction.” Genése de l'etat haitien, 1804-1859. (Paris:
Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 2009), 11-24 (16-17).
C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins, New York: Vintage Books 1989 (ISBN 0-678-72467-2)
Martin Ros. Night of Fire. New York: Sarpedon 1994 (ISBN: 0-9627613-8-9) First Published in
Amsterdam 1991.
Walter C. Rucker, The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early
America. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 2006 (ISBN: 978-0-8071-3331-6)