Literature review The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (1938), by Afro-Trinidadian writer C. L. R. James (4 January 1901–19 May 1989), is a history of the 1791-1804Haitian Revolution. The text places the revolution in the context of the French Revolution, and focuses on the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was born a slave but rose to prominence espousing the French Revolutionary ideals of liberty and equality. The Making of Haiti by Carolyn E. Fick (1990) also places the Saint Domingue rebellion in relation to the larger revolutionary movements of the era; it provides background on class and caste prior to the revolution, the workings of the plantation system, the rigors of slave life, and the profound influence of voodoo. By examining the rebellion and the conditions that led to it from the perspective of the slaves it liberated, she revises the history of Haiti. Objectives 1.
Thursday 20th October 2011 History 111 Assignment Critically examine the Haitian Revolution and its impact on the wider region. The Haitian Revolution represents the only successful slave revolution in history. The great man, the leader of this rebellion was General Toussaint L’Overture. The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) was a period of conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which culminated in the elimination of slavery there and the founding of the Haitian republic. St. Domingue Slave Revolt, which began in 1791, was successful in achieving permanent independence under a new nation.
The Haitian Revolution was global in its processes due to its continual struggle against European colonial powers, slavery and the Atlantic economy, and racist European/American altitudes. The Haitian revo- lution was global in its inspiration or legacy by inspiring abolitionists, philoso- phers, poets as well as descendants of slaves around the world 10 fight for their own freedom. 'Ille Haitian Revolution had its roots in the abuses of slaves in the Atlantic economy. Haiti (San Domingue) was the most lucrative colony for the French , and this weas due entirely to the slave labor force. The French Noir code may have given rights to freed blacks and guaranteed food rations, but it's doubtful that there were many freed slaves, or that anyone oversaw the food rationing either (DOCUMENT 1), Data on freed slaves and food rationing would be useful to determine if the Black codes were actually enforced.
1804 Francis II starts an anti-French alliance with Russia, a third Coalition war started a year later. Peace was signed to end war in less than a year. A year later Francis II gave up his title as the Holy Roman Emperor and dissolves the Holy Roman Empire.
In Sparks’s writing, the Robin Johns’ story allows us "to translate those statistics (of the slave trade) into people" (5). The Robin Johns’ enslavement and liberation resulted from their active roles as slave traders at the West African region of Old Calabar. Ephraim Robin John and Ancona Robin John were members of the elite Efik slave traders of Old Calabar and participated in the Ekpe secret society that governed the commercial relations with Atlantic traders. As Old Calabar grew from a small town in the late seventeenth century to one of the most important slave trading regions of the eighteenth century, Efik traders such as the Robin Johns came to
According to the text, the first stage of the French Revolution was based totally on the liberty to succeed, own, and compete. Next, the second stage of the revolution took on equality to rally their troops, which was also the revolution of the working people in the French cities. In fact the French adapted a national motto for brotherhood which was Liberte’, elgalite, fraternite…which is French for Liberty, equality, and fraternity. The debates on the compatibility of the three terms as well as their order began at the same time of the French Revolution. France was known as what is called an absolute monarchy in which King Louis XVI had complete control over the nation.
Slavery During the Enlightenment and French Revolution During the Enlightenment and French Revolution, the National Assembly, the government that took over France during the French Revolution, wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which stated, "All men are born and remain free and equal in rights." People living in France and in the colonies of France started to wonder if that applied to the slaves in the West Indies. Although many consider slavery to be simply a social issue the enlightenment and French Revolution shows that this issue goes far beyond morality. Despite being thought of as morally unjust, the philosophers, slave owners, and political leaders, whose thoughts once contradicted each other, had to agree that slavery was a necessary evil if the economy was to prosper. Despite the fact that slavery allowed white aristocrats to maintain power while fattening their wallets the thought of the enslavement of another human being caused Enlightened France to fight over their freedom of these people, even though it would hurt the economy, social, and political order of France.
THE CAUSES AND EFFECT OF THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION The Haitian Revolution represents the most thorough case study of revolutionary change anywhere in the history of the modern world. In ten years of sustained internal and international warfare, a colony populated predominantly by plantation slaves overthrew both its colonial status and its economic system and established a new political state of entirely free individuals—with some ex-slaves constituting the new political authority. As only the second state to declare its independence in the Americas, Haiti had no viable administrative models to follow. The British North Americans who declared their independence in 1776 left slavery intact, and theirs was more a political revolution than a social and economic one. The success of Haiti against all odds made social revolutions a sensitive issue among the leaders of political revolt elsewhere in the Americas during the final years of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth century.
The events of August 1791 were a clear statement by the slave population about the institution of slavery on Saint Domingue, and were unprecedented in the world at the time. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, in his essay “An Unthinkable History,” applies the term “unthinkable” to describe the Haitian Revolution, before, during, and even after its conclusion. The idea of the “unthinkable” is directly connected to the radicalism of the revolution. The Haitian Revolution was a mass revolt against a system built around the belief in “degrees of humanity” and it exposed the conflict between Enlightenment thought, and actual actions. The radicalism of
Each partida is divided into articles (182 in total), and these are composed of laws (2802 in all). The French West Indies had, as the basis of their slave laws, the Code Noir (Black Code) which was drawn up in France in 1685 and remained in force until 1804, until it was replaced by the Code Napoleon. The British colonies did not have a set of laws drawn up by the mother country; instead, each colony drew up its own set of laws. Such laws began to be passed by mid seventeenth century which gave the masters total authority over the life and death of their slaves. These slave codes saw the slaves as heathenish and brutish and each slave owner was required to act as a policeman to deal with his slaves by using a whip.