← After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal
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- [00:00]
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It's a prophetically stormy night in Saint Domingue, 1791. Rain lashes the clearing as dozens gather in the dark, breath held, nerves tight as wire. A drumbeat rises, slow at first, then urgent, echoing the tension rippling through the enslaved masses of the island. Beneath the trees, Hookman's voice cuts through the storm, and Cecile Fatiman's invocation seems to crack open the night itself. For generations, uprisings have flared and died here. But not this time. Tonight, boughs are sworn spirits called, and fear gives way to something sharper. At Boisquemon, the breaking point has finally come, and revolution is about to ignite. On the island the French called Saint Doming. Half a million enslaved people labored under a regime so brutal it was never meant to be survived. But beneath the plantations, something was stirring. Whispers of revolt where previous generations had fallen short spread through the enslaved population. In 1791, under the shadow of a Vodou ceremony, leaders like Buchman and Fatiman lit the spark that would become an inferno. What followed was the only successful slave revolution in history, one that carved the world's first black republic from fire and blood, defeating the might of Napoleon's army in the process. From the heart of revolutionary Haiti, this is After Dark.
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C
Hello there. My name's Anthony.
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B
And I'm Maddie.
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C
And today we are learning about a history we have long wanted to do, an after Dark. The Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804 was the final and most decisive in a long line of revolts by the enslaved in the French colony of Saint Domingue, culminating in the elimination of slavery in the colony and the founding of the Republic of Haiti. It's a violent and bloody history that arguably deserves more attention than it has previously had. And luckily, we have scholars working in the field who are giving it the attention it deserves. So to help us unpack and understand these dramatic events is Marlene Doubt, professor of French and African Diaspora Studies at Yale University and author of several books, including Awakening the An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution. Marlene, welcome to to After Dark.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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C
We're very, very excited, as I said about this episode, because one of the Reasons we're excited, Marlene, is because we know a lot of people will be coming to this episode with actually very little information to hand about this particular revolution. If you name, you know, the glorious revolution of 1688, they might have an idea of that. Obviously, the American Revolution, they'll know something about that. The French Revolution, certainly. But here's another revolution that links in many ways to all of these events, but that people don't have the same kind of firsthand account for themselves. So before we get into the nitty gritty, can you give us a historical context, I suppose, of the world that created this revolution? So what was happening beforehand in this area?
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A
Yes, absolutely. Haiti is certainly a vital part of the age of revolutions, and as you mentioned, it's often left out, even though of all those revolutions, it sort of has the most momentous and longitudinal consequences. But, of course, it didn't start out that way. So the island of Saint Domingue, which was a French colony, sits on the western third of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean. And the Spanish had come with Columbus in 1492 and colonized the island, forcibly transporting Africans from the continent to work as slaves. But when the French took over the western third, the part that becomes Haiti in 1697, they really transformed the society from kind of a middling slave society, a colony that is, you know, not necessarily that robust or important to Spain at that point. And they transformed form it into a true plantation society, a true slave society. From 1697 to 1791, when the Haitian Revolution breaks out, the French forcibly transport nearly 900,000 captive Africans just to that side of the island, which is no bigger than the US State of Massachusetts. And despite the vast amount of torture and death of enslaved Africans on that island, at the moment the revolution breaks out, there are still about 450,000 of them, and there are only about 30,000 white French colonists. So there's a deeply unequal society in terms of who's doing the labor, who's in charge, but also just the numbers. And this really. This disparity will contribute to not just the outbreak of revolution, but to its eventual success.
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B
Marlon, you very eloquently hinted at it here, but give us a little more of a sense of what life would have been like for the enslaved peoples who were living in this part of the colony pre revolution, and, of course, the circumstances that then lead to the revolt itself.
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A
Yes. So French Saint Domingue is considered one of the most torturous slave societies in all of the Atlantic world, including North America, what becomes the United States, South America and all the rest of the Caribbean, it has a reputation of being a torturous society. And one of the reasons for that is the high death rate. So even though I mentioned nearly 900,000 captive Africans just transported by the French, that doesn't count the other flags that transported Africans to the island. If you think about it, there's only half that amount there at the moment of the revolution. And that includes those who are born there for over 100 years. And so when the French Crown sent a naturalist, a French naturalist to the island in the 1770s to figure out why the death rate was so high, he came back with a report. He is not an anti slavery activist, he is completely racist. And he comes back with a report saying the white French colonists are torturing these individuals. That he says, he gives an astonishing statistic. He says an African transported to this island will not live longer than two or three years. He says an African born on this island will not live above 15 or, or 16 years old. And for his efforts, when he gets back to France with this report, he's fined, arrested, and his book is pulled out of circulation. And again, this is a book commissioned by the French Crown. So this vast inequality, but also the torturous conditions of death. When the Haitian revolutionaries say liberty or death, they mean it because they know that the alternative is remaining enslaved and almost certain death.
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C
Anyway, we've talked, Marlene, about this French presence and the idea of French intellectualism either coming over and suppressing the enslaved population, or even when it's tried to be challenged, such as the case that you just described there, that it's immediately shot down. But we also know that there's this idea, and I use idea in a really deliberate sense of ideas of liberty and egalite and fraternity coming out of the French Revolution. So how does the French Revolution influence these French lands overseas? Is there a thought cross pollination there, or is this something that's totally separate?
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A
Well, it's sort of separate and then becomes linked later. And sometimes that linking is only in people's imaginations and sometimes it depends on the context who is being influenced. So I did mention two parts of the society, the white French colonists and enslaved Africans. But there's also another large group of people, free people of color. The French had instituted what became later known as the code noir in 1685 to regulate their slave colonies. And one of the more interesting provisions of this code said that enslaved African women could be liberated by white men who owned them, were enslaving them if that white men married the woman and converted her to Catholicism. And then any children produced from that union would follow the condition of the now free mother. So this led to a large sector of society being free people of color. In some estimates, it's 30 to 45,000. So even more than the white French colonists. And these are individuals because they come from, you know, white French colonist fathers initially. They also own plantations and enslave people. And many of them go to be educated in France. And some of them are there at the moment that the storming of the Bastille happens, when the declaration of the rights of man and the citizen happens, when the French king calls together the estates general and asks for grievances. And they have a lot of grievances, because back in Saint Domingue, they experience a lot of color prejudice, which puzzles them, because their defense at that point is, but we are plantation owners like you. We are all we are as people of color, but we're related to white men like you. And do you have this prejudice because we had African mothers or grandmother others? And the white French colonists response to that was absolutely. Because the white French colonists very much understand that if you say that free people of color can have equal rights, that the white French colonists are not superior to them racially, and these ideas are already in circulation, then how do you explain enslaving only people who are African or of African descent? So their sort of justification falls away. And they know that. But when these free people of color go to France, there's some prejudices they experience, but as long as they have a lot of money, it seems to not matter as much. And they're able to go to the colleges and they're able to circulate in society. And so they certainly seize on the declaration of the rights of man and the citizen to say, what about us? To which the white French colonists say, not you.
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B
So we have this very tense society then, Marlene, that's very nuanced, very complicated in terms of the intellectual ideas of race, its definition, the status that everyone occupies within that society, but also in terms of practice, in terms of legal procedure, in terms of what that looks like on the ground. You've spoken about the torture and the violence and the incredibly short life expectancy as well of the people who are still enslaved. And I suppose the big arena backdrop of this, as Anthony's mentioned, is the French revolution and eventually war with Britain that is fought across both the French and the British Empire. What happens in Haiti, in particular in Saint Doman, to spark revolution. Take us to the night the revolution starts. What is that moment when events start to unfold?
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A
So in August 1791, in the middle of the month, there are these kind of clandestine meetings. And the most famous one happens at a spot called Mont Rouge, which is in the northern part of the colony, which will become important because that's the part where you're going to see the most rebellion and revolution as the. As the revolution unfolds. And most of the leaders were going to come out of that region. And so a crowd of enslaved individuals, many of them drivers or what we might call overseers, so enslaved people, but who also are kind of in positions of power on various plantations. They watch out and over other enslaved people, and they are sometimes trusted, sometimes feared, and. But they come together nonetheless, and they decide to hatch a plan for rebellion. And Toussaint virtue, who's the most famous of the Haitian revolutionary generals, is kind of in a backseat position here. This meeting is led by a man named Boukman dutty. There's a man named Bia Su, another named Jean Francois. And within about a week of this meeting, full scale revolution breaks out. The freedom fighters, as I like to call them, because the French, of course, called them brigands and insurrectionists and terrorists and all these words. They began burning down plantations in the northern plain to bring the plantation economy to a standstill. And it turns out that sugarcane burns very fervently and spreads very quickly. And so by the end of 1791, there are thousands of plantations that have been destroyed. And nearly every African in the northern plain is in open rebellion, either through using violence to achieve liberty or not working, have completely deserted the plantations where had been enslaved.
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B
Yeah, it's interesting. There's this kind of multi pronged approach that not only is there very understandable violence against the enslavers themselves, but also an attack on the economy, on everything that this island is built on as well. So we have these. You mentioned there's sort of an area in which this is concentrated. Are there pockets of rebellion happening across sundaman simultaneously? And you hinted that there are leaders within this movement very early on. How coherent is this to begin with? Or is this something where, you know, people on one plantation are hearing about something happening elsewhere and then they are rising up? What exactly is the plan here?
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A
Yeah, one of the astonishing things is, you know, how well organized they are, given the fact that there are such great distances between the plantations in the northern plain. So you, of course, have cap Francais, which is the principal port city. In the north, which is so sort of like the capital of the entire Caribbean, just because of the number of ships coming and going. And remember, Saint Domingue is principally a sugar and coffee colony, but there's also cacao, indigo, cotton, in lesser numbers, but it's their main staple, sugar and coffee. And so the coffee plantations tended to be in the hills. And so those will be set on fire a little bit later. But the revolution, we can actually track it as it spreads. So starting in Mont Rouge, there are parts to the north and to the south of that. The only place that the French are able to sort of protect for the moment is Cap Francais. And you can see why they would want to put all of their. Their efforts behind that. The freedom fighters are eventually going to take that city, but not until a couple of years later. Principally in those early days, the revolution is going to spread southward and westward. We're going to eventually see the city of Port au Prince, which is the official capital of the colony and the capital of independent Haiti. We're going to see that fire happen and we're going to just see wholesale, basically, end of the plantation economy, which causes the French to want to do anything possible to get it back going, including later, as we will see, abolishing slavery, because it has de facto already been abolished.
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C
Let's zoom in a little bit then, Marlene, just to give people a sense of how these events were unfolding on the ground ground and how the people there were experiencing this. And I want to take you to the night of the 21st of August. We're going back to the start of the significant unrest, I suppose. So it's the 21st of August, 1791, and over a 10 day period thereafter, things really change on the ground. Can you talk us through that particular episode?
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A
Yeah. So the enslaved begin to burn down plantations. Many of those leaders started with the plantations where they had been enslaved. And we start to see reports from French soldiers. The French do have a military presence on the island, but it is not significant in the numbers they need. So they have to go and recruit. And so some free men of color, this includes and of course, lots of white French colonists, including some who had fought in the American Revolution at the Battle of Savannah in October 1779, and others who had fought in various other Caribbean theaters of the American Revolution. Because one of the less well known things about the American Revolution is that it also involved contests over various islands as the French tried to fight the British on behalf of what would become the United States. And so in those 10 days, the French are in disbelief, but they also believe, because this has sort of happened before, just not on the same scale, that they can crush those brigands. And so the language that they're using in their reports is they say things the white French colonists like, spread terror everywhere you go. And in fact, even though this is a time when most people believe that it's, you know, black enslaved Africans are the ones engaged in the majority of the violence, when you look at the reports of the French, they are actually the ones perpetrating most of the violence. The enslaved Africans are burning things, but they aren't kind of shooting at people because they mostly don't have guns until later. It's the white French colonists who will say, I met 12 of them on the road from this city to this city and I massacred them all. I met 400 of them. The Marquis de Rouvre writes home and says, I killed every last one of them. And several of these officers will, in fact, receive commendations for the number of. Of quote, unquote, rebels they killed in these early days.
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B
So we're seeing that inequality still in terms of numbers that, you know, you spoke about the large population of enslaved people on the island compared to the white overseers, the white plantation owners. But actually, in terms of how people are armed, the weaponry they have access to, the tactics they might have access to, the way that they can organize and communicate and move across the land is still very much weighted in favour of. Of the white colonists themselves. We have those initial 10 days when everything really starts to come into play. And this is a revolution that isn't overnight, is it? This continues into at least 1792. Let's get to that point when the French are also fighting the British now. So what pressure is Revolutionary France under in its colonies when it's facing rebellion like this, alongside an enemy like the British Empire as well? Does that affect what's happening in Saint Doman?
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A
It certainly does, because the French are dealing with massive chaos. So they've got this chaos that is happening in their most lucrative colony. And they also have to now ward off the British and the Spanish with whom they are at war. And of course, in the 18th century, the French are constantly at war with Britain, in Spain, especially with Great Britain. And every time they strike a treaty, that treaty is temporary until one of those powers of breaks the treaty and declares war on the other one. And so the French have declared a Republic in fall 1792. In January 1793, they have executed their king, which does not make the other World powers that have monarchies very happy. And so by spring 1792, the colony of San Doming, it's like a world war, because they're at war with the Spanish, who still occupy the eastern side of the island, who have now invaded. And in fact, some of those freedom fighters who had been leaders in the early, early days, join with the Spanish because they wrongly believe that the Spanish are going to offer them liberty. And then when the British invade, they mostly are in the south, near Port au Prince. And a lot of the free people of color, especially those who had fought at the Battle of Savannah, join with the British because they believe that Great Britain will respect their rights as free people of color. And so now you have all of this sort of war. They've got to fight the enslaved Africans. They're still also have to fight free people of color who are not allied with either the enslaved Africans or any of the other invading forces, and certainly not with the French. They also have a rebellion going on from the white French colonists who are very upset about the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen because they know it opens the door to. To think about rights for free people of color, which they don't want. And so, actually, white French colonists during this time period try to create their own independence movement, citing the example of the American colonists from the United States. So France is essentially in big trouble in 1792 and has to take drastic action.
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C
I think one of the most tantalizing things about this particular revolution, Marlene, is the fact that we have leaders that are emerging and that have stood the test of time in terms of the historiography. They come down to us even now, Obviously, you mentioned earlier Toussaint, l', Ouverture, and there are others as well. Can you give us a taste of who these leaders are in a little bit more detail? Maybe pick one or two of them to sort of give us a sense of why they are leading this and what they have available to them and how they're viewed by the population there.
- [22:54]
A
Yes, absolutely. So Bukmagdudi is early on killed by the French colonists. They put a bounty on his head, and a white French colonist literally delivers his head to one of the assemblies to collect the prize. So this leaves a little bit of an opening, no pun intended, because louverture in French, of course, means the opening. And Toussaint does walk through following this and become one of the principal leaders, but he really is one among many at this point. He's not the sort of huge, like, singular leader. He will Become later during the revolution. And he has been free. He had free status for decades before the revolution began. He had by many accounts, learned to read, learned to write, had some education in military and classical antiquity, history. He was familiar with certain precepts of the Enlightenment. And so when he starts to give speeches, he's very much utilizing words that come both from his background of being the son of two Africans forcibly transported to the island. He's talking about collective action. He's talking about coming together. And he's able to marry that, however, with this language that would appeal to the free people of color who had been in France. Equal rights, brotherhood, let us all come together, work together. A Haitian proverb says, you know, it's basically the equivalent of many hands, lighten the load. It's about the idea of kumbit, which in Haitian kayol is collective work for a kind of greater good. And so when you read his speeches, you can see, oh, this is why he's able to rally the free people of color and the Africans in open rebellion together, even though their causes had initially been separate. Is he's speaking to both groups simultaneously. And alongside him we have Jean Jacques Dessalines, who will become the founder of independent Haiti following Toussaint Viptor's untimely demise. We also have another man eventually named Henri Christophe, who becomes the king of Haiti. And he is from the island of Grenada. And he fought in the American Revolution at the battle of Savannah. And he brings tactical skills that he learned from the blunder that battle was the French and American patriots lose. And he brings those tactical skills and what he learned from that loss into the revolution. So when you see who becomes leaders, it isn't really accidental. They have qualities that united them together. They were each of them other than Toussaint. Their book mostly born in the colony or in another colony in the Americas. And they bring a wealth of knowledge of other places in the world and other military struggles or actual book knowledge like Toussaint Louverture.
- [25:44]
B
It's fascinating, isn't it, that they're able to sort of transcend all of these different boundaries that are set in place in the colonial world and to speak these different languages quite literally that enable them to speak to different groups of people and to bring people together.
- [26:13]
A
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C
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A
Marlene, tell me about some of the.
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B
Women who emerge in the revolution. Because it's not just men, is it?
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A
Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, we could, starting with that, that, you know, 1791 gathering in August. There is a woman named Cecile Fatima, and she is what's considered a Vodou priestess, I guess, in the parlance of today. And she is one of the leaders of this moment when they're trying to convince people that they should engage in revolt and rebellion. But there's also plenty of other women from everyday women who are providing supplies to soldiers. There are also women fighting in combat. And we know that because the French are killing the, the freedom fighters indiscriminately when they capture them. And they will say, you know, that they, they killed a woman, a woman freedom fighter. So it's sort of like the gender equality of death. Right? If you're a freedom fighter, it sort of erases any idea that you would be then treated differently once you're captured. And so we have some of the wives, those are the women we tend to know more most about of the military general. So one of these women is a woman name Marie Jean Lamartiniere, and she's married to a black general and she fights in men's clothing. So she's engaged in armed combat. We also have another wife of a general named Suzanne Bellaire. She was married to Toussaint Virtue's nephew, Charles Bellair, who was also a general, and she helps him, aids him to evade French troops. And when they are caught, they are both executed together. So the story of the of women in the revolution is sadly also mirrors the sort of destruction against the male population. They did not get any special treatment. In fact, a free woman of color named Marie Bunnel, who had previously been an enslaver she found herself jailed at one point and had to escape the colony clandestine, clandestinely, in order to continue to live. And she initially went to New Orleans and then eventually to Philadelphia. And so this is a time when women do do participate, and we have a lot of documentation of it, but we also see them come into the frame mostly as they are punished, because that's what the record sort of leaves us.
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B
I'm really fascinated by this, just thinking about women in the French Revolution across the pond in this moment, and how fraternity and egalit doesn't necessarily extend to women. And there's a lot of debate amongst the French in terms of what women's role will be in this new revolutionary France. And whilst there are women working, working as spies and potentially trying to create some kind of National Guard in Paris, they don't necessarily get to share the platform with the men in the same way. And I'm interested, Marlene, in how, from the communities that are revolting here in Saint Doman, what is the view of gender and of women's roles? Is it encouraged and expected that women will revolt alongside the men? The women that you've mentioned there, are they unusual to find themselves in these circumstances because they are married to revolutionary leaders or, you know, the partners of, or are moved to fight in a way that isn't ordinary? Or is there more equality? Is that a simplistic way of viewing it, to say that there's more equality in this moment in this community?
- [30:58]
A
It's a very interesting question, because when you read the letters of the male revolutionaries, they don't seem to be. Be sort of like, oh, we need to protect all the women and make like the women are there alongside them. And so when they describe them, they don't seem to find it remarkable that women would be aiding them in all of these various ways or that they would be in combat. And one of the reasons perhaps, is because those who had been born on the continent of Africa, who were from societies that had female warriors, and then the other thing is all the tortures that the women themselves experienced in French Saint Domingue, I think it was simply understandable that even if they didn't engage in armed combat, that they would want to help the male freedom fighters. And so that's what you see a lot of in terms of how they are writing about the women. And it is very interesting then, that once emancipation is going to come to the island, the commissioners from France who formally abolished slavery in 1793 are going to specify precisely because they know Olympe De Gouges has the declaration of the rights of Women in France, are going to specify male and female slaves. So even though in French, the male form takes precedent and is supposed to encompass both genders, in this context of a law like this, they say negre et negresse. They make that distinction. And which is because they were definitely influenced by some of the rhetoric and discourses also coming out of French. So you kind of see it on both sides. The other thing I would mention is that Saint Domingue was a kind of society that upsets our ideas about gender roles, maybe in other ways as well, because women, for example, tended to keep their last names and hyphenate when they would get married. And this was often because they were the partner bringing the most wealth to the relationship. And so when you go into friendship, French civil archives, and this is pre revolution, you see marriage contracts that specify that the property is the woman's and that it's her inheritors, including her children, but she doesn't have any her side of the family that get the money. And that seems to be very different from what was happening in metropolitan France. And this is because of the way that wealth was sort of spread and understood in this colony, which is not operating according to French aristocratic sort of ideals and laws, seems to have its own special customs and ways of doing things.
- [33:39]
C
I want to pick up on one of the names you mentioned when we were talking about these women, Marlene, which is Cecile Fatima. And I want to use her as a gateway in to talk a little bit about the role of Vodou and how that is placing itself within Haitian society and how, if at all, it influences or starts to shape the revolution.
- [33:59]
A
Yes. So it's what is called Boukman's Prayer is typically how the role of Vodou, although they didn't call it that in the era, is explained. So at some of these gatherings, the one that happens in the middle of the month, but also some of the ones that happen later, leading up to August 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, which is where we see the revolution really break out. The freedom fighters are kind of taking this oath that later comes to be called Boukman's Prayer in Haitian Creole, they're saying, you know, the God of the white man calls him to commit crime, but our God, who's the true God, wants good works from us and wants us to be free. And so Cecile Fatima, in various accounts, she sacrifices an animal, the freedom fighters kind of seal. They use the blood to kind of create a brothership. And Say that we're kind of. We're brothers in arms now, blood brothers in arms. And so she's sort of reputed in Haitian history for her role in. In bringing together the freedom fighters around the idea of religion, around the idea of one true God, which is Bonje, which is not necessarily different from the Christian God, but is different from the God of the colonists, because we learn fascinating things about the religious worldview of the freedom fighters because they have watched the French colonists and priests, Catholic priests on the island, wield the idea of God to keep them in chains. And so when you see how the freedom fighters talk about God, that is a false God, that is not a real God that the white French colonists are praying to, because there is only one God, Bonjour, which in Haitian, Kayle Rockley translates to Bon Dieu, the good Lord. Right. And there's only one of that individual. And the freedom fighters they pray to and they rely on and gain strong strength from Bonje, not from the false God that the French colonists appear to worship in their eyes.
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B
This is a completely new element of the story to me, actually, and I'm really interested in this, Marlene. And do we have a sense of how this religion that is specific to the freedom fighters and the community that they're drawing on? Do we know how this develops? And when it first sort of appears on the island? Is it unique to Sandomite?
- [36:18]
A
It's definitely not unique to Saint Domingue. It's a syncretic religion. It draws on West African religious concepts. A lot of the Loire, or spirits. In contemporary Haitian Vodou, we see that they have corollaries with various spirits and religious icons in West Africa, particularly in the D? Or and Nigeria and Benin regions, and to some extent, in what is now the Congo. And so we can actually, actually see the religious influences, but it's syncretic because we also see the influence of Catholicism, because, of course, the New World Africans, as they came to be called, were influenced by Christianity, both on the continent as they were forced to make the long journey. Many of them from interior places to the coast and were sort of captured or kept at way stations. Probably the most famous one people know as Elmina Castle or Gore island, off the coast of Senegal. And so there they had saint. Some religious quote, unquote instruction. I want to make sure I put that in scare quotes, because, of course, this. This. There's a certain missionizing involved that a lot of these slave traders are saying. You know, first of all, they'll be more docile if we convert them. To Christianity and we'll, you know, uproot their paganism and all of these kinds of things. And, you know, it's reasonable to expect that some of the captive Africans and enslaved Africans, as time wore on, began to believe in certain parts of the Christianity that they had been exposed to in terms of reading the bible and different figures, because the ones that they sort of pull into what becomes known as Haitian vodou are figures like Mary, People who are seeming self sacrificing but also are wise and various saints like St. Patrick, for example, that are ones that they kind of use. Use to. To blend together and. And importantly, we do not see in haitian vodou a satan figure, a devil figure. And one of the reasons for this may be that from the Haitian revolutionary perspective, the devils were the white french colonists because they actually say that in later writings. So they didn't need to invent some person in the underworld. They were like, you know, that Shakespeare phrase from the tempest, Hell is empty and all the devils are here. That sort of seems to be a part of also what they took from christianity. This is radhi dablukia from a really good cry. Most wellness routines fail somewhere between day one. Motivation and where did I put that powder? That's where groons comes in. Groons packs over 20 vitamins and minerals, greens and prebiotics into a snack pack of tiny, delicious gummies. No powders, no pills. Just a simple way to support gut health, beauty, energy, immunity, recovery and cognition. Plus, the ingredients in groons are backed by over 35,000 research publications. It's a convenient, comprehensive formula designed for real life. Get up to 52% off with code CROSS CRY at Groons co. That's Code CRY R U N S dot co based on a New York Times best thriller comes 56 days starring Dove cameron. A story of love. Oh, sorry.
- [39:48]
B
I'm Oliver asiara.
- [39:50]
A
Lies. So do you like secrets? No, I like reveals.
- [39:55]
B
Seduction.
- [39:56]
A
It's like they were obsessed with each other. And murder.
- [39:59]
C
What do we got here?
- [40:00]
B
Body in the bathtub.
- [40:02]
A
56 days is now streaming on prime video. I'm gonna get you.
- [40:07]
B
Not if I get you first.
- [40:20]
C
It's. It's actually quite tantalizing. Well, first of all, I won't say as an irishman, I'm very pleased that St Patrick was useful that day. That seems I'm at least proud of that. That said, I think we have a lot to do as irish people in terms of facing up to our own historic role in the transatlantic slave trade, Especially as overseers. And it's not very well known here. We tend to conflate the Irish situation and the situation of enslaved black people. And I think there's so much more nuance there to be explored in terms of the Americas. But one of the other things that I'm intrigued about in terms of this idea of this kind of Christian false God and the logic that comes with that of going, look what these people are doing. This couldn't be a godly thing. And that to me is very tantalizing. I got goosebumps, as you were describing it, because it just seems so visceral in terms of its reaction to what they're experiencing on the ground. And so true, actually, in so many more sense than this kind of prescribed Christianity that's being enforced upon these people. I want to ask you, Marlene, in terms of. Of the end of this or the kind of. I suppose end is a difficult word, right? Because when do these things end? But the quietening down of this revolution, how does it start to come under control? Under whose control does it come? And how do we see this start to change into something that looks different than what was there before?
- [41:45]
B
Yes.
- [41:46]
A
So the year 1793 is going to be a big year. So I mentioned the French have executed their king. They've already instituted a republic. They've sent commissioners to the island. Island to calm things down. They've sent troops to calm things down. But when the commissioners get there, they have a revelation like, oh, my goodness, what we've been told back in France is like not one tenth of actually what's going on here. And they take an astonishing step to abolish slavery formally. Now, again, remember, nobody's working anyway. And this is very clear from newspaper reports, right? So they. They take this step and they institute what is supposed to be a plantation economy worked by free hands. And one of the things that they do in these laws is to say, we need those freedom fighters who were the leaders on our side. And so they start to give them important military posts. Toussaint Verture has since left the Spanish side, joined with the French. He becomes a general, Jean Jacques Dessalines, who is one of Toussaint's greatest lieutenants, he also becomes a general. General Henri Christophe, he becomes a general. And so now the French are sort of saying, we want everyone to get back to work on the plantation. We've abolished whipping, we've abolished slavery. We can't sell or buy anybody or transport anybody across the seas. You can't do any of these things. But we do need people to work and they get to Saint Louverture on their side. And he likes being in power to the extent that he will eventually create a constitution for French Saint Domain, saying, and it will name him Governor General for life, with the ability to choose his successor. Now, this is 1801, the problem. So from 1793 to 1801, this colony is free. And French think about that, right? It is being run by free black men like Toussaint Virtue and his lieutenants. And now in 1801, Napoleon Bonaparte has risen to power in France. France. And at first, it seems when you read his letters, he doesn't quite know what to make of Toussaint Lufture. He's thinking this might be okay. But once Louis sends him the constitution as a kind of fait acconqui, it's been ratified, it's been signed. Toussaint defends himself and says, I was just seeking Bonaparte's approval. But Bonaparte gets it. And the language Bonaparte used in his diary to explain this moment is he had drawn his sword out of his ship sheath. He considered it a declaration of war, a usurpation of his authority as First Consul of France. And he sends a massive military expedition whose primary goal is to crush and defeat Lu and arrest him. And sadly, that's what happens.
- [44:28]
B
First of all, the absolute audacity of white colonists to say, you know what, guys, we're going to abolish slavery. When there's been a revolution and the enslaved have risen up and freed themselves. You know, it's, it's, it seems like bureaucratic nonsense at that point. Point Napoleon, I mean, Napoleon complicating things, again, is just entirely predictable, isn't it? So when we get to this point, when Napoleon's force arrives in Sandaman, what is the feeling among the revolutionaries, the ordinary men and women who have fought for their freedom, who have got themselves out of the plantations, they've burned the fields, they fought for what they now have. What's their feeling towards their leaders in terms of, have they sold out? Are they still representing their best interests? Is the fact that they're now going to have to fight Napoleon something that they are prepared for? Or is this viewed as a catastrophic miscalculation in terms of the revolutionary leaders themselves?
- [45:30]
A
Yeah, it's a great question because there are definitely some of the freedom fighters who had been very sort of instrumental during the pre1793 days who want nothing to do with the French. They do not agree with this idea that what we need to really be focused on is getting the plantation economy back going so that we can benefit France. And also because these black generals are being paid handsomely in, in fact, Toussaint, Virtue, Desalines and Christophe alone. That's not even to mention the other black generals own between them more than 40 plantations, or lease, I should say, or have control of more than 40 plantations from which they derive profits. Right. So you can see that the people who are working might start to think, hmm, like, what's going on here? We're supposed to be quote, unquote free. And so when the Leclair expedition comes, some of them are not necessarily predisposed to align with the black general generals who rightly figure out that France did not send 30,000 troops with Bonaparte's brother in law, a man named General Charles Leclerc, in peace. Right? Because when Leclerc comes to the island in 1802, he says, I come in peace. And the black French generals are thinking, well, then why would you need 30,000 French troops? It was the largest expedition to ever set sail from France at the time. And it's astonishing when you think, think of all the wars they fought in the early modern period, but also in the 18th century alone, and that they would send this massive expedition. And so the black freedom fighters led by these generals have a recruitment problem now. They need to send Viktor again to rally everyone to his side to convince them. And there are a few things that happen that are going to initially help him out. One is that that Henri Christophe has command over Cat Francais. He's a brigadier general, and he gets into this skirmish with Leclair, who's trying to land his troops there, and Christophe threatens him. He says, if you are going to try to land these troops anyway, when we don't have permission from Toussaint, who is on the eastern side of the island, what is today the Dominican Republic, he says, if you do this anyway, I will burn this city to the ground. And even on those ashes, I will fight you. And Leclair doesn't believe him. He tries to land the troops anyway. And Christoph has the city burned. He, he tells women and children to evacuate. He has the city burned. And this stance against the French actually does win him some of those friends back from the mountains who took in one writer's words, one look at armed white Frenchmen and they had run for the hills to get their machetes. They were thinking, absolutely not. We're not engaged in any treaties with these, you know, people who, who've made false promises to us. And Dessalines follows suit. And for a Time the black French generals are leading black troops against the French, who it becomes pretty quickly clear that they're trying to reinstate slavery. And one of the reasons that the black freedom fighters know this is because at the Treaty of Amiens, the island of Martinique had been returned to French rule. And now the French have a problem because although the commissioners abolished slavery, slavery on Saint Domingue in 1793, the French National Convention had followed that up by abolishing Slavery in February 1794 in all French overseas territories. But Martinique was not included because the French had lost the island to the British. And so when the French get the island back, they have to decide, is slavery abolished there or can it be maintained? And they passed the law of May 1802 saying it could be maintained. And now the freedom fighters know for certain that the French are not on their side. But in the intervening months, you know, sort of complicated things are happening. Ali Christophe is going to be convinced briefly to join with the French Dessalines as well. And Toussaint Virtue feels defeated and he's going to lay down his arms. He knows that he doesn't have everyone on his side. There were some freedom fighters in the south who had allied with one of the rivals, the Toussaint Luxur had sort of had banished from the island earlier. So there's a lot of factions still at play. And he retires to his plantation. But this isn't good enough for the French. And in June 1802, they trick Toussaint Repturin to a meeting and they have him summarily arrested and deported to France.
- [49:58]
C
Isn't that so interesting and actually quite horrifying to a certain extent, because what we're getting setting is this idea about the abolition of slavery, right? And that comes with all its narrativization that's happened in the intervening 200, 300 years in terms of this kind of the Wilberforce of it all, the white savior ness of it all. And actually, one of the most chilling things I think you said during this, Marlene, was that, yes, okay, slavery was being abolished in French territories. And then Martinique comes back in and they're like, wait, could we still potentially get away with that? And I think that's a really troubling insight into the mindset of people who may even previously have advocated for abolition. It says something far more dangerous and long lasting. And on that note, the long lasting element of this, I'd love to know what you think the legacy of the Haitian Revolution is today. What are we seeing that draws parallels? How do we live with the results of this. How do you see it live cheek by jowl with us today?
- [51:03]
A
You know, the legacy of the Haitian Revolution, the true legacy is in being the first modern nation of the world to permanently abolish slavery. Because, yes, there's the Wilberforce of it all, but on the French side, there's the French Revolution of it all, saying, oh, but the French National Convention abolished slavery in 1794, and Napoleon Bonaparte not only maintained it in Martinique in May 1802, he reinstated slavery in all the other French overseas territories with the law of July 1802, which makes France the only country in the world ever to reinstate slavery after previously abolishing it. Right. And yet this is not the narrative of how abolition is told. In fact, in textbooks you will often read, even in the United States, oh, Great Britain was the first nation to abolish the slave trade, not slavery, in 1807. But that's actually not true. The Haitian revolutionaries abolished slavery and the slave trade in January 1804 with their Declaration of Independence, followed up in 1805 with the first constitution for Haiti. And so I truly think that the legacy of, you know, insisting that slavery is unacceptable anywhere, at any time and for any reason. The other thing I would say is that it makes sense that the freedom fighters of Saint Domingue would want to see and make laws about slavery being permanently abolished and the slave trade as well. But one of the other things they do that doesn't get recognition is that they declare in 1807, slavery and the slave trade a crime against humanity. And again, this is not how we are taught that story of how those words come into our lexicon. I've seen attributions to the Nuremberg Charter, seen attributions to the International Criminal Court of Justice, to the Loire, to Bira, Right, anything. Not to recognize the deep struggle of the Haitian people and the better world that they left us by insisting that the abolition of slavery, that freedom and equality were human rights, and that slavery itself was a crime against humanity.
- [53:15]
B
Marlene, I know the answer to this is going to be racism, of course, but why do you think the Haitian Revolution has fallen out of our history textbooks? I know in recent years there is more interest in it, broadly speaking, outside of academia, and there is a lot of work being done on it now. And I think, isn't there even a dramatisation that's coming soon, hopefully. So it is growing in terms of its popular appeal, people's understanding of this moment. But why is it that it doesn't sit Alongside the narrative of Wilberforce, course of the French abolishing slavery in the 1790s. What is it about? Because, I mean, from the way that you speak about this is such a. An exciting history that has so many different elements to it that changes on the ground very, very quickly. It has this spiritual and religious dimension as well, which I was completely unaware of and I find completely fascinating. And as Anthony says, it's something that really reflects the visceral horror of what's happening on the ground and people. People's need, their absolute desperation to rationalize it, to build a defense against it. So we have all these elements. It's a moving, exciting story with fascinating individuals that come out of it. Why don't we know more about it?
- [54:33]
A
Honestly, I wish I had a more sophisticated answer than racism and white supremacy. Right. Because if it is in fact the freedom fighters of Saint Doming, then, and who give us true equality, who give us the true meaning of liberty that we all hold dear today, that we say we hold dear today. Right. Then what does that mean in, like, just the US Context alone? What does that mean about Thomas Jefferson? What does that mean about the Declaration of independence? The U.S. declaration of Independence? What does that mean about the U.S. constitution? Because what that means is that the excuses that have been made ever since I was a little girl in elementary school, that they were men of their time, Jefferson and, you know, Adams and all of the crowd of people who are going to be signing the. They're in the Declaration of Independence, that they're men of their time and they just did as other men did, but they didn't do as other men did. Right. Because already we see just in Saint Domingue, the freedom fighters striking out for freedom in the same era. Era. It's striking when you look at the dates. Right? Right. As the United States is trying to finally ratify its Constitution, it's taking a very, very long time, Right. That they are from the same era. And yet when Haitians achieve their independence, they don't follow in the steed of the American Revolution. They don't follow in the steed of the French Revolution because they don't use euphemisms in their Constitution. The word slavery does not appear in the U.S. constitution. And in fact, in the documents reinstating slavery in France, they do everything they can to avoid using that exact word. They say, we want to put back into place the laws that existed before 1789, which is to say before the French Revolution. Right? And this has allowed certain levels of denial, even at the textbook level. Did they really reinstate slavery? Right. This is the question that French would ask. But obviously they did, because then in 1848, they re abolished it after the French Revolution of 1848. Right. And so, you know, as one journalist said, you know, you're taught in French school that France is the only nation to abolish slavery twice. And again, I'd say. Or you could. Or you could phrase it a different way, right? The only nation to reinstate slavery after previously abolishing it. And I think, think that the narrative is scary to those who think that national unity cannot bear contradictions, which, of course, we know that it can. Actually, that's what brings nations together, is recognizing the messiness of the history and coming together for reconciliation so that we don't forget. Because one of the Haitian national mottos is never forget. Right? Because forgetting leads to repetition. And I think that the case of contemporary Haiti also weakens the ability of other nations to want to have a respect for Haiti's revolution, despite all that it's given the world, because they'll say, look at Haiti now, as if 200 years of punishment, you know, didn't follow the Haitian Revolution.
- [57:42]
C
It's an unsettling thought. When you think about 1848, you're talking about the re. Abolition of French slavery. That. That is not that long ago. It is so easy for us to, you know, when 17 appears in front of a date, you're kind of going, gosh, that seems long ago. But 1848, you know, Dickens is writing people that we know very well is alive at this time. And it becomes unsettling when you think about this. And you talked about reversals, Marlene. And it becomes unsettling when you hear rhetoric from some of the most powerful people in the world talking about make wherever great again. In terms of where exactly do you want to pinpoint that greatness to? How far are we going back? Because you're talking about going back. That's what you're suggesting in that. And it's an interesting. And by interesting, I mean absolutely horrifying prospect if you were to drill down into the semantics of that. However, I think that the hopeful thing that you're saying, Marlene, is that. Or that I'm taking from this at least, is in what we have overlooked. There is such rich material to take us forward, and that is something that we need to celebrate and to highlight. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have wanted to do this episode for the last two years. And what an amazing, amazing leader we had in Marlene through this history. Thank you so much for guiding us.
- [59:05]
B
Marlene. Thank you so much. I honestly think that was my favorite episode that we've ever done. I could do 10 more episodes with you on this. I would love to do a mini series.
- [59:16]
C
If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave your comments in Wherever you listen to your podcasts, you'll be able to take part in a conversation there about the wider impact of the Haitian Revolution and share maybe resources that you found yourselves on the Haitian revolution because there is now some incredible history books and different things on TV and all the rest of it out there. Thank you so much for listening. Leave us a five star review wherever you get your podcast. It helps other people to discover us too. And until next time, happy listening.
- [59:52]
A
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C
Tour, Martha bundled her flight and hotel.
- [60:34]
A
On Expedia to see them live.
- [60:35]
C
She saved so much she got a.
- [60:37]
A
Seat close enough to actually see and hear them.
- [60:41]
C
Sort of.
- [60:42]
A
You were made to scream from the front row. We were made to quietly save you. More Expedia made to Travel savings vary and subject to availability.
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C
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