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- [00:01]
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- [00:56]
Narrator
it is a moonlit night in August 1791 on a plantation in the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue. In the wooden outhouse that serves as his quarters, a middle aged white plantation surgeon wakes abruptly to the smell of smoke and burning sugar. Coughing violently, he fumbles for his clothes. In the dark, the crackle of flames outside grows fiercer as he stumbles, panicked, from the outhouse. Shouts echo across the plantation. Around him, the estate has dissolved into chaos against a backdrop of blazing cane fields. Lanterns swing wildly, carried by enslaved people rushing around, but there appears to be no effort at all to put the blaze out. If anything, there is a sense of celebration. The main house looms over the scene, its shutters thrown open, firelight spilling across the veranda. Smoke curls from the sugar mill and storehouses, where flames devour the dry timber and thatched roofs. In the distance, beyond the burning fields, the horizon glows orange where neighboring plantations are also ablaze. Panicked, the surgeon starts to run to the main house, but someone strong grabs him by the shoulders and drags him into the dirt. As he falls, a machete flashes perilously close to his ear. Could this be the end? His retribution at the hands of the enslaved people he has watched toil and suffer for years. Just then, though, another voice calls out to his attacker. With the surgeon's face pressed into the dirt, people around him speak fast in a language he can't understand, and with some kind of agreement reached, he is forced to his feet and pushed forwards, past the flames licking at the edges of the great house, the heat scorching his skin through the thin linen of his shirt. The surgeon is marched with a group of other captives towards the road. He sees men setting sugar presses ablaze and splintering machinery with iron bars. And behind him, someone is screaming. He doesn't dare turn to discover the source of the noise. The party halts near the plantation gate where the road opens out towards the northern plains. There, a young enslaved man lies slumped against a fence post, blood soaking the leg of his torn trousers. One of the guards shoves the white man forward and tells him to help the wounded insurgent. As he bends to examine a deep cut on the youth's thigh, the surgeon glances around him and begins to understand. This is less a localized uprising and more a full blown revolution. So far, he has always been a part of the apparatus of exploitation, working on the side of the enslavers. But now, as the country that will soon be known as Haiti begins its fight for emancipation, the tables are turning. So he quickly takes up his shirt, tears a strip of fabric, and binds the patient's wound to stem the bleeding. Because if he wants to stay alive, he'll have to experience a small part of what these people have lived through to do everything he is ordered to, as if his life depends upon it. The first and only successful uprising of enslaved people to establish a nation state, the Haitian Revolution, began in the French colony of Saint Domingue in 1791, inspired in part by the ideals of liberty and equality of the French Revolution. What began as scattered uprisings among the plantations quickly grew into a full scale insurrection. The fight was long and bloody, but eventually it saw Haiti become the first place in the world to permanently abolish slavery and eventually seek independence from France. But how did the Haitian Revolution begin? Who were the brave men and women who risked everything for freedom? And why has the world never stopped punishing Haiti for daring to claim its liberty? I'm John Hopkins from the Noiser podcast network. This is a short history of the Haitian Revolution. In 1492, on his quest to find a westward route to Asia, the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus stumbles upon a Caribbean island. Densely forested, with fertile valleys stretching towards the sea. It is known to its indigenous Taino people as Ayiti, meaning place of high mountains. Columbus calls it La Espanola, which later becomes Hispaniola. Today, the island comprises the nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Eager to bring news of his Caribbean discoveries to the Spanish crown, Columbus leaves a small outpost on the island and sails back across the Atlantic. When he returns the following year, the settlement lies in ruins and most of its occupants are dead. The initially cordial relations with the indigenous People having descended into violence. In 1509, Columbus son Diego Colon arrives on the island and settles in the capital, Santo Domingo, where he assumes the role of Governor of the Indies. With this as the seat of their power in the Caribbean, the Spanish introduce the encomienda system, granting European colonists the right to demand labor and tribute from the indigenous people. Consequently, overwork and abuse devastate the Taino's numbers, as do the European smallpox and measles strains to which the local population have no immunity. A little over two decades after Columbus's first arrival, indigenous numbers have dropped from around half to three quarters of a million to fewer than 30,000. In a bid to replenish their workforce in 1501, the Spanish monarchy authorizes the transportation of captive Africans to its colony. But almost as soon as they land, those who have survived the journey try, when they can, to flee or rise in rebellion. Marlene Doubt is professor of French and African Diaspora studies at Yale University. Her most recent book is the first and Last King of Haiti, the Rise and Fall of Henri Christophe.
- [07:43]
Marlene Doubt
After 1501, when the Spanish crown authorizes the slave trade, there are immediate reports of rebellion. In fact, the Spanish institute the first slave codes in the 1520s to quell a huge rebellion that happened on a plantation owned by Diego Colon.
- [07:59]
Narrator
When this revolt falters, some of the freedom fighters flee to the mountains. Colon pursues and kills many of the escapees known as maroons. But the spirit of resistance persists in the hidden communities they now form. Despite these pockets of defiance, however, slavery expands here in the 16th century as the cultivation of sugar cane intensifies. But during the 17th century, the French and English increasingly challenged Spanish dominance in the Caribbean. In the early 1600s, the English go on to found colonies such as Barbados, while the French establish enduring settlements on Martinique and the archipelago of Guadeloupe. Spain's control of Hispaniola weakens, especially along the north and northwest coasts. From nearby islands, French and English pirates or buccaneers attack Spanish ships and settlements, making it harder for Spain to stay in charge of the Caribbean.
- [09:00]
Marlene Doubt
The French actually don't begin arriving on the island until around the 17th century, and by 1697, they've signed a formal treaty with Spain which cedes to them the western third of the island, which is, of course, today Haiti.
- [09:17]
Narrator
Renamed Saint Domingue by the French, this western sector of the island is soon the main destination for Frenchmen seeking their fortune in the Americas. It will become the world's leading producer of both sugar and coffee.
- [09:30]
Marlene Doubt
The French, just in 100 years, essentially from 1697 to 1791, they transform this society into kind of a middling plantation society, into a full blown slave society. They transport, just in that time of a little under 100 years, almost 900,000 captive Africans. And that's just the French alone to work the land, to produce sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo. And because it is such a brutal atmosphere, there's a high death rate and the. The colony becomes quite known for its cruelty.
- [10:07]
Narrator
Torture and whippings are common among the enslaved, who make up roughly 90% of the population here. Newspaper notices reveal the brutality in sections about escapees, with listings detailing missing ears and limbs or other marks from punishment.
- [10:24]
Marlene Doubt
The most prominent newspaper, called Les affiches americaines, had in almost every single issue, numerous notices for descriptions for enslaved people who had run away so that their quote unquote masters could recapture them, and descriptions of those who had been recaptured and were in jail awaiting their masters to reclaim them and put them back on the plantations where they came from. And I call Saint Domingue the carceral colony because of this. Every tiny little hamlet, the tiniest little town, had its own jail
- [11:00]
Narrator
to regulate slavery. The French king Louis xiv issues what is called the code noir in the late 17th century. It requires that all enslaved people be baptized and raised in the Catholic faith, while giving their so called masters authority to punish them. Though the code sets some limits on extreme cruelty on paper, in practice it legalizes harsh treatment and enforces the absolute control of slaveholders. The richest of the plantation owners, known as the grand blanc, hold enormous economic power and often push for greater autonomy from France. Below them in the hierarchy are the petit blanc, the poorer white population in Saint Domingue, who own smaller farms or businesses. Another group are the free people of color, which comprises some of those born to African women, but fathered by white colonists, as well as a number of formerly enslaved people who have been granted or purchased their freedom. Though they are denied full legal and political rights, they can own property, manage plantations, and enslave people themselves.
- [12:09]
Marlene Doubt
You can imagine that people might start to think, well, why should one class of people who are also the descendants of Africans and in some cases descendants of enslaved people themselves, be free and able to profit from the riches of the colony and the back breaking labor of others, and others are crushed under the thumb. So these were some of the many tensions that just began brewing over the centuries since the time of Spanish colonization, but really burst open during the French period.
- [12:38]
Narrator
This deeply unjust system is a pressure cooker of fear and dissatisfaction. The white planters hold all the power and fear losing it. The free people of color are dissatisfied with their limited rights, while the enslaved majority, on whose backs the whole system is built, suffer agonizing barbaric conditions and treatment. In the mid-1700s, one formerly enslaved maroon by the name of Francois Macandal is said to have started a secret campaign to poison French planters. Some records refer to him as a voodoo priest, a leader of the religious practice rooted in west and Central African traditions. Though he is eventually caught and burned at the stake, legend has it that he escapes his fate by transforming into a mosquito, a creature that plagues the white colonists. He and his story come to symbolize the enduring desire of the enslaved for freedom.
- [13:41]
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Marlene Doubt
It's time we started hunting them.
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Narrator
across the Atlantic. By the mid 18th century, Europe is in the midst of the Enlightenment. An intellectual movement that champions individual rights and questions traditional authority. In France, writers like Voltaire criticize the dominance of the church and monarchy, while Rousseau promotes the belief that all people are born free and equal. As these ideas circulate, they begin to reshape how people understand government, society, and human rights.
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Marlene Doubt
What is very interesting about the French Enlightenment is that often, especially when the conversation turns to Haiti, it's flipped that what's the effect of the Enlightenment on Saint Domingue? But actually it's the opposite, that there had been slave revolts and rebellions on this island since the, the beginning of the Spanish conquest. So for all of these centuries, people who are debating what are the rights of man, what are the responsibilities of a government to its people have the example of revolts and rebellions against constituted authority. And so actually, if you read the writings of Rousseau and Voltaire, for example, think of Voltaire's Candide. One of the most forceful passages in that work is when they encounter an enslaved man missing limbs, and one character says, it is at this price that you eat sugar. In Europe.
- [17:04]
Narrator
In France, the Enlightenment fuels a growing discontent with the country's monarchy until revolution takes place in 1789. With the King's power now significantly weakened, but not fully stripped, the new national assembly proclaims that men are born and remain free and equal in rights. In slave colonies like Saint Domingue, those words land like a spark.
- [17:30]
Marlene Doubt
By the time you get the French Revolution, they're using this language that everyone is free and equal in rights and is able to resist oppression. And even though they don't mean captive Africans, the French revolutionaries, they absolutely do not. Which they will later make explicitly clear in the 1790s, when the free people of color say, does that apply to people of African descent as well? The French revolutionaries in the French national assembly, which has been created by that point, will say, well, we cannot pronounce on the different conditions of individuals who are free. And that's going to become the major distinction. Is a person free or in bondage? And that's a huge contradiction that eventually is going to collapse and cannot stand.
- [18:14]
Narrator
It remains unclear how the work of the revolutionaries will apply in the colonies. White planters in Saint Domingue see an opportunity to push for greater autonomy from France so that they can secure control of the colonies trade. But they reject any suggestion of racial equality. And while the enslaved majority remain locked out of the discussion, the free people of color argue that the rights promised to so called free men should apply to them.
- [18:41]
Marlene Doubt
The free people of color had been Asking for equal rights of representation. Now that France is going to this assembly model, they're not quite a republic yet, but things are kind of fracturing and breaking open in terms of how France is going to be governed. And they say, what about the colonies? And when the national assembly says all free people have the same rights, even without specifying that that meant free people of color, they are going to rush home, back to Saint Domingue, and try to force the white French colonists, who are completely opposed to giving free people of color rights representation.
- [19:14]
Narrator
Keeping a close eye on the discussions in Paris is Vincent Auger, an affluent free man of color. He returns to Saint Domingue determined to turn the rights promised by the French assembly into reality. When the governor refuses his demand for voting rights, he and a man called Jean Baptiste chavin lead around 300 free men of color in an armed uprising near the major city of Cap Francais. But their rebellion fails, and Auger and Chavin are driven into flight.
- [19:45]
Marlene Doubt
They flee to the Spanish side of the island, but the Spanish governor actually agrees to have them extradited back to the French side. And both men are broken on what is called the wheel, which is this medieval torture device that involves breaking every bone in someone's body and then just leaving them there to die. The two men did die on the wheels. They cut off their heads and put them on pikes on major roads to serve as a warning.
- [20:11]
Narrator
Auger is immortalized as a martyr both at home and back in Paris. And the national assembly eventually decides that political rights will be given to free people of color born to two free, free parents. It's a compromise, but a crucial waypoint has been reached. As white planters in the colony refuse to comply with the decision, tension grows between them and the free people of color. Meanwhile, recognizing their opportunity, enslaved black people hold a series of meetings in the northern plains around Cap Francais, home to
- [20:47]
Marlene Doubt
many large plantations, and they essentially plot rebellion. They say, we vastly outnumber the white French colonists. We vastly outnumber the enslavers. All we have to do is put our minds together.
- [21:00]
Narrator
In their world of bondage, religious ceremonies offer a place of freedom where the enslaved can gather and plot. It is a hot, humid August night in 1791. In the woods at a place called Bois Cailliman in the north of Saint Domingue, A young enslaved woman slips through the trees, drawing her shawl around her. As it begins to rain, she joins a gathering in a clearing lit with a ring of torches. This is a place said to be full of spirits and the souls of those who've died at the hands of their enslavers. Voodoo ceremonies, like the one she's here to join are a space where the enslaved can pray, sing, and remember the worlds from which they were torn. But although these meetings are tolerated by the whites in Saint Domingue, tonight there is a different atmosphere. The woman moves anxiously, jumping at the shadows cast by the flickering torches. Even the black pig, pawing at the ground where it stands tethered to a nearby tree, seems disturbed. She finds a spot not far from a thick tree trunk which will act as the Potomito, the central pole of the gathering. More and more people arrive, emerging from the plantations in their work clothes until there must be hundreds of them. Whispers circulate that a group of maroons from Port au Prince are among their number. A tense silence settles. Then the low, steady beat of drums begins. The music is a thread connecting them to their ancestors and distant lands. The beat becomes louder and the energy of the gathering changes. Now a line of girls dressed in white make their way through the crowd. One of them carries the asan, a sacred tool made of a calabash gourd decorated with glass beads and snake bones. Suddenly, the drumming stops. A hush descends. The crowd parts, and a tall man steps forward. His name passes like a breeze through the gathering. He is Dati Bukman, the religious leader. Beside him is Cecile Fatima, the mambo, or voodoo priestess, her hair wrapped in a headscarf. Bokman begins to speak. The white man may be encouraged by his God to sin, he says, but the God of these people gathered tonight asks only good works of them. Now their God is ordering revenge. The time has come to resist the white planters, to seize their freedom. The crowd starts to shout in agreement, and the drumming begins again. Cecil Fatiman begins to sway and chant, possessed by the spirits, as the girls in white move ecstatically around the tree. All around the young woman, these friends, neighbors and strangers seem lit from within by exhilaration and hope. And as the oath is sealed with the blood of the black pig, it seems that their world might finally be about to change. Respected as a priest, Bukman was born in the Senegambia region of West Africa, where he was captured and sold into slavery.
- [24:41]
Marlene Doubt
Daddy Bukman, he's famous for what is in Haiti today referred to as the prayer of Boukman, is a song in pizza. But one of the things he says that's very important in this speech is he says, the God of the white man calls him to commit Crimes, but our God, who's the true God, right? Bonje in Haitian creole means the good lord, but is the real God. He wants peace and he wants our freedom. And so what we have to do, however, is rise up in order to get that.
- [25:11]
Narrator
The ceremony marks the commitment to fight for freedom. From around August 21, 1791, enslaved people begin attacking plantations en masse across the region. They set fields and buildings on fire and destroy sugar processing equipment to cripple the colony's plantation economy. White planters have long feared such an uprising, but the revolt spreads faster than anyone expects. Though estimates of the numbers involved vary, it is thought that by late September, more than 200 plantations have been attacked, and between 20,000 and 80,000 enslaved people are fighting for their freedom. They come from all backgrounds, men and women, African born and creole, which is to say those born in the colony, overseers and field workers alike. Over the next two months, thousands of whites are killed and hundreds of sugar, coffee, and indigo plantations are destroyed. In response, white militias strike back, killing about 15,000 people of color. Brutality occurs on both sides, yet there are also moments of compassion, including cases of freedom fighters rescuing and hiding their former enslavers. Yet even as they fight for their liberty, many enslaved people are not yet demanding independence from France. Some declare loyalty to the French king, encouraged by rumors that he has already ordered the end of slavery and that colonial authorities are concealing the decree. Many enslaved people from the conga who had served there as soldiers in the kingdom's civil wars bring valuable military experience to the uprising. They bring different tactics, too, working in small, organized groups. As the white planters flee to the colony's cities, the insurgents form camps in the countryside. Ingenious and courageous in the face of European firepower, they set and camouflage traps, fabricate poison arrows, and lure the enemy into repeated ambushes. By 1792, the rebels control about a third of Saint Domingue. But the response from Paris has been chaotic. Alarmed by the scale of an uprising that seems capable of collapsing the whole colony, the French have by now rescinded their earlier decision to grant rights to free people of color, handing control of the issue back to the colonial assemblies. But this u turn only inflames the situation, radicalizing the group that had begun to see their colonial overlords as allies. With both free and enslaved people of color now united by a common cause. April 1792 sees the French flip flop again, restoring what they had previously offered. But by now, the situation is slipping out of control. Rattled by the chaos and the fact that its white colonists are seeking independence on their own terms. France now sends 6,000 troops to the colony and a ship bearing new.
- [28:18]
Marlene Doubt
At the end of 1792, the French are going to send another set of commissioners. So when they initially arrive in Saint Domingue, they say, we have no intention of abolishing slavery here. They're trying to quiet the white French colonists, who actually are engaged in an independence movement where they want to be like the American patriots across the sea in what becomes the United states. Right. So they have this example, and so the French commissioners are actually there to get the plantation back on track, which means to make slavery profitable again, to quiet down the fighting between the white French colonists and the free people of color. But when they get there and they see what a disaster they are up against.
- [29:04]
Narrator
To make matters more complicated, News now arrives from France that it has fully removed the king and declared itself a republic. Then, shockingly, in January 1793, King Louis XVI is guillotined. The event sends shockwaves through Europe, Terrifying other monarchies and pushing Britain and Spain to declare war on France and its colonies. Both countries see Saint Domingue's chaos as an opportunity. Britain backs the white planters and royalists, Hoping to restore the old order and protect its own Caribbean interests. Spain, on the other hand, which controls the eastern side of the island, Santo domingo, Temporarily supports the enslaved rebels to weaken French control. The Spanish promise freedom and land to insurgents who join its army, Though they have no intention of abolishing slavery in their own colonies. It is during this tumultuous time that a man called Toussaint Louverture enters the story. Born enslaved on a sugar plantation in the early 1740s, Louverture was freed as an adult. At that point, he is thought to have given himself the surname which comes from the french word for opening, or the one who opened the way. By the time the Haitian revolution erupts, he is in his early 50s, a man with an intimate and somewhat unique understanding of the system of slavery.
- [30:36]
Marlene Doubt
One of the reasons toussainture rises to leadership Is he had this experience of having free status long before many others. He reportedly learned to read and write, which wouldn't have been uncommon for a free man of color to learn how to do, and that he had some instruction through his relationship with his former enslaver and the former manager of one of the plantations he worked with. That gave him some insight into military tactics and struggles, but also how to run a plantation, which then becomes a microcosm for, you know, how to run A society and how to influence others. And he was very charismatic, and he was very good at speeches and inspiring people to follow him.
- [31:25]
Narrator
In 1793, Louverture becomes known as a powerful leader of insurgents fighting alongside the Spanish, presenting himself as the true defender of liberty in Saint Domingue. Soon he commands a large stretch of the western coast with considerable autonomy and minimal Spanish supervision. Meanwhile, the French commissioners face a crisis and recognize that in the fight against the British and Spanish, the enslaved population can either be viewed as a danger or an asset.
- [31:59]
Marlene Doubt
They decide, oh, actually, the only way to preserve this colony for France is to abolish slavery and get the captive Africans, turn them into laborers instead of slaves, and get them on our side so they'll fight with us. And so that's actually what happens. They offer varying degrees of emancipation leading up to August and September and October 1793. By October 1793, general emancipation has been proclaimed. But here's the problem. Do they have the sanction of France?
- [32:33]
Narrator
To answer this question, the commissioners send a delegation to Paris to carry the news of emancipation across the Atlantic. This delegation, which will speak to the National Convention, comprises three men, one white, one of mixed heritage, and one black man, Jean Baptiste Belay, who was born into slavery. It is a dangerous journey across the Atlantic, especially for Belay, who is subject to racist attacks. But when the three of them finally enter the convention in Paris, they are greeted with warm applause.
- [33:06]
Marlene Doubt
In February 1794, this French national Convention does something quite shocking when they declare the abolition of slavery not just in Saint Domingue, but in all French overseas territories, which at that point still included the island of Guadeloupe, but did not include the island of Martinique, which had fallen into British hands due to those constant struggles that the two world powers are engaged in.
- [33:29]
Narrator
In an extraordinary moment in global history, the French government officially frees all enslaved people in its colonies and makes them full citizens. It is a historic act and one that marks a turning point in the revolution. Responding to France's abolition of slavery, Toussaint Louverture turns his back on the Spanish and joins the French Republic.
- [33:57]
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- [34:17]
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- [34:38]
Marlene Doubt
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- [34:46]
Narrator
Spain withdraws from the conflict in 1795. The British, after suffering devastating losses from yellow fever and repeated defeats by Louverture's army, gradually withdraw. Eventually they negotiate a truce, with Louverture agreeing to leave the colony in return for his promise not to encourage slave uprisings in Britain's Caribbean territories. Having removed the threat from Spain and Britain in 1799, Louverture faces a new challenge from a former ally. Andre Rigaud, who controls the southern province of the colony, is concerned that that free people of color like him are being sidelined by Louverture's policies. The resulting War of Knives, as the battles between the two men and their troops is known, lasts a year, and Rigaud is only defeated when Louverture leverages assistance from the United States. Thanks to existing trade ties. Now the uncontested dominant force in Saint Domingue, Louverture moves to consolidate power under what is in effect a military dictatorship. He also introduces a new set of policies that restore the traditional plantation system, seeking to stabilize the shattered economy and revive export production for France.
- [36:03]
Marlene Doubt
He wants to prove to France that he can make the colony profitable again. So he issues his own labor laws that draw on some of those previous laws. And now he has to justify, well, how different are your laws from what France was trying to do? And so this earns him the reputation later as being this autocratic ruler who really just wanted power and not actually to transform what was a sort of forced labor society into a truly free labor society.
- [36:41]
Narrator
Now Louverture turns his attention eastwards. In January 1801, he leads a successful invasion of neighboring Spanish Santo Domingo, ensuring that slavery there is also abolished. Having overcome both foreign and domestic rivals, he now stands as the de facto ruler of the entire island of Hispaniola, governing a black led liberated colony. But officially he remains answerable to France, and before long the new man at the top over there will remind him of that. While Toussaint Louverture has been consolidating his authority on Hispaniola, political life in France has undergone significant change. Capitalizing on the post revolution instability, a skilled general by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte seizes control in a couple. But once he's established himself as first consul of the new government, there are signs that he might reintroduce Slavery. In response, Louverture draws up a constitution for the island of Hispaniola that states slavery is abolished forever. The new constitution sweeps away the old racial order, declaring that everyone born in the colony is equal, free and a citizen of France. Nevertheless, the constitution is authoritarian in other respects. It declares Louverture governor for life. Voodoo is outlawed, Catholicism is installed as the official religion, and mandatory labor is written into law. Be formally enslaved, now legally free, but still compelled to work under punishing conditions. Reject the measures. With a series of uprisings, a major revolt breaks out in northern Saint Domingue. When Moyes Louverture, Toussaint's nephew and a popular general, sides with the rebels, his uncle has him arrested and executed. The revolt is crushed, but has dire consequences for Louverture's reputation. And the insurgents aren't the only ones with objections to the new constitution.
- [38:54]
Marlene Doubt
Toussaint Virtue signs it in July 1801, and then he sends it to Napoleon Bonaparte, who is by now essentially a dictator. And Toussaint says, I'm sending this to you for your approval. But Napoleon Bonaparte reads this as, you've usurped my authority. You think that you're in charge there and you're not.
- [39:15]
Narrator
To regain control, Napoleon sends a large military expedition to Saint Domingue, placing his brother in law, Charles Leclerc, in charge, he anticipates the campaign will take around three months. In the final phase, he plans to disarm all the people of color and force them back into slavery, and instructs Leclerc to eject from the island any black people who have held a rank above that of captain. When Napoleon's troops land in Saint Domingue In 1802, the local forces enact a scorched earth policy to deny them food and shelter. One of Louverture's most important generals, a formerly enslaved man called Henri Christophe, sets fire to Cap Francais, burning it to the ground in anticipation of the European army's arrival. Unable to crush local resistance outright, Leclerc shifts strategy. He offers amnesty or rank and pay to any enemy generals who defect. While Louverture is weakened by many of his men being lured away, he is still able to rally support from the British and the United States to blockade ports and prevent the French accessing supplies. But what the French don't know is that he also has another, much more lethal ace up his sleeve.
- [40:36]
Marlene Doubt
One of Toussaint Virtue's tactics was, we need to wait until the rainy season that will help us, and we need to wait until the fall. Because they knew the patterns of when yellow fever would be resurgent. So you think after the rainy season, all the mosquitoes have hatched? Right. So they know that the French don't have immunity to this.
- [40:56]
Narrator
But the rainy season is still months away, so for now, the insurgents must fight on. Thanks in large part to the fierce leadership of the formerly enslaved General Jean Jacques Dessalines, the French suffer heavy losses. But even so, they are able to push into what was once the Spanish side of the island and expel local resistance. In April 1802, a warrant goes out across the colony for the arrest of Louverture and General Henri Christophe. After several failed negotiations, Louverture tries to reach a settlement, sending Christophe to meet with Leclerc to gauge his intentions. Except once Christophe's there, things don't go the way l' Ouverture had planned.
- [41:42]
Marlene Doubt
They effectively turn Christophe against him. They do turn Dessalines against him, depending on which account you believe, they sort of turn his own nephew, Charles Bellaire, against him. And how they can do this is that Toussaint, you know, he had this reputation of being. He could be harsh. He'd ordered his own nephew moise, executed in October 1801. You can see how the French can play this up and say, are you next? He's had every person who's tried to challenge his authority, in his view, deported.
- [42:13]
Narrator
Having secured Christophe's loyalty, Leclerc offers Louverture a deal. He can retain his army rank as long as he agrees to retire from action to his plantation in the north of the island. Recognizing the precarity of his position, Louverture accepts. Despite being more militant than even Louverture, Dessalines is also forced to submit, Though by agreeing to cooperate with the French, he keeps his men and weapons. In truth, though, he is playing a long game, consolidating his position among his people, picking off rivals on his own side, and waiting for the right moment to unite the colony's people of color against the invaders and his right to distrust the French. Because now Leclerc goes back on the promises he made during negotiations. For Louverture, the resolute leader who once commanded the entire island, time is running out. It is June 7, 1802, a humid afternoon in the port of Ghonaith. Though his hands are bound, Toussaint Louverture makes sure to retain his commanding posture as he leaves the house where the French have confined him. As he steps into the street, he blinks against the bright sunlight. The footsteps of his family sound behind him. The French deliberately place him at the front of the Procession ensuring his walk through the town is a public spectacle, a warning and a show of power. Soldiers flank the road towards the harbor, muskets glinting in the sunlight. The townspeople peek from behind shuttered windows. At the harbor, a small gathering has formed. Men and women have come to witness his deportation. Among them, he recognizes the faces of people he once fought alongside. At the water's edge, two French naval vessels, awareness weight, French flags snapping on their masts. The smaller frigate Creole rocks lightly close to the quay, its dark hull lined with cannons. Along with his family, Louverture is escorted aboard. Climbing onto the narrow deck of the frigate, he steps forward. And even surrounded by French sailors, a hush falls as he begins to speak. He warns his captors that in removing him, they have cut down only the trunk of the tree of liberty, that its roots are deep and numerous, and it will spring up again. His gaze returns to his fellow freedom fighters at the harbor, hoping his message is clear. When he stops speaking, there is no applause, but a stunned silence, broken only by the screams of seabirds and the fluttering of the tricolor in the breeze. Louverture and his family are now ferried to the larger ship, ready to make the long voyage across the Atlantic before he is imprisoned. Below decks, Louverture takes one last look at Saint Domingue, the land he has both loved and hated, the place for which he has fought so fiercely, the home he will never see again. The summer after Louverture's departure, Leclerc oversees the reintroduction of harsh labor rules and attempts to restore plantations. The workers now operate on a punishing system of serfdom in which they are paid a meager wage. Though Dessalines and other elite men of color keep their ranks and privileges, few of Saint Domingue's black population truly believe Leclerc's claim that slavery will never be restored. Then news arrives that Napoleon has sent troops to the neighboring archipelago of Guadeloupe to restore slavery by force under the Treaty of Amiens, a brief peace between France and Britain. France also regains the Caribbean island of Martinique, where slavery has never been abolished. In these colonies, even the black elites are stripped of their rights. Back on Saint Domingue, though Dessalines never trusted Leclerc's promises, he recognizes the developments as a serious escalation and that what's happening over the water is surely about to happen here too. Abandoning any cooperation with the French, in late 1802, he begins rallying black troops and former revolutionaries and reigniting uprisings against the expeditionary force. This renewal of conflict, sees atrocities on both sides reach a new and terrible level.
- [47:02]
Marlene Doubt
The French engage in these just truly barbaric practices. At one point, LeClair issues a condemnation, saying, you know, we need to get rid of every single one of them. He asks for permission from the Minister of War and the Minister of the Marine to kill every person over 12 in the colony who's ever worn an epaulette. So it's just extremely barbaric genocidal tactics. And these genocidal tactics really wake up the other black freedom fighters who may or may not have been truly loyal to France. At that point, it's questionable. They sometimes did the biddings of the other French generals, and sometimes they didn't. But by falling 1802, they are in open revolt against the French and have transformed what was a way to sort of prevent slavery from returning into a war of independence.
- [47:59]
Narrator
It's now that the longed for shift in season comes to the aid of the revolutionaries. The mosquitoes do their worst, and devastating outbreaks of yellow fever rip through the French ranks. In November 1802, Leclerc himself dies of the disease, and command passes to his brutal successor, Donatienne de Rochenbo, under whom the campaign only grows more savage. He imports dogs from Cuba, which have been specifically trained to hunt enslaved people. There are mass executions, decapitations, and drownings.
- [48:36]
Marlene Doubt
At one point, another general, who had been fighting on the side of France is drowned in this horrifically public way. With his wife and children and all of their effects thrown into the sea. They drown entire brigades of free people of color who had previously been on their side.
- [48:54]
Narrator
By early 1803, Napoleon's fragile peace with Britain is breaking down. British warships begin blockading the French in Saint Domingue, restricting reinforcements and supplies and providing support to the local revolutionary forces. And though Toussaint Louverture now dies in custody in the Jura mountains of France, the revolution he once led presses towards its final victory.
- [49:23]
Marlene Doubt
Ducros Chambeau, who is Leclerc's successor, he starts writing desperate letters home, saying, if you just send me more troops, I can sail this infernal port away from this hell. And the French don't send him reinforcements. And they try to bring Polish soldiers in because by this time, Napoleon has made incursions into Poland. But these Polish soldiers arrive and they think, why would I fight for this? You're our conqueror. And many of them defect. The Polish start defecting. Other French soldiers start defecting. Yellow fever is having its way, and the Haitian revolutionaries are. Are in the mountains. They are not engaged in battle the way that the other Napoleonic battles are taking place on fields and people on one side and the other side ambushing each other that way. Oh, no, they're hiding. They're doing all of these tactics that the French consider barbaric, but really just show the superior sort of military prowess of people who knew this terrain versus people who did not know this terrain.
- [50:24]
Narrator
In November 1803, Rochambeau loses the final battle of the War of Independence at Vertieres and surrenders to Dessalines. A ceasefire is agreed on the condition that French forces evacuate within 10 days. France has not only lost 50,000 men, but also what had once been the wealthiest colony in the Caribbean. The vast majority of the remaining white colonists flee alongside the retreating French, many of them heading either to Cuba, Jamaica, or southern American port cities such as New Orleans and Louisiana. And while those who remain are initially tolerated, a few months later they are systematically massacred on Dessalines orders, with just a handful of professionals and medics spared. On New Year's Day 1804, Dessalines declares independence for the new nation of Haiti, its name once again rooted in its pre colonial indigenous language. It becomes the first nation in the modern world founded and ruled by formerly enslaved people and the first independent Caribbean state. Dessalines serves as Haiti's first ruler, but his harsh enforcement of conscripted labor leads many of Haiti's citizens to feel they are being enslaved all over again. He is assassinated after just a couple of years, after which Louverture's General, Henri Christophe establishes a monarchy in the north under his own rule, while a republican government controls the south. It is not until 1820 that the nation is reunited. But despite its unification and independence, Haiti faces enduring hostility.
- [52:16]
Marlene Doubt
The world has not stopped punishing Haiti. I think it's more well known now than in the past that in 1825, the French essentially manipulated Haiti's president, Jean Piablie, into signing a disastrous indemnity agreement, saying that haiti would pay 150 million francs as the price of French recognition of Haitian independence, that they would relinquish their claims on the island and stop sending these military aggressions. And when the Haitian government capitulates to this demand, this really begins the phase of Haitian history that we're still in now, which is a neo colonial phase, where Haiti is going to by turns, physically, materially and financially be at the behest of the other world powers.
- [52:59]
Narrator
The nation doggedly chips away at the debt and associated costs. But even by the time Europe is busy with the first World War, the repayments are still siphoning off over three quarters of the nation's budget. It is not until 1947, 140 years after independence, that repayments are complete. But the legacy of its debt is such that even now the World bank identifies Haiti as the poorest country in Latin America and the Caribbean. The lost investment of what the UN estimates to be the equivalent of $21 billion hobbled Haiti's economy and its ability to adequately develop infrastructure, even its capacity to successfully govern itself. Haiti's achievements remain remarkable. As the first nation in the modern world founded and ruled by formerly enslaved people, its history stands as a beacon in the fight for equality that inspires movements for liberation across the Americas and beyond. But its freedom came at a price that still burdens the country today.
- [54:07]
Marlene Doubt
And poverty ensues. Instability ensues. And this is directly because of the punishments of the other world powers who did not want a free black republic. They did not want that in their hemisphere, whether that was the American hemisphere or the Western hemisphere in general. And he has paid the price and continues to pay.
- [54:37]
Narrator
Next time on Short HISTORY of We'll bring you a short history of the golden age of railways.
- [54:43]
Railways Historian
By 1840s, there was maybe eight or 10 countries with railways. By the 1850s, that had probably doubled again. And really every country with a good economy had begun to start building railways. The point is that it was such a game changer, such an obvious asset to a country that of course, there were some downsides. People sometimes objected to the dirt, the noise, the incursion on the countryside, and so on. But those downsides were very small compared to the upside. Quicker travel for people, quicker transfer of freight, a huge boost for technology. So the railways themselves were an important catalyst for the development of technology and so on. It was really quite an unstoppable force.
- [55:32]
Narrator
That's next time. You can listen to the next two episodes of Short History of Right now without waiting and without adverts by subscribing to Noiser Plus. Just hit the link in the episode description or head to www.noiza.comsubscriptions to unlock more episodes today.