Florida International University
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LACC Occasional papers series (1981 - 1990)
Kimberly Green Latin American and Carribbean
Center (LACC) Publications Network
1-1-1983
Slave Resistance Studies and the Saint Domingue
Slave Revolt: Some Preliminary Considerations
(Paper #4)
David Geggus
University of Florida, Department of History
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Geggus, David, "Slave Resistance Studies and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt: Some Preliminary Considerations (Paper #4)"
(1983). LACC Occasional papers series (1981 - 1990). 3.
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SLAVE RESISTANCE STUDIES AND THE SAINT
DOMINGUE SLAVE REVOLT : SOME
PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS
David Geggus
Department o f Hi s t o r y
University o f Florida
#4
Winter 1983
Pub1i s h e d by t h e L a t i n American and Caribbean Center
of
F l o r i da I n t e r n a t i ona1 Universi t y
Editor:
Associate E d i t o r s :
Lowell W. Gudmundson
Department o f H i s t o r y
Jorge Sal a z a r - C a r r i l l o
Department o f Economics
W i l l i a m T. Vickers
Department o f Soci 01ogy/An t h r o p o l ogy
The insurrection t h a t broke out i n the French Caribbean colony of Saint
Domingue in August 1791 was the greatest and sole really successful slave
revolt there has ever been.l Eventually t o destroy what was then probably the
wealthiest colony i n the world, transforming i t into Haiti, the Tropics' f i r s t
post-colonial s t a t e , i t has been largely ignored by the current spate of
research into "sl ave resi stance." T h i s has tended t o concentrate on Engl i s hspeaking societies and Brazil, or on aspects of resistance other than armed
revolt. While the Saint Domingue Revolution, broadly described, has i t s e l f
given r i s e t o a very considerable body of 1iterature, much of i t i s superf i c i a l and even i t s best examples have used only a small part of the relevant
documentation.
Our knowledge of the slave revol t, i n f a c t , has progressed
1i t t l e since ~ a u l g u sSannon's account of 1920, or even Beaubrun Ardoui n's of
1853.~
This paper i s an attempt t o examine some of the ideas and concepts
generated by studies of slave resistance i n general, and t o b r i n g them
together w i t h some prel imi nary findings of my own continuing research into the
Saint Domingue sl ave revol u t i on.
C u l ture and Resistance
Slaves' resistance t o slavery covered a broad spectrum. Armed revolt was
only one extreme of a continuum which stretched from s a t i r e , lying, feigning
i l l ness and working slow, through tool-breaking, t h e f t , f l i g h t and s t r i k e s , t o
sel f-muti 1ation, suicide and infanticide, arson, poisoning and physical
assault. Of course, one may question the unity of such a diverse range of
a c t i v i t i e s , and different historians have analysed them according t o different
c r i t e r i a . In order t o exclude accidental or venal actions, Frederickson and
Lasch defined "true resistance" as overt, communal and systematic.
Individual, sporadic and clandestine a c t i v i t i e s they defined as "intransigence."3 For Orlando Patterson, the basic division was between violent and
passive resistance, a1 though he d i d not consider v i 01 ence t o property.4
Eugene Genovese, however, found a "qua1 i t a t i v e 1eap" between n i h i l i s t i c a c t s
of "naively directed" violence and those acts of rebellion and f l i g h t which
. ~ d Mu1 1i n simiJ arly d i s t i nrepresented a bodily rejection of sl a ~ e r ~Geral
gui shed "i nward" from "outward" resistance, drawing attention both t o i t s
physical location and t o i t s psycho1 ogical imp1 ications f o r the sl a ~ e . ~
Such distinctions, however, are d i f f i c u l t t o maintain. I t i s not easy t o
see t h a t the f l i g h t of a solitary and selfishly-motivated maroon was more
"political ," o r a more effective challenge t o the slave regime, than the
reckless murder of a hated master.
Nor need i t have been more "selfenhancing" than an a c t of sabotage. In the same way, a midwife's systematic
acts of infanticide could well be regarded as more, or less, p o l i t i c a l l y
mature o r self-enhancing than a workforce downing tools t o get an unpopular
overseer d i smi ssed.
Armed revol t, furthermore, a1 though regarded as the
"highest" form of resistance, was almost invariably f u t i l e and selfdestructive, often confused in purpose and not always aimed a t overthrowing
the slave regime.
Perhaps this i s why Genovese has subsequently tended t o s t r e s s the
breadth and continuity of resi stance w i t h i n sl avery
"Everyday forms" of
resistance, even i f simultaneously expressing accommodation, nurtured a collective spiritual l i f e which spawned the more dramatic acts of rebellion.'
~ has extended
Along with writers l i k e Lawrence Levine and A1 bert ~ a b o t e a u ,he
in new and subtle ways our understanding of resistance t o show how, even under
the very restricted conditions of United States slavery , resistance permeated
the culture of the slaves. T h i s trend i s what appears t o have caused Michael
Craton t o rethink his work on West Indian slave rebellions and t o see them as
basi cal ly determined by a "cul ture of resistance . # l 9
Lying behind these questions of culture i s the d i f f i c u l t subject of the
"slave personality."
I t i s Genovese again who, i n suggesting a Freudian
rather than a Behaviourist model, would appear best able t o resolve the
contradictions of the master-sl ave re1 ationshi p and t o explain how subordi nation and resistance coul d co-exi s t so perpl exingly i n a slave society.10
These. developments i n the h i s t o r i ography of s l avery are he1 pf ul when
confronting what i s the major, b u t l i t t l e explored, paradox of the Haitian
Revolution--that the greatest of a1 1 slave revol t s took place in a colony
where previous overt resistance had been comparatively s l i g h t . l l By stressing
t h a t resistance was a subtle, omnipresent phenomenon t h a t could co-exi s t w i t h
.
accommodation in the same person, i n the same a c t even, one can understand
more easily how the "1 oyal slave" became a rebel and how a relatively stab1 e
society could collapse 1 ike a house of cards.
While one may t h u s see resistance a s part of the general cultural context
of the slave's 1i f e , i t i s l e s s certain t h a t one can 1i n k i t more specifically
with the slaves' degree of cultural autonomy, which seems t o be the thrust of
the work of such scholars as Edward Brathwaite and Monica schuler.12 Writing
of Jamaica's slave e l i t e and free coloured community, Brathwaite has argued
t h a t i t was because they rejected t h e i r own folk culture t h a t they failed t o
become a self-conscious and cohesive group, "and consequently perhaps" t o win
t h e i r freedom "as t h e i r cousins i n Haiti had done."13 This surely exaggerates
the political implications of cultural distance. As the example of Jamaica
we1 1 shows, a creol ized, Christianized slave cul ture coul d indeed be a vehicle
for rebellion.14 I t also seems t o misconstrue, as regards these two social
groups, what was f o r them the most common nexus between culture and political
action. Caught between two worlds, was i t not precisely t h e i r marginality
t h a t caused them t o produce the bulk of a l l slave rebel leaders? As w i t h the
d'Antons and de Robespierres of Ancien Regime France, would-be a r i s t o c r a t s who
became radical revolutionaries, surely i t was t h e i r rejection by those w i t h
whom they identified t h a t heightened thei r sel f-awareness.
Moreover, as Mullin points out w i t h respect t o Virginia, the slave
e l i t e ' s a b i l i t y t o r e s i s t was enhanced by i t s familiarity w i t h the ways of
white society, and t h i s i s what accounts for i t s prominence among slave runaways. Acculturation, he argues, led t o resistance.15 Similarly, i t was the
most assimilated slaves who were the most likely t o respond t o news arriving
from abroad, and who were best able t o p r o f i t from political divisions in the
master class. While i t has been suggested t h a t Martinique survived the French
Revolution better than did Saint Domingue because i t s slave population was
more creolized,16 i t may on the contrary explain why during 1789-90 Saint
Domingue's slaves remained passive through two years of turmoil, while those
of Martinique rebelled on hearing the f i r s t news from France.
This i s not t o deny, however, t h a t ethnicity was frequently a vehicle f o r
rev01 t (notably in Jamaica and Brazil), o r t h a t newly-arrived Africans were
probably the most rebellious of slaves, ( i f not necessarily f o r s t r i c t l y
cul tural reasons). A common cul ture, especi a1 ly 1anguage and re1 i g i on, were
clearly very important i n the organization of resistance. B u t t h a t culture
could as easily be European-oriented a s African.
For slaves or f r e e
coloureds, culture was scarcely a vital factor i n the shaping of a sense of
separate identity. Otherwise, i t would seem d i f f i c u l t t o explain why Saint
Domi ngue' s rev01 u t i onari es, both sl ave and free col oured, came from the most
assimilated, Europeanized segments of non-white society.
Maroon Studies
The study of sl ave fugitives, especi a1 ly as regards Saint Domi ngue, has
been strongly marked by divergent ideol ogical perspectives. Among the mai n
questions a t issue are the motivation of slaves i n running away, the extent of
marronage, the maroon's relations w i t h colonial society and the connections
between marronage and slave revolution.
( i ) Central t o the debate on the maroon's motivation, as t o any assessment of slavery, i s the question of the slave's a t t i t u d e t o freedom, perhaps
the t r i c k i e s t problem t h a t confronts historians of the institution. For the
Haitian school of historians, and for certain French scholars such as GastonMartin and Lucien Peytraud, i t was the slave's desire f o r l i b e r t y t h a t
marronage quintessentially expressed. Such writers, o r those of them who have
f e l t the need t o defend this opinion, tend t o appeal t o the "logic of Haitian
history" or the "nature of Man" for supporting evidence, as well as t o the
f a c t t h a t i t cannot be disproved.17
Other historians, however, apparently more empirical i n approach, have
attempted t o r e l a t e the incidence of marronage t o ad hoc, everyday causes,
such as the standard of food supply, changes of plantation overseer, the
desire t o v i s i t friends or relatives, the fear o r resentment of punishment, o r
of demotion within the plantation hierarchy.
These writers represent
marronage not as a militant rejection of slavery b u t as a safety-valve w i t h i n
the system. They s t r e s s the short duration of most runaways' absence and the
planters' seeming lack of concern w i t h the phenomenon. Yvan Debbasch, the
most extreme exponent of t h i s interpretation, argues t h a t a desire f o r free-
dom, before the nineteenth century, was not an important cause of marronage,
and Gabriel Debien also doubts t h a t i t motivated most cases of f l i g h t . ' *
Debien, however, concedes that some slaves f l ed without any apparent reason,
and notes t h a t sometimes good masters had more runaways than d i d bad
masters. T h i s point i s also made for the Haitian school by Jean Fouchard,
a1 though the examples he gives actual ly undermine the argument. l9 Fouchard,
f o r his part, allows t h a t incidental causes had some part i n motivating fugitives, and even Debbasch accepts t h a t slave artisans who fled t o the towns t o
work were seeking a higher social position. The two schools, therefore, are
not necessarily so f a r apart.
Their differences a r e t o some extent merely a matter of terminology. The
short-term absenteei sm w i t h apparently easi ly i denti f i abl e causes, which
Debien observes was very much the most common variety, i s excluded by Fouchard
from his definition of marronage a1 together. He claims, as does Barry Higman
i n respect of ~ a m a i c a ,t h~a~t such cases were rarely those advertised i n the
newspapers.
Debien replies t h a t the published l i s t s of recaptured maroons
reveal that the usual period of absence was counted i n days or weeks, or a t
most a few months. Obviously, what i s needed here i s an attempt t o quantify
different types of marronage.
For colonial Virginia, Gerald Mu1 1i n has estimated t h a t a t h i r d of a l l
runaways mentioned i n the newspapers were seeking t o v i s i t relations, and
As another t h i r d were
therefore represented "1 i t t l e more than truancy."
a r t i sans and wai t i ngmen seeking an independent 1 i f e i n the towns, he concl udes
t h a t f iel d sl aves "rarely rejected slavery completely" by absconding. Newly
arrived Africans, however, "often" fled.21 In Saint Domingue, on the other
hand, even i n 1790-91 when they were i n f i n i t e l y more numerous than ever
before, new arrival s accounted for only a small i f sl i ghtly disproportionate
percentage of the fugitives adverti ~ e d . ? Because
~
of the hope1 essness of many
new a r r i v a l s ' attempts t o escape, Debbasch regards such maroons as "sick."
Rather more usefully, Debien points out t h a t the ethnic groups most associated
w i t h marronage in Saint Domingue were a1 so those reputed by the planters t o
adapt best t o slavery--the "Congo" and "Mozambique." Fouchard notes t h a t they
accounted f o r over half of a l l the advertised maroons. On the other hand, the
ethnic groups with the most rebellious reputation prone t o b o t h rev01t and
fl i g h t were among the rarest i n the col ony--the "Canga ," "Mi serabl es ,"
"Bouriquis" and, one might add, the " ~ a r a m e n t ~ . " Nevertheless,
~~
i t is
difficult t o see the flight of newly-arrived Africans as anything b u t a total
rejection of sl avery, a1 bei t frequently ineffective and not really predicated,
as Mull in observes, on any actual experience of slavery.
A1 though i t i s fundamental t o the study of slavery , and of a1 1 pol i tical
and social subordination, i t i s tempting t o dismiss the controversy about the
desire for freedom as b o t h inadequately articulated and beyond resolution.
One should surely ask: what sort of freedom? and take account of varying
geographic 1ocati ons, soci a1 positions and pol i t i cal possi bi 1i t i es. For many
slaves, the 1 i f e of a fugitive would have meant not "freedom" b u t a diminution
of what 1 iberties they enjoyed. John Bl assingame, for example, seems t o find
no difficulty in asserting t h a t the United States slaves constantly "yearned
for freedom," while attributing their acts of marronage t o ad hoc causes.24
Indeed, for present purposes, one should remember t h a t among those slaves who
"pulled foot" on the arrival of a new overseer and then returned voluntarily
was Nat Turner, later t o lead North America's most destructive revolt.
( i i ) I t has always been an article of faith for the Haitian school t h a t
S a i n t Domingue contained several thousands of maroons and t h a t their numbers
went on increasing up t o the Revolution. While Jean Fouchard i s the only
historian seriously t o attempt t o quantify the phenomenon, his use of figures
lacks rigour and i s on occasion fanciful and prone t o large errorsYz5though
in no other work has marronage been so vividly depicted. Using the 1i s t s of
runaways pub1 i shed in the colonial newspapers, he claims t o show t h a t marronage increased steadily during the l a s t thirty years of slavery and sharply in
the period after 1784. However, he does not allow for the advertisements
being dupl i cated in different newspapers, nor, i t seems, i n successive i ssues
of the same newspaper. Neither does he distinguish between notices of flight,
recapture or subsequent sale, and obviously cannot allow for the increasing
use of the press by the planters or the colonial authorities, nor as Debien
suggests, for the increasing efficiency of the rural police.26 Hence one
cannot be sure even that marronage was increasing a t the same rate as the
s l a v e population. A1 1 one can be s u r e o f i n f a c t i s t h a t , a s new s e t t l e m e n t s
c u t deeper i n t o the mountains and f o r e s t s , the a r e a remaining where maroons
could move f r e e l y was s t e a d i l y diminishing. However, this might simply have
meant t h a t the maroons became more dependent on the p l a n t a t i o n s f o r subsistence.
Few p l a n t a t i o n s seem t o have avoided t h e l o s s o f runaways. Some even had
f o u r o r f i v e per c e n t o f their workforces missing a t any one time. T h i s would
indeed suggest a f i g u r e o f several thousands a t 1 arge i n the colony. However,
m o r t a l i t y was probably high amongst maroons and many were re-employed c o v e r t l y
by o t h e r slaveowners, e s p e c i a l l y i n the towns. The best known and l o n g e s t
l i v e d maroon band, t h e Maniel, were thought t o number i n 1778 a t most 700-800,
and i n 1785 a census revealed, a f t e r many had died of smallpox, only 133, n o t
the "several thousand" mentioned by Eugene ~ e n o v e s e . ~ ~A valuable and
neglected source i n this connection i s a pamphlet by the 1 i b e r a l p l a n t e r
Milscent de Musset, who acquired a high r e p u t a t i o n a s a maroon f i g h t e r ,
l e a d i n g u n i t s of f r e e coloureds.
Public opinion, he s a i d , always g r e a t l y
i n f l a t e d the numbers of maroons o p e r a t i n g i n bands. People i n the towns spoke
o f 10,000 where there were r e a l l y only 3 0 0 . ~ ~T h i s was the s t r e n g t h of
Canga's band o f the 1770s, (though perhaps only i t s armed men). I t appears t o
have been S a i n t Domingue's s t r o n g e s t maroon band. Perhaps a 1 i t t l e small by
the standards of t h e Guianas, i t nonetheless compares favourably w i t h the
average B r a z i l i a n mocambo, Palmares excepted, and w i t h the Jamaican Maroon
Towns during t h e i r mil i t a n t period. Considering the problems of s u b s i s t e n c e ,
the c o l o n y ' s s i z e and d e n s i t y of popul a t i ~ n i, t~ i~s probably unreal i s t i c t o
expect l a r g e r u n i t s t o have e x i s t e d .
Whether the a c t i v i t y of t h e s e bands was i n c r e a s i n g o r n o t i n the 1780s
would seem impossible t o say w i t h any c e r t a i n t y . On an i m p r e s s i o n i s t i c 1eve1 ,
maroon a c t i v i t y c e r t a i n l y appears t o have been more c o n s i d e r a b l e i n the 1770s,
both i n the North and the West, o r even e a r l i e r i n the century. Although M.
Fouchard' s ' H i s t o r i q u e du marronage' confl a t e s a1 1 manner o f d i s p a r a t e e v e n t s ,
i t i s conspicuously t h i n on material f o r the 1 7 8 0 s . ~ ~I t was then t h a t the
c o l o n i a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n and the Maniel maroons made peace.
According t o Edner Brutus, marronage was an "insurrectionary
movement." "Flight," i n the words of Leslie Manigat, "led t o fight." Arson
and the attempted murder of whites, he claims, were among the "normal, i f not
frequent, actions of maroons throughout t h e eighteenth century. "31
Undoubtedly, such violence was a s old a s marronage i t s e l f , b u t was i t a
typical c h a r a c t e r i s t i c ? The number of whites k i l l e d by maroon r a i d e r s i n
S a i n t Domingue seems t o have been actually very small. Raiders usually sought
t o carry off foodstuffs, female slaves o r 1 ivestock, notes Debien, and rarely
attacked whites. Even i f a planter l o s t twenty runaways, he claims, i t was
regarded by him a s an economic l o s s and not a s a danger.32 The "Congoes," who
constituted most of Saint Domingue's slave fugitives, and were thought t o be
the ethnic group most prone t o marronage, were also regarded by the planters,
r a t h e r curiously, a s the most t r a c t a b l e o r "docile" or Africans.
Colonial administrators, on the other hand, had t o adopt a broader, l e s s
plantation-centric view and always tended t o regard maroon bands a s a
potential source of rev01 t. The m i l i t i a colonel, Mil scent, i t i s i n t e r e s t i n g
t o note, regarded marronage a s an a1 ternative t o conspiracy and rebel1 ion. He
thus explained the l u l l i n maroon a c t i v i t i e s i n t h e 1750s, the period of t h e
Macandal poisoning p ~ o t . 3 3 When he heard the news of the 1791 uprising, he
regarded i t , j u s t a s do the Haitian school, as p a r t of a continuing t r a d i t i o n ,
though i n t h i s he was e n t i r e l y a1 one among the planters of Saint Domingue.
There was another side, however, t o maroon-sl ave re1 ations. J u s t 1i k e
t h e maroons of Jamaica and Suriname, t h e Maniel made a t r e a t y w i t h the
colonial a u t h o r i t i e s t o capture and return runaway slaves; some they kept a s
W r i t i n g of t h e " p a r a s i t i c economies" of the Bahian
slaves themselves.
mocambos i n Brazil, Stuart Schwartz observed t h a t some enjoyed a degree of cooperation w i t h white society, d i d not seek t o overthrow t h e slave regime and
i n t h e i r depredations preyed more on the slaves than on the whites. Mull i n
has stressed similar aspects of marronage i n the British Caribbean, and Debien
e.~~
also has noted h o s t i l i t y between slaves and runaways i n Saint ~ o m i n ~ u The
p o l i t i c a l consciousness and militancy of even organized groups of maroons can
certainly be questioned. According t o Yvan Debbasch, maroons normal l y sought
t o avoid clashes w i t h white society, and i n Jamaica the best-organised maroon
( ii i )
groups certainly sought t o minimise f r i c t i o n w i t h the planters, even forbidding the k i l l i n g of whites.35 Sylvia de Groot observes t h a t i n Suriname
a c t s of revenge by maroons "were not rare," b u t i n general she pla'ces t h e i r
attacks i n the context of a need f o r commodities unavailable i n the forest.
The account of Johannes King, moreover, appears t o present the maroons'
h o s t i l i t i e s a s retaliation for those of the whites, and the same has been said
of the quilombolos of ~ a l m a r e s . ~In~ Jamaica, both the beginning of maroon
h o s t i l i t i e s i n the 1670s and the two Maroon Wars of the following century have
been viewed as responses t o white encroachment, rather than autonomous a c t s of
aggression.37 Such developments do suggest, nevertheless, t h a t the expansion
of coffee cultivation i n the mountains of Saint Domingue d u r i n g the 1780s
could have had far-reaching repercussions.
(iv)
Sl ave revol t s i n Jamaica, Surinam, Saint Domi ngue and el sewhere,
wri t e s Eugene Genovese, "accompanied and fol 1owed 1arge-scal e maroon wars. "
As regards Saint Domingue, however, i t i s not a t a l l clear of which "largescale war" he could have been t h i n k i n g . 3 8
For the Haitian school, too, i t i s
axiomatic t h a t the 1791 revol t was inspired and led by maroons, and that i t
developed out of a burgeoning swell of marronage. B u t t h i s has y e t t o be
proved. The only e f f o r t s t o substantiate this thesis empirically have been
those of Jean Fouchard, and they form perhaps the weakest part of his work.
He begins by presenting a l i s t of rebel chiefs of the mid-1790s as being
already active maroon leaders i n 1789, b u t of t h i s he provides not a shred of
evidence.
He thereafter designates a l l rebels, unless they were f r e e
coloureds, a s maroons, and he a1 so includes among them such figures as Jean
Kina, who was not a maroon and who actually fought f o r the white planters.39
In a suggestive and we1 1-received conference paper, the Haitian Lesl i e
Manigat points out t h a t Fouchard simply equates maroons and rebels, b u t he,
too, ends up endorsing the Haitian thesis by appealing t o "the logic of
historical reasoning."40 I t i s perfectly 1ogical , Debien agrees, t h a t maroon
bands already i n existence would have joined i n the 1791 revol t. B u t , he
observes, there i s no evidence of it.41 The only band t h a t we know of, the
Maniel IDokos, kept a1 oof for several years, and subsequently pl ayed a rather
10
ambiguous r o l e , f i g h t i n g f o r S a i n t Domingue's Spanish invaders and keeping o r
sell ing their bl ack c a p t i v e s a s sl a ~ e s . ~ ~
One might add t h a t those a r e a s where maroon bands were s a i d t o have been
a c t i v e on the eve o f the evolution,^^ were n o t those where t h e s l a v e r e v o l t
broke o u t and were frequently those p a r t s of the colony where the p l a n t a t i o n
regime was t o s u f f e r l e a s t . 4 4 During the Revolution, moreover, t h e c o l o n i s t s
continued t o d i s t i n g u i s h between "marrons" and "insurgEs," and i n the a r e a s
where sl avery survived " p e t i t marronage" p e r s i ~ t e d . ~ ~
What of the 1eaders of the sl ave i n s u r r e c t i o n ? Boukman, Jean-Frangoi s ,
Biassou and Jeannot, the f i r s t four t o achieve prominence, a r e generally
a s s e r t e d by h i s t o r i a n s t o have commanded bands of maroons, although no proof
of this seems t o have been p u t forward. M. Fouchard, i t i s t r u e , has found an
i n t r i g u i n g advertisement f o r a "fierce-1 ooking" maroon named Bouquemens, dated
1779. However, the name was n o t a1 1 t h a t r a r e among the s l a v e s , and i f this
was the real Boukman, a t 5'3" t a l l he was c l e a r l y n o t the colossus o f t r a d i t i o n a l accounts.46 Contemporary d e s c r i p t i o n s , however, mention n o t Boukman' s
h e i g h t b u t the s i z e of his head and they could well match up w i t h the 1779
description.
In any c a s e , there i s i n the Archives Nationales, P a r i s , an
e a r l y nineteenth century memoir by the son o f a former owner of Boukman, which
d e s c r i b e s h i m a s "a very bad slave.
.who c o n t i n u a l l y went on the maroon and
used t o r e t u r n a t n i g h t t o s t e a l even from h i s comrades." Apparently, he was
caught and s o l d several times before being bought by a M. Cl&ent, whom he
k i l l e d a t the beginning of the uprising.47 S i m i l a r l y , i n the a r c h i v e s of
Sevil l e there e x i s t s a l e t t e r by Bi assou o f November 1793 which mentions t h a t
J e a n - F r a n ~ o i s was a f u g i t i v e a t the s t a r t of the revol t.48 Hence a connection
can be e s t a b l i shed between the revol utionary 1eadership and an experience o f
marronage. However, there i s no suggestion t h a t either man was a member o f ,
s t i l l less the l e a d e r o f , a band of maroons. The documents, i n f a c t , tend t o
imply the c o n t r a r y . Furthermore, such evidence a s t h e r e i s a1 so s u g e s t s t h a t
Boukman and Jeannot, and probably B i assou, were a1 1 r e s i d e n t s on t h e i r pl antat i o n s a t the time of the uprising. I t very much seems t h a t i t was organized
from within the system and n o t from o u t s i d e i t .
.
Typo1 ogies of Sl ave Rebel 1ion
( i ) R i sing and fa1 1ing expectations
A sense of r e l a t i v e deprivation, caused either by worsening circumstances or by heightened expectations, has long been a common element i n the
analysis of the causes of revolution. Among the "four situations conducive t o
slave rebellion" p u t forward by Michael Craton i n 1974, we find not
surprisingly "conditions of extreme repression" and the "frustration of slave
expectations. "49 Eugene Genovese also s t a t e s that slave rev01 t s generally
occurred where slavery was commercial rather than patriarchal i n ethos and
where economic distress was intense.50 Insurrections certainly seem t o have
been linked, and not l e a s t i n Saint Domingue, w i t h areas of sugar rather than
of coffee or of other staple production. However, t h i s might have had l e s s t o
do w i t h differing degrees of hardship than with plantation size and ease of
communication. C.L.R. James's point about the "industrial" character of the
sugar plantation has a l o t t o be said f o r i t , (a1though he himself has
The
abandoned i t on what seem t o be erroneous grounds i n the recent edition of Bl ack Jacobins) .51
Marian Kilson, in f a c t , has argued t h a t most revolts i n the United States
took place not in the Lower South, where the slave regime was harshest, b u t i n
the areas of sl avebreedi ng and diversi f i ed agricul t ~ r e . ~ 'A1 though t h i s needs
t o be qua1 i f i e d , i t does seem t h a t i t was the f a c t of change rather than the
conditions themselves which was the important factor. B u t the evidence i s not
a t a l l clear. While the Nat Turner revol t may be seen against a background of
economic depression i n a backward area of Virginia, the Gabriel Prosser conspiracy of 1800 i s s e t by Gerald M u l l i n i n a context of economic expansion and
amelioration of the slave regime, particularly f o r the e l i t e slaves
involved. 53 Resi stance, according to the former sl ave Frederick Doug1ass,
resulted more often from indulgence and rising expectations than from
severity.54 The great majority of rebel leaders, a t l e a s t , both i n the U.S.
and the Caribbean, came from the ranks of the better treated slaves, though
t h i s i s a1 so true of the t r a i t o r s who betrayed slave conspiracies.55
In the British colonies, the picture i s no more clear cut. The three
largest revolts i n the British Caribbean, those i n Barbados 1816, Demerara
1823, and i n Jamaica 1831, took place i n a period of f a l l i n g sugar prices and
declining p r o f i t s f o r the planters. The great Christmas Rebellion of 1831
coincided w i t h the lowest sugar prices f o r 100 years. However, one cannot
simply assume what s o r t of impact such trends had on the l i v e s of the
slaves. Barry Higman has shown how demographic changes resulting from the
abolition of the slave trade i n 1807 restricted the upward mobil i ty of slaves
i n Jamaica.
"The resulting stress," he argues, "was a basic cause of the
rebellion of 1831," i n which e l i t e slaves were f o r the f i r s t time
T h i s may well have been so; the argument i s compel1 ing. However, one should
note t h a t the slave e l i t e i n Jamaica was already being associated w i t h con~ the causative factors t h a t
spiracies as f a r back a s 1791 and 1 7 7 6 ~when
Higman adduces were not present. Moreover, the theory t h a t Jamaican slaves
were actually being worked harder i n the nineteenth century, t o which both
H i gman and Craton give some support,58 has been convincingly chal 1enged by
J.R. Ward. He claims t h a t a f t e r 1800 "slaves were better fed, l e s s severely
worked and enjoying a higher rate of reproduction."59 Not a l l of his arguments appear sound ( f o r example, those concerning the use of livestock and
pl oughs) , b u t his data on the increasing average height of creole sl aves, the
reduction i n the amount of cane-planting performed and the increase i n
f e r t i l i ty r a t e s woul d seem eloquent.
As regards Saint Domingue, i t i s really too soon to generalize about
changes i n any aspect of slave conditions. Gaston-Martin wrote t h i r t y years
ago t h a t towards the end of the colonial period slaves were treated worse,
specifically worked 1onger, because of incipient soil exhaustion, increasing
demand f o r colonial products and the clearing of new land.60 However, he made
no study of the problem, and i f his assertions are correct, the factors he
mentions would apply primarily t o the coffee-growing regions, l e a s t affected
by the Revolution, and not to the great sugar e s t a t e s t h a t were i t s
heart1 and. Hence a causal connection between increasing work1 oad and rebel lion would seem d i f f i c u l t to establish.
My own research i s beginning t o
suggest that, i n the 1780s, sugar plantation slaves may indeed have been
worked harder i n the North than el sewhere i n the colony,61 b u t whether t h i s
was a recent development i t i s a s y e t impossible to say.
Gabriel Debien, i n fact, has written of the growth a f t e r 1770 of a more
humane a t t i t u d e on the planters' part, which was underpinned by the rising
cost of slaves and sensitivity to anti-slavery propaganda.
The sick, the
newly-arrived and the pregnant were the chief beneficiaries, b u t a general
improvement i n food supply and housing sometimes also resulted.62
Manumission, the freeing of slaves, was also more common, and a l l
contemporaries agreed t h a t outright cruelty was much rarer than i n the past.
In 1789, things s t i l l had a very long way t o go, b u t the Revolution i t s e l f
caused the planters to tread more careful ly.63
In one crucial respect, i t may be t h a t conditions actually were
worsening. The expansion of coffee cultivation i n the mountains, together
w i t h soil erosion, was reducing the amount of food crops grown i n the colony
a t the same time as the population was increasing a t a fantastic rate.64 Yet
one should not draw hasty conclusions, f o r food imports from North America
were also increasing i n t h i s period, f a c i l i t a t e d by a new free port decree.
So f a r , we have no evidence t h a t Saint Domingue was suffering a subsistence
c r i s i s , though droughts were frequent i n the 1780s and they created havoc i n
the colony. B u t then again, the South and West were affected no l e s s than the
North. Some said t h a t i n the North the slaves were better fed, b u t not everyone agreed. The situation, then, was complex and many more plantation studies
are needed.
Whether o r not, however, conditions on the plantations were substantively
improving o r declining, i t does seem possible t o speak of rising expectations
among the slave population.
In the f i r s t place, even i f the movement t o
improve conditions affected very few slaves directly, i t may s t i l l have been
sufficient t o sharpen among the r e s t a sense of r e l a t i v e deprivation. T h i s
movement, moreover, was given 1egi sl ative expression i n a number of controverMost importantly, these
s i a l royal decrees d u r i n g the years 1784-86.
envisaged t h a t sl aves woul d denounce instances of mistreatment t o the colonial
authorities- -according t o the whites, an extremely dangerous innovation. The
decrees were b i t t e r l y resisted and apparently never really enforced, b u t the
excitement they created in the northern plain was said to have caused
considerable unrest, t h a t i s self-assertion, among the slaves.65 I t i s i n
t h i s context t h a t one should see the notorious Lejeune incident of 1788.
Lejeune was a planter denounced by his workforce for torturing some of his
slaves t o death. The colonial authorities attempted to prosecute him, b u t
gave up i n the face of white h o s t i l i t y and obstruction by the courts. Usually
cited to show the persistence of barbarous behaviour i n the colony, the case
i s probably more significant as evidence t h a t new standards were being
applied, and t h a t the slaves were responding t o them.66
W i t h the outbreak of the French Revolution, the traditional sources of
authority i n the colony (Governor, Intendant, Superior Counci 1) , were assail ed
and overthrown, or, 1ike the forces of repression (army, mi1 i t i a ,
mar$chausse'e), progressively paralyzed. By the end of 1789, slaves i n Saint
Domingue were being overheard discussing "the revol t of the whi t e sl aves i n
France," who had divided up the land.67 The e f f o r t s of the Amis des Noirs t o
abolish the slave trade a1 so became known. A common feature of slave revol t s
i n the Abolitionist era was the claim by insurgents that t h e i r masters were
withholding from them an a c t of emancipation (sometimes only p a r t i a l ) granted
by the metropol i tan power.68 In certain earl i e r rebel1 ions, too, simil a r
claims were made. Whether an astute ploy o r a genuine be1 i e f , i t i s hard t o
say. In Saint Domingue, however, i n the two months before the slave revol t
broke out news spread through the colony of a National Assembly decree giving
political equality to certain free coloureds. Such reports could easily be
m i sconstrued, o r deftly expl oi ted, by s1 ave ma1 contents, especial ly as the
white colonists were preparing t o r e s i s t the decree w i t h force. A t the secret
meeting a t which the August uprising was pl anned, bogus "official documents"
were read out which announced t h a t the French k i n g had granted the slaves
three free days per week.69
( i i ) Re1 igious, secular, millenarian
From the Santidade of l a t e 16th century Brazil t o the Black
Baptists of the Christmas Rebel 1ion i n Jamaica, re1 igion provided slave rebel s
w i t h 1eaders, organization, ideologies and a community of feel ing.
In
comparing the three best known United States rebellions o r conspiracies, both
Gerald Mullin and Eugene Genovese have contrasted them according to t h e i r
re1 igious content, although i n quite different ways. All three made use of
re1 igious meetings and invoked re1 igious sanction, b u t t o differing degrees.
According to Mu1 1i n , the conspiracies of Denmark Vesey and, particul arly , of
Gabriel Prosser failed because they were too secular i n approach. Unlike Nat
Turner, they couched t h e i r appeal i n political not religious terms and
Prosser, especially, neglected t o use e i t h e r the "African wizards" or the
methodist camp meetings t o appeal t o the rural blacks.70 Genovese, on the
other hand, contrasts the "messianic," "apocalyptic" and suicidal revolt of
Nat Turner w i t h what he sees a s the better organized, more r e a l i s t i c attempts
of Vesey and, w i t h some reservations, Prosser. In t h e i r political maturity,
he suggests, they approached the stature of the Dominguan leader, Toussaint
~ o u v e r t u r e . ~ ~1
As regards Brazil, however, i t i s preci sely the meticul ous organization
of the religiously inspired revolts of 1807-35 t h a t i s stressed by Edison
Carneiro, who contrasts them w i t h the secular, anarchic and ineffectual insurrection of Manuel ~ a l a i o . Michael
~~
Craton, on the other hand, makes no such
distinction when discussing the three most important rebel 1ions i n the British
Caribbean. He points out that, while Christian revivalism played a vital role
i n two of the great nineteenth century uprisings, i t was t o t a l l y absent from
the Barbados rebellion of 1816. He concludes i t was not a necessary condition
f o r revol t.73
How usefully the "religious" revolts may be termed millenarian i s a
question that Craton has pondered i n a number of a r t i c l e s . Although tempted,
along w i t h other writers, t o apply Norman Cohn's well known formulation, he
has now concluded t h a t i t i s too "Eurocentric" and "formulistic" t o f i t the
f a c t s of Afro-Caribbean revolt.74 I f , a s he argues, the "late" rebellions
were specifically characterized by moderate aims and methods, then millenarian
woul d indeed seem an inappropriate description f o r them.75 According t o
Eugene Genovese, the "revol utionary mill enial i sm" of Nat Turner was a r a r i t y
i n North American sl ave cul ture and i n traditional African re1 igion as we1 1,
a1 though Monica Schul e r strongly d i sagrees.
"Even i n Haiti's great
revol ution," Genovese observes, "mil 1enial i s t and messianic prophecy pl ayed
only a fleeting role."76
16
When the aims of slave rebel s are so d i f f i c u l t to apprai se, even i n a
we1 1 documented insurrection 1ike the Christmas Rebel 1 ion, the historian
obviously has to tread carefully i n applying such terms as millenarian or i n
denyi ng t h e i r val i d i ty
W
i t h the Saint Domingue revol t, the probl ems are
greater than usual. Lasting so much longer and covering a f a r greater area
than other revol ts, i t invol ved many diverse el ements, secul a r , re1 igious,
perhaps millenarian. A particular problem i s the unscrambling of i t s voodoo
and Christian components. T h i s may seem unnecessary to anyone familiar w i t h
the interpenetration of voodoo and Christianity i n contemporary Haiti. Yet,
some scholars writing about the Revolution have depicted them as antitheses
and mutually hostile.
Widely quoted, for instance, i s an anti-Christian
speech supposedly made a t the meeting which organised the August uprising.
Our e a r l i e s t versi i t , however, appears t o be the one published i n Paulgus
Sannon's H i s t o i r e of 1920, 130 years a f t e r the event. Howard Sosis, whose
thesis argues t h a t eighteenth century voodoo was very l i t t l e influenced by
Christianity, comments on the printed speech: " i t i s not possible t o consider
i t contemporary w i t h the 1791 meeting."77 I t may, i n f a c t , t e l l us more about
Haiti an national i sm and nggri tude i n the twentieth century than about voodoo
during the Rev01ution.
Similarly, while the voodoo chant "Canga bafio t6" does indeed date from
the eighteenth century, i t i s usually accompanied i n the h i storical 1iterature
w i t h a translation - "We swear t o destroy the whites," etc.--that i s entirely
i n a ~ c u r a t e . ~ ~During the Revolution there i s no evidence of damage t o
churches by the insurgents, nor even of t h e f t of sacred vessels from them i n
the areas the blacks controlled: f a r from i t . The colonial p r i e s t s were
always spared and they were sufficiently well treated t o have l e f t the
reputation, fostered by the planters, who hanged one of them, of being the
rebels' active collaborators.
The curious case of the shaman Romaine l a
Prophetesse, who claimed t o be i n touch w i t h the Virgin Mary and t o be
inspired by the Holy S p i r i t ; o r of the voodoo p r i e s t Hyacinthe, who sought
priestly absolution and blesssing for his followers, and the existence of
other houngans w i t h names such a s ~ a i n t e - ~ 6 s uand
s l a vierge7' suggests i n
.
f a c t t h a t considerable synchreti sation between voodoo and Christianity had
a1 ready taken pl ace.
W i t h the triumph of the black revolution, we know t h a t leaders such a s
Toussaint Louverture and Dessal ines t r i e d to suppress the voodoo c u l t , a s had
the French authorities. T h i s doubt1 ess t e s t i f i e s t o i t s subversive potential ,
for while Christian sensibility might have been a motive a s regards Toussaint,
this could not possibly have been so i n Dessalines's case.
Although Monica Schuler has eloquently complained t h a t scholars have
neglected the pol i tical functions of Afro-American re1 igion, emphasi si ng
instead i t s cathartidescapi s t aspect,80 t h i s has never been true of writings
about voodoo i n Saint Domingue, which has always been presented as a vehicle
for revolution. I t i s of course essential to portray the development of a
pan-African cul t i n slave society a s a potentially subversive institution,
overcoming previous barriers t o cooperation. Yet one should also point out
t h a t the development of voodoo, by enriching the cultural 1i f e of the slaves
i n Saint Domingue and adding meaning to t h e i r existence, presumably also
helped t o defuse anomic tensions and add t o the s t a b i l i t y of the regime. A t
l e a s t , i t was not a one-sided development. A useful antidote t o the tendency
t o polarize these particular opposites i s the case of the voodoo p r i e s t
Hyacinthe, who indeed led slaves into b a t t l e invoking the protection of
magical charms, b u t a s an ally of the white planters. Moreover, one of these
planters, Hanus de Jumecourt, was reputed (admittedly , by his enemies) t o have
participated i n voodoo.81 For the same reason, one cannot accept Schuler's
argument t h a t the persistence of an African religious perspective,
specifically the slave's tendency t o see his master a s a sorcerer, 82
necessarily meant a refusal t o accept slavery, when the opposite could easily
have been the case. In Saint Domingue, i t was said t h a t the black population
regarded not only the rebel chiefs b u t also the white C i v i l Commissioners a s
sorcerers and therefore i n v u l nerable.83 This may a1 so have been the basis of
de Jume'court's reputation among the blacks of Port au Prince and the Cul-deSac as the "man who knows a l l things." I t i s the same question of culture and
pol i t i c s mentioned above.
To return to the revol t of August 1791 : tradition holds t h a t the meeting
of e l i t e slaves a t which the uprising was organised was e i t h e r followed by, o r
was i t s e l f , a voodoo ceremony, held i n the Bois Caiman. I t was apparently
presided over by a priestess and the f i r s t leader of the insurgents, Boukman,
and the r i t e s celebrated seem to have been those of the Petro c u l t . While
this seems perfectly probable, one should note t h a t the historicity of the
Bois Caiman ceremony hangs by quite a slender thread. There i s a contemporary
document, a deposition by one of the conspirators, which provides basic
d e t a i l s of the meeting of the organizers b u t i t mentions nothing about a
religious
Perhaps one should not expect i t to. The e a r l i e s t
mention of the Bois Caiman ceremony appears t o be i n Dalmas' Histoire
published i n 1814, though said to be written i n 1793. I t makes no reference
to a priestess nor to Boukman. They only appear i n Ardouin's Etudes nearly
forty years l a t e r . Thomas Madiou, writing i n Haiti in the 1840s, had not
mentioned the ceremony, despite an evident desire to spice his narrative w i t h
exampl e s of "African supersti t i 0 n . 1 ' ~ ~That Boukman himsel f was actually a
houngan i s not obvious from these accounts. Moreover, i n view of Charles
Nlenfantls assertion t h a t creoles were rarely adepts of voodoo,86 and given
what we know of other leaders such as Jean-Fran~ois and Toussaint, one m i g h t
be a 1i t t l e surprised to find this gathering of e l i t e slaves b u i l t round a
voodoo ceremony. B u t then again, i t was a Petro ceremony, which i s probably a
creole cul t, and the mambo officiating was said to be a green-eyed mu1 atress,
daughter of a Corsican, and therefore presumably a different s o r t of priestess
from the African Malenfant saw i n the Sainte-Suzanne mountains w i t h gum and
resin covering her frizzy coi f f ~ r e . Then,
~ ~ a s now, voodoo doubt1 ess catered
f o r a very diverse range of participants.
What no account of the slave revol t has so f a r attempted i s to show how
the voodoo element meshed i n w i t h a Christian element, rather neglected by
historians and somewhat surprising to find i n view of the s t r e s s usually l a i d
by historians on the lack of religious instruction given to the slaves i n
Saint Domingue. Boukman may indeed have been a voodoo priest. We can surmise
t h a t he was both widely and deeply revered among the rebels, t o judge from
t h e i r reaction to his death and from a moving testimony written by one of h i s
subordinates a few years later.88 Such prestige might indicate t h a t he was
a1 ready we1 1 known before the rev01 t, and this could perhaps suggest the role
of houngan, though i t would be the merest speculation. When he died, however,
i t seems t h a t Mass was said for h i m i n the rebel-occupied areas. Several
p r i e s t s continued to function i n the occupied zone, and a few years l a t e r
Spanish officers fighting alongside the blacks were t o complain t h a t i t was a
"war of Pater Noster and Ave aria."^^
Jean-Fran~ois, Boukman' s successor, was especi a1 1y deferenti a1 t o p r i e s t s
(including French ones and not only those of his Spanish a l l i e s ) , and his and
B i assou' s procl amations frequently made re1 igious references.
B i assou had
been a slave belonging t o a hospital r u n by monks. Madiou described him a s
being advised by sorcerers and surrounded by "fetishes," b u t t h i s i s not
corroborated by any of the contemporary descriptions of his camp.
The
s a d i s t i c Jeannot, too, was said by Madiou t o have been under the influence of
sorcerers. Yet even he was also observed to a c t w i t h some deference towards
priests; he agreed not to hold executions on Sundays, and he asked to attend
church before his execution.90 One would not l i k e to s t r e s s the matter too
much, however, f o r the p r i e s t s i n the rebels' camps appear t o have enjoyed a
rather precarious existence, and raison d ;tat could easily explain the
rebel s ' re1 ations w i t h them. Jeannot' s attitude, a t 1east, was reportedly
expressed as, "Obey the p r i e s t i n church, b u t i f he interferes outside i t , c u t
off h i s head!
( i i i ) African and creole
In his Sinews of Empire, Michael Craton p u t forward a t r i p a r t i t e
sequential model t o describe rebel 1ions i n slave society: beginning w i t h
those "of a maroon type," progressing to those led by unassimil ated Africans,
and culminating i n the l a t e rebellions led by the creole slave e l i t e . He has
subsequently noted t h a t such neat distinctions were much more blurred i n
r e a l i t y , and t h a t as regards chronology the model i s misleading. However, he
s t i l l maintains t h a t w i t h respect t o "leadership, aims and t a c t i c s ,
creol ization brought significant changes" i n the nature of slave rebel 1 ion.92
In the British West Indies, he adds, the French Revolutionary period coincided
with a transitional phase from one type of revolt t o another, and the
surprising absence of any uprising during these years he a t t r i b u t e s
specifically t o "a confusion of aims and ideology" resulting from t h i s
t r a n ~ i t i o n . ~The
~ model i s a suggestive one, b u t even the examples Craton
uses raise doubts both about the distinction between "African" and "creole"
types and as to whether t h e i r "confusion" can be considered an inhibiting
factor.
While a l l African-led revolts, Craton argues, were aimed a t exterminating
the master class and destroying the plantation regime, the l a t e creole
rebel 1ions aimed a t achieving freedom a1 ongside or within pl antation society,
mainly through passive resistance w i t h a 1imited use of violence. Creoles
were 1iable t o be "horrified" by "senseless" destruction such a s took place i n
Saint ~ o m i n ~ u e .However,
~~
of the three "late" rebel1 ions in the British
Caribbean, Craton has t o admit t h a t the 1816 revolt i n highly-creolized
Barbados was "necessarily bloody" and aimed a t "the complete overthrow of the
p l antation system and the eradication of the whi tes.ltg5 Contrarily, the more
moderate Demerara rebellion of 1823 occurred i n a colony where Africans made
up half the population,96 and one of the leaders was an African.
The
Christmas Rebellion, too, had a t l e a s t one African ring-leader, while a
substanti a1 proportion of the rebel s were a1 so ~ f r i c a n s . ' ~
Of the two "mixed" conspiracies t h a t Craton examines, i t i s not apparent
The "essentially
t h a t e i t h e r failed owing t o Af rican-creol e tensions.
African" Antigua plot of 1735 was betrayed by Africans and f a i l e d t o reach
f r u i t i o n mainly through ill-luck. The Jamaica 1776 conspiracy was timed to
follow the departure of one of the local garrison's regiments, which was
detained, however, a t the l a s t moment.
This was also true of the Second
Maroon War of 1795. I t was the military factor, I have argued elsewhere, not
African-creole tensions, t h a t was probably the most important factor
inhibiting the outbreak of slave revolts in the British West Indies during the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic
In Jamaica, both the slave e l i t e and the
Coromantee comrnuni ty responded positively to news of the Saint Domingue sl ave
rev01 t, and an uprising was prepared f o r Christmas 1791. However, the m i l i t i a
then turned out for the f i r s t time i n nine years and the s i z e of the garrison,
a1 ready a t a record level, was soon doubled. In f a c t , i t was precisely the
period 1776-1815 t h a t saw British garrisons i n the Caribbean a t t h e i r
strongest.
Anthony Synnott, i n his excellent thesis, has linked t h i s
increased military presence t o the trend to non-violent resistance i n the
British colonies i n the nineteenth century.99 Yet, a s Craton himself notes,
the three l a t e rebellions followed on the reduction i n size of the West India
garrisons a f t e r 1815.
When one turns t o the Saint Domingue revolt, these doubts about the
Africanlcreole distinction are reinforced. To begin w i t h , i t i s not a t a l l
c l e a r into which category the revolt should f i t . Craton appears t o regard i t
as an "African" rebel1 ion, and there i s no doubt 'that the majority of the
insurgents were Africans, since they formed the majority of the adult
population.
On the other hand the revolt broke out i n one of the most
creol ized parts of the colony, while the most Africanized parts were usually
the slowest to rebel. The Jamaican planter Bryan Edwards, who visited the
colony a t the beginning of the outbreak, was struck by the number of the most
trusted el i t e sl aves involved, as were the Domi nguan w h i t e s themsel ves .loo
From what i s known of the organizers of the insurrection, none appears t o have
been African. They were commandeurs, coachmen, a cook, mu1 a t t o sl aves and a t
l e a s t one free c o l ~ u r e d . Boukman's
~~~
origins do not appear t o be known, b u t
as a sugar plantation coachman i t would be very rare i f he were not creole.lo2
And t o look forward several years: very few Africans were t o gain prominence
as leaders--Pierrot, Pierre Michel, Laplume, were among the handful t o gain
more than a local and fleeting reputation. Dessalines and Moise are sometimes
referred to as Africans b u t were almost certainly born i n Saint ~ o m i n ~ u e . ~ ~ ~
Even so, i t would be wrong t o discount the African factor.
Most
commentators have rightly stressed the high r a t i o of Africans t o creoles and
the large number of recently arrived Africans i n the colony. Their anomic
energies were doubtless what the creole organisers were counting on t o carry
through t h e i r plans. As f o r the rebels' aims, these appear t o have varied
through time and probably from group t o group, and so could be viewed i n
Craton' s terms as e i t h e r creole or African. The rebels' t a c t i c s , too, could
be classed under e i t h e r heading, the i n i t i a l massacre and destruction giving
way t o a more flexible stance. I t seems then, t h a t this most successful of
slave rebel 1ions was a thorough mixture of both creole and African elements.
This tends t o undermine the hypothesis t h a t the tension between the two
"ideologies" was so nugatory as t o be able t o account for the total absence of
rebellion i n a "mixed" society. B u t this need not be so. The Saint Domingue
slave revol t certainly d i d exhibit tensions between creole leaders and African
masses, which impeded i t s progress.
I t s success i n overcoming them m i g h t
simply t e s t i f y to the strength of the other factors working i n i t s favour. On
the other hand, there could be something precisely i n the mixture of African
and creole el ements--perhaps the combination of a suicidal fervour i n battl e
w i t h a sophisticated leadership--that goes a long way i n explaining i t s
success.
Michael Craton has further characteri sed the 1ate, creol e rebel 1ions i n
the British West Indies as "proto-peasant. "Io4 He draws attention to the
slaves' known attachment i n the l a t e slavery period to t h e i r individual
provision grounds, on which they worked a t week-ends, often i n family groups,
growing crops both for t h e i r own consumption and for sale i n the local
markets, which they dominated. Freedom t o become independent small farmers,
Craton concludes, was the aim of these nineteenth century rebel s. T h i s was no
doubt true. Less certain, however, i s whether such aspirations distinguished
these revol t s from e a r l i e r ones. The system of individual provision grounds
and marketing by slaves went back to the seventeenth century, a1 though the
growth of family t i e s probably had t o await the balancing of the r a t i o between
men and women a f t e r 1800. Craton's own position i s unclear. While he r e l a t e s
the slaves' peasant a c t i v i t i e s t o t h e i r African roots, he also i n one instance
contrasts the "proto-peasant" rebellions w i t h the 1776 Jamaican conspiracy, i n
which some rebels sought "return t o African sty1 e s under t h e i r chosen chiefs-e i t h e r as Asante-1 ike warrior bands, or a s sel f-contained Ibo-1 ike villages
deep i n the forest. 11 105
There seems t o be a confusion here between political institutions and
socio-economic structures, not a comparison between l i k e and like. While the
"proto-peasant" formul a t i on appears t o have no pol i t i c a l content, the socioeconomic form t h a t post-revolutionary African "ethnic autocracies" would have
adopted i s 1argely a matter of conjecture. The Maroon communities presumably
provide a clue, b u t as Craton confusingly observes, they tended t o serve a s an
example t o the slaves of an independent peasantry. lo6 Considering t h a t one of
the defining characteristics of the l a t e rebellions was the willingness of the
rebel s t o continue working part-time on the pl antations as wage-earners,lo7
one wonders i f the term "proto-peasant" i s not more applicable t o the
rebellions of the eighteenth century than t o those of the nineteenth
century.
After a l l , i t was a predominantly African Saint Domingue t h a t
produced the c l assic " proto- peasant" revol t.
( i v ) Restorationi s t and bourgeoi s-democratic
The only scholar who has so f a r attempted t o incorporate the Saint
Domingue revol t into a general analysis of slave rebel1 ion i s the
d i sti ngui shed Marxi s t h i s t o r i an Eugene Genovese.
I n From Rebel 1 ion t o
Revolution, he argues t h a t the revolution i n Saint Domingue represented a new
type of slave revolt. Whereas previous insurrections were restorationist,
aimed a t withdrawing from colonial society, not a t overthrowing i t , the French
Rev01ution ushered i n a period of revol t s which demanded sl avery' s abol i ti on
and "increasingly aimed not a t secession from the dominant society b u t a t
joining i t on equal terms." While "chall enging the worl d capital i s t system,"
they did so "with bourgeoi s-democratic slogans and demands and w i t h a
commitment t o bourgeois property re1 ations." In Saint Domingue and el sewhere,
however, these bourgeoi s-democratic slave revol t s were "strangled early on ,"
and i n a "grimly ironical counter-revolution," the mass of ex-slaves were
S1 ave resistance i s thus
transformed into conservative peasants.108
incorporated into a programmatic history of world revolution.
Though characteristically chall enging, Genovese' s analysis seems t o have
a number of flaws. Insofar as i t r e l a t e s t o Saint Domingue i t i s chiefly
concerned not w i t h the actual slave revol t of 1791-93, b u t w i t h the following
period when the French Republ i c had a1 ready declared slavery abolished and the
ex-slaves fought i n i t s name to repel foreign invaders.lo9 Prior t o the
ascendancy of the remarkable Toussaint Louverture, which began i n 1793-94, the
commitment of the black leaders (Toussaint included) t o the overthrow of
slavery was rather ambiguous and rarely expressed i n i d e a l i s t i c terms. I t d i d
not prevent them from selling slaves themselves, nor from seeking a compromise
peace on more than one occasion.110 Furthermore, far from using bourgeoisdemocratic slogans, the rebels of 1791 identified n o t w i t h those they
contemptuously call ed "les ci toyens" b u t with the Counter-Rev01u t i o n . Their
adoption of a conservative, "Church and King" rhetoric may have stemmed
partly, even primarily, from pol i tical convenience. B u t rarely, i f ever,
during the f i r s t year of the revolt do they seem t o have mentioned the Rights
of Man.
As Genovese concedes, "the mechanics of ideological transmission
remain obscure. 1 1 1 1 1
Even with regard t o the 1ater stages of the Haitian Revolution one has
difficulty i n recognising a "challenge t o the world capitalist system" and
"commitment t o bourgeois property re1 ations" in the bl ack 1eaders' attempts t o
maintain an export economy w i t h forced 1abour and 1argely state-owned
property. Somewhat surprisingly, i t i s the regime of President Pgtion, which
divided up and redistributed the landed estates, t h a t i s described as counterrevol utionary.l12 Pltion, moreover, though a mu1 a t t o born free, was the only
revol uti onary 1eader t o show interest in extending sl ave emancipation beyond
his own shores.l13 Genovese asserts that "Toussaint dreamed of leading an
invasion of Africa t o destroy the slave trade,"l14 b u t this i s just a story
1 ater told by one of Toussaint's children. W
e know w i t h rather more certainty
t h a t in 1799 Toussai n t betrayed t o the Bri t i sh authorities, in the interest of
encouraging foreign support, a French attempt t o raise the slaves of
~ a m a i c a . l l ~ Finally, there i s a danger in overstressing the policies of
Toussaint Louverture. Partly because they were not the sole expression of the
Haitian Revolution, and met with opposition from other of i t s leaders as well
B u t a1 so because i t i s now known t h a t
as from the mass of ex-slaves.
Toussaint was n o t a slave a t all when the revolt broke o u t , and had been free
and a sl aveowner for a t 1east fifteen years.116
W i t h respect t o the sl avery question i n French Rev01utionary pol i tics,
the contrast Genovese draws between Jacobin idealists who won over Toussaint
Louverture and the "col oni a1 i s t , " "counterrevol utionary" Gi rondi ns, whom the
In the Legi sl ative
bl acts helped destroy, seems rather excessive.l17
Assembly, the deputies from the Gironde and their allies were in fact the
foremost opponents of France's white colonists. I t was they who introduced
racial equality into the West Indies. In the persons of Guadet and GarranCoulon, they included the f i r s t politicians t o speak i n favour of the
abol i tion of sl avery. 118 Commissioner Sonthonax, who issued the emancipation
decree of August 1793, belonged t o the same faction.
Though invariably
depicted as a Jacobin i n English works, his recall and return t o France d u r i n g
the Jacobin ascendancy almost cost him his l i f e .
Conversely, when the
Jacobi n-control1 ed Convention passed the emanci pation 1aw of February 1794, i t
was guided a t l e a s t a s much by realpolitik as by ideal ism. Some Jacobins such
as Amar secretly opposed the measure, while Danton, ostensibly a proponent,
t r i e d t o get i t amended i n committee.119
Turning to the broader context of Genovese's analysis:
both his b i p a r t i t e model and the chronology he associates w i t h i t seem open to certain
objections. Under the heading of "restorationi s t " he has subsumed two aspects
of revol t s perhaps best kept separate--the rebels' aims with respect to the
slave society ( i n t h i s case, withdrawal from i t ) , and the form of social
organi sation they proposed to adopt a f t e r the revol t (maroon societies) T h i s
i s to blur an important distinction that Monica Schuler, Anthony Synnott and
Michael Craton have a l l f e l t i t necessary t o make between escapist rebel1 ions
and those aimed a t destroying the colonial system, whether or not the
envisaged post-rev01 utionary society was archaic or i n some sense modern.
These writers see a s h i f t from rebel 1ion to revol ution considerbly pre-dating
the Age of Revolution, a s h i f t which Synnott convincingly r e l a t e s t o the
diminishing opportunities for establishing new maroon communities as colonial
f r o n t i e r s c 1 0 s e d . l ~ ~T h u s , Tacky's rebel 1 ion i n Jamaica i n 1760, or Cuffee's
i n Berbice i n 1763, were not aimed a t withdrawal from the colonial society b u t
a t overthrowing it. I t i s true t h a t some eighteenth century rebels intended
t o enslave those blacks who d i d not join them - Tacky's Coromantees, f o r
example. B u t before one can say w i t h confidence t h a t not until the Saint
Domingue Revolution did slaves demand the abolition of slavery, we need t o
know a l o t more about these e a r l i e r insurrections.
On the l a t e r slave revol t s , Genovese says relatively 1 i t t l e , other than
t o observe t h a t they occurred "within the context of the bourgeois-democratic
rev01 u t i onary wave. "
"Restorationi s t " rebel 1ions, he admits, d i d not
II
.
dissappear.
Whether he considers t h e nineteenth century B r a z i l i a n r e v o l t s as
"bourgeois-democratic"
i s n o t clear.
He does i n c l u d e under t h i s heading t h e
Prosser, Vesey and Turner conspiracies i n t h e United States, b u t also notes
t h a t t h e i r aims "remain debatable" and t h a t they may have been d i r e c t e d
towards
establ ishing maroon encl aves.
When deal i n g w i t h t h e Christmas
Rebel 1 ion, Genovese de-emphasi ses i t s non-viol ent,
stressed
by
other
writers,
and
observes
accommodationi s t aspects,
somewhat
fancifully
that
it
"represented the c u l m i n a t i o n o f a new stage, i n which t h e slaves could look
forwards t o independence i n a world o f modern n a t i o n states. "Iz1 While t h e
Christmas rebel 1i o n i s no doubt susceptible t o d i f f e r i n g i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s , no
evidence i s p u t forward t o support t h i s p a r t i c u l a r analysis.
Genovese's
o v e r r i d i n g concern w i t h
r a d i c a l ism
whereas
Craton
him t o see
concerned w i t h methods as w e l l as aims, see i n c r e a s i n g moderation.
For t h e
t h e dynamic
r e b e l 1 ion,
1eads
Synnott,
l a t t e r writers,
s l ave
thus
and
increasing
in
ideology
f o r change came from w i t h i n slave
( c r e o l i z a t i on, t h e c l o s i ng f r o n t i e r )
.
society,
Genovese acknowl edges t h e importance of
these f a c t o r s , b u t be1 ieves t h a t ideas external t o t h e slave system were t h e
c h i e f i n f l u e n c e i n fashioning new forms o f armed resistance.
It i s ,
of
course, n o t t h e f i r s t occasion when he has championed t h e r o l e o f ideas
a g a i n s t t h e scepticism o f non-Marxist h i s t o r i a n s .
Whether one approach i s
more successful than t h e other, i t i s obviously too soon t o say, when so much
remains obscure about i n d i v i d u a l r e v o l ts.
A t present, we know too l i t t l e about t h e s t r u c t u r e o f slave s o c i e t i e s i n
which r e v o l t s took place, and about t h e changes they were undergoing, m a t e r i a l
o r otherwise.
I n p a r t i c u l a r , there i s a need t o i n v e s t i g a t e t h e impact on
slave communities o f t h e l i b e r t a r i a n i d e a l s o f t h e Age o f Revolution.
The
influence o f ideas needs t o be d i s t i n g u i s h e d from t h e weakening o f t h e f o r c e s
o f s o c i a l c o n t r o l t h a t sometimes accompanied them.
f u r t h e r need t o be delineated,
t h e i r followers.
The aims of rebel leaders
and d i s t i n g u i s h e d i f necessary from those o f
The r e l a t i o n between marronage and r e v o l t, and t h e r o l e o f
r e l i g i o n i n slave r e s i s t a n c e are o t h e r notably murky areas.
The comparative
a n a l y s i s of slave r e s i s t a n c e has thrown up a number o f useful hypotheses,
which draw a t t e n t i o n t o s i m i l a r i t i e s and c o n t r a s t s i n t h e h i s t o r y of s e r v i l e
r e b e l 1 ion.
The time would now seem r i g h t f o r a r e t u r n t o more empirical
investigations
hypotheses.
that w i l l
serve t o
evaluate and u l t i m a t e l y
extend those
NOTES
The number o f r e b e l s probably reached ten thousand w i t h i n one o r two
weeks, while a f t e r t h r e e months a t least 100,000 slaves had become
i nvol ved.
H. Pauleus
1920-30); B.
D. Geggus,
~ e v oul t i o n , "
Sannon. H i s t o i r e de T o u s s a i n t Louverture ( P o r t au Prince.
~ r d o u j n , t t u d e s sur 1 h i s t o i r e d H a i t i ( p a r i s , 1853). ~ f :
"Unexploited Sources f o r t h e H i s t o r y o f t h e H a i t i a n
L a t i n .~mericanResearch Review, 18 ( s p r i n g , 1983).
G.M. Frederickson and C. Lasch, " R e s i s t a n c e t o Slavery," C i v i l War
H i s t o r y , 13 (December, 1967).
H.O.
P a t t e r s o n , The Sociology o f Sl avery (London, 1973), pp. 260-283.
E. Genovese, In Red and Black (New York, 1971), p. 137, and Roll Jordan
Roll (New York, 1 9 7 4 ) , p. 598.
G. M u l l i n , F l i g h t and Rebellion (Oxford, 1972), pp. 35-38.
Roll Jordan R o l l , p. 598.
L. Levine, Black C u l t u r e and Black Consciousness (Oxford, 1977); A.
Raboteau, Slave Religion (Oxford, 1978).
"The Passion t o Exist: S l a v e Rebellions i n t h e B r i t i s h West I n d i e s ,
1629-1832," Journal of Caribbean H i s t o r y , 13 (Spring, 1980); pp. 2, 1819.
"Towards a Psychology o f Slavery," i n A.-T. Gilmore ( e d . ) , R e v i s i t i n g
B l a s s i ngam' s "The sl ave community" ( Westport, 1978)
.
D. Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution: The B r i t i s h Occupation of S a i n t
Domingue, 1 i93-1798 (Oxford, 198For recent work, see t h e i r c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o Michael Craton (ed.) , Roots
and Branches: Current D i r e c t i o n s i n S l a v e S t u d i e s (Toronto, 1979).
The Development of Creole Society i n Jamaica, 1770-1820 (Oxford, 1971 1,
Pa 308.
Jamaica' s Christmas Rebel 1 ion o f 1831 was popul a r l y c a l l ed "The B a p t i s t
War." C e r t a i n l y , t h e " n a t i v e " o r "Black" B a p t i s t s , who were a p p a r e n t l y
t h e most prominent i n t h e rev01 t, blended African with European p r a c t i c e
and be1 i e f . However, I t h i n k Brathwaite goes t o o f a r i n s u g g e s t i n g t h a t
t h e rebel l e a d e r and deacon Sam Sharpe was an obeah-man simply because
See Craton ( e d . ) , Roots,
he was i n d i c t e d f o r being an "oath-swearer."
p. 154. The c o n s p i r a t o r s swore t h e i r o a t h s on t h e Bible. B r a t h w a i t e ' s
e a r l ier s t a t e m e n t t h a t Sharpe was "condemned by a1 1 f o r a d m i n i s t e r i n g
dreaded African and obeah o a t h s and s e a l i n g them with gunpowder and
blood" seems t o b e unsupported by any evidence: "Cal iban, Ariel and
Unprospero i n t h e C o n f l i c t of Creol i z a t i o n , " i n V. Rubin and A. Tuden,
Comparative P e r s p e c t i v e s on Slavery i n New World P l a n t a t i o n S o c i e t i e s
(New York, 1 9 / / ) , pp. 53, 51.
Mullin, F l i g h t , p. 34-38, 81-82.
Cf. D. L i t t l e f i e l d , Rice and Slaves:
Ethnici t y a n d t h e Sl ave Trade i n Colonial South Carol i n a (Baton Rouge,
81 1, P* 133.
F. Parker, " P o l i t i c a l Development i n t h e French Caribbean," i n A. Wilgus
( e d ) The Cari bbean ( Gai nesvi 11 e , 1958)
.
.
The most prominent r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s o f t h e H a i t i a n school, which i s by no
means m o n o l i t h i c , a r e Edner Brutus, Jean Fouchard and Gerard Laurent.
The H a i t i a n e x p a t r i a t e Leslie Manigat adopts a c r i t i c a l s t a n c e towards
t h e school b u t d i s p l a y s d i s t i n c t a f f i n i t i e s with i t both i n method01 ogy
and ideology.
Y. Debbasch, "Le marronage: e s s a i sur l a d h e r t i o n de 1 e s c l a v e
a n t i 1 1a i s ," Anfiee s o c i o l ogique (1961, 1962) ; G. Debien, Les escl aves aux
Antilles f r a n c a i s e s aux 1/=
1 8 ~sie'cles (Basse T e r r e , 1 9 / 4 ) , ch. 19.
3. Fouchard, Les marrons de l a l i b e r t 6 ( P a r i s , 1972), pp. 159-162. On
t h e Brgda e s t a t e a t Haut de Cap, t h e humane Bavon de L i b e r t a t had i n
f a c t ceased t o be t h e a t t o r n e y ' i n t h e p e r i o d ~ o u c h a r d r e f e r s t o here:
Briida papers, E 691, Arch, dept. Loire-Atlantique, Nantes. As f o r t h e
famous Gal 1 i f f e t p l a n t a t i o n s , t h e e x p r e s s i o n " heureux comme n>gre 2
G a l l i f f e t " d a t e s from t h e very beginning of t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y ,
while Ode1 ucq, t h e estate's a t t o r n e y during t h e 1780s was according t o
some a harsh master: H. Brouqham. An I n a.u i r "v i n t o t h e Colonial Policv
o f t h e European Powers ( ~ di bi u r g h ,
, V O l . 2, Po
thi
anonymous denunciation o f him i n Gal li;:,";
Papers, 107 AP4:%/2C,f
Arch.
Nat., P a r i s .
.
S l a v e Population and Economy i n Jamaica, 1807-1834 (Cambridge, 1976), p.
218.
Mullin, F l i g h t , pp. 34-38, 81-82.
In two j o i n t s t u d i e s by Fouchard and Debien, runaways unable t o speak
creole accounted f o r r e s p e c t i v e l y 15% and 20% o f two samples taken from
"Le marronage a u t o u r du Cap," Bull. I n s t i t .
t h e p e r i o d 1790-91:
f r a n ~ a i sde 1 'Afrique n o i r e , ser. B (1965 ): 794; "Le p e t i t marronage 'a
Saint-Domingue a u t o u r du Cap," Cahiers des Ameriques 1 atines (1969):
55.
Slaves u s u a l l y l e a r n e d c r e o l e i n s i d e a y e a r .
Annual imports o f
s l a v e s were then e q u i v a l e n t t o about 7% of t h e s l a v e population, a t
l e a s t a q u a r t e r of whom were t o o o l d o r t o o young t o r u n away.
23.
Debien, Les e s c l a v e s , pp. 466-7; Fouchard, L i b e r t e , p. 438. D. Geggus,
"The Sl aves o f Bri tish-Occupied S a i n t Domingue," Caribbean S t u d i e s , 18
(1978): p a r t 2, 16-22, 30, Fouchard and Debien, V e t i t marronage," 57,
quote t h e c o l o n i a l writer Moreau de Saint-MBry t o t h e e f f e c t t h a t
"Mozambiques" were noted f o r r e s i s t i n g s l a v e r y , b u t t h a t i s not i n f a c t
what he wrote: M.L.E.
Moreau de Saint-Me'ry, Description
de SaintDominigue 117971 Paris, 1958 edn.), vol. 1, p. 5 4 .
..
24.
The Slave Community (New York, 19791, ch. 5.
25.
Fouchard, ~ i b e r t ; , pp. 124-5, 197-8, 218-9.
26.
Debien, Les e s c l a v e s , p. 467.
27.
Ibid., p. 420; "Li s t a de 10s negros.. .en el Maniel ," Aud. Santo Domingo
1102, Arch. Gen. de Indias, ~ e v i l l e ; E. Genovese, From Rebellion t o
Revolution:
Afro-American Sl ave Revol t s i n t h e Making of t h e Modern
World (Baton Rouge, 19/91, p. 51.
28.
C.L.M.
Milscent de Musset, Sur 1 e s t r o u b l e s de Saint-Domingue ( P a r i s ,
1791), pp. 1-12, Cf. Debien, Les escl aves, p 421; Moreau de ~ai'nt-Mery ,
Description, vol. 2, p. 1135,
29.
Small er than modern Haiti, t h e col ony measured 1ess than 10,000 square
miles, and by 1789 t h e population was approaching 600,000.
Many
f u g i t i v e s crossed i n t o t h e neighboring Spanish colony o f Santo Domingo.
30.
C f . Milscent de Musset, Troubles, pp.
Fouchard, Liberte', pp. 474-525.
1-12; D e b i e m e s c l aves, p. 419.
i~
31.
E. Brutus, ~ G v o l u t i o ndans Saint-Domingue (np. nd), vol. 1, p. 70; L.
Manigat, "The Re1 a t i o n s h i p between Marronage and.. .Rev01 u t i o n i n S a i n t
Domingue-Hai ti ," i n Rubin and Tuden, Perspectives, p. 432.
32. Debien, Les e s c l a v e s , p. 466; G. Debien, P l a n t a t i o n s e t e s c l a v e s
Saint-Dominigue (Dakar, 19621, p. 72.
33.
2
Mil s c e n t de Musset, Troubles, p. 5. Macandal was a f u g i t i v e who passed
r a p i d l y i n t o legend. Before h i s betrayal and execution i n 1758, he i s
be1 ieved t o have s p e n t eighteen y e a r s a t l i b e r t y , moving f r e e l y among
t h e sl ave popul a t i o n , encouraging t h e poi soni ng of white col oni sts
S u r p r i s i n g l y , t h e r e seems t o be no evidence t h a t he a c t u a l l y conspired
with o t h e r maroons.
He t h u s l i e s somewhat o u t s i d e t h e t r a d i t i o n of
marronage.
Cf. C. Fick, "The 01 ack Masses i n t h e San Domingo
Revol u t i o n , 1791-1803" (Concordia Univ. Ph.D. t h e s i s , 1980), p. 57; b u t
a1 so Fouchard, Libert6, p. 495.
.
34.
S. Schwartz, "The Mocambo," i n R, Price ( e d . ) , Maroon S o c i e t i e s (New
York, 19731, pp. 218-9; M. Mull i n , "Slave Obeahmen and Slave-Owning
P a t r i a r c h s , " i n Rubin and Tuden, P e r s p e c t i v e s , p. 482; G.
Debien, op.
c i t . , pp. 435-6.
35.
Debbasch, "Marronage," p a r t 1 , p. 102; Barbara Kopytoff, "The Early
Pol i t i c a l Development of Jamaican Maroon S o c i e t i e s ," Wi11 i am and Mary
Q u a r t e r l y XXXV (1978): 297, 306.
36. See P r i c e , Maroon S o c i e t i e s , pp. 181-2, 298-9; Rubin and Tuden,
P e r s p e c t i v e s , p. 456; C. Degler, Neither White Nor Black (New York,
' l ) , P* 48
37.
Rubin and Tuden, P e r s p e c t i v e s , p. 410; Brathwai t e , Development, pp. 2489; P a t t e r s o n , Sociology, p. 269.
38.
Jordan, p. 591, Cf. Genevese's l a t e r statement i n From Rebellion t o
R e v o l u t i o n , p. 86, "The r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s had behind them knowledge o f
Thouah
p r o t r a c t e d maroon warfare i n t h e e a s t e r n p a r t of t h e island."
r a t h e r more c a u t i o u s , even t h i s seems v e r y u n l i k e l y .
I t s u r e l y cann6t
r e f e r t o f i r s t - h a n d knowledge, though t h e r e a d e r might t h i n k so.
It
presumably r e f e r s t o t h e r a i d s , during t h e p e r i o d 1776-81, o f t h e
Maniel. They l i v e d i n t h e s o u t h - e a s t about 100 miles from t h e centre o f
t h e 1791 revol t, from which they were s e p a r a t e d by s e v e r a l mountain
ranges and a broad swathe o f Spanish t e r r i t o r y . T h e i r e x p l o i t s may have
been known i n t h e North b u t I t h i n k i t i s improbable.
However, t h e
accompanying a s s e r t i o n t h a t , "The e a r l y 1 e a d e r s of t h e black revol u t i o n
i n t h e n o r t h , Jean-Frangois and Biassou, had e s t a b l i s h e d c a r e e r s i n t h e
m i l i t a r y campaigns on t h e Spanish border," i s w i t h o u t q u e s t i o n t h e
result o f some confusion.
39.
Fouchard, ~ib e r t g , pp. 524, 534, 540, 453-4, 462. On Jean Kina, see D.
Geggus, " m o l d i e r , Rebel :
The Strange Career o f Jean Kina,"
Jamaican H i st. Rev., 12 (1980) and "Soul2vement manque d ' e s c l a v e s ou
m a n i f e s t a t i o n de gens de couleur?", Annales des Anti1 les (1983).
40.
Manigat, "Relationship." A1 though he sets o u t o s t e n s i b l y t o examine t h e
connection "i f any" between marronage and revol u t i o n , Manigat expl i c i t l y
assumes a d i r e c t 1 ink and, spurning "unconditional obei ssance t o
empirical d a t a " ignores Debien's p e r t i n e n t q u e s t i o n , a s have a l l o t h e r
writers: When and i n what manner d i d t h e r e v o l u t i o n a r y l e a d e r s command
bands o f maroons?
41.
Debien, Les e s c l a v e s , p. 468.
42.
Aud. Santo Domingo 1031, Archivo Gen. de I n d i a s , S e v i l l e , and i b i d .
43.
P o r t de Paix, Gros Morne, Le Borgne, Mirebalais, Arcahaye, Grand' Anse,
t h e s o u t h - e a s t and north-east.
see Fouchard, Libertr5, 524; Debien, ~ e s
e s c l a v e s , p. 421; Milscent, Troubles, pp. 6, 1 2 .
44.
Ibid.
45.
Debien, Les esclaves, p. 469; Geggus, Occupation, pp. 308-310.
47.
"Notes de M. Leclerc," Cols., CC9A/5, Arch. Nat., Paris.
48.
Garcia t o Acuiia no. 152, enclosure no. 6, Aud. Santo Domingo 956, Arch.
Gen. de Indias, Seville.
49.
Sinews of Empire (New York, 19741, pp. 226-237.
50.
Roll, pp.
-
590-1.
C.L. R. James, The Bl ack Jacobins (London, 1980), introduction and pp.
85-86; "...working and l i v i n g together i n gangs of hundreds on the huge
sugarfactories which covered the North Plain, [the slaves1 wre c l o s e r
t o a modern p r o l e t a r i a t than any group of workers i n existence a t the
time." The average sugar plantation i n the plaine du Nord had about 250
slaves, probably l e s s , of whom only a small number would work i n t h e
However, sugar production did demand an
boiling house or "factory."
intense d i s c i p l i n e and organisation on a scale f a r g r e a t e r than t h a t of
other s t a p l e s .
In the mountains, moreover, the slaves of the small
coffee e s t a t e s had f a r fewer opportunities t o meet a t urban markets.
52.
Marion Kilson, "Towards Freedom: An Analysis of Slave Revolts i n the
United S t a t e s , " Phylon xxv (1964).
53.
Mu1 l i n , F l i g h t , pp. 124-142.
54.
Cited i n Frederickson and Lasch, "Resistance," pp. 132-3.
55. Blassingame, Community, p. 221; A. Synnott, "Slave Revolts i n the
Caribbean" (London University Ph.D. t h e s i s , 19761, pp. 348-55, 364-5.
56.
Higman, Jamaica, p. 232.
57.
D. Geggus, "Jamaica and the S a i n t Domingue Slave Revolt, 1791-93," The
Americas, 38 (Oct. 1981 ): 223-4; Craton, "Passion" : 9-10
58.
Higman, Jamaica, pp. 214, 223; M. Craton, Searching f o r the I n v i s i b l e
Man
19781, pp. 99, 109, 113, 143.
-(Cam-Mass.,
59.
"The Profi t a b i l i t y and V i abil i t y of West Indian Pl antation Sl avery ,"
Caribbean S o c i e t i e s Seminar Paper (Feb.,
19801,
I n s t i t u t e of
Commonweal t h Studies, London
.
.
60. Gaston-Marti n , H i s t o i re de 1 ' escl avage dans 1es colonies frangai ses
( P a r i s , 19481, p. l b s .
61.
T h i s i s using a s indices of workload r a t i o s of slaves t o caneland and
f e r t i l i t y r a t i o s . See, D. Geggus, "Les esclaves de l a pl aine du Nord'a
1a v e i l l e de l a ~ 6 v o l u t i o n f r a n s a i s e , " Revue de l a soc. hai tienne
d ' h i s t . , July and Oct. 1982, and forthcoming.
62.
Debien, Les esclaves, ch. 20.
63.
Ibid.
Michael Craton's comments i n S.L. Engerman and E. Genovese,
(eds .) , Race and S1 avery i n the Western ~ e msphere:
i
Quantitative
Studies (Princeton, 19/51, p. 213, n. 54, give a r a t h e r misleading
impression of one of Debien's studies.
64. F. Th6se6 and G. Debien, Un colon n i o r t a i s 2 S a i n t Domingue (Niort,
19751, pp. 44-45. Between 1/86 and 1790 slave imports averaged a t l e a s t
30,000 p.a.
65.
66.
Ibid, p. 41; M.
110-111.
Begouen-Demeaux, S t a n i s l a s ~ o a c h e ( P a r i s , 19511, pp.
Cols., F3/150, pp. 78-83, 88-93, Arch. Nat.,
Paris.
In another case,
the Governor and Intendant managed t o j a i l and deport a planter who had
been denounced by his slaves, and the decision was upheld by t h e
Minister of t h e Marine: i b i d , pp. 62-63, 85.
67.
Geggus, Occupation, p. 38.
68.
Cf. Michael Craton's perceptive comments on "the rumor syndrome" i n J.
Walvin (ed.) , Sl avery and British Society, 1776-1846 (London, 19821, pp.
105-6.
69.
" E x t r a i t s des d 6 t a i l s authentiques..
70.
Mullin, Flight, pp. 159-160.
71.
Genovese, Roll, pp. 592-5.
72.
E. Carneiro, 0 quilombo dos Palmares (Rio de Janeiro, 19661, p. 3.
73.
Walvin (ed.), Slavery, p. 117.
F3/197, Arch. Nat.
-
74. M. Craton, " C h r i s t i a n i t y
Historical Ref1 ections, 5
Rev01 t s ? The Late Slave
1832," Past & Present, 85
117.
75.
.,"Col s.,
and Slavery i n the British West Indies,"
(1978 1: 156-7; "Passion ," 14; "Proto-Peasant
Rebellions i n the British West Indies, 1816(Nov., 1979): 115; Walvin ( e d . ) , Slavery, p.
As Mary Reckord (now Turner) pointed out i n her pioneering a r t i c l e "The
Jamaica Slave Rebellion of 1831," Past & Present, 40 ( J u l y , 1968):
123. Both w r i t e r s , however, note divergent a t t i t u d e s among the rebels.
76.
Genovese, Roll, pp. 271-9, 728; Craton ( e d . ) , Roots, p. 130, n. 20.
77.
~ a u l 6 u s Sannon, H i s t o i r e , vol. 1 , pp. 98-99; H. S o s i s , "The Colonial
Environment and Religion i n H a i t i " (Columbia Univ. Ph.D. t h e s i s , 19711,
ch. 10, n o t e s 50 and 51.
78.
The c h a n t i s i n Kikongo.
trans1 ation.
79.
Dossier 11; Dxxvll, see Arch. Nat., P a r i s ; A. Mgtraux, Le vaudou h a i t i e n
( P a r i s , 1958), p. 39, Nouv. acq. f r . 14878, p. 145, Manuscrits, Bib1
Nat., P a r i s .
80.
In Craton, Roots, p. 130.
I am g r a t e f u l t o Dr. Hazel C a r t e r f o r i t s
.
81. C. Malenfant, Des c o l o n i e s modernes
Occupation, pp. 312 3.
-
(Paris,
18141, p.
18; Geggus,
82.
See Craton ( e d . ) , Roots, pp. 131-3.
83.
WO 1/59, p. 376, P.R.O.,
84.
See above, n. 69.
85.
A. Dalmas, H i s t o i r e de l a r 6 v o l u t i o n de Saint-Domingue (Paris, 18141,
pp. 117-8; Ardouin, H a f t i , vol. 1 , pp. 228 - 9 ; T. MBdiou, H i s t o i r e
d ' ~ at iy ( P o r t au Princ-47).
86.
Colonies, pp. 215-9.
He added t h a t c r e o l e s and t h e c r e o l i z e d tended t o
mock what they regarded a s s u p e r s t i t i o n .
87.
Fouchard, L i b e r t g , p. 528, n. 3; Malenfant, Colonies, p. 219.
London.
88. Gros, I s l e St. Domingue, Province du Nord.
Precis Historique [Paris,
17931, p 1 4 ; Gabriel B e l l a i r e t o Joaqu'in Garcib, no d a t e , Aud. Santo
Domingo, 1031, Arch. Gen. de I n d i a s , S e v i l l e .
89.
C. Ardouin, E s s a i s sur l ' h i s t o i r e d ' ~ a 7 t i ( P o r t au P r i n c e , 1865) p. 55.
90.
Madiou, I-lai'ti, vol. 1 , pp. 72-73; G. Laurent, Quand les c h a i n e s v o l e n t
en 6clat-rt
au Prince. n.d.1. D. 202: above. n o t e 41.
91.
Laurent, Chaines, p. 205.
92.
Si news, pp. 226-37; "Passion," 2, 5; "Proto-Peasant," 116.
93.
"Passion," 11.
94.
"Passion," 8, 11, 16; "Proto-Peasant," 118, 121.
"Passion," 16.
Africans c o n s t i t u t e d 51% of the slave population i n 1820 and 46% i n
1823: Par1 iamentary Papers, 1833 xxvi (7001, "Sl ave Population ," p. 13.
See H i gman, Jamaica, 227-32.
Occupation, 87-92, 413. T h i s would a1 so seem true of seventeenth
century Barbados: Jerome S. Hand1 e r , "Slave Revol t s and Conspiracies i n
Seventeenth-Century Barbados," Ni euwe West-Indi sche G i ds, 56 (1982) : 542, 25 and passim.
"Revol ts," pp. 370, 378.
Edwards, Historical Survey of the Island of St. Domingo (London,
1801), p. 16.
B.
Cols., F3/197 and CC9A/5, Arch. Nat., Paris; Arch. Gen. de Indias,
Sevil l e , various documents, Aud. Santo Domingo, 954.
Cf. Geggus, "Slaves," p a r t 4, 31-33, and "Les esclaves."
See J. Fouchard, G. Debien, M.A. Menier, "Toussaint Louverture avant
1789," Conjonction, 134 (June, 1977).
Craton, "Proto-Peasant
."
"Passion," 8 , 10, 15; "Proto-Peasant," 120.
"Passion ," 15.
"Proto-Peasant," 118, 121-2; Walvin (ed.)
, Slavery,
pp. 117-9.
Genovese, Rebellion, preface and pp. 88-89.
By June 1793, t h e invading Spaniards had declared f r e e a l l rebel slaves
who would join their army. In July, the French Civil Commissioners i n
S a i n t Domingue were forced t o follow suit, and i n August they declared a
general emancipation. T h i s was extended t o a l l France's colonies by the
Convention i n P a r i s the following February.
Geggus, Occupation, pp. 43, 302-5.
Genovese, Rebel 1ion, p. xx.
Ibid., pp. 88-90.
D. Ni choll s, From Dessal ines t o Duval i e r ( Cambridge, 19791, pp. 46-47.
Genovese, Rebellion, p. 124.
115.
Co 245/1, p. 34, P.R.O.,
London.
116.
I t was previously thought t h a t he had been a privileged slave, enjoying
an informal freedom but s t i l l l i v i n g on h i s master's plantation.
Fouchard, Debien and Menier, "Toussaint," s t a t e s t h a t he was freed i n
1776. I t i s c l e a r , however, from one of t h e documents t h a t they publish
t h a t Toussaint was already f r e e and a slaveowner before t h a t date.
117.
Genovese, ~ e b e l l i o n ,pp. 90-96, 124.
118.
I t was Guadet, a s e a r l y a s February 1792, who presented a r e p o r t by the
absent Garran-Coul on c a l l i n g f o r the eventual abol i t i o n of sl avery: Le
Moniteur Universe1 , vol. 11; p. 512. In The World the Slaveholders M a x
(London, 19/01,- PP.
. . 44-48. Genovese does note Bordeaux's s ~ l i wt i t h t h e
col oni sts over racial equal i ty but imp1 i e s , I t h i n k ~ n r e a ' s o n a b l ~t,h a t
t h e Jacobins w i shed t o destroy economical l y "the At1 a n t i c-ori ented
bourgeoisie" and would have abol ished slavery even i f t h e r e had been no
slave revol t o r war w i t h England and Spain. As the Girondins f e l l i n
May 1793, there seems no way of knowing whether they would have taken a
d i f f e r e n t l i n e t o t h a t of the Jacobins o r not.
119.
See J. Garran-Coul on, Rapport sur 1es troubles des Sant-Domingue ( P a r i s ,
1797-99), vol. 4, p. 5 6 1 ; J. Morse Stephens, Speechs of the Statesmen
and Orators of the French Revolution (Oxford, 18921, vol. 2, pp. 281 - 2.
120.
Synnott, "Rev01t s ," pp. 234, 367-70.
c f . Hand1 er, "Barbados ," 31.
Genovese acknowledges t h a t the Jamaican Maroon Treaty of 1739 was a
turning point, hindering the establishment of f u r t h e r maroon settlements
and so forcing subsequent r e b e l s t o attempt t o overthrow t h e system, but
he comments t h a t "this tendency did not mature until the i n t e r r e l a t e d
revolutions i n France and Saint-Domingue created a new system of
international power and a more coherent revol utionary ideol ogy
Rebel 1i o n , pp. 35-36.
\
."
121.
Genovese, Rebellion, pp. 36, 44-50, 101-4.