Haitian Revolution (Part 2)

Where we left off in the last
video, Toussaint L'Ouverture

had just been betrayed, on some
level, first by some of

his right-hand men, because
they joined the side of

Leclerc-- or essentially they
gave up rebelling against

Leclerc-- convinced that Leclerc
wasn't that bad, that

he had no intention of
reinstating slavery or taking

away the civil rights of the
freemen of African descent.

This is another picture of
Leclerc, right here.

This is Leclerc.

So he had to essentially give
up his arms. He went to

negotiate with Leclerc, Leclerc
imprisoned him, put

him on a boat, and sent him to
France and he died the next

year in 1803.

So he was betrayed.

And he really was, on a lot
of levels, one of the most

important leaders not
just in Haitian

history, but in general.

When he took power, as I said
before, he didn't take revenge

on the white population.

He helped the economy of Haiti
get back up and running.

He actually helped defend
what is now Haiti, but

Saint-Domingue against the
British Royal Navy.

I forgot to mention that.

Defended against the British
Navy, which at the time was by

far the dominant navy
in the world.

So this is what really earned
his reputation as a great

general, on top of being a great
leader in terms of not

exacting revenge, in terms of
not having slash and burn

tactics, in terms of not just
ravaging his enemies.

So he was betrayed, and then
just to make it clear that

Leclerc really does deserve
devil horns of a sort--

although we're about to meet
someone who deserves much

bigger devil horns, or maybe
that he was actually the

henchman for someone who
deserves devil horns-- in May

of 1802, Napoleon signs a law
that reinstates slavery where

it has not disappeared.

And so it was a little
bit ambiguous.

There were some areas where
slavery had still not

disappeared.

Those include the French
colonies at Martinique, at

Saint Lucia, at Tobago.

But in Haiti-- or
Saint-Domingue, at that time--

things were a little
ambiguous.

Had slavery truly disappeared,
or had it not disappeared yet?

Apparently, slaves were
free in Haiti.

So it wasn't clear exactly what
this meant for Haiti, but

at the same time, the
Haitians didn't even

know this was happening.

This was May of 1802.

But just to make things clear,
Napoleon actually sent Leclerc

a secret memo to essentially
reinstate slavery when the

time was right.

So these guys, they
were no jokers.

They knew the situation.

They knew that they needed the
help of some of Toussaint

L'Ouverture's former generals,
former right-hand men, in

order to keep control
of Haiti.

But the intention the entire
time was, when they have the

upper hand, to actually clamp
down, reinstate slavery, and

take away the civil rights
of the freemen of color.

Now these guys weren't
stupid either.

So you might remember
Dessalines.

This was one picture of him.

He was also a former slave, one
of Toussaint L'Ouverture's

right-hand men, very
effective general.

And, as you remember, near the
end of the fight against

Leclerc, he gave up the fight
against Leclerc and to some

degree you could say he turned
on Toussaint L'Ouverture.

But he and some of the other
former followers of

L'Ouverture saw the writing
on the wall.

They didn't even have to
intercept that secret memo.

They got word from Martinique
and Tobago and Saint Lucia

that slavery was being
reinstated.

The French at this time were not
people that you wanted to

deal with or trust when it came
to issues of slavery.

So Dessalines and his comrades
re-took up arms. And

Dessalines was a very different
character than

Toussaint L'Ouverture.

The one similarity is that they
were both very effective

military men.

The big difference between the
two was that Dessalines was

not one to hold back.

He wasn't afraid to essentially
take an eye for an

eye, so to speak.

So here you had Dessalines in
charge of what was, I guess

you could call, the
slave rebel army.

And then on the other side of
it, you have Leclerc with the

40,000 troops that he showed
up, with Napoleon.

But lucky for Dessalines,
yellow fever--

and it's not lucky.

I mean, people died
across the board.

But this did really turn the
tide of war in favor of the

people of African descent
on the island.

Yellow fever struck the island,
it killed Leclerc, and

it also took out twenty
something thousand-- or the

number I read was 24,000-- of
the actual French soldiers,

and another 8,000 were
hospitalized.

So that's 32,000 out of
commission, so you're

essentially only left
with 8,000 soldiers.

So all of a sudden, it
completely turned the tide,

completely changed the numbers
in terms of what types of

forces the rebel army had
to fight against.

But it wasn't all good at this
point because Leclerc-- I

mentioned, I gave him little
devil horns-- he was replaced

by someone who deserves very
big devil horns named

Rochambeau.

Not to be confused with his
father, who goes by the same

name who was a hero of the
American Revolution.

He fought for France on the
side of the Americans.

And he, as far as I can tell,
seemed like a decent guy.

But his son was really evil.

And there are very few people
in history that you can say

are unambiguously evil.

He is one of them.

Now that he was kind of
desperate, his forces were

ravaged by yellow fever, he's
going against a fairly

aggressive enemy, he did things
like-- let me write

these down because
they are evil.

He would bury African--
or I guess I

should say African Americans.

He would bury former slaves, or
people of African descent--

bury in, bury alive in
pits of insects.

He would boil people
alive in molasses.

I read one account that says
that at one point he held a

ball where he invited all of
the prominent mixed-race

people to a party essentially at
his place and at the stroke

of midnight he announced
that all of the

men are to be murdered.

The only bounds on his cruelty
was the people that he could

get his hands on, especially the
people of African descent.

The one positive of his cruelty
is that he for the

first time really unified the
population of African descent

on the island.

So he unified both the slaves,
the former slaves, and the

mixed-race.

And at the same time,
we're now in 1803.

And, I've said it before, we're

still at war with Britain.

And Britain is-- and I've
mentioned it before-- they had

the most dominant navy
in the world.

This guy, despite how evil and
how cruel he was, he needed

reinforcements from Napoleon
if he had to take on

Dessalines.

And let me be very
clear about this.

Dessalines, as I mentioned, he
was not hesitant to take an

eye for an eye.

In one incident, Rochambeau
buried 500 rebel prisoners

alive, then Dessalines went and
hung 500 French prisoners.

So he wasn't someone
to kind of shy away

from, I guess, blood.

And this is very different
to Toussaint L'Ouverture.

It's kind of a lesson.

If you are fighting an enemy,
if you get rid of the more

reasonable leaders of your
enemy, you might end up

getting maybe a leader more
similar to yourself and your

cruelty, if you betrayed the
more reasonable ones.

But anyway, enough
of my commentary.

So the stage is set.

War with Britain.

Britain owns the seas,
especially the Caribbean.

This guy needs reinforcements
going against a very strong

leader of the former
slave rebels.

But Napoleon, he's known to
be one to cut his losses.

He did it with his
troops in Egypt.

He's really not someone who
really cares, I think, about

the individual.

He cares much more about
his ego and his power.

So Napoleon leaves
them hanging.

Napoleon saw the writing
on the wall.

He wouldn't be able to get
through the British fleet.

And at the same time, Napoleon's
fighting all of

these wars in Europe.

As you remember, the whole
French Revolution was

precipitated by France
being broke.

So Napoleon, not only does he
give up on this guy-- and he

essentially got what he
deserved-- Napoleon gives up

on maintaining all of their
colonies or any major presence

in the Western Hemisphere.

So essentially to raise funds,
Napoleon also sells Louisiana

to the Americans.

Now when I say Louisiana, I'm
not talking about just the

state of Louisiana in its
present state, which

is about that big.

That's actually where
I was born.

We're talking about the whole--
this is like 1/3 of

the United States today.

Sold all of this.

And he was clearly desperate.

He sold it for $15 million,
or that's the

equivalent of F60 million.

And I've been told, in today's
money, that would be on the

order of $10 billion.

You know, if someone said for
$10 billion, you could own 1/3

of the land of the United
States, you would say that's a

pretty good deal.

$10 billion in today's money.

So $15 million 1803, $10 billion
today, that's still

not a lot of money, but
he was desperate.

He realized that he couldn't
maintain control of something

halfway around the world when
Britain owned the seas and he

was busy having his own
troubles in Europe.

So the Americans got
a good deal.

And frankly, if he didn't sell
it to the Americans, either

the British or the Americans
could have probably

just taken it anyway.

So being left to hang to dry
by Napoleon, Dessalines is

able to destroy Rochambeau
and essentially declare

independence for
Saint-Domingue.

And it 1804, January 1.

Dessalines declares independence
for, and he names

the new country Haiti, which
is the indigenous peoples'

name for the island.

It means land of
the mountains.

Now I want to just leave with
one note, because you may or

may not be aware.

Haiti is still a very, very,
very, very poor country.

And besides, after Dessalines,
they had many, many, many--

and eventually, I'll do videos
on it-- rounds of one dictator

after another.

And the people have really
been through a lot.

But I just want to make it clear
that they really got

started off on a
horrible foot.

Because even though Dessalines
declared independence in 1804,

the French did not recognize
Haiti until

1805-- sorry- 1825.

And you might say, well, who
cares about recognition?

Who cares what the former
colonial masters think?

But until they recognized them,
they were essentially

embargoing Haiti.

They weren't allowing
any trade to

actually go on with Haiti.

So it was really on the
front of a barrel gun.

And in order to be recognized,
Haiti had to agree to F90

million of debt to France.

And just to be clear how much
money this is, here's a small

island-- or half of an island--
of newly freed slaves

and they were forced to owe
France-- and this actually was

further reinforced
by the United

States and Great Britain.

So it goes to show you, even
former enemies can kind of

agree when it comes to
a oppressing small

impoverished islands.

But they had to owe France the
equivalent of 1 and 1/2 times

what the United States paid for
the Louisiana Purchase.

This was F60 million.

They got all of Louisiana.

Now France is telling Haiti,
you owe us F90 million.

Or that's roughly the equivalent
of $14 or $15

billion in today's terms. And
this is for a population of

essentially half a million
freed slaves.

So it's kind of a horrendous
amount of debt.

And just to be clear, this
wasn't like the crazy

colonials in the early 19th
century, forcing to do this.

This debt was not paid off with
the interest until 1947.

They were continuing
to pay the debt.

And just to add insult to
injury, the reason for the

debt, they claim, was
for lost property.

So that's why France claimed
that Haiti owed them the

money, for lost property.

Where, included in the
list of lost property

was land and slaves.

Essentially, now that you've got
your freedom, you owe us a

ton of money for us losing
the rights to own you.

So it's just insult to injury.

And actually, I was shocked the
first time I learned this

number, that they were forced to
continue to pay debts from

one poor country, one small poor
country, right over here,

they had to continue to pay
debts to a Western developed

nation until 1947, essentially
to buy their freedom.