The Haitian Revolution, The Slave Trade, and Black Women

Thank you for watching African Elements. In
this episode, we look at the impact of the

Haitian Revolution. The Republic of Haiti
shaped US politics around slavery, heightened

tension between North and South, and impacted
Black women in often overlooked ways. We’ll

explore those impacts coming up.
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that you’ll be notified when new content
drops. For this video, we look at the various

ways that the Haitian Revolution impacted
the Black experience in the United states.

Less than 5 years after the United States
Constitution was ratified and the US became

the first independent republic in the Western
hemisphere, the republic of Haiti soon followed

by becoming the second independent republic.
As a result of a successful slave uprising,

the Haitian Revolution played a critical role
in shaping the US in its formative years through

the Civil War.
In France's wealthiest colony, only a few

hundred miles from US shores, Black slaves
in Saint-Domingue, produced 60% of the western

world's coffee by the 1780s and 40% of the
sugar imported by France and Britain. (Trouillot

337)
The journal of one plantation manager in Saint-Domingue

told of the murderous conditions under which
slaves toiled and the desperate measures they

undertook to escape those conditions...
March 6, 1768 … We are left with a Creole

Negress named Zabeth whom I am despairing
of.… From her earliest infancy she has been

a thief and a maroon. These qualities have
only become more prominent with age. Seeing

that she was about to die because she had
been chained for so long, I had the chain

removed without her having requested it...The
same evening, at eight o’clock, she stole

the belongings of another Negress.… [She
was] captured in the act.… I held myself

to threatening her that if she once again
attempted flight, I would have her chained

for the remainder of her days. She did not
hesitate to make all the right promises, and

in the same breath was off to the Lemaire
residence [the neighboring plantation]…Two

days later, I sent along to her some material
and a change of clothing. But as soon as she

received these provisions, she was off again.…
Caught once more, she was sent to the mill

and chained. About a month ago, before daybreak,
she saw that the mules were tired and [in

order to wound herself slightly] she slipped
her hand between the rollers. She was stopped

on the spot. She had three broken fingers,
and humanity demanded that she be placed in

the hospital, without, however, removing the
large chain…

April 11, 1768 … Seeing that she was about
to die in chains, …I had the chain removed,

after having had her own grave dug before
her eyes, with her even removing a few shovelfuls

of dirt. Despite this spectacle, which should
have intimidated her for good, she fled once

again … Seeing that she is near death, I
have had her chained in a mill, a better place

for her to die than a hospital. Perhaps the
example will have some effect, for I see that

the gentle treatment accorded her has inspired
two other slaves to become maroons. (Price

163).
According to this account, within the span

of about a month, Zabeth had attempted to
escape no less than three times under clear

threat of death and had also taken to self-injury.
On August 22, 1791, the slaves of Saint-Domingue

staged a revolt under the leadership of Toussaint
L’Overture. Due to widespread absentee landlordism,

slaves outnumbered whites by about 10 to 1.
By January 1, 1804, the former colony's independence

was officially declared and the territory
was renamed after its indigenous Arawak name,

"Haiti."
The impact of the Haitian Revolution was far

reaching. The most immediate impact was the
Louisiana Purchase on April 11, 1803. With

the impending loss of France’s wealthiest
colony, Napoleon had no further need for its

large holdings on the American mainland. In
a fit of disgust, he reportedly exclaimed,

"Damn sugar, damn coffee, damn colonies ... I
renounce Louisiana forever!" It was at that

moment that then President Thomas Jefferson
sent emissaries to France seeking only to

obtain New Orleans and navigation rights on
the Mississippi. To their shock, France agreed

to hand over the whole of the Louisiana Territory
for a mere $15 million.

All at once, the Louisiana Purchase double
the size of the United States and opened up

a dilemma. Would this vast new territory be
opened up to slaveholding or non-slave holding

interests? The Constitution passive aggressively
side stepped the issue of slavery - vaguely

referencing it, but making no specific mention
of the institution (in fact, the word “slavery”

appears nowhere in the Constitution). Absent
any clear constitutional remedy on what was

to become of any new territories added to
the United States, the Haitian Revolution

and the Louisiana Purchase set in motion a
chain of compromises that ultimately paved

the way to the Civil War.
The question posed by the Louisiana territory

was resolved when Missouri applied for statehood
in 1820. To maintain the balance between the

free and slaveholding states' interests, Missouri
was admitted as a slave state while the southern

boundary of Missouri was extended in the Louisiana
territory to mark the boundary between slave

holding a non-slave holding regions. To provide
balance in the senate, the northern section

of Massachusetts was severed creating the
new non-slaveholding state of Maine in order

to offset Missouri. So, while the constitutional
crisis was temporarily averted the Missouri

Compromise, was an indirect consequence of
the Haitian Revolution which also indirectly

led to the westward expansion of slavery on
the frontier, and ultimately on a path to

civil war.
The Haitian Revolution sent shockwaves throughout

the Western Hemisphere. Many of those fleeing
the conflict came to US shores with tales

of carnage and bloodbath. Many in the United
States – particularly those in the South

– were understandably fearful of a slave
revolt taking place only a few hundred miles

from US shores, especially since there were
already places in the South where slaves outnumbered

whites. This fear-based reaction prompted
Southerners to enact harsher slave codes.

As we’ve seen, the cultural adaptations
Africans undertook for survival in the Western

Hemisphere largely laid the groundwork for
revolt. Africans of the Middle Passage represented

a wide variety of ethnic groups. In Haiti,
Vodou blended the various practices of West

African religion in a way that dissolved their
ethnic differences and served as the ideological

glue that unified the various groups and held
the revolution together. Recognizing the threat

and the role that Vodou played in the revolt,
the practice of Vodou was banned throughout

the South.
Along with Vodou, drumming was also outlawed,

and laws were enacted that forbade Blacks
from congregating in groups of three or more,

their movement was restricted -- allowing
slaves to travel only with written permission

from the slave owner, and travel at night
was restricted.

Southerners had good reason to fear that the
slave revolt would spread to the United States.

Of the major slave conspiracies in the US
-- Gabriel Prosser (1800); Charles Deslondes

(1811); Denmark Vesey (1822); and Nat Turner
(1831) -- all in some way invoked the Haitian

Revolution.
As many of the slaves entering the United

States came by way of the Caribbean, it's
not difficult to understand why Congress moved

to end the international slave trade on March
2, 1807. The tales of slaughter Haitian refugees

brought to the US make it obvious why the
import of Caribbean slaves was no longer desirable,

but newly arrived slaves from Africa were
also known to be at higher risk of revolt.

In the wake of the Haitian Revolution, Thomas
Jefferson signed legislation banning the international

slave trade that went into effect the moment
it was constitutionally permissible on January

1, 1808.
Yet another indirect consequence of the Haitian

Revolution, the impact of the ban was devastating.
With Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton

gin in 1793 – a machine that quickly and
easily separated cotton fibers from their

seeds – the South became even more deeply
entrenched in slavery. By 1860, cotton alone

accounted for 58% of the annual value of all
US exports (Hine 134). The dramatic increase

in production led to a huge demand for slaves,
and by 1850 the slave population ballooned

to 3.2 million. That demand combined with
the closing of the international slave trade

gave rise to one of the most horrific aspects
of slavery -- the domestic slave trade.

The domestic slave trade was the internal
traffic of slaves from within the United States

(typically the upper South) to the plantations
of the Deep South. As author, Angela Davis,

explains in her book, Women, Race & Class,
Black women bore the brunt of the wholesale

exploitation of Black slaves and she posits
that while considered “genderless” with

regard to slaveholders, Black women simultaneously
bore the brunt of sexual exploitation. (Davis

2)
That is to say that enslaved Black women were

not subject to the socially defined roles
that confined women to the home, but rather

worked in the fields alongside Black men.
Far from being considered the "weaker sex,"

Black women were expected to bear the same
physical burdens and punishments as Black

men.
That Black women could still be exploited

sexually for their capacity to bear children
adds and extra layer of burden for Black women.

Black men, for example were biologically incapable
of the experience of working all day in a

cotton field while 8 months pregnant. Even
while pregnant, Black women were also not

spared the lash - an experience Black men
were likewise biologically incapable of having.

So, while Black men were exploited sexually
as "stallions" forced to impregnate "breeders"

for sale in the domestic slave trade, they
didn't bear the same biological burdens that

Black women did.
The results were catastrophic. In addition

to the commodified sexual exploitation of
Black women, came the wholesale breakup and

destruction of families, as individual members
were sold off one by one to feed the growing

market in the South.
So, the westward expansion of slavery, heightening

of tensions between slaveholding and non-slave
holding interests, the closing of the international

slave trade, and the wholesale sexual exploitation
of Black women are just some of the direct

and indirect impacts of the Haitian Revolution.
Thank you for watching, and now it’s time

for our comment of the week. This one comes
from “Chosen One” who writes, “YOU’RE

CLOUT CHASING PLAIN AND SIMPLE!!!” Ironically,
this comment comes in response a video I did

in the series titled “Say What?!!” in
which I examined Dane Calloway’s video on

the effects of social engineering. I say ironically,
because the purpose of the video is to point

out flawed epistemology and to help folks
avoid fallacious reasoning that leads to flawed

conclusions. So, in her comment she has actually
given us yet another example of flawed reasoning.

Can you spot the logical fallacy here? If
so, leave it in the comments below.

Once again, this is Darius Spearman and you're
watching African Elements. Until next time,

I’ll see you in the comments