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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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