For the purposes of my narrative, I wish to write about the impacts and influence of the French Revolution upon the Haitian Revolution. When the Haiti slave rebellions started in 1791, there was already a tense and eventful buildup of concerns which started with the French Revolution's success. Seeing how far that kind of action took the French proletariat, and its effects riling plantation owners of the time to further action, the French Revolution had significant impact in the lives and actions of the slaves who lived in Haiti.
This topic is important due to the rarity in which these types of revolutions succeed. Apart from the American Revolution, the Haitian Revolution was the only other successful attempt to become independent from Europe in North America, and as such shares many similarities. Furthermore, as it was a slave rebellion, it was one of the most pivotal steps Africans had taken up to that point towards freedom, and it remains a defining moment in the overarching slave narrative. It also demonstrates the aftereffects of major political upheavals in other countries, as the French Revolution started a domino effect of political changes that made the slave rebellions possible.
There are many different issues at play when discussing the Haitian Revolution and the French Revolution together. First and foremost, there are issues of race and slavery to address; unlike the Haitians, the French were not literally slaves fighting for their freedom, but for political change. Arguably, less was at stake in a continued status quo under the French aristocracy than in Saint Domingue. There, the rule of the French colonists literally stripped their identity and agency from them, and the fight was done to free themselves, despite wealthy plantation owners initially wishing to merely use the French Revolution to further consolidate their power in Saint Domingue.
The existing literature already shows a strong correlation between the French and Haitian Revolutions. Robin Blackburn (2006) demonstrates a very clear knowledge about the role of slavery in the Haitian Revolution, as well as the French Revolution's impact upon it. The slave rebellions were a natural extension of the feelings of agitation toward the plantation-owners' reaction to the French Revolution, which was anticipated to be harsher treatment of slaves as the plantation owners consolidated their power. This creates one of the most direct ties to the French Revolution. Of course, despite the direct political consequences, the question also becomes one of ideology; could the same tactics and type of political upheaval that worked so well in France work elsewhere? These questions are generally thought by scholars to be the ones that led to the slave rebellions of the Haitian Revolution.
My thesis is this: the Haitian Revolution was heavily inspired by the French Revolution, and was a test in and of itself to see whether the ideals of the French Revolution would work elsewhere. Not only did the slaves rebel as a result of the consequences of the French Revolution upon Haiti, then Saint Domingue, it was seen as the most effective means to gain full civil equality with whites, particularly as it had just worked for the French. With the radicalization of the slavery question, French leaders had to find out just how far their revolution's reach would extend - as it turned out, the ripples of the French upheavals floated all the way to Haiti.
Works Cited
Robin Blackburn. "Haiti's Slavery in the Age of the Democratic Revolution", William and Mary Quarterly 63.4 (2006): 633-644.
John D. Garrigus. "Colour, Class and Identity on the Eve of the Haitian Revolution: Saint-Domingue's Free Coloured Elite as Colon americains." Slavery & Abolition 17.1 (1996):
19-43.
Franklin W. Knight. The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism (3rd ed.). (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2004).
Jan Rogozinski. A Brief History of the Caribbean (Revised ed.). {New York: Facts on File,
1999).
Thomas E. Weil, Jan Knippers Black, Howard I. Blustein, Kathryn T. Johnston, David S. McMorris, Frederick P. Munson, Haiti: A Country Study. (Washington, D.C.: The American University Foreign Area Handbook Series 1985).
