Teaching

Source Collection: Slavery and the Haitian Revolution

Painting of a slave sale Slaves and Free Blacks in Saint Domingue thumbnail of the text thumbnail of the text

Overview

Since the revolutionaries explicitly proclaimed liberty as their highest ideal, slavery was bound to come into question during the French Revolution. Even before 1789 critics had attacked the slave trade and slavery in the colonies. France had several colonies in the Caribbean in which slavery supported a plantation economy that produced sugar, coffee, and cotton. The most important of these colonies was Saint Domingue (later Haiti), which had 500,000 slaves, 32,000 whites, and 28,000 free blacks (which included both blacks and mulattos). Some free blacks owned slaves; in fact, the free blacks owned one-third of the plantation property and one-quarter of the slaves in Saint Domingue, though they could not hold public office or practice many professions (medicine, for example).

This Source Collection includes an informational essay and 41 primary sources.

Essay

The slave system in the colonies was regulated by a series of royal edicts, the most important of which was promulgated by Louis XIV in 1685. Taken together, the edicts constituted the Code noir, or slave code. This code prescribed a harsh regime of penalties for slaves who resisted their captivity, especially if they tried to harm their masters in any way. Saint Domingue provided extraordinary sources of wealth to the French. To protect their investments, French slaveholders had to learn at least a minimal amount about their slaves. One of the most astute commentators, Médéric-Louis-Elie Moreau de Saint-Méry, wrote a massive two-volume work on life in Saint Domingue in the 1780s. He described many of the features of slave life that worried slaveholders, including voodoo imported from Africa, the presence of many people of mixed race (mulattos), the threat of slaves becoming Maroons (runaways), and the intense fear among slaveholders that their slaves would try to poison them. After the French Revolution broke out, planters looked back on pre-1789 conditions, trying to understand how slavery might have been better organized. Their observations provide yet another contemporary perspective on the plantation and slave system.

The Caribbean colonies were quick to respond to the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789. The white planters of Saint Domingue sent delegates to France to demand representation at the new National Assembly, as did the mulattos. Several prominent deputies in the National Assembly belonged to the Society of the Friends of Blacks, which put forth proposals for the abolition of the slave trade and the amelioration of the lot of slaves in the colonies. When these proposals fell on deaf ears, some deputies sympathetic to blacks turned to arguing that full civil and political rights should be granted to free blacks in the colonies. Before long, radical journalists in Paris began to take up the cause of black slaves, pushing for the abolition of slavery, or at least for a more positive view of the Africans. The pioneering feminist and playwright, Olympe de Gouges, also wrote a pamphlet challenging the colonial pro-slavery lobby to improve the lot of the blacks.

As the agitation in favor of granting rights to free blacks and abolishing the slave trade gathered steam, the colonies became filled with uncertainty and expectations began rising, especially among the free blacks and mulattos. In response, the white planters mounted their own counterattack and even contemplated demanding independence from France. Less is known about the views of the slaves because hardly any of them could read or write, but the royal governor of Saint Domingue expressed concern about the effects of the Revolution on the colony's slaves. In October 1789 he reported that the slaves considered the new revolutionary cockade (a decoration made up of red, white, and blue ribbons worn by supporters of the Revolution) a "signal of the manumission of the whites . . . the blacks all share an idea that struck them spontaneously: that the white slaves kill their masters and now free they govern themselves and regain possession of the land." In other words, the black slaves hoped to follow in the footsteps of their white predecessors, freeing themselves, killing their masters, and taking over the land.

Most deputies feared the effects of the loss of commerce that would result from either the abolition of slavery or the elimination of the slave trade. Fabulous wealth depended on slavery, as did shipbuilding, sugar-refining, and a host of subsidiary industries. Slaveowners and shippers did not intend to give up their prospects without a fight. The U.S. refusal to give up slavery or the slave trade provided added ammunition to support their position.

To quiet the unrest among the powerful white planters, especially in Saint Domingue, the colonial committee of the National Assembly proposed in March 1790 to exempt the colonies from the constitution and to prosecute anyone who attempted to spark uprisings against the slave system. But the steadily increasing agitation threatened the efforts of the National Assembly to mollify the white planters and keep a lid on racial tensions. The March 1790 decree said nothing about the political rights of free blacks, who continued to press their demands both in Paris and back home, but to no avail. In October 1790, 350 mulattos rebelled in Saint Domingue. French army troops cooperated with local planter militias to disperse and arrest them. In February 1791 the mulatto leaders, including James Ogé, were publicly executed. Nevertheless, on 15 May 1791, under renewed pressure from the abbé Grégoire and others, the National Assembly granted political rights to all free blacks and mulattos who were born of free mothers and fathers. Though this proviso limited rights to a few hundred free blacks, the white colonists furiously pledged to resist the application of the law.

Just a few months later, on 22 August 1791, the slaves of Saint Domingue rose up in rebellion, initiating what was to become over the next several years the first successful slave revolt in history. In response, the National Assembly rescinded the rights of free blacks and mulattos on 24 September 1791, prompting them once again to take up arms against the whites. Slaves burned down plantations, murdered their white masters, and even attacked the towns. Fighting continued as the new Legislative Assembly (it replaced the National Assembly in October 1791) considered free black rights again at the end of March 1792. On 28 March, the assembly voted to reinstate the political rights of free blacks and mulattos. Nothing was done about slavery.

In the fall of 1792, as the Revolution in mainland France began to radicalize, the French government sent two agents to Saint Domingue to take charge of the suppression of the slave revolt. In order to gain their freedom, rebel slaves now made pacts with the British and Spanish in the area. The British and Spanish promised freedom to those slaves who would join their armies, even though they had no intention of abolishing slavery in their own colonies. They simply wanted to benefit from France's problems. Faced with the threat of both British and Spanish invasions aimed at taking over the colony with the aid of the rebel slaves, the French government agents abolished slavery in the colony (August–October 1793). Although the National Convention initially denounced this action as part of a conspiracy to aid Great Britain, the Convention eventually voted to abolish slavery in all the French colonies on 4 February 1794. Many mulattos opposed this move because they owned slaves themselves. After more than two years of rebellion, invasion, attack, and counterattack, the economy of Saint Domingue had nearly collapsed. Thousands of whites fled to the United States or back to France.

For all the deputies' good intentions, the situation remained confused in almost all the colonies: some local authorities simply disregarded the decree, others converted slavery into forced labor, others were too busy fighting the British and Spanish to decide one way or the other. Out of the fighting emerged one of the most remarkable figures of the era, Toussaint L'Ouverture, a slave who learned to read and write and in the uprising rose to become the leading general of the slave rebels. Toussaint faced incredible obstacles in creating a coherent resistance. By 1800 the plantations were producing only one-fifth of what they had in 1789. In the zones controlled by Toussaint, army officers or officials took over the big estates and kept the former slaves working under military-style discipline. In 1802, once he had consolidated his hold on power in mainland France, Napoleon Bonaparte reestablished slavery and the slave trade in those colonies still under French control and denied political rights to free blacks. He sent a major expeditionary force to Saint Domingue to enforce his will. It captured Toussaint and sent him back to France, where he died in prison. Nevertheless, the former slaves continued their revolt and in 1804 they established the independent republic of Haiti. The French army limped home after losing thousands to disease and sporadic fighting. A slave rebellion had succeeded.

Americans in the new United States followed the events in Saint Domingue with anxious interest. Since the southern states relied on thousands of slaves to work their plantations, a slave revolt in the world's richest plantation colony was bound to excite their concern. In addition, when white settlers began fleeing Saint Domingue, many of them came to the United States. Newspapers in the United States published letters offering eyewitness accounts (and rumors) about the uprising. The accounts in the Pennsylvania Gazette are excerpted here.

Primary Sources

Execrable Human Traffick, or The Affectionate Slaves

Painting of a slave sale
Annotation
This reproduction of a painting by George Morland (1789) has lurid colors and shows the sale of an enslaved person. The artist suggests that friends or relatives are being separated, as one of the slaves is being physically restrained as the other enslaved individual is being forced into a boat.

Enslaved and Free Blacks in Saint Domingue

Slaves and Free Blacks in Saint Domingue
Annotation
This engraving pairs images of enslaved people and free blacks in four categories: dress, deportment, entertainment, and access to water. Although there are differences between the pairs, these are not as great as they might be.

THE CODE NOIR (THE BLACK CODE)

thumbnail of the text
Annotation
The Code noir initially took shape in Louis XIV’s edict of 1685. Although subsequent decrees modified a few of the code’s provisions, this first document established the main lines for the policing of slavery right up to 1789. The very first article expels all Jews from the colonies; Jews played a significant but hardly dominant role in the Dutch colonies of the Caribbean region but were not allowed to own property or slaves in the French colonies. The edict also insisted that all slaves be instructed as Catholics and not as Protestants. For the most part, the code concentrated on defining the condition of slavery (passing the condition through the mother not the father) and establishing harsh controls over the conduct of those enslaved. Slaves had virtually no rights, though the code did enjoin masters to take care of the sick and old.

Saint Domingue: Some Geography

thumbnail of the text
Annotation
Here Moreau de Saint–Méry describes the topography and peoples of the French part of the island of Haiti, providing some important basic knowledge which he expands upon in subsequent passages

SAINT DOMINGUE: THE FREEDMEN

thumbnail of the text
Annotation
As many as two–thirds of the enslaved people in Saint Domingue (now Haiti) in 1789 had been born in Africa, but by that time a significant number of Africans or children of Africans had become free. Here Moreau de Saint–Méry details the origins of this pivotal group.

Voodoo

Annotation
Among the African rituals and customs described by Moreau de Saint–Méry, none terrified white planters in Haiti more than the practice of voodoo. His description of the rituals associated with voodoo and the hold it had on the minds of the enslaved people demonstrates both his fascination with the topic and the importance he attached to it.

That Seductive Mulatto Woman

Annotation
Moreau de Saint–Méry painted a particularly negative portrait of mulatto women in Haiti. He paints Creole women as unduly promiscuous and a threat to morals and decency.

The Maroons

Annotation
In this passage, Moreau de Saint–Méry explains that runaways in Haiti, known as Maroons, are and have always been a persistent problem and details the tremendous efforts put into retrieving the runaways. Despite this effort, some Maroons survived and thereby regained their freedom.

The Slaves from Africa

Annotation
The African born enslaved people brought with them to Haiti their African rituals and customs, but the white planters also tried to get them to accept French manners and mores. This description written by Moreau de Saint–Méry demonstrates how whites had a deal of great curiosity about all parts of these Africans’ lives while also maintaining a pose of cultural superiority.

The Indigo Plant Farm

The Indigo Plant Farm
Annotation
This print depicts and labels the essential components of a plantation producing indigo, a blue dye used for coloring cloth. Slaves are shown here working at different parts of the production process. In 1789, over 3,000 plantations in Saint Domingue produced indigo.

The Sugar Mill

The Sugar Mill
Annotation
This depiction of a sugar plantation in Saint Domingue emphasizes the grinding mill and refining vats. An overseer with a gun supervises the enslaved labor. By 1789 Saint Domingue excelled at sugar production, outpacing other French colonies and the British alike.

The Barnyard

The Barnyard
Annotation
As shown in this print, numerous activities of plantation life were carried out by enslaved people. This scene includes women and children, who formed a relatively small part of the enslaved population.

The Coffee Planter of Saint Domingo (London, 1798)

Annotation
Here Pierre Joseph Laborie provides the perspective of the planter. He gives a detailed description of the organization of enslaved labor in the production of coffee. Although he shared quite negative views of the African enslaved people, he was candid about the extreme brutality that they faced and admitted that it diminished their capacity to work.

Grievance List (September 1789)

Annotation
The Haitian free blacks and creoles, many of them substantial property owners and slaveholders, sent delegates to the National Assembly in France with a list of their stated grievances and demands. This list of grievances—modeled on those sent from the various districts of France in the spring of 1789—demonstrates the power of the idea of rights but also the particular concerns of those living in the colonies; the free blacks wanted freedom and rights for themselves but assume the continuance of slavery.

Roster of Membership in the Society of Friends of Blacks, 1789

Annotation
Jacques Brissot founded the Society of the Friends of Blacks in 1788 to agitate against the slave trade and slavery itself. Brissot modeled the Society on the London Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade established in 1787. He hoped that the groups might cooperate in an international effort to eliminate the slave trade. The French society, knowing that the colonial and commercial interests invested in slavery still exercised great power, cautiously advanced its proposals. This caution was well–founded, since some deputies faced personal attacks in the streets of Paris for their unpopular views. As the roster shows, the society included many leading intellectuals, politicians, and even aristocrats.

Viefville des Essars, On the Emancipation of the Negroes (1790)

Annotation
This project to free enslaved people in the French colonies was presented to the National Assembly. The defensive tone and rhetorical structure that emerge in the course of this document demonstrate the power of the interests opposed to even cautious steps toward emancipation.

Abbé Grégoire, "Memoir in Favor of the People of Color or Mixed–Race of Saint Domingue" (1789)

Annotation
Baptiste–Henri Grégoire was a parish priest who was elected to the National Assembly by the clergy of Lorraine. He championed the rights of minorities both before the Revolution and in the legislature. The most noted beneficiaries of his attention were Jews and free blacks. He thought giving rights to Jews would encourage assimilation, while giving free blacks a greater stake in society would actually help maintain the institution of slavery because these blacks served in the militias that enforced the slave system. Nonetheless, on other occasions, Grégoire argued for the complete abolition of the institution of slavery.

A Left–Wing Newspaper Continues the Attack on Slavery (October 1790)

Annotation
In this article, the influential newspaper The Revolutions of Paris asks if Africans and their descendants are "Born to Slavery?" as part of a general consideration of the situation in the French colonies.

A Left–Wing Newspaper Links the Revolution to the Abolition of Slavery (September 1790)

Annotation
During the explosion of newspaper publishing after 1789, the Revolutions of Paris consistently supported radical positions, including the abolition of slavery in articles like this one entitled "No Color Bar."

A Female Writer’s Response to the American Champion or a Well–Known Colonist

Annotation
Better known for her defense of the rights of women, Olympe de Gouges defended the rights of the downtrodden in general. Here she points out the cruelty of slavery and expresses the hope that the slave trade will be abandoned.

Discontent Spreads from An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti

Annotation
Rainsford wrote one of the first favorable accounts of the Haitian Revolution. He blamed the colonists for refusing to alter the slave system. Our excerpts begin with reactions to the revolution in mainland France in 1789 and continue through the death in prison in France of Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1803.

Declaration of the Independence of the Blacks of St. Domingo

Annotation
This important and revealing document evokes both the contemporary situation in the colonies and the political developments taking place in Paris. It comes from Marcus Rainsford’s supportive account of the Haitian Revolution.

A Divided Elite from An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti

Annotation
In this excerpt, Rainsford describes the divisive effects of the Declaration of Rights of the Blacks among the various racial/social groupings.

Letter from Monseron de l’Aunay to the Marquis de Condorcet, President of the Society of Friends of the Blacks (24 December 1789)

Annotation
This letter appears in the Journal of Paris as part of a debate over a performance of a play by Olympe de Gouges, the noted feminist, that concerns the abolition of the slave trade. The letter is written by a deputy of the Chamber of Commerce of the port city of Nantes, which had close ties to the Caribbean economy. He would like to protect French interests against potential British incursion.

Barnave, "Speech for the Colonial Committee of the National Assembly" (8 March 1790)

Annotation
Here Antoine–Pierre Barnave, a well–connected and influential lawyer from Grenoble, represented those interests that wanted to hold onto France’s rich colonial possessions. He wanted to treat the colonies separately from mainland France in order to exempt them from the Constitution as a means of maintaining the production of those colonial products that were such a large part of France’s commercial wealth. His proposals were adopted almost without debate.

Ogé’s Rebellion in An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti

Annotation
Rainsford’s sympathy for the revolt in Haiti did not seem to extend to the influence of ideas imported from revolutionary France, which appear to have been at the heart of Ogé’s rebellion.

The Revolt from An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti

Annotation
Rainsford’s detailed contemporary account of the revolt emphasizes the strenuous yet ultimately unsuccessful mobilization of colonial French resources.

Kersaint, "Discussion of Troubles in the Colonies" (28 March 1792)

Annotation
This speech by a former noble who had served as a naval officer reveals the deep ambivalence of the deputies about moving too quickly to emancipate the slaves. Caught between the planters who threatened to rebel if emancipation was passed and the dangerous slave revolt that had already broken out, Kersaint hoped for a gradual process of emancipation that would help France hold onto its most valuable colony. He was later executed during the Terror.

The Cap Français Fire

The Cap Français Fire
Annotation
In June 1793, the French governor of Saint Domingue, Thomas–François Galbaud, tried to raise a revolt of the whites against republican commissioners sent from France. To defeat him, the commissioners promised freedom to the slaves who would fight on their behalf. Thousands of whites fled the northern town, which nearly burned to the ground. This incident marked the end of white domination of the island and the beginning of slave emancipation.

Toussaint L’Ouverture in An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti

Annotation
Rainsford paints a glowing portrait of the abilities and accomplishments of L’Ouverture, the most noted leader of the rebellion and one of the key founders of the nation of Haiti.

Toussaint L’Ouverture

Toussaint L’Ouverture
Annotation
A slave inspired by the French Revolution’s egalitarianism, Toussaint saw himself as French and struggled for French control of the island of Saint Domingue. Nonetheless, he had no intention of letting whites rule, for he wanted blacks to control their own destinies. By 1801 he had conquered the entire island for France and for his fellow slaves. His personal success would not last beyond the next year.

The French Return from An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti

Annotation
In this excerpt, Rainsford continues to exhalt the qualities of L’Ouverture while criticizing French behavior in the attempted reconquest of the island under Napoleon.

The Mode of Training Blood Hounds in St. Domingo

Engraving called The Mode of training Blood Hounds in St. Domingo
Annotation
This image reveals grotesque mistreatment of blacks even during training exercises. Here a French cavalryman (chasseur) plans to use someone as a live prey for hunting dogs. This source is a part of the The Napoleonic Experience teaching module.

The Mode of Exterminating the Black Army as Practised by the French

The Mode of Exterminating the Black Army as Practised by the French
Annotation
The fighting between the French and the Haitians was very bloody. When the French tried to put down Toussaint in 1802, it took them some five months with an expeditionary force of 23,000. Supplied by locals, the French seized the towns, gradually extending their control to the countryside. Eventually they even captured L’Ouverture but never could quell the uprising. The expeditionary force sent by Napoleon to reconquer Saint Domingue met great resistance. Both sides committed atrocities. Here the French are shown throwing their enemies overboard to a certain death. Such tactics ultimately failed, however, as the blacks established an independent republic of Haiti. This source is a part of the The Napoleonic Experience teaching module.

Revenge Taken by the Black Army for the Cruelties Practised on Them by the French

Revenge Taken by the Black Army for the Cruelties Practised on Them by the French
Annotation
This execution in Haiti simply suspends the French officer in the air, slowly strangling him to death. His struggles, emphasized by the convulsing legs, reveal the hatred visited on opponents, themselves guilty of so many atrocities.

The Pennsylvania Gazette: Magnitude of the Insurrection (12 October 1791)

Annotation
The magnitude of the Haitian insurrection quickly became clear as alarmed observers related that considerable armies were being raised to fight the rebels. It is noteworthy that such reports even to northern U.S. newspapers expressed little sympathy for the rebels.

The Pennsylvania Gazette: Blame Now Falls (16 May 1792)

Annotation
The blame for the Haitian Revolution now falls, at least according to the author of this letter, on the "blood–thirsty aristocracy," which has created dissensions among the French. The author also expresses alarm at the thought of the revolt spreading to other islands in the Caribbean.

The Pennsylvania Gazette: White Refugees (17 July 1793)

Annotation
This newspaper article reports sympathetically on the situation of the white refugees fleeing Haiti because of uprising. The articles details how the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia met the influx of these refugees.

The Pennsylvania Gazette: Free blacks and mulattos flee (4 December 1793)

Annotation
Along with whites, free blacks and mulattos were also among those who fled the Haitian uprising. Mulattos could own slaves and plantations, and many of them did. Free blacks often manned the militias used to hunt down runaway slaves. Like the white settlers, both groups therefore had reason to flee. But, as this source relates, states such as South Carolina feared the consequences of their influence on the state’s own slave population.

The Pennsylvania Gazette: Unrest Continues (28 September 1796)

Annotation
This newspaper details how despite the abolition of slavery in Haiti, turbulence continued in many parts of the colony. The French relied on local generals, including Toussaint L’Ouverture, to try to restore order.

The Pennsylvania Gazette: U.S. Vigilance (13 December 1797)

Annotation
The Haitian uprising stoked the fears of whites in the United States that a similar uprising would occur among enslaved populations in their country. This article relates how vigilance remained at a high pitch and rumors of rebellion were enough to cause a virtual panic as slaveowners dreaded the possible importation of rebellion from Saint Domingue.

Credits

From LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, https://revolution.chnm.org/exhibits/show/liberty--equality--fraternity/slavery-and-the-haitian-revolu

How to Cite This Source

"Source Collection: Slavery and the Haitian Revolution," in World History Commons, https://worldhistorycommons.org/source-collection-slavery-and-haitian-revolution [accessed March 29, 2024]