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SLAVE RESISTANCE STUDIES AND THE SAINT DOMINGUE SLAVE REVOLT : SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS David Geggus Department o

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Slave Resistance Studies and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt: Some Preliminary Considerations (Paper #4) David Geggus University of Florida, Department of History

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SLAVE RESISTANCE STUDIES AND THE SAINT DOMINGUE SLAVE REVOLT : SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

David Geggus Department o f Hi s t o r y University o f Florida

#4 Winter 1983

Pub1i s h e d by t h e L a t i n American and Caribbean Center of F l o r i da I n t e r n a t i ona1 Universi t y Editor: Associate E d i t o r s :

Lowell W. Gudmundson Department o f H i s t o r y Jorge Sal a z a r - C a r r i l l o Department o f Economics W i l l i a m T. Vickers Department o f Soci 01ogy/An t h r o p o l ogy

The insurrection t h a t broke out i n the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue in August 1791 was the greatest and sole really successful slave revolt there has ever been.l Eventually t o destroy what was then probably the wealthiest colony i n the world, transforming i t into Haiti, the Tropics' f i r s t post-colonial s t a t e , i t has been largely ignored by the current spate of research into "sl ave resi stance." T h i s has tended t o concentrate on Engl i s hspeaking societies and Brazil, or on aspects of resistance other than armed revolt. While the Saint Domingue Revolution, broadly described, has i t s e l f given r i s e t o a very considerable body of 1iterature, much of i t i s superf i c i a l and even i t s best examples have used only a small part of the relevant documentation. Our knowledge of the slave revol t, i n f a c t , has progressed 1i t t l e since ~ a u l g u sSannon's account of 1920, or even Beaubrun Ardoui n's of 1853.~ This paper i s an attempt t o examine some of the ideas and concepts generated by studies of slave resistance i n general, and t o b r i n g them together w i t h some prel imi nary findings of my own continuing research into the Saint Domingue sl ave revol u t i on. C u l ture and Resistance

Slaves' resistance t o slavery covered a broad spectrum. Armed revolt was only one extreme of a continuum which stretched from s a t i r e , lying, feigning i l l ness and working slow, through tool-breaking, t h e f t , f l i g h t and s t r i k e s , t o sel f-muti 1ation, suicide and infanticide, arson, poisoning and physical assault. Of course, one may question the unity of such a diverse range of a c t i v i t i e s , and different historians have analysed them according t o different c r i t e r i a . In order t o exclude accidental or venal actions, Frederickson and Lasch defined "true resistance" as overt, communal and systematic. Individual, sporadic and clandestine a c t i v i t i e s they defined as "intransigence."3 For Orlando Patterson, the basic division was between violent and passive resistance, a1 though he d i d not consider v i 01 ence t o property.4 Eugene Genovese, however, found a "qua1 i t a t i v e 1eap" between n i h i l i s t i c a c t s of "naively directed" violence and those acts of rebellion and f l i g h t which . ~ d Mu1 1i n simiJ arly d i s t i nrepresented a bodily rejection of sl a ~ e r ~Geral

gui shed "i nward" from "outward" resistance, drawing attention both t o i t s physical location and t o i t s psycho1 ogical imp1 ications f o r the sl a ~ e . ~ Such distinctions, however, are d i f f i c u l t t o maintain. I t i s not easy t o see t h a t the f l i g h t of a solitary and selfishly-motivated maroon was more "political ," o r a more effective challenge t o the slave regime, than the reckless murder of a hated master. Nor need i t have been more "selfenhancing" than an a c t of sabotage. In the same way, a midwife's systematic acts of infanticide could well be regarded as more, or less, p o l i t i c a l l y mature o r self-enhancing than a workforce downing tools t o get an unpopular overseer d i smi ssed. Armed revol t, furthermore, a1 though regarded as the "highest" form of resistance, was almost invariably f u t i l e and selfdestructive, often confused in purpose and not always aimed a t overthrowing the slave regime. Perhaps this i s why Genovese has subsequently tended t o s t r e s s the breadth and continuity of resi stance w i t h i n sl avery "Everyday forms" of resistance, even i f simultaneously expressing accommodation, nurtured a collective spiritual l i f e which spawned the more dramatic acts of rebellion.' ~ has extended Along with writers l i k e Lawrence Levine and A1 bert ~ a b o t e a u ,he in new and subtle ways our understanding of resistance t o show how, even under the very restricted conditions of United States slavery , resistance permeated the culture of the slaves. T h i s trend i s what appears t o have caused Michael Craton t o rethink his work on West Indian slave rebellions and t o see them as basi cal ly determined by a "cul ture of resistance . # l 9 Lying behind these questions of culture i s the d i f f i c u l t subject of the "slave personality." I t i s Genovese again who, i n suggesting a Freudian rather than a Behaviourist model, would appear best able t o resolve the contradictions of the master-sl ave re1 ationshi p and t o explain how subordi nation and resistance coul d co-exi s t so perpl exingly i n a slave society.10 These. developments i n the h i s t o r i ography of s l avery are he1 pf ul when confronting what i s the major, b u t l i t t l e explored, paradox of the Haitian Revolution--that the greatest of a1 1 slave revol t s took place in a colony where previous overt resistance had been comparatively s l i g h t . l l By stressing t h a t resistance was a subtle, omnipresent phenomenon t h a t could co-exi s t w i t h

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accommodation in the same person, i n the same a c t even, one can understand more easily how the "1 oyal slave" became a rebel and how a relatively stab1 e society could collapse 1 ike a house of cards. While one may t h u s see resistance a s part of the general cultural context of the slave's 1i f e , i t i s l e s s certain t h a t one can 1i n k i t more specifically with the slaves' degree of cultural autonomy, which seems t o be the thrust of the work of such scholars as Edward Brathwaite and Monica schuler.12 Writing of Jamaica's slave e l i t e and free coloured community, Brathwaite has argued t h a t i t was because they rejected t h e i r own folk culture t h a t they failed t o become a self-conscious and cohesive group, "and consequently perhaps" t o win t h e i r freedom "as t h e i r cousins i n Haiti had done."13 This surely exaggerates the political implications of cultural distance. As the example of Jamaica we1 1 shows, a creol ized, Christianized slave cul ture coul d indeed be a vehicle for rebellion.14 I t also seems t o misconstrue, as regards these two social groups, what was f o r them the most common nexus between culture and political action. Caught between two worlds, was i t not precisely t h e i r marginality t h a t caused them t o produce the bulk of a l l slave rebel leaders? As w i t h the d'Antons and de Robespierres of Ancien Regime France, would-be a r i s t o c r a t s who became radical revolutionaries, surely i t was t h e i r rejection by those w i t h whom they identified t h a t heightened thei r sel f-awareness. Moreover, as Mullin points out w i t h respect t o Virginia, the slave e l i t e ' s a b i l i t y t o r e s i s t was enhanced by i t s familiarity w i t h the ways of white society, and t h i s i s what accounts for i t s prominence among slave runaways. Acculturation, he argues, led t o resistance.15 Similarly, i t was the most assimilated slaves who were the most likely t o respond t o news arriving from abroad, and who were best able t o p r o f i t from political divisions in the master class. While i t has been suggested t h a t Martinique survived the French Revolution better than did Saint Domingue because i t s slave population was more creolized,16 i t may on the contrary explain why during 1789-90 Saint Domingue's slaves remained passive through two years of turmoil, while those of Martinique rebelled on hearing the f i r s t news from France. This i s not t o deny, however, t h a t ethnicity was frequently a vehicle f o r rev01 t (notably in Jamaica and Brazil), o r t h a t newly-arrived Africans were

probably the most rebellious of slaves, ( i f not necessarily f o r s t r i c t l y cul tural reasons). A common cul ture, especi a1 ly 1anguage and re1 i g i on, were clearly very important i n the organization of resistance. B u t t h a t culture could as easily be European-oriented a s African. For slaves or f r e e coloureds, culture was scarcely a vital factor i n the shaping of a sense of separate identity. Otherwise, i t would seem d i f f i c u l t t o explain why Saint Domi ngue' s rev01 u t i onari es, both sl ave and free col oured, came from the most assimilated, Europeanized segments of non-white society. Maroon Studies The study of sl ave fugitives, especi a1 ly as regards Saint Domi ngue, has been strongly marked by divergent ideol ogical perspectives. Among the mai n questions a t issue are the motivation of slaves i n running away, the extent of marronage, the maroon's relations w i t h colonial society and the connections between marronage and slave revolution. ( i ) Central t o the debate on the maroon's motivation, as t o any assessment of slavery, i s the question of the slave's a t t i t u d e t o freedom, perhaps the t r i c k i e s t problem t h a t confronts historians of the institution. For the Haitian school of historians, and for certain French scholars such as GastonMartin and Lucien Peytraud, i t was the slave's desire f o r l i b e r t y t h a t marronage quintessentially expressed. Such writers, o r those of them who have f e l t the need t o defend this opinion, tend t o appeal t o the "logic of Haitian history" or the "nature of Man" for supporting evidence, as well as t o the f a c t t h a t i t cannot be disproved.17 Other historians, however, apparently more empirical i n approach, have attempted t o r e l a t e the incidence of marronage t o ad hoc, everyday causes, such as the standard of food supply, changes of plantation overseer, the desire t o v i s i t friends or relatives, the fear o r resentment of punishment, o r of demotion within the plantation hierarchy. These writers represent marronage not as a militant rejection of slavery b u t as a safety-valve w i t h i n the system. They s t r e s s the short duration of most runaways' absence and the planters' seeming lack of concern w i t h the phenomenon. Yvan Debbasch, the most extreme exponent of t h i s interpretation, argues t h a t a desire f o r free-

dom, before the nineteenth century, was not an important cause of marronage, and Gabriel Debien also doubts t h a t i t motivated most cases of f l i g h t . ' * Debien, however, concedes that some slaves f l ed without any apparent reason, and notes t h a t sometimes good masters had more runaways than d i d bad masters. T h i s point i s also made for the Haitian school by Jean Fouchard, a1 though the examples he gives actual ly undermine the argument. l9 Fouchard, f o r his part, allows t h a t incidental causes had some part i n motivating fugitives, and even Debbasch accepts t h a t slave artisans who fled t o the towns t o work were seeking a higher social position. The two schools, therefore, are not necessarily so f a r apart. Their differences a r e t o some extent merely a matter of terminology. The short-term absenteei sm w i t h apparently easi ly i denti f i abl e causes, which Debien observes was very much the most common variety, i s excluded by Fouchard from his definition of marronage a1 together. He claims, as does Barry Higman i n respect of ~ a m a i c a ,t h~a~t such cases were rarely those advertised i n the newspapers. Debien replies t h a t the published l i s t s of recaptured maroons reveal that the usual period of absence was counted i n days or weeks, or a t most a few months. Obviously, what i s needed here i s an attempt t o quantify different types of marronage. For colonial Virginia, Gerald Mu1 1i n has estimated t h a t a t h i r d of a l l runaways mentioned i n the newspapers were seeking t o v i s i t relations, and As another t h i r d were therefore represented "1 i t t l e more than truancy." a r t i sans and wai t i ngmen seeking an independent 1 i f e i n the towns, he concl udes t h a t f iel d sl aves "rarely rejected slavery completely" by absconding. Newly arrived Africans, however, "often" fled.21 In Saint Domingue, on the other hand, even i n 1790-91 when they were i n f i n i t e l y more numerous than ever before, new arrival s accounted for only a small i f sl i ghtly disproportionate percentage of the fugitives adverti ~ e d . ? Because ~ of the hope1 essness of many new a r r i v a l s ' attempts t o escape, Debbasch regards such maroons as "sick." Rather more usefully, Debien points out t h a t the ethnic groups most associated w i t h marronage in Saint Domingue were a1 so those reputed by the planters t o adapt best t o slavery--the "Congo" and "Mozambique." Fouchard notes t h a t they accounted f o r over half of a l l the advertised maroons. On the other hand, the

ethnic groups with the most rebellious reputation prone t o b o t h rev01t and fl i g h t were among the rarest i n the col ony--the "Canga ," "Mi serabl es ," "Bouriquis" and, one might add, the " ~ a r a m e n t ~ . " Nevertheless, ~~ i t is difficult t o see the flight of newly-arrived Africans as anything b u t a total rejection of sl avery, a1 bei t frequently ineffective and not really predicated, as Mull in observes, on any actual experience of slavery. A1 though i t i s fundamental t o the study of slavery , and of a1 1 pol i tical and social subordination, i t i s tempting t o dismiss the controversy about the desire for freedom as b o t h inadequately articulated and beyond resolution. One should surely ask: what sort of freedom? and take account of varying geographic 1ocati ons, soci a1 positions and pol i t i cal possi bi 1i t i es. For many slaves, the 1 i f e of a fugitive would have meant not "freedom" b u t a diminution of what 1 iberties they enjoyed. John Bl assingame, for example, seems t o find no difficulty in asserting t h a t the United States slaves constantly "yearned for freedom," while attributing their acts of marronage t o ad hoc causes.24 Indeed, for present purposes, one should remember t h a t among those slaves who "pulled foot" on the arrival of a new overseer and then returned voluntarily was Nat Turner, later t o lead North America's most destructive revolt. ( i i ) I t has always been an article of faith for the Haitian school t h a t S a i n t Domingue contained several thousands of maroons and t h a t their numbers went on increasing up t o the Revolution. While Jean Fouchard i s the only historian seriously t o attempt t o quantify the phenomenon, his use of figures lacks rigour and i s on occasion fanciful and prone t o large errorsYz5though in no other work has marronage been so vividly depicted. Using the 1i s t s of runaways pub1 i shed in the colonial newspapers, he claims t o show t h a t marronage increased steadily during the l a s t thirty years of slavery and sharply in the period after 1784. However, he does not allow for the advertisements being dupl i cated in different newspapers, nor, i t seems, i n successive i ssues of the same newspaper. Neither does he distinguish between notices of flight, recapture or subsequent sale, and obviously cannot allow for the increasing use of the press by the planters or the colonial authorities, nor as Debien suggests, for the increasing efficiency of the rural police.26 Hence one cannot be sure even that marronage was increasing a t the same rate as the

s l a v e population. A1 1 one can be s u r e o f i n f a c t i s t h a t , a s new s e t t l e m e n t s c u t deeper i n t o the mountains and f o r e s t s , the a r e a remaining where maroons could move f r e e l y was s t e a d i l y diminishing. However, this might simply have meant t h a t the maroons became more dependent on the p l a n t a t i o n s f o r subsistence. Few p l a n t a t i o n s seem t o have avoided t h e l o s s o f runaways. Some even had f o u r o r f i v e per c e n t o f their workforces missing a t any one time. T h i s would indeed suggest a f i g u r e o f several thousands a t 1 arge i n the colony. However, m o r t a l i t y was probably high amongst maroons and many were re-employed c o v e r t l y by o t h e r slaveowners, e s p e c i a l l y i n the towns. The best known and l o n g e s t l i v e d maroon band, t h e Maniel, were thought t o number i n 1778 a t most 700-800, and i n 1785 a census revealed, a f t e r many had died of smallpox, only 133, n o t the "several thousand" mentioned by Eugene ~ e n o v e s e . ~ ~A valuable and neglected source i n this connection i s a pamphlet by the 1 i b e r a l p l a n t e r Milscent de Musset, who acquired a high r e p u t a t i o n a s a maroon f i g h t e r , l e a d i n g u n i t s of f r e e coloureds. Public opinion, he s a i d , always g r e a t l y i n f l a t e d the numbers of maroons o p e r a t i n g i n bands. People i n the towns spoke o f 10,000 where there were r e a l l y only 3 0 0 . ~ ~T h i s was the s t r e n g t h of Canga's band o f the 1770s, (though perhaps only i t s armed men). I t appears t o have been S a i n t Domingue's s t r o n g e s t maroon band. Perhaps a 1 i t t l e small by the standards of t h e Guianas, i t nonetheless compares favourably w i t h the average B r a z i l i a n mocambo, Palmares excepted, and w i t h the Jamaican Maroon Towns during t h e i r mil i t a n t period. Considering the problems of s u b s i s t e n c e , the c o l o n y ' s s i z e and d e n s i t y of popul a t i ~ n i, t~ i~s probably unreal i s t i c t o expect l a r g e r u n i t s t o have e x i s t e d . Whether the a c t i v i t y of t h e s e bands was i n c r e a s i n g o r n o t i n the 1780s would seem impossible t o say w i t h any c e r t a i n t y . On an i m p r e s s i o n i s t i c 1eve1 , maroon a c t i v i t y c e r t a i n l y appears t o have been more c o n s i d e r a b l e i n the 1770s, both i n the North and the West, o r even e a r l i e r i n the century. Although M. Fouchard' s ' H i s t o r i q u e du marronage' confl a t e s a1 1 manner o f d i s p a r a t e e v e n t s , i t i s conspicuously t h i n on material f o r the 1 7 8 0 s . ~ ~I t was then t h a t the c o l o n i a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n and the Maniel maroons made peace.

According t o Edner Brutus, marronage was an "insurrectionary movement." "Flight," i n the words of Leslie Manigat, "led t o fight." Arson and the attempted murder of whites, he claims, were among the "normal, i f not frequent, actions of maroons throughout t h e eighteenth century. "31 Undoubtedly, such violence was a s old a s marronage i t s e l f , b u t was i t a typical c h a r a c t e r i s t i c ? The number of whites k i l l e d by maroon r a i d e r s i n S a i n t Domingue seems t o have been actually very small. Raiders usually sought t o carry off foodstuffs, female slaves o r 1 ivestock, notes Debien, and rarely attacked whites. Even i f a planter l o s t twenty runaways, he claims, i t was regarded by him a s an economic l o s s and not a s a danger.32 The "Congoes," who constituted most of Saint Domingue's slave fugitives, and were thought t o be the ethnic group most prone t o marronage, were also regarded by the planters, r a t h e r curiously, a s the most t r a c t a b l e o r "docile" or Africans. Colonial administrators, on the other hand, had t o adopt a broader, l e s s plantation-centric view and always tended t o regard maroon bands a s a potential source of rev01 t. The m i l i t i a colonel, Mil scent, i t i s i n t e r e s t i n g t o note, regarded marronage a s an a1 ternative t o conspiracy and rebel1 ion. He thus explained the l u l l i n maroon a c t i v i t i e s i n t h e 1750s, the period of t h e Macandal poisoning p ~ o t . 3 3 When he heard the news of the 1791 uprising, he regarded i t , j u s t a s do the Haitian school, as p a r t of a continuing t r a d i t i o n , though i n t h i s he was e n t i r e l y a1 one among the planters of Saint Domingue. There was another side, however, t o maroon-sl ave re1 ations. J u s t 1i k e t h e maroons of Jamaica and Suriname, t h e Maniel made a t r e a t y w i t h the colonial a u t h o r i t i e s t o capture and return runaway slaves; some they kept a s W r i t i n g of t h e " p a r a s i t i c economies" of the Bahian slaves themselves. mocambos i n Brazil, Stuart Schwartz observed t h a t some enjoyed a degree of cooperation w i t h white society, d i d not seek t o overthrow t h e slave regime and i n t h e i r depredations preyed more on the slaves than on the whites. Mull i n has stressed similar aspects of marronage i n the British Caribbean, and Debien e.~~ also has noted h o s t i l i t y between slaves and runaways i n Saint ~ o m i n ~ u The p o l i t i c a l consciousness and militancy of even organized groups of maroons can certainly be questioned. According t o Yvan Debbasch, maroons normal l y sought t o avoid clashes w i t h white society, and i n Jamaica the best-organised maroon ( ii i )

groups certainly sought t o minimise f r i c t i o n w i t h the planters, even forbidding the k i l l i n g of whites.35 Sylvia de Groot observes t h a t i n Suriname a c t s of revenge by maroons "were not rare," b u t i n general she pla'ces t h e i r attacks i n the context of a need f o r commodities unavailable i n the forest. The account of Johannes King, moreover, appears t o present the maroons' h o s t i l i t i e s a s retaliation for those of the whites, and the same has been said of the quilombolos of ~ a l m a r e s . ~In~ Jamaica, both the beginning of maroon h o s t i l i t i e s i n the 1670s and the two Maroon Wars of the following century have been viewed as responses t o white encroachment, rather than autonomous a c t s of aggression.37 Such developments do suggest, nevertheless, t h a t the expansion of coffee cultivation i n the mountains of Saint Domingue d u r i n g the 1780s could have had far-reaching repercussions. (iv) Sl ave revol t s i n Jamaica, Surinam, Saint Domi ngue and el sewhere, wri t e s Eugene Genovese, "accompanied and fol 1owed 1arge-scal e maroon wars. " As regards Saint Domingue, however, i t i s not a t a l l clear of which "largescale war" he could have been t h i n k i n g . 3 8 For the Haitian school, too, i t i s axiomatic t h a t the 1791 revol t was inspired and led by maroons, and that i t developed out of a burgeoning swell of marronage. B u t t h i s has y e t t o be proved. The only e f f o r t s t o substantiate this thesis empirically have been those of Jean Fouchard, and they form perhaps the weakest part of his work. He begins by presenting a l i s t of rebel chiefs of the mid-1790s as being already active maroon leaders i n 1789, b u t of t h i s he provides not a shred of evidence. He thereafter designates a l l rebels, unless they were f r e e coloureds, a s maroons, and he a1 so includes among them such figures as Jean Kina, who was not a maroon and who actually fought f o r the white planters.39 In a suggestive and we1 1-received conference paper, the Haitian Lesl i e Manigat points out t h a t Fouchard simply equates maroons and rebels, b u t he, too, ends up endorsing the Haitian thesis by appealing t o "the logic of historical reasoning."40 I t i s perfectly 1ogical , Debien agrees, t h a t maroon bands already i n existence would have joined i n the 1791 revol t. B u t , he observes, there i s no evidence of it.41 The only band t h a t we know of, the Maniel IDokos, kept a1 oof for several years, and subsequently pl ayed a rather

10 ambiguous r o l e , f i g h t i n g f o r S a i n t Domingue's Spanish invaders and keeping o r sell ing their bl ack c a p t i v e s a s sl a ~ e s . ~ ~ One might add t h a t those a r e a s where maroon bands were s a i d t o have been a c t i v e on the eve o f the evolution,^^ were n o t those where t h e s l a v e r e v o l t broke o u t and were frequently those p a r t s of the colony where the p l a n t a t i o n regime was t o s u f f e r l e a s t . 4 4 During the Revolution, moreover, t h e c o l o n i s t s continued t o d i s t i n g u i s h between "marrons" and "insurgEs," and i n the a r e a s where sl avery survived " p e t i t marronage" p e r s i ~ t e d . ~ ~ What of the 1eaders of the sl ave i n s u r r e c t i o n ? Boukman, Jean-Frangoi s , Biassou and Jeannot, the f i r s t four t o achieve prominence, a r e generally a s s e r t e d by h i s t o r i a n s t o have commanded bands of maroons, although no proof of this seems t o have been p u t forward. M. Fouchard, i t i s t r u e , has found an i n t r i g u i n g advertisement f o r a "fierce-1 ooking" maroon named Bouquemens, dated 1779. However, the name was n o t a1 1 t h a t r a r e among the s l a v e s , and i f this was the real Boukman, a t 5'3" t a l l he was c l e a r l y n o t the colossus o f t r a d i t i o n a l accounts.46 Contemporary d e s c r i p t i o n s , however, mention n o t Boukman' s h e i g h t b u t the s i z e of his head and they could well match up w i t h the 1779 description. In any c a s e , there i s i n the Archives Nationales, P a r i s , an e a r l y nineteenth century memoir by the son o f a former owner of Boukman, which d e s c r i b e s h i m a s "a very bad slave. .who c o n t i n u a l l y went on the maroon and used t o r e t u r n a t n i g h t t o s t e a l even from h i s comrades." Apparently, he was caught and s o l d several times before being bought by a M. Cl&ent, whom he k i l l e d a t the beginning of the uprising.47 S i m i l a r l y , i n the a r c h i v e s of Sevil l e there e x i s t s a l e t t e r by Bi assou o f November 1793 which mentions t h a t J e a n - F r a n ~ o i s was a f u g i t i v e a t the s t a r t of the revol t.48 Hence a connection can be e s t a b l i shed between the revol utionary 1eadership and an experience o f marronage. However, there i s no suggestion t h a t either man was a member o f , s t i l l less the l e a d e r o f , a band of maroons. The documents, i n f a c t , tend t o imply the c o n t r a r y . Furthermore, such evidence a s t h e r e i s a1 so s u g e s t s t h a t Boukman and Jeannot, and probably B i assou, were a1 1 r e s i d e n t s on t h e i r pl antat i o n s a t the time of the uprising. I t very much seems t h a t i t was organized from within the system and n o t from o u t s i d e i t .

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Typo1 ogies of Sl ave Rebel 1ion ( i ) R i sing and fa1 1ing expectations A sense of r e l a t i v e deprivation, caused either by worsening circumstances or by heightened expectations, has long been a common element i n the analysis of the causes of revolution. Among the "four situations conducive t o slave rebellion" p u t forward by Michael Craton i n 1974, we find not surprisingly "conditions of extreme repression" and the "frustration of slave expectations. "49 Eugene Genovese also s t a t e s that slave rev01 t s generally occurred where slavery was commercial rather than patriarchal i n ethos and where economic distress was intense.50 Insurrections certainly seem t o have been linked, and not l e a s t i n Saint Domingue, w i t h areas of sugar rather than of coffee or of other staple production. However, t h i s might have had l e s s t o do w i t h differing degrees of hardship than with plantation size and ease of communication. C.L.R. James's point about the "industrial" character of the sugar plantation has a l o t t o be said f o r i t , (a1though he himself has The abandoned i t on what seem t o be erroneous grounds i n the recent edition of Bl ack Jacobins) .51 Marian Kilson, in f a c t , has argued t h a t most revolts i n the United States took place not in the Lower South, where the slave regime was harshest, b u t i n the areas of sl avebreedi ng and diversi f i ed agricul t ~ r e . ~ 'A1 though t h i s needs t o be qua1 i f i e d , i t does seem t h a t i t was the f a c t of change rather than the conditions themselves which was the important factor. B u t the evidence i s not a t a l l clear. While the Nat Turner revol t may be seen against a background of economic depression i n a backward area of Virginia, the Gabriel Prosser conspiracy of 1800 i s s e t by Gerald M u l l i n i n a context of economic expansion and amelioration of the slave regime, particularly f o r the e l i t e slaves involved. 53 Resi stance, according to the former sl ave Frederick Doug1ass, resulted more often from indulgence and rising expectations than from severity.54 The great majority of rebel leaders, a t l e a s t , both i n the U.S. and the Caribbean, came from the ranks of the better treated slaves, though t h i s i s a1 so true of the t r a i t o r s who betrayed slave conspiracies.55 In the British colonies, the picture i s no more clear cut. The three largest revolts i n the British Caribbean, those i n Barbados 1816, Demerara

1823, and i n Jamaica 1831, took place i n a period of f a l l i n g sugar prices and declining p r o f i t s f o r the planters. The great Christmas Rebellion of 1831 coincided w i t h the lowest sugar prices f o r 100 years. However, one cannot simply assume what s o r t of impact such trends had on the l i v e s of the slaves. Barry Higman has shown how demographic changes resulting from the abolition of the slave trade i n 1807 restricted the upward mobil i ty of slaves i n Jamaica. "The resulting stress," he argues, "was a basic cause of the rebellion of 1831," i n which e l i t e slaves were f o r the f i r s t time T h i s may well have been so; the argument i s compel1 ing. However, one should note t h a t the slave e l i t e i n Jamaica was already being associated w i t h con~ the causative factors t h a t spiracies as f a r back a s 1791 and 1 7 7 6 ~when Higman adduces were not present. Moreover, the theory t h a t Jamaican slaves were actually being worked harder i n the nineteenth century, t o which both H i gman and Craton give some support,58 has been convincingly chal 1enged by J.R. Ward. He claims t h a t a f t e r 1800 "slaves were better fed, l e s s severely worked and enjoying a higher rate of reproduction."59 Not a l l of his arguments appear sound ( f o r example, those concerning the use of livestock and pl oughs) , b u t his data on the increasing average height of creole sl aves, the reduction i n the amount of cane-planting performed and the increase i n f e r t i l i ty r a t e s woul d seem eloquent. As regards Saint Domingue, i t i s really too soon to generalize about changes i n any aspect of slave conditions. Gaston-Martin wrote t h i r t y years ago t h a t towards the end of the colonial period slaves were treated worse, specifically worked 1onger, because of incipient soil exhaustion, increasing demand f o r colonial products and the clearing of new land.60 However, he made no study of the problem, and i f his assertions are correct, the factors he mentions would apply primarily t o the coffee-growing regions, l e a s t affected by the Revolution, and not to the great sugar e s t a t e s t h a t were i t s heart1 and. Hence a causal connection between increasing work1 oad and rebel lion would seem d i f f i c u l t to establish. My own research i s beginning t o suggest that, i n the 1780s, sugar plantation slaves may indeed have been worked harder i n the North than el sewhere i n the colony,61 b u t whether t h i s was a recent development i t i s a s y e t impossible to say.

Gabriel Debien, i n fact, has written of the growth a f t e r 1770 of a more humane a t t i t u d e on the planters' part, which was underpinned by the rising cost of slaves and sensitivity to anti-slavery propaganda. The sick, the newly-arrived and the pregnant were the chief beneficiaries, b u t a general improvement i n food supply and housing sometimes also resulted.62 Manumission, the freeing of slaves, was also more common, and a l l contemporaries agreed t h a t outright cruelty was much rarer than i n the past. In 1789, things s t i l l had a very long way t o go, b u t the Revolution i t s e l f caused the planters to tread more careful ly.63 In one crucial respect, i t may be t h a t conditions actually were worsening. The expansion of coffee cultivation i n the mountains, together w i t h soil erosion, was reducing the amount of food crops grown i n the colony a t the same time as the population was increasing a t a fantastic rate.64 Yet one should not draw hasty conclusions, f o r food imports from North America were also increasing i n t h i s period, f a c i l i t a t e d by a new free port decree. So f a r , we have no evidence t h a t Saint Domingue was suffering a subsistence c r i s i s , though droughts were frequent i n the 1780s and they created havoc i n the colony. B u t then again, the South and West were affected no l e s s than the North. Some said t h a t i n the North the slaves were better fed, b u t not everyone agreed. The situation, then, was complex and many more plantation studies are needed. Whether o r not, however, conditions on the plantations were substantively improving o r declining, i t does seem possible t o speak of rising expectations among the slave population. In the f i r s t place, even i f the movement t o improve conditions affected very few slaves directly, i t may s t i l l have been sufficient t o sharpen among the r e s t a sense of r e l a t i v e deprivation. T h i s movement, moreover, was given 1egi sl ative expression i n a number of controverMost importantly, these s i a l royal decrees d u r i n g the years 1784-86. envisaged t h a t sl aves woul d denounce instances of mistreatment t o the colonial authorities- -according t o the whites, an extremely dangerous innovation. The decrees were b i t t e r l y resisted and apparently never really enforced, b u t the excitement they created in the northern plain was said to have caused considerable unrest, t h a t i s self-assertion, among the slaves.65 I t i s i n

t h i s context t h a t one should see the notorious Lejeune incident of 1788. Lejeune was a planter denounced by his workforce for torturing some of his slaves t o death. The colonial authorities attempted to prosecute him, b u t gave up i n the face of white h o s t i l i t y and obstruction by the courts. Usually cited to show the persistence of barbarous behaviour i n the colony, the case i s probably more significant as evidence t h a t new standards were being applied, and t h a t the slaves were responding t o them.66 W i t h the outbreak of the French Revolution, the traditional sources of authority i n the colony (Governor, Intendant, Superior Counci 1) , were assail ed and overthrown, or, 1ike the forces of repression (army, mi1 i t i a , mar$chausse'e), progressively paralyzed. By the end of 1789, slaves i n Saint Domingue were being overheard discussing "the revol t of the whi t e sl aves i n France," who had divided up the land.67 The e f f o r t s of the Amis des Noirs t o abolish the slave trade a1 so became known. A common feature of slave revol t s i n the Abolitionist era was the claim by insurgents that t h e i r masters were withholding from them an a c t of emancipation (sometimes only p a r t i a l ) granted by the metropol i tan power.68 In certain earl i e r rebel1 ions, too, simil a r claims were made. Whether an astute ploy o r a genuine be1 i e f , i t i s hard t o say. In Saint Domingue, however, i n the two months before the slave revol t broke out news spread through the colony of a National Assembly decree giving political equality to certain free coloureds. Such reports could easily be m i sconstrued, o r deftly expl oi ted, by s1 ave ma1 contents, especial ly as the white colonists were preparing t o r e s i s t the decree w i t h force. A t the secret meeting a t which the August uprising was pl anned, bogus "official documents" were read out which announced t h a t the French k i n g had granted the slaves three free days per week.69 ( i i ) Re1 igious, secular, millenarian From the Santidade of l a t e 16th century Brazil t o the Black Baptists of the Christmas Rebel 1ion i n Jamaica, re1 igion provided slave rebel s w i t h 1eaders, organization, ideologies and a community of feel ing. In comparing the three best known United States rebellions o r conspiracies, both Gerald Mullin and Eugene Genovese have contrasted them according to t h e i r re1 igious content, although i n quite different ways. All three made use of

re1 igious meetings and invoked re1 igious sanction, b u t t o differing degrees. According to Mu1 1i n , the conspiracies of Denmark Vesey and, particul arly , of Gabriel Prosser failed because they were too secular i n approach. Unlike Nat Turner, they couched t h e i r appeal i n political not religious terms and Prosser, especially, neglected t o use e i t h e r the "African wizards" or the methodist camp meetings t o appeal t o the rural blacks.70 Genovese, on the other hand, contrasts the "messianic," "apocalyptic" and suicidal revolt of Nat Turner w i t h what he sees a s the better organized, more r e a l i s t i c attempts of Vesey and, w i t h some reservations, Prosser. In t h e i r political maturity, he suggests, they approached the stature of the Dominguan leader, Toussaint ~ o u v e r t u r e . ~ ~1 As regards Brazil, however, i t i s preci sely the meticul ous organization of the religiously inspired revolts of 1807-35 t h a t i s stressed by Edison Carneiro, who contrasts them w i t h the secular, anarchic and ineffectual insurrection of Manuel ~ a l a i o . Michael ~~ Craton, on the other hand, makes no such distinction when discussing the three most important rebel 1ions i n the British Caribbean. He points out that, while Christian revivalism played a vital role i n two of the great nineteenth century uprisings, i t was t o t a l l y absent from the Barbados rebellion of 1816. He concludes i t was not a necessary condition f o r revol t.73 How usefully the "religious" revolts may be termed millenarian i s a question that Craton has pondered i n a number of a r t i c l e s . Although tempted, along w i t h other writers, t o apply Norman Cohn's well known formulation, he has now concluded t h a t i t i s too "Eurocentric" and "formulistic" t o f i t the f a c t s of Afro-Caribbean revolt.74 I f , a s he argues, the "late" rebellions were specifically characterized by moderate aims and methods, then millenarian woul d indeed seem an inappropriate description f o r them.75 According t o Eugene Genovese, the "revol utionary mill enial i sm" of Nat Turner was a r a r i t y i n North American sl ave cul ture and i n traditional African re1 igion as we1 1, a1 though Monica Schul e r strongly d i sagrees. "Even i n Haiti's great revol ution," Genovese observes, "mil 1enial i s t and messianic prophecy pl ayed only a fleeting role."76

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When the aims of slave rebel s are so d i f f i c u l t to apprai se, even i n a we1 1 documented insurrection 1ike the Christmas Rebel 1 ion, the historian obviously has to tread carefully i n applying such terms as millenarian or i n denyi ng t h e i r val i d i ty W i t h the Saint Domingue revol t, the probl ems are greater than usual. Lasting so much longer and covering a f a r greater area than other revol ts, i t invol ved many diverse el ements, secul a r , re1 igious, perhaps millenarian. A particular problem i s the unscrambling of i t s voodoo and Christian components. T h i s may seem unnecessary to anyone familiar w i t h the interpenetration of voodoo and Christianity i n contemporary Haiti. Yet, some scholars writing about the Revolution have depicted them as antitheses and mutually hostile. Widely quoted, for instance, i s an anti-Christian speech supposedly made a t the meeting which organised the August uprising. Our e a r l i e s t versi i t , however, appears t o be the one published i n Paulgus Sannon's H i s t o i r e of 1920, 130 years a f t e r the event. Howard Sosis, whose thesis argues t h a t eighteenth century voodoo was very l i t t l e influenced by Christianity, comments on the printed speech: " i t i s not possible t o consider i t contemporary w i t h the 1791 meeting."77 I t may, i n f a c t , t e l l us more about Haiti an national i sm and nggri tude i n the twentieth century than about voodoo during the Rev01ution. Similarly, while the voodoo chant "Canga bafio t6" does indeed date from the eighteenth century, i t i s usually accompanied i n the h i storical 1iterature w i t h a translation - "We swear t o destroy the whites," etc.--that i s entirely i n a ~ c u r a t e . ~ ~During the Revolution there i s no evidence of damage t o churches by the insurgents, nor even of t h e f t of sacred vessels from them i n the areas the blacks controlled: f a r from i t . The colonial p r i e s t s were always spared and they were sufficiently well treated t o have l e f t the reputation, fostered by the planters, who hanged one of them, of being the rebels' active collaborators. The curious case of the shaman Romaine l a Prophetesse, who claimed t o be i n touch w i t h the Virgin Mary and t o be inspired by the Holy S p i r i t ; o r of the voodoo p r i e s t Hyacinthe, who sought priestly absolution and blesssing for his followers, and the existence of other houngans w i t h names such a s ~ a i n t e - ~ 6 s uand s l a vierge7' suggests i n

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f a c t t h a t considerable synchreti sation between voodoo and Christianity had a1 ready taken pl ace. W i t h the triumph of the black revolution, we know t h a t leaders such a s Toussaint Louverture and Dessal ines t r i e d to suppress the voodoo c u l t , a s had the French authorities. T h i s doubt1 ess t e s t i f i e s t o i t s subversive potential , for while Christian sensibility might have been a motive a s regards Toussaint, this could not possibly have been so i n Dessalines's case. Although Monica Schuler has eloquently complained t h a t scholars have neglected the pol i tical functions of Afro-American re1 igion, emphasi si ng instead i t s cathartidescapi s t aspect,80 t h i s has never been true of writings about voodoo i n Saint Domingue, which has always been presented as a vehicle for revolution. I t i s of course essential to portray the development of a pan-African cul t i n slave society a s a potentially subversive institution, overcoming previous barriers t o cooperation. Yet one should also point out t h a t the development of voodoo, by enriching the cultural 1i f e of the slaves i n Saint Domingue and adding meaning to t h e i r existence, presumably also helped t o defuse anomic tensions and add t o the s t a b i l i t y of the regime. A t l e a s t , i t was not a one-sided development. A useful antidote t o the tendency t o polarize these particular opposites i s the case of the voodoo p r i e s t Hyacinthe, who indeed led slaves into b a t t l e invoking the protection of magical charms, b u t a s an ally of the white planters. Moreover, one of these planters, Hanus de Jumecourt, was reputed (admittedly , by his enemies) t o have participated i n voodoo.81 For the same reason, one cannot accept Schuler's argument t h a t the persistence of an African religious perspective, specifically the slave's tendency t o see his master a s a sorcerer, 82 necessarily meant a refusal t o accept slavery, when the opposite could easily have been the case. In Saint Domingue, i t was said t h a t the black population regarded not only the rebel chiefs b u t also the white C i v i l Commissioners a s sorcerers and therefore i n v u l nerable.83 This may a1 so have been the basis of de Jume'court's reputation among the blacks of Port au Prince and the Cul-deSac as the "man who knows a l l things." I t i s the same question of culture and pol i t i c s mentioned above.

To return to the revol t of August 1791 : tradition holds t h a t the meeting of e l i t e slaves a t which the uprising was organised was e i t h e r followed by, o r was i t s e l f , a voodoo ceremony, held i n the Bois Caiman. I t was apparently presided over by a priestess and the f i r s t leader of the insurgents, Boukman, and the r i t e s celebrated seem to have been those of the Petro c u l t . While this seems perfectly probable, one should note t h a t the historicity of the Bois Caiman ceremony hangs by quite a slender thread. There i s a contemporary document, a deposition by one of the conspirators, which provides basic d e t a i l s of the meeting of the organizers b u t i t mentions nothing about a religious Perhaps one should not expect i t to. The e a r l i e s t mention of the Bois Caiman ceremony appears t o be i n Dalmas' Histoire published i n 1814, though said to be written i n 1793. I t makes no reference to a priestess nor to Boukman. They only appear i n Ardouin's Etudes nearly forty years l a t e r . Thomas Madiou, writing i n Haiti in the 1840s, had not mentioned the ceremony, despite an evident desire to spice his narrative w i t h exampl e s of "African supersti t i 0 n . 1 ' ~ ~That Boukman himsel f was actually a houngan i s not obvious from these accounts. Moreover, i n view of Charles Nlenfantls assertion t h a t creoles were rarely adepts of voodoo,86 and given what we know of other leaders such as Jean-Fran~ois and Toussaint, one m i g h t be a 1i t t l e surprised to find this gathering of e l i t e slaves b u i l t round a voodoo ceremony. B u t then again, i t was a Petro ceremony, which i s probably a creole cul t, and the mambo officiating was said to be a green-eyed mu1 atress, daughter of a Corsican, and therefore presumably a different s o r t of priestess from the African Malenfant saw i n the Sainte-Suzanne mountains w i t h gum and resin covering her frizzy coi f f ~ r e . Then, ~ ~ a s now, voodoo doubt1 ess catered f o r a very diverse range of participants. What no account of the slave revol t has so f a r attempted i s to show how the voodoo element meshed i n w i t h a Christian element, rather neglected by historians and somewhat surprising to find i n view of the s t r e s s usually l a i d by historians on the lack of religious instruction given to the slaves i n Saint Domingue. Boukman may indeed have been a voodoo priest. We can surmise t h a t he was both widely and deeply revered among the rebels, t o judge from t h e i r reaction to his death and from a moving testimony written by one of h i s

subordinates a few years later.88 Such prestige might indicate t h a t he was a1 ready we1 1 known before the rev01 t, and this could perhaps suggest the role of houngan, though i t would be the merest speculation. When he died, however, i t seems t h a t Mass was said for h i m i n the rebel-occupied areas. Several p r i e s t s continued to function i n the occupied zone, and a few years l a t e r Spanish officers fighting alongside the blacks were t o complain t h a t i t was a "war of Pater Noster and Ave aria."^^ Jean-Fran~ois, Boukman' s successor, was especi a1 1y deferenti a1 t o p r i e s t s (including French ones and not only those of his Spanish a l l i e s ) , and his and B i assou' s procl amations frequently made re1 igious references. B i assou had been a slave belonging t o a hospital r u n by monks. Madiou described him a s being advised by sorcerers and surrounded by "fetishes," b u t t h i s i s not corroborated by any of the contemporary descriptions of his camp. The s a d i s t i c Jeannot, too, was said by Madiou t o have been under the influence of sorcerers. Yet even he was also observed to a c t w i t h some deference towards priests; he agreed not to hold executions on Sundays, and he asked to attend church before his execution.90 One would not l i k e to s t r e s s the matter too much, however, f o r the p r i e s t s i n the rebels' camps appear t o have enjoyed a rather precarious existence, and raison d ;tat could easily explain the rebel s ' re1 ations w i t h them. Jeannot' s attitude, a t 1east, was reportedly expressed as, "Obey the p r i e s t i n church, b u t i f he interferes outside i t , c u t off h i s head! ( i i i ) African and creole In his Sinews of Empire, Michael Craton p u t forward a t r i p a r t i t e sequential model t o describe rebel 1ions i n slave society: beginning w i t h those "of a maroon type," progressing to those led by unassimil ated Africans, and culminating i n the l a t e rebellions led by the creole slave e l i t e . He has subsequently noted t h a t such neat distinctions were much more blurred i n r e a l i t y , and t h a t as regards chronology the model i s misleading. However, he s t i l l maintains t h a t w i t h respect t o "leadership, aims and t a c t i c s , creol ization brought significant changes" i n the nature of slave rebel 1 ion.92 In the British West Indies, he adds, the French Revolutionary period coincided with a transitional phase from one type of revolt t o another, and the

surprising absence of any uprising during these years he a t t r i b u t e s specifically t o "a confusion of aims and ideology" resulting from t h i s t r a n ~ i t i o n . ~The ~ model i s a suggestive one, b u t even the examples Craton uses raise doubts both about the distinction between "African" and "creole" types and as to whether t h e i r "confusion" can be considered an inhibiting factor. While a l l African-led revolts, Craton argues, were aimed a t exterminating the master class and destroying the plantation regime, the l a t e creole rebel 1ions aimed a t achieving freedom a1 ongside or within pl antation society, mainly through passive resistance w i t h a 1imited use of violence. Creoles were 1iable t o be "horrified" by "senseless" destruction such a s took place i n Saint ~ o m i n ~ u e .However, ~~ of the three "late" rebel1 ions in the British Caribbean, Craton has t o admit t h a t the 1816 revolt i n highly-creolized Barbados was "necessarily bloody" and aimed a t "the complete overthrow of the p l antation system and the eradication of the whi tes.ltg5 Contrarily, the more moderate Demerara rebellion of 1823 occurred i n a colony where Africans made up half the population,96 and one of the leaders was an African. The Christmas Rebellion, too, had a t l e a s t one African ring-leader, while a substanti a1 proportion of the rebel s were a1 so ~ f r i c a n s . ' ~ Of the two "mixed" conspiracies t h a t Craton examines, i t i s not apparent The "essentially t h a t e i t h e r failed owing t o Af rican-creol e tensions. African" Antigua plot of 1735 was betrayed by Africans and f a i l e d t o reach f r u i t i o n mainly through ill-luck. The Jamaica 1776 conspiracy was timed to follow the departure of one of the local garrison's regiments, which was detained, however, a t the l a s t moment. This was also true of the Second Maroon War of 1795. I t was the military factor, I have argued elsewhere, not African-creole tensions, t h a t was probably the most important factor inhibiting the outbreak of slave revolts in the British West Indies during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic In Jamaica, both the slave e l i t e and the Coromantee comrnuni ty responded positively to news of the Saint Domingue sl ave rev01 t, and an uprising was prepared f o r Christmas 1791. However, the m i l i t i a then turned out for the f i r s t time i n nine years and the s i z e of the garrison, a1 ready a t a record level, was soon doubled. In f a c t , i t was precisely the

period 1776-1815 t h a t saw British garrisons i n the Caribbean a t t h e i r strongest. Anthony Synnott, i n his excellent thesis, has linked t h i s increased military presence t o the trend to non-violent resistance i n the British colonies i n the nineteenth century.99 Yet, a s Craton himself notes, the three l a t e rebellions followed on the reduction i n size of the West India garrisons a f t e r 1815. When one turns t o the Saint Domingue revolt, these doubts about the Africanlcreole distinction are reinforced. To begin w i t h , i t i s not a t a l l c l e a r into which category the revolt should f i t . Craton appears t o regard i t as an "African" rebel1 ion, and there i s no doubt 'that the majority of the insurgents were Africans, since they formed the majority of the adult population. On the other hand the revolt broke out i n one of the most creol ized parts of the colony, while the most Africanized parts were usually the slowest to rebel. The Jamaican planter Bryan Edwards, who visited the colony a t the beginning of the outbreak, was struck by the number of the most trusted el i t e sl aves involved, as were the Domi nguan w h i t e s themsel ves .loo From what i s known of the organizers of the insurrection, none appears t o have been African. They were commandeurs, coachmen, a cook, mu1 a t t o sl aves and a t l e a s t one free c o l ~ u r e d . Boukman's ~~~ origins do not appear t o be known, b u t as a sugar plantation coachman i t would be very rare i f he were not creole.lo2 And t o look forward several years: very few Africans were t o gain prominence as leaders--Pierrot, Pierre Michel, Laplume, were among the handful t o gain more than a local and fleeting reputation. Dessalines and Moise are sometimes referred to as Africans b u t were almost certainly born i n Saint ~ o m i n ~ u e . ~ ~ ~ Even so, i t would be wrong t o discount the African factor. Most commentators have rightly stressed the high r a t i o of Africans t o creoles and the large number of recently arrived Africans i n the colony. Their anomic energies were doubtless what the creole organisers were counting on t o carry through t h e i r plans. As f o r the rebels' aims, these appear t o have varied through time and probably from group t o group, and so could be viewed i n Craton' s terms as e i t h e r creole or African. The rebels' t a c t i c s , too, could be classed under e i t h e r heading, the i n i t i a l massacre and destruction giving way t o a more flexible stance. I t seems then, t h a t this most successful of

slave rebel 1ions was a thorough mixture of both creole and African elements. This tends t o undermine the hypothesis t h a t the tension between the two "ideologies" was so nugatory as t o be able t o account for the total absence of rebellion i n a "mixed" society. B u t this need not be so. The Saint Domingue slave revol t certainly d i d exhibit tensions between creole leaders and African masses, which impeded i t s progress. I t s success i n overcoming them m i g h t simply t e s t i f y to the strength of the other factors working i n i t s favour. On the other hand, there could be something precisely i n the mixture of African and creole el ements--perhaps the combination of a suicidal fervour i n battl e w i t h a sophisticated leadership--that goes a long way i n explaining i t s success. Michael Craton has further characteri sed the 1ate, creol e rebel 1ions i n the British West Indies as "proto-peasant. "Io4 He draws attention to the slaves' known attachment i n the l a t e slavery period to t h e i r individual provision grounds, on which they worked a t week-ends, often i n family groups, growing crops both for t h e i r own consumption and for sale i n the local markets, which they dominated. Freedom t o become independent small farmers, Craton concludes, was the aim of these nineteenth century rebel s. T h i s was no doubt true. Less certain, however, i s whether such aspirations distinguished these revol t s from e a r l i e r ones. The system of individual provision grounds and marketing by slaves went back to the seventeenth century, a1 though the growth of family t i e s probably had t o await the balancing of the r a t i o between men and women a f t e r 1800. Craton's own position i s unclear. While he r e l a t e s the slaves' peasant a c t i v i t i e s t o t h e i r African roots, he also i n one instance contrasts the "proto-peasant" rebellions w i t h the 1776 Jamaican conspiracy, i n which some rebels sought "return t o African sty1 e s under t h e i r chosen chiefs-e i t h e r as Asante-1 ike warrior bands, or a s sel f-contained Ibo-1 ike villages deep i n the forest. 11 105 There seems t o be a confusion here between political institutions and socio-economic structures, not a comparison between l i k e and like. While the "proto-peasant" formul a t i on appears t o have no pol i t i c a l content, the socioeconomic form t h a t post-revolutionary African "ethnic autocracies" would have adopted i s 1argely a matter of conjecture. The Maroon communities presumably

provide a clue, b u t as Craton confusingly observes, they tended t o serve a s an example t o the slaves of an independent peasantry. lo6 Considering t h a t one of the defining characteristics of the l a t e rebellions was the willingness of the rebel s t o continue working part-time on the pl antations as wage-earners,lo7 one wonders i f the term "proto-peasant" i s not more applicable t o the rebellions of the eighteenth century than t o those of the nineteenth century. After a l l , i t was a predominantly African Saint Domingue t h a t produced the c l assic " proto- peasant" revol t. ( i v ) Restorationi s t and bourgeoi s-democratic The only scholar who has so f a r attempted t o incorporate the Saint Domingue revol t into a general analysis of slave rebel1 ion i s the d i sti ngui shed Marxi s t h i s t o r i an Eugene Genovese. I n From Rebel 1 ion t o Revolution, he argues t h a t the revolution i n Saint Domingue represented a new type of slave revolt. Whereas previous insurrections were restorationist, aimed a t withdrawing from colonial society, not a t overthrowing i t , the French Rev01ution ushered i n a period of revol t s which demanded sl avery' s abol i ti on and "increasingly aimed not a t secession from the dominant society b u t a t joining i t on equal terms." While "chall enging the worl d capital i s t system," they did so "with bourgeoi s-democratic slogans and demands and w i t h a commitment t o bourgeois property re1 ations." In Saint Domingue and el sewhere, however, these bourgeoi s-democratic slave revol t s were "strangled early on ," and i n a "grimly ironical counter-revolution," the mass of ex-slaves were S1 ave resistance i s thus transformed into conservative peasants.108 incorporated into a programmatic history of world revolution. Though characteristically chall enging, Genovese' s analysis seems t o have a number of flaws. Insofar as i t r e l a t e s t o Saint Domingue i t i s chiefly concerned not w i t h the actual slave revol t of 1791-93, b u t w i t h the following period when the French Republ i c had a1 ready declared slavery abolished and the ex-slaves fought i n i t s name to repel foreign invaders.lo9 Prior t o the ascendancy of the remarkable Toussaint Louverture, which began i n 1793-94, the commitment of the black leaders (Toussaint included) t o the overthrow of slavery was rather ambiguous and rarely expressed i n i d e a l i s t i c terms. I t d i d not prevent them from selling slaves themselves, nor from seeking a compromise

peace on more than one occasion.110 Furthermore, far from using bourgeoisdemocratic slogans, the rebels of 1791 identified n o t w i t h those they contemptuously call ed "les ci toyens" b u t with the Counter-Rev01u t i o n . Their adoption of a conservative, "Church and King" rhetoric may have stemmed partly, even primarily, from pol i tical convenience. B u t rarely, i f ever, during the f i r s t year of the revolt do they seem t o have mentioned the Rights of Man. As Genovese concedes, "the mechanics of ideological transmission remain obscure. 1 1 1 1 1 Even with regard t o the 1ater stages of the Haitian Revolution one has difficulty i n recognising a "challenge t o the world capitalist system" and "commitment t o bourgeois property re1 ations" in the bl ack 1eaders' attempts t o maintain an export economy w i t h forced 1abour and 1argely state-owned property. Somewhat surprisingly, i t i s the regime of President Pgtion, which divided up and redistributed the landed estates, t h a t i s described as counterrevol utionary.l12 Pltion, moreover, though a mu1 a t t o born free, was the only revol uti onary 1eader t o show interest in extending sl ave emancipation beyond his own shores.l13 Genovese asserts that "Toussaint dreamed of leading an invasion of Africa t o destroy the slave trade,"l14 b u t this i s just a story 1 ater told by one of Toussaint's children. W e know w i t h rather more certainty t h a t in 1799 Toussai n t betrayed t o the Bri t i sh authorities, in the interest of encouraging foreign support, a French attempt t o raise the slaves of ~ a m a i c a . l l ~ Finally, there i s a danger in overstressing the policies of Toussaint Louverture. Partly because they were not the sole expression of the Haitian Revolution, and met with opposition from other of i t s leaders as well B u t a1 so because i t i s now known t h a t as from the mass of ex-slaves. Toussaint was n o t a slave a t all when the revolt broke o u t , and had been free and a sl aveowner for a t 1east fifteen years.116 W i t h respect t o the sl avery question i n French Rev01utionary pol i tics, the contrast Genovese draws between Jacobin idealists who won over Toussaint Louverture and the "col oni a1 i s t , " "counterrevol utionary" Gi rondi ns, whom the In the Legi sl ative bl acts helped destroy, seems rather excessive.l17 Assembly, the deputies from the Gironde and their allies were in fact the foremost opponents of France's white colonists. I t was they who introduced

racial equality into the West Indies. In the persons of Guadet and GarranCoulon, they included the f i r s t politicians t o speak i n favour of the abol i tion of sl avery. 118 Commissioner Sonthonax, who issued the emancipation decree of August 1793, belonged t o the same faction. Though invariably depicted as a Jacobin i n English works, his recall and return t o France d u r i n g the Jacobin ascendancy almost cost him his l i f e . Conversely, when the Jacobi n-control1 ed Convention passed the emanci pation 1aw of February 1794, i t was guided a t l e a s t a s much by realpolitik as by ideal ism. Some Jacobins such as Amar secretly opposed the measure, while Danton, ostensibly a proponent, t r i e d t o get i t amended i n committee.119 Turning to the broader context of Genovese's analysis: both his b i p a r t i t e model and the chronology he associates w i t h i t seem open to certain objections. Under the heading of "restorationi s t " he has subsumed two aspects of revol t s perhaps best kept separate--the rebels' aims with respect to the slave society ( i n t h i s case, withdrawal from i t ) , and the form of social organi sation they proposed to adopt a f t e r the revol t (maroon societies) T h i s i s to blur an important distinction that Monica Schuler, Anthony Synnott and Michael Craton have a l l f e l t i t necessary t o make between escapist rebel1 ions and those aimed a t destroying the colonial system, whether or not the envisaged post-rev01 utionary society was archaic or i n some sense modern. These writers see a s h i f t from rebel 1ion to revol ution considerbly pre-dating the Age of Revolution, a s h i f t which Synnott convincingly r e l a t e s t o the diminishing opportunities for establishing new maroon communities as colonial f r o n t i e r s c 1 0 s e d . l ~ ~T h u s , Tacky's rebel 1 ion i n Jamaica i n 1760, or Cuffee's i n Berbice i n 1763, were not aimed a t withdrawal from the colonial society b u t a t overthrowing it. I t i s true t h a t some eighteenth century rebels intended t o enslave those blacks who d i d not join them - Tacky's Coromantees, f o r example. B u t before one can say w i t h confidence t h a t not until the Saint Domingue Revolution did slaves demand the abolition of slavery, we need t o know a l o t more about these e a r l i e r insurrections. On the l a t e r slave revol t s , Genovese says relatively 1 i t t l e , other than t o observe t h a t they occurred "within the context of the bourgeois-democratic rev01 u t i onary wave. " "Restorationi s t " rebel 1ions, he admits, d i d not II

.

dissappear.

Whether he considers t h e nineteenth century B r a z i l i a n r e v o l t s as

"bourgeois-democratic"

i s n o t clear.

He does i n c l u d e under t h i s heading t h e

Prosser, Vesey and Turner conspiracies i n t h e United States, b u t also notes t h a t t h e i r aims "remain debatable" and t h a t they may have been d i r e c t e d towards

establ ishing maroon encl aves.

When deal i n g w i t h t h e Christmas

Rebel 1 ion, Genovese de-emphasi ses i t s non-viol ent, stressed

by

other

writers,

and

observes

accommodationi s t aspects,

somewhat

fancifully

that

it

"represented the c u l m i n a t i o n o f a new stage, i n which t h e slaves could look forwards t o independence i n a world o f modern n a t i o n states. "Iz1 While t h e Christmas rebel 1i o n i s no doubt susceptible t o d i f f e r i n g i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s , no evidence i s p u t forward t o support t h i s p a r t i c u l a r analysis. Genovese's

o v e r r i d i n g concern w i t h

r a d i c a l ism

whereas

Craton

him t o see

concerned w i t h methods as w e l l as aims, see i n c r e a s i n g moderation.

For t h e

t h e dynamic

r e b e l 1 ion,

1eads

Synnott,

l a t t e r writers,

s l ave

thus

and

increasing

in

ideology

f o r change came from w i t h i n slave

( c r e o l i z a t i on, t h e c l o s i ng f r o n t i e r )

.

society,

Genovese acknowl edges t h e importance of

these f a c t o r s , b u t be1 ieves t h a t ideas external t o t h e slave system were t h e c h i e f i n f l u e n c e i n fashioning new forms o f armed resistance.

It i s ,

of

course, n o t t h e f i r s t occasion when he has championed t h e r o l e o f ideas a g a i n s t t h e scepticism o f non-Marxist h i s t o r i a n s . Whether one approach i s more successful than t h e other, i t i s obviously too soon t o say, when so much remains obscure about i n d i v i d u a l r e v o l ts. A t present, we know too l i t t l e about t h e s t r u c t u r e o f slave s o c i e t i e s i n which r e v o l t s took place, and about t h e changes they were undergoing, m a t e r i a l o r otherwise. I n p a r t i c u l a r , there i s a need t o i n v e s t i g a t e t h e impact on slave communities o f t h e l i b e r t a r i a n i d e a l s o f t h e Age o f Revolution. The influence o f ideas needs t o be d i s t i n g u i s h e d from t h e weakening o f t h e f o r c e s o f s o c i a l c o n t r o l t h a t sometimes accompanied them. f u r t h e r need t o be delineated, t h e i r followers.

The aims of rebel leaders

and d i s t i n g u i s h e d i f necessary from those o f

The r e l a t i o n between marronage and r e v o l t, and t h e r o l e o f

r e l i g i o n i n slave r e s i s t a n c e are o t h e r notably murky areas. The comparative a n a l y s i s of slave r e s i s t a n c e has thrown up a number o f useful hypotheses, which draw a t t e n t i o n t o s i m i l a r i t i e s and c o n t r a s t s i n t h e h i s t o r y of s e r v i l e

r e b e l 1 ion.

The time would now seem r i g h t f o r a r e t u r n t o more empirical

investigations hypotheses.

that w i l l

serve t o

evaluate and u l t i m a t e l y

extend those

NOTES The number o f r e b e l s probably reached ten thousand w i t h i n one o r two weeks, while a f t e r t h r e e months a t least 100,000 slaves had become i nvol ved.

H. Pauleus 1920-30); B. D. Geggus, ~ e v oul t i o n , "

Sannon. H i s t o i r e de T o u s s a i n t Louverture ( P o r t au Prince. ~ r d o u j n , t t u d e s sur 1 h i s t o i r e d H a i t i ( p a r i s , 1853). ~ f : "Unexploited Sources f o r t h e H i s t o r y o f t h e H a i t i a n L a t i n .~mericanResearch Review, 18 ( s p r i n g , 1983).

G.M. Frederickson and C. Lasch, " R e s i s t a n c e t o Slavery," C i v i l War H i s t o r y , 13 (December, 1967). H.O.

P a t t e r s o n , The Sociology o f Sl avery (London, 1973), pp. 260-283.

E. Genovese, In Red and Black (New York, 1971), p. 137, and Roll Jordan Roll (New York, 1 9 7 4 ) , p. 598. G. M u l l i n , F l i g h t and Rebellion (Oxford, 1972), pp. 35-38. Roll Jordan R o l l , p. 598.

L. Levine, Black C u l t u r e and Black Consciousness (Oxford, 1977); A. Raboteau, Slave Religion (Oxford, 1978). "The Passion t o Exist: S l a v e Rebellions i n t h e B r i t i s h West I n d i e s , 1629-1832," Journal of Caribbean H i s t o r y , 13 (Spring, 1980); pp. 2, 1819. "Towards a Psychology o f Slavery," i n A.-T. Gilmore ( e d . ) , R e v i s i t i n g B l a s s i ngam' s "The sl ave community" ( Westport, 1978)

.

D. Geggus, Slavery, War and Revolution: The B r i t i s h Occupation of S a i n t Domingue, 1 i93-1798 (Oxford, 198For recent work, see t h e i r c o n t r i b u t i o n s t o Michael Craton (ed.) , Roots and Branches: Current D i r e c t i o n s i n S l a v e S t u d i e s (Toronto, 1979). The Development of Creole Society i n Jamaica, 1770-1820 (Oxford, 1971 1, Pa 308. Jamaica' s Christmas Rebel 1 ion o f 1831 was popul a r l y c a l l ed "The B a p t i s t War." C e r t a i n l y , t h e " n a t i v e " o r "Black" B a p t i s t s , who were a p p a r e n t l y t h e most prominent i n t h e rev01 t, blended African with European p r a c t i c e and be1 i e f . However, I t h i n k Brathwaite goes t o o f a r i n s u g g e s t i n g t h a t t h e rebel l e a d e r and deacon Sam Sharpe was an obeah-man simply because See Craton ( e d . ) , Roots, he was i n d i c t e d f o r being an "oath-swearer." p. 154. The c o n s p i r a t o r s swore t h e i r o a t h s on t h e Bible. B r a t h w a i t e ' s e a r l ier s t a t e m e n t t h a t Sharpe was "condemned by a1 1 f o r a d m i n i s t e r i n g

dreaded African and obeah o a t h s and s e a l i n g them with gunpowder and blood" seems t o b e unsupported by any evidence: "Cal iban, Ariel and Unprospero i n t h e C o n f l i c t of Creol i z a t i o n , " i n V. Rubin and A. Tuden, Comparative P e r s p e c t i v e s on Slavery i n New World P l a n t a t i o n S o c i e t i e s (New York, 1 9 / / ) , pp. 53, 51. Mullin, F l i g h t , p. 34-38, 81-82. Cf. D. L i t t l e f i e l d , Rice and Slaves: Ethnici t y a n d t h e Sl ave Trade i n Colonial South Carol i n a (Baton Rouge, 81 1, P* 133. F. Parker, " P o l i t i c a l Development i n t h e French Caribbean," i n A. Wilgus ( e d ) The Cari bbean ( Gai nesvi 11 e , 1958)

.

.

The most prominent r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s o f t h e H a i t i a n school, which i s by no means m o n o l i t h i c , a r e Edner Brutus, Jean Fouchard and Gerard Laurent. The H a i t i a n e x p a t r i a t e Leslie Manigat adopts a c r i t i c a l s t a n c e towards t h e school b u t d i s p l a y s d i s t i n c t a f f i n i t i e s with i t both i n method01 ogy and ideology. Y. Debbasch, "Le marronage: e s s a i sur l a d h e r t i o n de 1 e s c l a v e a n t i 1 1a i s ," Anfiee s o c i o l ogique (1961, 1962) ; G. Debien, Les escl aves aux Antilles f r a n c a i s e s aux 1/= 1 8 ~sie'cles (Basse T e r r e , 1 9 / 4 ) , ch. 19.

3. Fouchard, Les marrons de l a l i b e r t 6 ( P a r i s , 1972), pp. 159-162. On t h e Brgda e s t a t e a t Haut de Cap, t h e humane Bavon de L i b e r t a t had i n f a c t ceased t o be t h e a t t o r n e y ' i n t h e p e r i o d ~ o u c h a r d r e f e r s t o here: Briida papers, E 691, Arch, dept. Loire-Atlantique, Nantes. As f o r t h e famous Gal 1 i f f e t p l a n t a t i o n s , t h e e x p r e s s i o n " heureux comme n>gre 2 G a l l i f f e t " d a t e s from t h e very beginning of t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y , while Ode1 ucq, t h e estate's a t t o r n e y during t h e 1780s was according t o some a harsh master: H. Brouqham. An I n a.u i r "v i n t o t h e Colonial Policv o f t h e European Powers ( ~ di bi u r g h , , V O l . 2, Po thi anonymous denunciation o f him i n Gal li;:,"; Papers, 107 AP4:%/2C,f Arch. Nat., P a r i s .

.

S l a v e Population and Economy i n Jamaica, 1807-1834 (Cambridge, 1976), p. 218. Mullin, F l i g h t , pp. 34-38, 81-82. In two j o i n t s t u d i e s by Fouchard and Debien, runaways unable t o speak

creole accounted f o r r e s p e c t i v e l y 15% and 20% o f two samples taken from "Le marronage a u t o u r du Cap," Bull. I n s t i t . t h e p e r i o d 1790-91: f r a n ~ a i sde 1 'Afrique n o i r e , ser. B (1965 ): 794; "Le p e t i t marronage 'a Saint-Domingue a u t o u r du Cap," Cahiers des Ameriques 1 atines (1969): 55. Slaves u s u a l l y l e a r n e d c r e o l e i n s i d e a y e a r . Annual imports o f s l a v e s were then e q u i v a l e n t t o about 7% of t h e s l a v e population, a t l e a s t a q u a r t e r of whom were t o o o l d o r t o o young t o r u n away.

23.

Debien, Les e s c l a v e s , pp. 466-7; Fouchard, L i b e r t e , p. 438. D. Geggus, "The Sl aves o f Bri tish-Occupied S a i n t Domingue," Caribbean S t u d i e s , 18 (1978): p a r t 2, 16-22, 30, Fouchard and Debien, V e t i t marronage," 57, quote t h e c o l o n i a l writer Moreau de Saint-MBry t o t h e e f f e c t t h a t "Mozambiques" were noted f o r r e s i s t i n g s l a v e r y , b u t t h a t i s not i n f a c t what he wrote: M.L.E. Moreau de Saint-Me'ry, Description de SaintDominigue 117971 Paris, 1958 edn.), vol. 1, p. 5 4 .

..

24.

The Slave Community (New York, 19791, ch. 5.

25.

Fouchard, ~ i b e r t ; , pp. 124-5, 197-8, 218-9.

26.

Debien, Les e s c l a v e s , p. 467.

27.

Ibid., p. 420; "Li s t a de 10s negros.. .en el Maniel ," Aud. Santo Domingo 1102, Arch. Gen. de Indias, ~ e v i l l e ; E. Genovese, From Rebellion t o Revolution: Afro-American Sl ave Revol t s i n t h e Making of t h e Modern World (Baton Rouge, 19/91, p. 51.

28.

C.L.M. Milscent de Musset, Sur 1 e s t r o u b l e s de Saint-Domingue ( P a r i s , 1791), pp. 1-12, Cf. Debien, Les escl aves, p 421; Moreau de ~ai'nt-Mery , Description, vol. 2, p. 1135,

29.

Small er than modern Haiti, t h e col ony measured 1ess than 10,000 square miles, and by 1789 t h e population was approaching 600,000. Many f u g i t i v e s crossed i n t o t h e neighboring Spanish colony o f Santo Domingo.

30.

C f . Milscent de Musset, Troubles, pp. Fouchard, Liberte', pp. 474-525. 1-12; D e b i e m e s c l aves, p. 419. i~

31.

E. Brutus, ~ G v o l u t i o ndans Saint-Domingue (np. nd), vol. 1, p. 70; L. Manigat, "The Re1 a t i o n s h i p between Marronage and.. .Rev01 u t i o n i n S a i n t Domingue-Hai ti ," i n Rubin and Tuden, Perspectives, p. 432.

32. Debien, Les e s c l a v e s , p. 466; G. Debien, P l a n t a t i o n s e t e s c l a v e s Saint-Dominigue (Dakar, 19621, p. 72. 33.

2

Mil s c e n t de Musset, Troubles, p. 5. Macandal was a f u g i t i v e who passed r a p i d l y i n t o legend. Before h i s betrayal and execution i n 1758, he i s be1 ieved t o have s p e n t eighteen y e a r s a t l i b e r t y , moving f r e e l y among t h e sl ave popul a t i o n , encouraging t h e poi soni ng of white col oni sts S u r p r i s i n g l y , t h e r e seems t o be no evidence t h a t he a c t u a l l y conspired with o t h e r maroons. He t h u s l i e s somewhat o u t s i d e t h e t r a d i t i o n of marronage. Cf. C. Fick, "The 01 ack Masses i n t h e San Domingo Revol u t i o n , 1791-1803" (Concordia Univ. Ph.D. t h e s i s , 1980), p. 57; b u t a1 so Fouchard, Libert6, p. 495.

.

34.

S. Schwartz, "The Mocambo," i n R, Price ( e d . ) , Maroon S o c i e t i e s (New York, 19731, pp. 218-9; M. Mull i n , "Slave Obeahmen and Slave-Owning

P a t r i a r c h s , " i n Rubin and Tuden, P e r s p e c t i v e s , p. 482; G.

Debien, op.

c i t . , pp. 435-6. 35.

Debbasch, "Marronage," p a r t 1 , p. 102; Barbara Kopytoff, "The Early Pol i t i c a l Development of Jamaican Maroon S o c i e t i e s ," Wi11 i am and Mary Q u a r t e r l y XXXV (1978): 297, 306.

36. See P r i c e , Maroon S o c i e t i e s , pp. 181-2, 298-9; Rubin and Tuden, P e r s p e c t i v e s , p. 456; C. Degler, Neither White Nor Black (New York, ' l ) , P* 48 37.

Rubin and Tuden, P e r s p e c t i v e s , p. 410; Brathwai t e , Development, pp. 2489; P a t t e r s o n , Sociology, p. 269.

38.

Jordan, p. 591, Cf. Genevese's l a t e r statement i n From Rebellion t o R e v o l u t i o n , p. 86, "The r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s had behind them knowledge o f Thouah p r o t r a c t e d maroon warfare i n t h e e a s t e r n p a r t of t h e island." r a t h e r more c a u t i o u s , even t h i s seems v e r y u n l i k e l y . I t s u r e l y cann6t r e f e r t o f i r s t - h a n d knowledge, though t h e r e a d e r might t h i n k so. It presumably r e f e r s t o t h e r a i d s , during t h e p e r i o d 1776-81, o f t h e Maniel. They l i v e d i n t h e s o u t h - e a s t about 100 miles from t h e centre o f t h e 1791 revol t, from which they were s e p a r a t e d by s e v e r a l mountain ranges and a broad swathe o f Spanish t e r r i t o r y . T h e i r e x p l o i t s may have been known i n t h e North b u t I t h i n k i t i s improbable. However, t h e accompanying a s s e r t i o n t h a t , "The e a r l y 1 e a d e r s of t h e black revol u t i o n i n t h e n o r t h , Jean-Frangois and Biassou, had e s t a b l i s h e d c a r e e r s i n t h e m i l i t a r y campaigns on t h e Spanish border," i s w i t h o u t q u e s t i o n t h e result o f some confusion.

39.

Fouchard, ~ib e r t g , pp. 524, 534, 540, 453-4, 462. On Jean Kina, see D. Geggus, " m o l d i e r , Rebel : The Strange Career o f Jean Kina," Jamaican H i st. Rev., 12 (1980) and "Soul2vement manque d ' e s c l a v e s ou m a n i f e s t a t i o n de gens de couleur?", Annales des Anti1 les (1983).

40.

Manigat, "Relationship." A1 though he sets o u t o s t e n s i b l y t o examine t h e connection "i f any" between marronage and revol u t i o n , Manigat expl i c i t l y assumes a d i r e c t 1 ink and, spurning "unconditional obei ssance t o empirical d a t a " ignores Debien's p e r t i n e n t q u e s t i o n , a s have a l l o t h e r writers: When and i n what manner d i d t h e r e v o l u t i o n a r y l e a d e r s command bands o f maroons?

41.

Debien, Les e s c l a v e s , p. 468.

42.

Aud. Santo Domingo 1031, Archivo Gen. de I n d i a s , S e v i l l e , and i b i d .

43.

P o r t de Paix, Gros Morne, Le Borgne, Mirebalais, Arcahaye, Grand' Anse, t h e s o u t h - e a s t and north-east. see Fouchard, Libertr5, 524; Debien, ~ e s e s c l a v e s , p. 421; Milscent, Troubles, pp. 6, 1 2 .

44.

Ibid.

45.

Debien, Les esclaves, p. 469; Geggus, Occupation, pp. 308-310.

47.

"Notes de M. Leclerc," Cols., CC9A/5, Arch. Nat., Paris.

48.

Garcia t o Acuiia no. 152, enclosure no. 6, Aud. Santo Domingo 956, Arch. Gen. de Indias, Seville.

49.

Sinews of Empire (New York, 19741, pp. 226-237.

50.

Roll, pp. -

590-1.

C.L. R. James, The Bl ack Jacobins (London, 1980), introduction and pp. 85-86; "...working and l i v i n g together i n gangs of hundreds on the huge sugarfactories which covered the North Plain, [the slaves1 wre c l o s e r t o a modern p r o l e t a r i a t than any group of workers i n existence a t the time." The average sugar plantation i n the plaine du Nord had about 250 slaves, probably l e s s , of whom only a small number would work i n t h e However, sugar production did demand an boiling house or "factory." intense d i s c i p l i n e and organisation on a scale f a r g r e a t e r than t h a t of other s t a p l e s . In the mountains, moreover, the slaves of the small coffee e s t a t e s had f a r fewer opportunities t o meet a t urban markets. 52.

Marion Kilson, "Towards Freedom: An Analysis of Slave Revolts i n the United S t a t e s , " Phylon xxv (1964).

53.

Mu1 l i n , F l i g h t , pp. 124-142.

54.

Cited i n Frederickson and Lasch, "Resistance," pp. 132-3.

55. Blassingame, Community, p. 221; A. Synnott, "Slave Revolts i n the Caribbean" (London University Ph.D. t h e s i s , 19761, pp. 348-55, 364-5. 56.

Higman, Jamaica, p. 232.

57.

D. Geggus, "Jamaica and the S a i n t Domingue Slave Revolt, 1791-93," The Americas, 38 (Oct. 1981 ): 223-4; Craton, "Passion" : 9-10

58.

Higman, Jamaica, pp. 214, 223; M. Craton, Searching f o r the I n v i s i b l e Man 19781, pp. 99, 109, 113, 143. -(Cam-Mass.,

59.

"The Profi t a b i l i t y and V i abil i t y of West Indian Pl antation Sl avery ," Caribbean S o c i e t i e s Seminar Paper (Feb., 19801, I n s t i t u t e of Commonweal t h Studies, London

.

.

60. Gaston-Marti n , H i s t o i re de 1 ' escl avage dans 1es colonies frangai ses ( P a r i s , 19481, p. l b s .

61.

T h i s i s using a s indices of workload r a t i o s of slaves t o caneland and f e r t i l i t y r a t i o s . See, D. Geggus, "Les esclaves de l a pl aine du Nord'a 1a v e i l l e de l a ~ 6 v o l u t i o n f r a n s a i s e , " Revue de l a soc. hai tienne d ' h i s t . , July and Oct. 1982, and forthcoming.

62.

Debien, Les esclaves, ch. 20.

63.

Ibid. Michael Craton's comments i n S.L. Engerman and E. Genovese, (eds .) , Race and S1 avery i n the Western ~ e msphere: i Quantitative Studies (Princeton, 19/51, p. 213, n. 54, give a r a t h e r misleading impression of one of Debien's studies.

64. F. Th6se6 and G. Debien, Un colon n i o r t a i s 2 S a i n t Domingue (Niort, 19751, pp. 44-45. Between 1/86 and 1790 slave imports averaged a t l e a s t 30,000 p.a. 65. 66.

Ibid, p. 41; M. 110-111.

Begouen-Demeaux, S t a n i s l a s ~ o a c h e ( P a r i s , 19511, pp.

Cols., F3/150, pp. 78-83, 88-93, Arch. Nat.,

Paris.

In another case,

the Governor and Intendant managed t o j a i l and deport a planter who had been denounced by his slaves, and the decision was upheld by t h e Minister of t h e Marine: i b i d , pp. 62-63, 85. 67.

Geggus, Occupation, p. 38.

68.

Cf. Michael Craton's perceptive comments on "the rumor syndrome" i n J. Walvin (ed.) , Sl avery and British Society, 1776-1846 (London, 19821, pp. 105-6.

69.

" E x t r a i t s des d 6 t a i l s authentiques..

70.

Mullin, Flight, pp. 159-160.

71.

Genovese, Roll, pp. 592-5.

72.

E. Carneiro, 0 quilombo dos Palmares (Rio de Janeiro, 19661, p. 3.

73.

Walvin (ed.), Slavery, p. 117.

F3/197, Arch. Nat.

-

74. M. Craton, " C h r i s t i a n i t y Historical Ref1 ections, 5 Rev01 t s ? The Late Slave 1832," Past & Present, 85 117. 75.

.,"Col s.,

and Slavery i n the British West Indies," (1978 1: 156-7; "Passion ," 14; "Proto-Peasant Rebellions i n the British West Indies, 1816(Nov., 1979): 115; Walvin ( e d . ) , Slavery, p.

As Mary Reckord (now Turner) pointed out i n her pioneering a r t i c l e "The Jamaica Slave Rebellion of 1831," Past & Present, 40 ( J u l y , 1968): 123. Both w r i t e r s , however, note divergent a t t i t u d e s among the rebels.

76.

Genovese, Roll, pp. 271-9, 728; Craton ( e d . ) , Roots, p. 130, n. 20.

77.

~ a u l 6 u s Sannon, H i s t o i r e , vol. 1 , pp. 98-99; H. S o s i s , "The Colonial Environment and Religion i n H a i t i " (Columbia Univ. Ph.D. t h e s i s , 19711, ch. 10, n o t e s 50 and 51.

78.

The c h a n t i s i n Kikongo. trans1 ation.

79.

Dossier 11; Dxxvll, see Arch. Nat., P a r i s ; A. Mgtraux, Le vaudou h a i t i e n ( P a r i s , 1958), p. 39, Nouv. acq. f r . 14878, p. 145, Manuscrits, Bib1 Nat., P a r i s .

80.

In Craton, Roots, p. 130.

I am g r a t e f u l t o Dr. Hazel C a r t e r f o r i t s

.

81. C. Malenfant, Des c o l o n i e s modernes Occupation, pp. 312 3.

-

(Paris,

18141, p.

18; Geggus,

82.

See Craton ( e d . ) , Roots, pp. 131-3.

83.

WO 1/59, p. 376, P.R.O.,

84.

See above, n. 69.

85.

A. Dalmas, H i s t o i r e de l a r 6 v o l u t i o n de Saint-Domingue (Paris, 18141, pp. 117-8; Ardouin, H a f t i , vol. 1 , pp. 228 - 9 ; T. MBdiou, H i s t o i r e d ' ~ at iy ( P o r t au Princ-47).

86.

Colonies, pp. 215-9. He added t h a t c r e o l e s and t h e c r e o l i z e d tended t o mock what they regarded a s s u p e r s t i t i o n .

87.

Fouchard, L i b e r t g , p. 528, n. 3; Malenfant, Colonies, p. 219.

London.

88. Gros, I s l e St. Domingue, Province du Nord. Precis Historique [Paris, 17931, p 1 4 ; Gabriel B e l l a i r e t o Joaqu'in Garcib, no d a t e , Aud. Santo Domingo, 1031, Arch. Gen. de I n d i a s , S e v i l l e . 89.

C. Ardouin, E s s a i s sur l ' h i s t o i r e d ' ~ a 7 t i ( P o r t au P r i n c e , 1865) p. 55.

90.

Madiou, I-lai'ti, vol. 1 , pp. 72-73; G. Laurent, Quand les c h a i n e s v o l e n t en 6clat-rt au Prince. n.d.1. D. 202: above. n o t e 41.

91.

Laurent, Chaines, p. 205.

92.

Si news, pp. 226-37; "Passion," 2, 5; "Proto-Peasant," 116.

93.

"Passion," 11.

94.

"Passion," 8, 11, 16; "Proto-Peasant," 118, 121.

"Passion," 16. Africans c o n s t i t u t e d 51% of the slave population i n 1820 and 46% i n 1823: Par1 iamentary Papers, 1833 xxvi (7001, "Sl ave Population ," p. 13. See H i gman, Jamaica, 227-32. Occupation, 87-92, 413. T h i s would a1 so seem true of seventeenth century Barbados: Jerome S. Hand1 e r , "Slave Revol t s and Conspiracies i n Seventeenth-Century Barbados," Ni euwe West-Indi sche G i ds, 56 (1982) : 542, 25 and passim. "Revol ts," pp. 370, 378. Edwards, Historical Survey of the Island of St. Domingo (London, 1801), p. 16. B.

Cols., F3/197 and CC9A/5, Arch. Nat., Paris; Arch. Gen. de Indias, Sevil l e , various documents, Aud. Santo Domingo, 954. Cf. Geggus, "Slaves," p a r t 4, 31-33, and "Les esclaves." See J. Fouchard, G. Debien, M.A. Menier, "Toussaint Louverture avant 1789," Conjonction, 134 (June, 1977). Craton, "Proto-Peasant

."

"Passion," 8 , 10, 15; "Proto-Peasant," 120. "Passion ," 15. "Proto-Peasant," 118, 121-2; Walvin (ed.)

, Slavery,

pp. 117-9.

Genovese, Rebellion, preface and pp. 88-89. By June 1793, t h e invading Spaniards had declared f r e e a l l rebel slaves who would join their army. In July, the French Civil Commissioners i n S a i n t Domingue were forced t o follow suit, and i n August they declared a general emancipation. T h i s was extended t o a l l France's colonies by the Convention i n P a r i s the following February.

Geggus, Occupation, pp. 43, 302-5.

Genovese, Rebel 1ion, p. xx. Ibid., pp. 88-90.

D. Ni choll s, From Dessal ines t o Duval i e r ( Cambridge, 19791, pp. 46-47.

Genovese, Rebellion, p. 124.

115.

Co 245/1, p. 34, P.R.O.,

London.

116.

I t was previously thought t h a t he had been a privileged slave, enjoying an informal freedom but s t i l l l i v i n g on h i s master's plantation. Fouchard, Debien and Menier, "Toussaint," s t a t e s t h a t he was freed i n 1776. I t i s c l e a r , however, from one of t h e documents t h a t they publish t h a t Toussaint was already f r e e and a slaveowner before t h a t date.

117.

Genovese, ~ e b e l l i o n ,pp. 90-96, 124.

118.

I t was Guadet, a s e a r l y a s February 1792, who presented a r e p o r t by the absent Garran-Coul on c a l l i n g f o r the eventual abol i t i o n of sl avery: Le Moniteur Universe1 , vol. 11; p. 512. In The World the Slaveholders M a x (London, 19/01,- PP. . . 44-48. Genovese does note Bordeaux's s ~ l i wt i t h t h e col oni sts over racial equal i ty but imp1 i e s , I t h i n k ~ n r e a ' s o n a b l ~t,h a t t h e Jacobins w i shed t o destroy economical l y "the At1 a n t i c-ori ented bourgeoisie" and would have abol ished slavery even i f t h e r e had been no slave revol t o r war w i t h England and Spain. As the Girondins f e l l i n May 1793, there seems no way of knowing whether they would have taken a d i f f e r e n t l i n e t o t h a t of the Jacobins o r not.

119.

See J. Garran-Coul on, Rapport sur 1es troubles des Sant-Domingue ( P a r i s , 1797-99), vol. 4, p. 5 6 1 ; J. Morse Stephens, Speechs of the Statesmen and Orators of the French Revolution (Oxford, 18921, vol. 2, pp. 281 - 2.

120.

Synnott, "Rev01t s ," pp. 234, 367-70. c f . Hand1 er, "Barbados ," 31. Genovese acknowledges t h a t the Jamaican Maroon Treaty of 1739 was a turning point, hindering the establishment of f u r t h e r maroon settlements and so forcing subsequent r e b e l s t o attempt t o overthrow t h e system, but he comments t h a t "this tendency did not mature until the i n t e r r e l a t e d revolutions i n France and Saint-Domingue created a new system of international power and a more coherent revol utionary ideol ogy Rebel 1i o n , pp. 35-36.

\

."

121.

Genovese, Rebellion, pp. 36, 44-50, 101-4.