Freedom Of The Slaves example essay topic

The Haitian revolution, which was completed in 1804, saw the end of slavery and French rule in the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue. This was, undoubtedly, freedom to the oppressed. The end of forced and savage working conditions. The end of being ruled by some far off country. The freedom of former slaves to govern their own state and thus fend for themselves in the world. This freedom was not granted by the French revolution.

It was only achieved by emancipation from revolutionary France which had been itself, forged on the very principals on Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. So why did the French Revolution not extend to the freedom of slaves? And what was the 'freedom' that the slaves achieved and where did it come from? One of the most important factors, which must not be overlooked in discussing the revolutionary predicament of the colonies, was their financial importance to the French economy. The support of the wealthy seaports appeared crucial to the future of the revolution. This creates a paradox, of which there are many associated with the topic of slavery and revolution, if France was to hold up the principals of the revolution in ending slavery it risked a serious financial undermining of the revolution at home.

The French perception of the slaves themselves also went a long way in preventing the abolition of slavery. A stark difference can be drawn between the social tensions present within France at the time of revolution and those of the French colonies at a similar time. In France the peasantry wanted to end the old regime, thus leaving behind feudal obligations. In Saint Domingue there were no peasants or nobles but only slaves and planters. Planters were generally thought of as part of the third estate though some had a slightly higher opinion of their own social status.

This is understandable as in the isolated society of saint Domingue white planters occupied an important social position. A position far superior to slaves which they intended to keep. In France revolutionaries were striving for egalitarianism, to remove privileges and provide equality before the law. The most vocal and powerful activists in the colonies demanded a relaxation of government controls but certainly not equality. Not even within the colonial free society let alone the slaves. This shows the difficulties of analysing the revolution of Saint Domingue when most accounts of the time were written from a European and in particular, French perspective.

Events, trends and feelings were moulded to fit in with the ones current in France. Elizabeth Col will draws an interesting comparison between the place of women and the place of Negroes in revolutionary thinking. Women, by nature, have been given qualities such as the 'tender care owing to infancy, the details of the household, [and] the sweet anxieties of maternity'. Men, on the other hand, are endowed with a flair for 'hunting, farming, [and] political concerns'. With these descriptions republicans such as Pierre Gaspar d Chalmette, representative of the Paris Commune, were able to draw an undeniable natural definition between the male and the female species. This enables a multifaceted concept of freedom where everyone could obtain it, through the revolution, provided they keep within their own naturally ordained sphere.

With men's political / public bending and woman's domestic / apolitical bending there was no need to have women represented in the National Assembly. This same idea was used to justify the continuation of slavery. That fact that "N'egre" were 'peculiarly suited for enslavement' was seen by some as a natural truth much like of women and their peculiar child birth qualities. Thus, with African people being naturally slaves, they could have freedom within their natural sphere without the abolition of slavery. This idea can be taken a step further to suggest that the abolition of slavery would actually deny the Negroes freedom as it could only be achieved within their natural role as slaves. This is pushing the argument to a rather absurd extreme but it does, however, illustrate how far the revolutionary government was prepared to go to both maintain, or appear to maintain, the principals of the revolution and simultaneously retain colonial revenue.

In investigating the perception of Negroes in the French psyche the original encyclopaedia is a very telling piece. The entry under "Neg re" describes blacks in visual animalistic terms. It appears that, like with animals, the main things that define them are their appearance, and habitats. By defining Negroes in terms of black skin, 'large and flat noses, thick lips, and wool instead of hair' as well as some geographical information on where they might be found and regional differences, Negroes are placed squarely in the animal category.

As it was featured in the encyclopaedia this was, in theory, an enlightened view. It is easy to see here how French could have felt justified in owning and controlling slaves, just as they were justified in owning and controlling horses or livestock. C.L.R. James, a West Indian Marxist writer, offers some extremely graphic descriptions of slave abuses in his account of the Saint Domingue revolution. 'Slaves were trapped like animals, transported in pens, worked along side an ass or horse and beaten with the same stick, they were stabled and starved but they remained, despite their black skin and curly hair; human beings; with the intelligence and resentments of human beings'. It was not that planters forgot that the slaves were human, but more naturally that they believed they were some kind of subhuman form.

As confirmed by the encyclopaedia, at the time of the France revolution it was a fundamental truth that blacks and humans were different. The fact that half of all Africans stepped onto French colonial soil in chains would die within eight years from overwork, malnutrition, and disease, shows how poorly the slaves were treated. James goes on to describe more graphically the abuses slaves were allegedly subjected to. 'Their masters poured burning wax on their arms and hands and shoulders, emptied the boiling cane sugar over their heads, burned them alive, roasted them on slow fires, filled them with gun powder and blew them up with a match, buried them up to the neck and smeared their heads with sugar that the flies might devour them'. He claims that these kind of practices were common place in slave society but this may be seen as an exaggeration, characteristic of such a passionate writing style as James. It is more likely these practices were seldom seen but often talked about especially amongst those antislavery advocates in France.

It was possible that accounts such as this acted as propaganda in the growing opposition to slavery. The idea that even animals should not be treated like this enabled one to both subscribe to an animalistic view of Negroes and act for the abolition of slavery at the same time. Michel-Rolph Trouillot writes, in a very opinionated way of the unthinkability of the Haitian revolution. He draws the important distinction between the standards of people in the past and the modern standard of the mid 1990's when his book, Silencing the Past, was published.

He places conceptions of slavery and equality into a late 18th century framework where our own modern views on the concepts would have been unthinkable. Trouillot defines the unthinkable as an inconceivable possibility. For contemporaries of the Haitian revolutionary period, to imagine the possibility of the relative equality which the world enjoys today was an intellectual impossibility. The unthinkability of the Hia tian revolution is panted in rather black and white terms by Trouillot. He states that the Haitian revolution 'entered history with the peculiar characteristic of being unthinkable'. As early as 1790, however, left wing newspapers had begun to attack slavery and the popular conceptions of Negroes.

An article in the influential newspaper Revolutions de Paris stated that is not true that Negroes are narrow minded. Experience has proven that they have succeeded in the sciences... As for what people say of their wickedness, it will never equal the cruelty of their masters'. This shows that not all French men found the Haitian revolution to be an unthinkability.

Rather then unthinkable, the freedom of the slaves may be more appropriately seen as a many faceted difficulty. Geographical Isolation, racial prejudice, economic concerns and the very concept of freedom itself made it difficult for anyone, French, Mulatto, slave, or otherwise to define what freedom for the slaves might actually consist of. Throughout historical writings on the emancipation of the slaves of the Caribbean colonies there is much reference to the ideas of freedom and equality. These are often implied to be both the essence of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. They are also suggested to be the revolutionary ideas that the slaves of Saint Domingue picked up on in fighting for their liberation. When looked at closely the Declaration shows inconsistencies, which can be interpreted both for and against the abolition of slavery.

Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only on the general good [Article I] The word 'men' in itself can be interpreted to exclude all women and Negroes. On the other hand it could be seen as referring to all human beings in general which would include women and probably blacks as well. Although many citizens of revolutionary France saw them as subhuman, most would have conceded that the African species did fit in the wider category of human being.

The second part of this article is very contentious when looked at in the context of slavery. The 'general good' must be defined to make any sense of it. Is the general good what is good for everyone including slaves? Or is it what is generally good for the writers of this document? The economic prosperity of France would surely have been the 'general good', in which case a vast social distinction may be drawn between the citizen and the slave, as continued slavery was important for French prosperity. Though slavery is never actually referred to there are other points in the declaration which are contradictory and confusing when put in the context of slavery.

Law can only prohibit such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do anything not provided for by law. [Article V] This again comes down to economic concerns. Colonial revenue is definitely not hurtful to society so therefore slavery is not hurtful to society as this is the source of the revenue. If brutal oppression of slaves is just an ordinary part of slavery then this cannot be outlawed either.

In applying this to the isolated society of Saint Domingue, with an overwhelming majority of slaves, brutal repression can quite easily be seen as hurtful to society, so under this article should be outlawed. This shows that the concepts of freedom and equality in the declaration are, in the mindset they were first written, not the definition of freedom that the slaves were striving for. If the freedom of the slaves was not that of the French revolution, what freedom was it? C.E. Fick argues that the repressed slaves, with no education, were in fact the primary architects both of their own freedom and of the victorious movement which gained for them national independence. The main instinctive aim of the slaves in their uprising was to break the shackles of slavery and in this, obtain personal liberty. Even amongst the slaves themselves there were different points of view on what their own freedom would actually resemble. Fick puts forward some distinct possibilities for what they may have been.

Some slaves had only a short-term aim in mind, that is, freedom from slavery. For these slaves rebellion was directed against their masters but not the colonial system as a whole. Some took a more backward looking approach, aiming at a withdrawal from slavery and a return to social organisations roughly based on African modes of life. The most enlightened of slaves strived for a destruction of slavery, which would subsequently transform society into something new and wonderful. Some may argue along the more cynical line that the slaves in their ill education and bitterness were uprising for the sole purpose of massacring there masters as revenge for years of abuse, without any underling idealistic concept of 'freedom'. Rather then assigning one of these aims of revolt to all the slaves it would be more accurate to assume they all existed within the Saint Domingue society.

But, due to the illiteracy of most slaves so therefore the lack of memoirs, it would be impossible to speculate on the proportion of slaves who held a certain view. There was one philosophy that historians have agreed played an important role within Haitian revolutionary masses. Voodoo, the religion of the African slaves, offered a source of psychological freedom. Through voodoo slaves were able to express and define their own self-existence and see themselves as independent beings. This constituted the destruction of slavery within ones own mind Though Christianity was the only religion allowed in Saint Domingue and the slaves were all required to be Christened, voodoo still managed to exist and thrive amongst the slaves.

By the incorporation of some quasi-catholic ceremonial characteristics voodoo beliefs and practices were able too flourish under the facade of Christianity. Most plantation owners turned a blind eye to voodoo practices amongst their slaves, with their only concern that the work gets done. Some, on the other hand, were suspicious of the religion, a Saint Domingue slave owner, Leap, wrote in 1803, 'They are dancing the Vaudou- an obscure dance to encourage murder- in two spots in town. We have just hung one of the principal actors... this dance is a sinister prelude'.

The signal to the slaves of Saint Domingue to rise in revolt in 1791 was reportedly given by Bookman Duty, a high priest of Voodoo and coach driver, during a nighttime voodoo ceremony. This shows the power of voodoo amongst the slaves. It was through a combination of the philosophies of the French revolution and those of the voodoo religion that a template for freedom and emancipation in Saint Domingue was forged. There were two major concessions that were granted to the blacks the Caribbean by the National Assembly prior to the creation of Haiti. These were the granting of full political rights to all free blacks and mulattos who were born or free mothers and fathers in may 1791 and the abolition of slavery with the granting of full rights to all black men in the colonies in February 1794.

Neither of these was based on an unselfish love of freedom and equality. Granting rights to free blacks and mulattos was a way to appease the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, who were applying increasing pressure. The civil rights of tax-paying, property-owning, non-whites seemed a much safer issue to the National assembly then that of slavery, as colonial income would not be effected. The abolishment of slavery in 1794 was little more then a means of beating foreign enemies. France could only drive the British out of the Caribbean with the help of the ex-slave Francois-Dominique Toussaint L'Ouvertture, who was a general in charge of a large and powerful rebel force. He was fighting with the Spanish and would only join the French with the abolition of slavery.

The fact that Napoleon Bonaparte attempted to restore slavery in 1802 shows that the original granting of freedom was no more then a step in Frances selfish, anti-British agenda. The average slave, who did not enjoy the relative comfort of the military, continued labouring in plantations in slave like conditions, despite their change in status. It would take more then a declaration of freedom to the slaves on paper to actually achieve liberty. The fact that enlightened ideas of freedom and equality could not exist in a vacuum is what led, inevitably, to the Haitian revolution. The factors of colour and colonial status, economic interest and power politics, both national and international, went a long way in clouding the thinking about the ideals evoked so much in the revolutionary decade. Freedom to the slaves was achieved not granted.

Though inspired to some degree by the French revolution, the freedom of the slaves was their own. It was conceived by them and for them, in a long struggle to forge a nation of their own, separate from France or any other colonial master. The slaves gained, in the colonial revolutionary period, an opportunity to build their own nation on the principals they believe in and to leave behind the brutal oppression that they were brought from Africa to endure. At the same time France lost both its richest colony and it claim to be the motherland of liberty for the whole of mankind.

Bibliography

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The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below, Knoxville, TN, 1990 Forster, Robert.
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White Jacobins / Black Jacobins: Bringing the Haitian and French Revolutions together in the Classroom', French historical studies 23 (2000) Gasper, David.
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