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1-1-1983

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

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Recommended CitationGeggus, David, "Slave Resistance Studies and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt: Some Preliminary Considerations (Paper #4)"(1983). LACC Occasional papers series (1981 - 1990). 3.https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/laccops/3

SLAVE RESISTANCE STUDIES AND THE SAINT DOMINGUE SLAVE REVOLT : SOME

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

David Geggus Department o f Hi s t o r y Un ive rs i t y o f F l o r i d a

# 4 Winter 1983

Pub1 ished by t h e L a t i n American and Caribbean Center o f

F l o r i da I n t e r n a t i ona1 Univers i t y

Ed i to r : Lowel l W. Gudmundson Department o f H i s t o r y

Associate Ed i to rs : Jorge Sal aza r -Car r i l l o Department o f Economics

Wi l l i am T. Vickers Department o f Soci 01 ogy/An th ropo l ogy

The insurrection tha 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 h-

speaking societ ies 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 1 i terature , much of i t i s super- f i c i a l and even i t s best examples have used only a small par t of the relevant documentation. Our knowledge of the slave revol t, i n fac t , has progressed 1 i t t l e since ~ a u l g u s Sannon's account of 1920, or even Beaubrun Ardoui n 's of 1 8 5 3 . ~

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 sa t i r e , lying, feigning i l l ness and working slow, through tool-breaking, t he f t , f l i g h t and s t r ikes , t o sel f-muti 1 ation, suicide and infanticide, arson, poisoning and physical assault. Of course, one may question the unity of such a diverse range of ac t iv 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 ac t iv i t i e s they defined as "intransi- gence."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 ta t ive 1 eap" between n i h i l i s t i c ac ts of "naively directed" violence and those acts of rebellion and f l i g h t which represented a bodily rejection of sl a ~ e r ~ . ~ Geral d Mu1 1 i n simiJ arly d i s t i n-

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 fo 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 tha t the f l i gh t of a sol i tary and selfishly-motivated maroon was more

"pol i t ical ," or a more effective challenge t o the slave regime, than the reckless murder of a hated master. Nor need i t have been more "self-

enhancing" than an ac t of sabotage. In the same way, a midwife's systematic acts of infanticide could well be regarded as more, or less , po l i t ica l ly mature or 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 self- destructive, 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 ress 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 col- lect ive spir i tual l i f e which spawned the more dramatic acts of rebellion.'

Along with writers l i ke Lawrence Levine and A1 bert ~ a b o t e a u , ~ he has extended in new and subtle ways our understanding of resistance t o show how, even under the very restr ic ted 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 .# l9

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 na- t ion 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 tor 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 ight . l l By stressing tha t resistance was a subtle, omnipresent phenomenon tha t could co-exi s t w i t h

accommodation in the same person, i n the same ac 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 as part of the general cultural context

of the s lave 's 1 i f e , i t i s l e s s certain tha t one can 1 i 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

tha t i t was because they rejected the i r own folk culture tha t they fai led t o become a self-conscious and cohesive group, "and consequently perhaps" t o win the i r freedom "as the i r cousins i n Haiti had done."13 This surely exaggerates the polit ical 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 to misconstrue, as regards these two social groups, what was for t h e m the most common nexus between culture and pol i t ical

action. Caught between two worlds, was i t not precisely the i r marginality tha 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 ar i s tocra ts who became radical revolutionaries, surely i t was the i r rejection by those w i t h

whom they identified tha 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 ab 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 run- aways. Acculturation, he argues, led t o resistance.15 Similarly, i t was the most assimilated slaves who were the most l ikely t o respond to news arriving from abroad, and who were best able t o prof i t from pol i t ical divisions in the master class. While i t has been suggested tha t Martinique survived the French

Revolution bet ter 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 ha t ethnicity was frequently a vehicle for rev01 t (notably in Jamaica and Brazil) , o r t ha t newly-arrived Africans were

probably the most rebellious of slaves, ( i f not necessarily for s t r i c t l y cul tural reasons). A common cul ture, especi a1 ly 1 anguage and re1 i g i on, were clearly very important i n the organization of resistance. B u t tha t culture could as easily be European-oriented as African. For slaves or f ree 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 assess- ment of slavery, i s the question of the s lave 's a t t i tude t o freedom, perhaps the t r i ck ie s t problem tha t confronts historians of the inst i tut ion. For the Haitian school of historians, and for certain French scholars such as Gaston- Martin and Lucien Peytraud, i t was the s lave 's desire for l iber ty tha t marronage quintessentially expressed. Such writers, o r those of them who have f e l t the need to defend this opinion, tend to appeal t o the "logic of Haitian history" or the "nature of Man" for supporting evidence, as well as to the f a c t t ha t i t cannot be disproved.17

Other historians, however, apparently more empirical i n approach, have attempted t o re la te 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 relat ives , the fear o r resentment of punishment, or of demotion within the plantation hierarchy. These writers represent marronage not as a mili tant 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 th i s interpretation, argues tha t a desire for free-

dom, before the nineteenth century, was not an important cause of marronage, and Gabriel Debien also doubts tha 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 tha 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, fo r his part, allows tha t incidental causes had some part i n motivating fugi- t ives , and even Debbasch accepts tha t slave ar t isans who f led 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 re 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 , ~ ~ tha t such cases were rarely those advertised i n the newspapers. Debien replies tha 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 1 i n has estimated tha 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 therefore represented "1 i t t l e more than truancy." As another t h i r d were a r t i sans and wai t i ngmen seeking an independent 1 i f e i n the towns, he concl udes tha t f ie l 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 inf in i te ly 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 ar r iva ls ' attempts t o escape, Debbasch regards such maroons as "sick." Rather more usefully, Debien points out tha 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 tha t they accounted for 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 rev01 t and

f l 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 i s 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 bo th inadequately articulated and beyond resolution. One should surely ask: what sort of freedom? and take account of varying geographic 1 ocati ons, soci a1 positions and pol i t i cal possi bi 1 i t i es. For many slaves, the 1 i fe 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 errorsYz5 though

in no other work has marronage been so vividly depicted. Using the 1 i s t s of runaways pub1 i shed in the colonial newspapers, he claims t o show t h a t marron- age increased steadily during the las 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 rea 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 subs is - tence.

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 sugges t a f i g u r e o f severa l thousands a t 1 a rge 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 longes 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 "severa l thousand" mentioned by Eugene ~ e n o v e s e . ~ ~ A va luable and neglec ted source i n this connect ion i s a pamphlet by the 1 i be ra l p l a n t e r Mi lscent de Musset, who acquired a high r epu ta t i on a s a maroon f i g h t e r , l e ad ing u n i t s of f r e e coloureds. Publ ic opinion, he sa id , always g r e a t l y i n f l a t e d the numbers of maroons ope ra t i ng 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 s tandards of t h e Guianas, i t none the less compares favourably w i t h the average Braz i l i an mocambo, Palmares excepted, and w i t h the Jamaican Maroon Towns during t h e i r mil i t a n t per iod. Considering the problems of subs i s t ence , the co lony ' s s i z e and dens i ty of popul a t i ~ n , ~ ~ i t i s probably unreal i s t ic t o expec t 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 nc reas ing o r no 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 1 eve1 , maroon a c t i v i t y c e r t a i n l y appears t o have been more cons ide rab 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 even t s , i t i s conspicuously t h i n on mater ia l f o r the 1 7 8 0 s . ~ ~ I t was then t h a t the co lon ia l admin i s t r a t i on and the Maniel maroons made peace.

( i i i ) According t o Edner Brutus, marronage was an "insurrectionary movement." "Flight ," i n the words of Leslie Manigat, "led t o f ight ." Arson and the attempted murder of whites, he claims, were among the "normal, i f not frequent, ac t ions of maroons throughout the 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 charac te r i s t i c? The number of whites k i l l ed by maroon ra iders i n

Sa in 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 rare ly attacked whites. Even i f a p lanter 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 const i tu ted most of Saint Domingue's slave fugi t ives , and were thought t o be the ethnic group most prone t o marronage, were a lso regarded by the planters , r a ther curiously, a s the most t rac tab le o r "docile" or Africans.

Colonial administrators, on the other hand, had t o adopt a broader, l e s s plantat ion-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 in te res t ing t o note, regarded marronage a s an a1 ternat ive t o conspiracy and rebel1 ion. He thus explained the lu l l i n maroon a c t i v i t i e s i n the 1750s, the period of the 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 par t of a continuing t r ad i t i on , though i n t h i s he was en t i re ly a1 one among the planters of Saint Domingue.

There was another side, however, t o maroon-sl ave re1 at ions. J u s t 1 ike t he maroons of Jamaica and Suriname, the Maniel made a t rea ty w i t h the colonial au thor i t i es t o capture and return runaway slaves; some they kept a s slaves themselves. Wri t ing of the "paras i t i c economies" of the Bahian mocambos i n Brazil, Stuar t Schwartz observed t h a t some enjoyed a degree of co- operation w i t h white society, d i d not seek t o overthrow the slave regime and i n t h e i r depredations preyed more on the slaves than on the whites. Mull i n

has s t ressed s imilar aspects of marronage i n the Bri t i sh Caribbean, and Debien a lso has noted h o s t i l i t y between slaves and runaways i n Saint ~ o m i n ~ u e . ~ ~ The po l i t i ca l consciousness and militancy of even organized groups of maroons can cer ta inly 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

groups certainly sought to minimise f r ic t ion w i t h the planters, even for- bidding the k i l l ing of whites.35 Sylvia de Groot observes tha t i n Suriname ac ts of revenge by maroons "were not rare," b u t i n general she pla'ces the i r attacks i n the context of a need for commodities unavailable i n the forest . The account of Johannes King, moreover, appears to present the maroons' hos t i l i t i e s as retal ia t ion 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 hos 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 ac ts of aggression.37 Such developments do suggest, nevertheless, t ha 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.

( i v ) Sl ave revol t s i n Jamaica, Surinam, Saint Domi ngue and el sewhere, wri tes Eugene Genovese, "accompanied and fol 1 owed 1 arge-scal e maroon wars. " As regards Saint Domingue, however, i t i s not a t a l l c lear of which "large- scale 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 tha 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 ye t t o be proved. The only e f fo 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 ree coloureds, as maroons, and he a1 so includes among them such figures as Jean Kina, who was not a maroon and who actually fought for the white planters.39

In a suggestive and we1 1-received conference paper, the Haitian Lesl i e Manigat points out tha t Fouchard simply equates maroons and rebels, b u t he, too, ends up endorsing the Haitian thesis by appealing to "the logic of historical reasoning."40 I t i s perfectly 1 ogical , Debien agrees, t ha 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 tha t we know of , the Maniel IDokos, kept a1 oof for several years, and subsequently pl ayed a rather

1 0

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 ea 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 f requent ly 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 . 44 During the Revolution, moreover, t h e c o l o n i s t s cont inued 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" pe r s i ~ t e d . ~ ~

What of the 1 eaders 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 rs t four t o achieve prominence, a r e genera l ly 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 advert isement f o r a " f ie rce-1 ooking" maroon named Bouquemens, da ted 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 rea l Boukman, a t 5'3" t a l l he was c l e a r l y no t the co lossus 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 no t Boukman' s he igh t bu t the s i z e of his head and they could well match up w i t h the 1779 desc r ip t i on . In any ca se , there i s i n the Archives Nat ionales , P a r i s , an e a r l y n ine teen th cen tury 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 s lave. . .who con t inua l ly went on the maroon and used t o r e t u r n a t n igh t t o s t e a l even from h i s comrades." Apparently, he was caught and so ld severa l times before being bought by a M. Cl&ent, whom he k i l l e d a t the beginning of the upris ing.47 S imi l a r ly , i n the a rch ives of Sevi l l e there e x i s t s a le t ter by B i 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 connect ion can be e s t a b l i shed between the revol u t ionary 1 eadersh ip and an experience o f marronage. However, there i s no suggest ion 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 , t end t o imply the con t r a ry . 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 anta- t i o n s a t the time of the upr i s ing . I t very much seems t h a t i t was organized from wi th in the system and n o t from o u t s i d e i t .

Typo1 ogies of Sl ave Rebel 1 ion

( i ) R i sing and fa1 1 ing expectations A sense of re la t ive deprivation, caused ei ther by worsening circum-

stances or by heightened expectations, has long been a common element i n the analysis of the causes of revolution. Among the "four situations conducive to 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 ta tes that slave rev01 t s generally occurred where slavery was commercial rather than patriarchal i n ethos and where economic dis t ress was intense.50 Insurrections certainly seem to have been linked, and not l eas 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 to 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 for i t , (a1 though he himself has abandoned i t on what seem to be erroneous grounds i n the recent edition of The - Bl ack Jacobins) .51

Marian Kilson, in fac t , has argued tha 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 to be qua1 i f ied , i t does seem tha t i t was the fac 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 con- spiracy 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 fo r the e l i t e slaves involved. 53 Resi stance, according to the former sl ave Frederick Doug1 ass , resulted more often from indulgence and r is ing expectations than from severity.54 The great majority of rebel leaders, a t l eas t , both i n the U.S.

and the Caribbean, came from the ranks of the bet ter treated slaves, though t h i s i s a1 so t rue of the t r a i t o r s who betrayed slave conspiracies.55

In the British colonies, the picture is 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 fa l l ing sugar prices and declining prof i t s for the planters. The great Christmas Rebellion of 1831 coincided w i t h the lowest sugar prices for 100 years. However, one cannot simply assume what so r t of impact such trends had on the l ives of the slaves. Barry Higman has shown how demographic changes resulting from the abolit ion of the slave trade i n 1807 restr ic ted the upward mobil i ty of slaves i n Jamaica. "The resulting s t ress ," he argues, "was a basic cause of the rebellion of 1831," i n which e l i t e slaves were for 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 tha t the slave e l i t e i n Jamaica was already being associated w i t h con- spiracies as f a r back as 1791 and 1 7 7 6 ~ ~ when the causative factors t h a t Higman adduces were not present. Moreover, the theory tha 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 1 enged by J.R. Ward. He claims tha 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 argu- ments appear sound ( fo 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 ra tes 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 th i r ty years ago tha t towards the end of the colonial period slaves were treated worse, specifically worked 1 onger, because of incipient soil exhaustion, increasing demand for 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 to the coffee-growing regions, l eas t affected by the Revolution, and not to the great sugar es ta tes tha t were i t s heart1 and. Hence a causal connection between increasing work1 oad and rebel - l ion 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 as 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 tude on the planters' part , which was underpinned by the r is ing cost of slaves and sensi t ivi ty 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 tha 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 tha 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 fantast ic rate.64 Yet one should not draw hasty conclusions, fo r food imports from North America were also increasing i n t h i s period, fac i l i ta ted by a new free port decree. So far , we have no evidence tha 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 tha t i n the North the slaves were bet ter fed, b u t not every- one agreed. The situation, then, was complex and many more plantation studies are needed.

Whether or not, however, conditions on the plantations were substantively improving or declining, i t does seem possible to speak of r is ing expectations among the slave population. In the f i r s t place, even i f the movement to improve conditions affected very few slaves direct ly , i t may st i l l have been suff ic ient t o sharpen among the r e s t a sense of re la t ive deprivation. T h i s

movement, moreover, was given 1 egi sl a t ive expression i n a number of controver- s ia l royal decrees d u r i n g the years 1784-86. Most importantly, these envisaged tha t sl aves woul d denounce instances of mistreatment to the colonial authorities- -according to the whites, an extremely dangerous innovation. The decrees were b i t t e r ly resisted and apparently never really enforced, b u t the excitement they created in the northern plain was said to have caused considerable unrest, tha t i s self-assertion, among the slaves.65 I t i s i n

t h i s context tha 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 authori t ies attempted to prosecute him, b u t

gave up i n the face of white hos t i l i ty and obstruction by the courts. Usually ci ted to show the persistence of barbarous behaviour i n the colony, the case i s probably more significant as evidence tha t new standards were being applied, and tha 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, 1 ike 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 fo 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 he i r masters were withholding from them an ac t of emancipation (sometimes only par t ia 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 or a genuine be1 i e f , i t i s hard to 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 pol i t ical equality to certain free coloureds. Such reports could easily be m i sconstrued, or deftly expl oi ted, by s1 ave ma1 contents, especial ly as the white colonists were preparing to 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 "off ic ial documents" were read out which announced tha 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 1 ion i n Jamaica, re1 igion provided slave rebel s w i t h 1 eaders, organization, ideologies and a community of feel ing. In comparing the three best known United States rebellions or conspiracies, both Gerald Mullin and Eugene Genovese have contrasted them according to the 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 1 i n , the conspiracies of Denmark Vesey and, particul arly , of Gabriel Prosser fai led because they were too secular i n approach. Unlike Nat Turner, they couched the i r appeal i n pol i t ical not religious terms and Prosser, especially, neglected to use e i ther the "African wizards" or the methodist camp meetings to appeal to 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 as the bet ter organized, more r ea l i s t i c attempts of Vesey and, w i t h some reservations, Prosser. In the i r pol i t ical maturity, he suggests, they approached the s tature 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 tha t is stressed by Edison Carneiro, who contrasts them w i t h the secular, anarchic and ineffectual insur- rection of Manuel ~ a l a i o . ~ ~ Michael Craton, on the other hand, makes no such distinction when discussing the three most important rebel 1 ions i n the British

Caribbean. He points out that , while Christian revivalism played a vi ta l role i n two of the great nineteenth century uprisings, i t was to ta l ly absent from the Barbados rebellion of 1816. He concludes i t was not a necessary condition fo 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 ic les . Although tempted, along w i t h other writers, t o apply Norman Cohn's well known formulation, he has now concluded tha t i t i s too "Eurocentric" and "formulistic" to f i t the fac ts of Afro-Caribbean revolt.74 I f , as he argues, the " late" rebellions were specifically characterized by moderate aims and methods, then millenarian woul d indeed seem an inappropriate description fo r them.75 According to Eugene Genovese, the "revol utionary mill enial i sm" of Nat Turner was a r a r i ty in 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 Hai t i ' s great revol ution," Genovese observes, "mil 1 enial i s t and messianic prophecy pl ayed only a f leet ing role."76

16

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 1 ike the Christmas Rebel 1 ion, the historian obviously has to tread carefully i n applying such terms as millenarian or i n

denyi ng the i r val i d i ty . Wi 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 hosti le. 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 tha 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 to consider i t contemporary w i t h the 1791 meeting."77 I t may, i n fac 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 Rev01 ution.

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 s torical 1 i terature w i t h a translation - "We swear to destroy the whites," etc.--that i s ent i rely i n a ~ c u r a t e . ~ ~ During the Revolution there i s no evidence of damage to churches by the insurgents, nor even of the f t of sacred vessels from them i n the areas the blacks controlled: f a r from i t . The colonial pr ies t s were always spared and they were sufficiently well treated to 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 to be i n touch w i t h the Virgin Mary and to be inspired by the Holy S p i r i t ; o r of the voodoo pr ies t Hyacinthe, who sought pr iest ly absolution and blesssing for his followers, and the existence of other houngans w i t h names such as ~ a i n t e - ~ 6 s u s and l a vierge7' suggests i n

fac t t ha t considerable synchreti sation between voodoo and Christianity had a1 ready taken pl ace.

W i t h the t r iumph of the black revolution, we know tha t leaders such as Toussaint Louverture and Dessal ines t r ied to suppress the voodoo cu l t , as had the French authorit ies. T h i s doubt1 ess t e s t i f i e s to i t s subversive potential , for while Christian sensibi l i ty might have been a motive as regards Toussaint, this could not possibly have been so i n Dessalines's case.

Although Monica Schuler has eloquently complained tha t scholars have neglected the pol i t ical functions of Afro-American re1 igion, emphasi si ng

instead i t s cathart idescapi 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 as a potentially subversive inst i tut ion, overcoming previous barriers to cooperation. Yet one should also point out tha t the development of voodoo, by enriching the cultural 1 i f e of the slaves i n Saint Domingue and adding meaning to the i r existence, presumably also helped to defuse anomic tensions and add to the s t ab 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 to the tendency to polarize these particular opposites i s the case of the voodoo pr ies t Hyacinthe, who indeed led slaves into ba t t l e invoking the protection of magical charms, b u t as an al ly of the white planters. Moreover, one of these planters, Hanus de Jumecourt, was reputed (admittedly , by his enemies) to have participated i n voodoo.81 For the same reason, one cannot accept Schuler's argument tha t the persistence of an African religious perspective, specifically the s lave 's tendency t o see his master as a sorcerer, 8 2

necessarily meant a refusal t o accept slavery, when the opposite could easily have been the case. In Saint Domingue, i t was said tha 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-de- Sac 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 : t radi t ion holds tha t the meeting of e l i t e slaves a t which the uprising was organised was e i ther followed by, or 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 cu l t . While this seems perfectly probable, one should note tha t the his tor ici ty 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 de ta 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 ea r l i e s t mention of the Bois Caiman ceremony appears to 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 la te 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 es 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 Nlenfant ls assertion tha 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 1 i t t l e surprised to find this gathering of e l i t e slaves bu 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 off ic iat ing was said to be a green-eyed mu1 atress , daughter of a Corsican, and therefore presumably a different so r t of pr iestess 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, as now, voodoo doubt1 ess catered for 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 ress usually l a id 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 the i r reaction to his death and from a moving testimony written by one of h is

subordinates a few years later.88 Such prestige might indicate tha 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 tha t Mass was said for h i m i n the rebel-occupied areas. Several pr ies t s continued to function i n the occupied zone, and a few years l a t e r Spanish off icers fighting alongside the blacks were to complain tha t i t was a "war of Pater Noster and Ave aria."^^

Jean-Fran~oi s, Boukman' s successor, was especi a1 1y deferenti a1 t o pr ies 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 to a hospital r u n by monks. Madiou described him as 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 sadis t ic Jeannot, too, was said by Madiou to have been under the influence of sorcerers. Yet even he was also observed to ac t w i t h some deference towards pr iests ; he agreed not to hold executions on Sundays, and he asked to attend church before his execution.90 One would not l ike to s t ress the matter too much, however, fo r the pr ies t s i n the rebels' camps appear to have enjoyed a rather precarious existence, and raison d ; ta t could easily explain the rebel s ' re1 ations w i t h them. Jeannot' s a t t i tude, a t 1 east , was reportedly expressed as , "Obey the pr ies t i n church, b u t i f he interferes outside i t , cu t off h is 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 to describe rebel 1 ions 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 tha t such neat distinctions were much more blurred i n

rea l i ty , and tha t as regards chronology the model i s misleading. However, he s t i l l maintains tha t w i t h respect t o "leadership, aims and tac t ics , 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 transit ional phase from one type of revolt t o another, and the

surprising absence of any uprising during these years he a t t r ibutes 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 the 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 c lass and destroying the plantation regime, the l a t e creole rebel 1 ions aimed a t achieving freedom a1 ongside or within pl antation society, mainly through passive resistance w i t h a 1 imited use of violence. Creoles were 1 iable to be "horrified" by "senseless" destruction such as 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 ha 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 tha t Craton examines, i t i s not apparent t h a t e i ther fai led owing to Af rican-creol e tensions. The "essentially African" Antigua plot of 1735 was betrayed by Africans and fa i led to reach f ru i t ion mainly through il l- 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 ha 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 for Christmas 1791. However, the mi l i t ia then turned out for the f i r s t time i n nine years and the s ize of the garrison, a1 ready a t a record level, was soon doubled. In fac t , i t was precisely the

period 1776-1815 tha t saw British garrisons i n the Caribbean a t t he i r strongest. Anthony Synnott, i n his excellent thesis , has linked t h i s increased military presence to the trend to non-violent resistance i n the British colonies i n the nineteenth century.99 Yet, as Craton himself notes, the three l a t e rebellions followed on the reduction i n s ize 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 lear into which category the revolt should f i t . Craton appears to 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 es 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 to be known, b u t

as a sugar plantation coachman i t would be very rare i f he were not creole.lo2 And to look forward several years: very few Africans were to gain prominence as leaders--Pierrot, Pierre Michel, Laplume, were among the handful to gain more than a local and f leet ing 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 to discount the African factor. Most commentators have rightly stressed the high r a t io of Africans to 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 to carry through the i r plans. As for the rebels' aims, these appear to have varied through time and probably from group to group, and so could be viewed i n

Craton' s terms as e i ther creole or African. The rebels' t ac t ics , too, could be classed under e i ther heading, the i n i t i a l massacre and destruction giving way t o a more f lexible stance. I t seems then, t ha t this most successful of

slave rebel 1 ions was a thorough mixture of both creole and African elements. This tends to undermine the hypothesis tha t the tension between the two "ideologies" was so nugatory as to be able to 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 fy 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 bat t l 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 1 ate , creol e rebel 1 ions 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 the i r individual provision grounds, on which they worked a t week-ends, often i n family groups, growing crops both for the i r own consumption and for sale i n the local markets, which they dominated. Freedom to 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, is whether such aspirations distinguished these revol t s from ea 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 to await the balancing of the r a t io between men and women a f t e r 1800. Craton's own position i s unclear. While he re la tes the slaves' peasant ac t iv i t i e s t o the 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 to African sty1 es under the i r chosen chiefs-- e i ther as Asante-1 ike warrior bands, or as sel f-contained Ibo-1 ike vi l lages deep i n the forest . 11 105

There seems to be a confusion here between pol i t ical inst i tut ions and socio-economic structures, not a comparison between l ike and l ike. While the "proto-peasant" formul a t i on appears t o have no pol i t i ca l content, the socio- economic form tha t post-revolutionary African "ethnic autocracies" would have adopted i s 1 argely a matter of conjecture. The Maroon communities presumably

provide a clue, b u t as Craton confusingly observes, they tended to serve as an example to the slaves of an independent peasantry. lo6 Considering tha t one of the defining character is t ics of the l a t e rebellions was the willingness of the rebel s to 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 to the rebellions of the eighteenth century than to those of the nineteenth century. After a l l , i t was a predominantly African Saint Domingue tha 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 to 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 tor i an Eugene Genovese. In From Rebel 1 ion to Revolution, he argues tha t the revolution i n Saint Domingue represented a new type of slave revolt. Whereas previous insurrections were restorat ionis t , aimed a t withdrawing from colonial society, not a t overthrowing i t , the French Rev01 ution 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 transformed into conservative peasants.108 S1 ave resistance i s thus incorporated into a programmatic history of world revolution.

Though character is t ical ly chall enging, Genovese' s analysis seems to have a number of flaws. Insofar as i t re la tes to 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 to the ascendancy of the remarkable Toussaint Louverture, which began i n 1793-94, the commitment of the black leaders (Toussaint included) to the overthrow of slavery was rather ambiguous and rarely expressed i n idea l i s t ic terms. I t d i d

not prevent them from sel l ing slaves themselves, nor from seeking a compromise

peace on more than one occasion.110 Furthermore, far from using bourgeois- democratic 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-Rev01 u t i o n . Their adopt ion 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 1 ater 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 1 eaders' attempts t o maintain an export economy w i t h forced 1 abour and 1 argely 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 counter- revol utionary.l12 Pltion, moreover, though a mu1 a t t o born free, was the only

revol uti onary 1 eader 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. We 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

~amaica . 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 as from the mass of ex-slaves. B u t a1 so because i t i s now known t h a t

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 1 east fifteen years.116

W i t h respect t o the sl avery question i n French Rev01 utionary pol i t ics, 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 bl acts helped destroy, seems rather excessive.l17 In the Legi sl ative 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 Garran- Coulon, they included the f i r s t pol i t ic ians 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 to the same faction. Though invariably

II

depicted as a Jacobin i n English works, his recall and return to 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 1 aw of February 1794, i t was guided a t l eas t as much by realpol i t ik as by ideal ism. Some Jacobins such as Amar secretly opposed the measure, while Danton, ostensibly a proponent, t r i ed 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 1 ion to revol ution considerbly pre-dating the Age of Revolution, a s h i f t which Synnott convincingly re la tes to the diminishing opportunities for establishing new maroon communities as colonial f ront ie rs 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 t rue tha t some eighteenth century rebels intended to enslave those blacks who d i d not join them - Tacky's Coromantees, fo r example. B u t before one can say w i t h confidence tha t not until the Saint Domingue Revolution did slaves demand the abolition of slavery, we need to know a l o t more about these ea 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 tha t they occurred "within the context of the bourgeois-democratic rev01 u t i onary wave. " "Restorationi s t " rebel 1 ions, he admits, d i d not

dissappear. Whether he considers t h e n ineteenth 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 c lear . He does inc lude under t h i s heading the

Prosser, Vesey and Turner conspirac ies i n the Uni ted States, b u t a lso notes

t h a t t h e i r aims "remain debatable" and t h a t they may have been d i rec ted

towards establ i shing maroon encl aves. When deal i n g w i t h the Christmas

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

stressed by o ther wr i t e rs , and observes somewhat f a n c i f u l l y t h a t i t

"represented the cu lminat ion o f a new stage, i n which the slaves could look

forwards t o independence i n a wor ld o f modern nat ion states. "Iz1 While t h e

Christmas rebel 1 i o n i s no doubt suscept ib le t o d i f f e r i n g i n te rp re ta t i ons , 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 analys is .

Genovese's o v e r r i d i n g concern w i t h ideology thus 1 eads him t o see

increas ing r a d i c a l i sm i n s l ave rebe l 1 ion, whereas Craton and Synnott,

concerned w i t h methods as we l l as aims, see increas ing moderation. For the

l a t t e r w r i t e rs , t h e dynamic f o r change came from w i t h i n slave society,

( c reo l i z a t i on, t he c l os i ng f r o n t i e r ) . Genovese acknowl edges the importance of

these fac tors , b u t be1 ieves t h a t ideas external t o the slave system were t h e

c h i e f i n f l uence i n fashioning new forms o f armed resistance. It i s , o f

course, no t the f i r s t occasion when he has championed the r o l e o f ideas

aga ins t the scepticism o f non-Marxist h i s to r ians . Whether one approach i s

more successful than the 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 revo l ts .

A t present, we know too l i t t l e about the 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 the changes they were undergoing, mater ia l

o r otherwise. I n p a r t i c u l a r , there i s a need t o i nves t iga te the impact on

s lave communities o f t he l i b e r t a r i a n i d e a l s o f the Age o f Revolution. The

inf luence o f ideas needs t o be d is t ingu ished from the weakening o f t he fo rces

o f soc ia l con t ro l t h a t sometimes accompanied them. The aims of rebel leaders

f u r t h e r need t o be delineated, and d is t ingu ished i f necessary from those o f

t h e i r fo l lowers. The r e l a t i o n between marronage and revo l t, and the r o l e o f

r e l i g i o n i n slave res is tance are o ther notably murky areas. The comparative

ana lys is of s lave res is tance has thrown up a number o f usefu l 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 cont ras ts i n the h i s t o r y of s e r v i l e

rebe l1 ion. The time would now seem r i g h t f o r a r e t u r n t o more empir ical

invest igat ions t h a t w i l l serve t o evaluate and u l t i m a t e l y extend those hypotheses.

N O T E S

The number o f r e b e l s probably reached ten thousand wi th in 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 Sannon. H i s t o i r e de Toussa in t Louverture ( P o r t au Prince. 1920-30); B. ~ r d o u j n , t t u d e s sur 1 h i s t o i r e d Ha i t i ( p a r i s , 1853). ~ f : D. Geggus, "Unexploited Sources f o r t h e H i s t o r y o f t h e Hai t ian ~ e v o l u t i o n , " La t in .~merican Research Review, 18 ( spr ing , 1983).

G.M. Frederickson and C. Lasch, "Res is tance t o Slavery," C i v i l War H i s t o r y , 13 (December, 1967).

H.O. Pa t t e r son , 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, 1974) , p. 598.

G. M u l l i n , F l i g h t and Rebellion (Oxford, 1972), pp. 35-38.

Roll Jordan Rol l , p. 598.

L. Levine, Black Cul ture and Black Consciousness (Oxford, 1977); A. Raboteau, Slave Rel igion (Oxford, 1978).

"The Passion t o Exis t : S lave Rebel l ions i n t h e B r i t i s h West Ind ie s , 1629-1832," Journal of Caribbean His tory , 13 (Spring, 1980); pp. 2, 18- 19.

"Towards a Psychology o f Slavery," i n A.-T. Gilmore (ed . ) , Rev i s i t i ng 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, 198-

For 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 Di rec t ions i n S lave 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." Ce r t a in ly , t h e "na t ive" o r "Black" Bap t i s t s , who were apparen t ly 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 th ink Brathwaite goes t oo f a r i n sugges t ing t h a t t h e rebel l e a d e r and deacon Sam Sharpe was an obeah-man simply because he was i n d i c t e d f o r being an "oath-swearer." See Craton ( ed . ) , Roots, 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. Bra thwai te ' s e a r l ier s ta tement t h a t Sharpe was "condemned by a1 1 f o r adminis te r ing

dreaded African and obeah oa ths and s e a l i n g them with gunpowder and blood" seems t o be 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 Pe r spec t ives on Slavery i n New World P l an t a t i on 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 ( ed . ) The Cari bbean ( Gai nesvi 1 1 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 Hai t ian school , which i s by no means monol i th ic , a r e Edner Brutus, Jean Fouchard and Gerard Laurent. The Hai t ian e x p a t r i a t e Leslie Manigat adopts a c r i t ica l s t ance towards t h e school bu 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 sc l ave a n t i 1 1 a i s ," Anfiee soc io 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 Te 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 rney ' i n t h e per iod ~ o u c h a r d r e f e r s t o here: Briida papers , E 691, Arch, dept . Loire-Atlant ique, 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 express ion " 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 igh t een th cen tury , while Ode1 ucq, t h e estate 's a t t o rney during t h e 1780s was according t o some a harsh master: H. Brouqham. An Inaui rv i n t o t h e Colonial Pol icv . " of t h e European Powers ( ~ d i iburgh , , V O l . 2, Po . t h i anonymous denunciat ion o f him i n Gal li;:,"; Papers , 107 AP4:%/2C,f Arch. Nat., Pa r i s .

S lave Populat ion 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 t h e per iod 1790-91: "Le marronage au tour du Cap," Bull. I n s t i t . f r a n ~ a i s de 1 'Afrique no i re , ser. B (1965 ): 794; "Le p e t i t marronage 'a Saint-Domingue au tour du Cap," Cahiers des Ameriques 1 atines (1969): 55. Slaves usua l ly l ea rned c r e o l e i n s i d e a year . Annual imports o f s l a v e s were then equ iva l en t t o about 7% of t h e s l a v e populat ion, 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 oo young t o r u n away.

23. Debien, Les e sc l aves , pp. 466-7; Fouchard, L ibe r t e , p. 438. D. Geggus, "The Sl aves o f Bri tish-Occupied S a i n t Domingue," Caribbean S tud ie s , 18 (1978): p a r t 2, 16-22, 30, Fouchard and Debien, Vet i t marronage," 57, quote t h e co lon ia 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 ave ry , bu 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, Descr ip t ion .. de Sa in t - Dominigue 117971 Paris, 1958 edn.) , vol. 1, p. 54 .

24. The S lave Community (New York, 19791, ch. 5.

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

26. Debien, Les e sc l aves , p. 467.

27. Ib id . , p. 420; "Li s t a de 10s negros.. .en el Maniel ," Aud. Santo Domingo 1102, Arch. Gen. de Ind ias , ~ 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 , Descr ip t ion , vol . 2, p. 1135,

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

30. Fouchard, Liberte', pp. 474-525. C f . Milscent de Musset, Troubles , pp. 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 n dans 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 ion i n S a i n t Domingue-Hai ti ," i n Rubin and Tuden, Perspec t ives , p. 432.

32. Debien, Les e sc l aves , p. 466; G. Debien, P l a n t a t i o n s e t e sc l aves 2 Saint-Dominigue (Dakar, 19621, p. 72 .

33. 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 ap id ly i n t o legend. Before h i s be t raya l and execut ion i n 1758, he i s be1 ieved t o have spen t e igh teen 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 whi te col oni sts . Surp r i s ing ly , 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 thus l ies 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 on , 1791-1803" (Concordia Univ. Ph.D. t h e s i s , 1980), p. 57; b u t a1 so Fouchard, L iber t6 , p. 495.

34. S. Schwartz, "The Mocambo," i n R, Price ( ed . ) , 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

Pa t r i a r chs , " i n Rubin and Tuden, Perspec t ives , 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 ," Wi 11 i am and Mary Q u a r t e r l y XXXV (1978): 297, 306.

36. See P r i ce , Maroon S o c i e t i e s , pp. 181-2, 298-9; Rubin and Tuden, Perspec t ives , p. 456; C. Degler, Nei ther White Nor Black (New York,

' l ) , P* 48

37. Rubin and Tuden, Perspec t ives , p. 410; Brathwai t e , Development, pp. 248- 9; Pa t t e r son , Sociology, p. 269.

38. Jordan, p. 591, Cf. Genevese's l a t e r statement i n From Rebellion t o Revolu t ion , p. 86, "The r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s had behind them knowledge o f 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 is land." Thouah r a t h e r more cau t ious , even t h i s seems very un l ike ly . I t s u r e l y cann6t r e f e r t o f i r s t -hand knowledge, though t h e r eade r might th ink so. I t presumably r e f e r s t o t h e r a i d s , during t h e per iod 1776-81, o f t h e Maniel. They l i v e d i n t h e south-eas t about 100 miles from t h e centre o f t h e 1791 revol t, from which they were separa ted by severa l mountain ranges and a broad swathe o f Spanish t e r r i t o r y . The i r e x p l o i t s may have been known i n t h e North bu t I t h ink 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 eaders of t h e black revol u t i on i n t h e nor th , 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 wi thout ques t ion t h e result o f some confusion.

39. Fouchard, ~i be r tg , 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 sc l aves ou mani fes ta t ion de gens de couleur?" , Annales des Anti1 les (1983).

40. Manigat, "Relat ionship." A1 though he sets o u t o s t e n s i b l y t o examine t h e connect ion "i f any" between marronage and revol u t i on , Manigat expl i c i t l y assumes a d i r e c t 1 ink and, spurning "uncondi t ional obei ssance t o empir ical da t a " ignores Debien's p e r t i n e n t ques t ion , a s have a l l o t h e r writers: When and i n what manner d id t h e revolu t ionary l e a d e r s command bands o f maroons?

41. Debien, Les e sc l aves , p. 468.

42. Aud. Santo Domingo 1031, Archivo Gen. de Ind i a s , S e v i l l e , and ib id .

43. P o r t de Paix, Gros Morne, Le Borgne, Mirebalais , Arcahaye, Grand' Anse, t h e south-eas t and north-east . see Fouchard, Libertr5, 524; Debien, ~ e s - esc l aves , p. 421; Milscent, Troubles , pp. 6, 12 .

44. I b i d .

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, Sevil le.

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 iv ing together i n gangs of hundreds on the huge sugarfactories which covered the North Plain, [the slaves1 wre closer t o a modern p ro l e t a r i a t than any group of workers i n existence a t the time." The average sugar plantat ion 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 boil ing house or "factory." However, sugar production did demand an intense d i sc ip l ine and organisation on a scale f a r greater than t h a t of other s taples . In the mountains, moreover, the slaves of the small coffee e s t a t e s had f a r fewer opportunit ies t o meet a t urban markets.

52. Marion Kilson, "Towards Freedom: An Analysis of Slave Revolts i n the United S ta tes , " Phylon xxv (1964).

53. Mu1 l i n , Fl ight , 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. thes i s , 19761, pp. 348-55, 364-5.

56. Higman, Jamaica, p. 232.

57. D. Geggus, "Jamaica and the Saint 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 fo r the Invis ible Man (Cam-Mass., 19781, pp. 99, 109, 113, 143. -

59. "The Profi t ab i l i ty and V i abil i ty of West Indian Pl antat ion Sl avery ," Caribbean Socie t ies 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 to i re de 1 ' escl avage dans 1 es colonies frangai ses (Par is , 19481, p. l b s .

61. T h i s is 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 ra t ios . See, D. Geggus, "Les esclaves de l a pl aine du Nord'a 1 a v e i l l e de l a ~6vo lu t i on f ransaise ," Revue de l a soc. hai t ienne 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 m i sphere: Quantitative Studies (Princeton, 19/51, p. 213, n. 54, give a ra ther misleading impression of one of Debien's studies.

64. F. Th6se6 and G. Debien, Un colon n io r t a i s 2 Sain 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. Ibid, p. 41; M. Begouen-Demeaux, Stanis las ~ o a c h e (Par i s , 19511, pp. 110-111.

66. 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 the Minister of the Marine: ib id , 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. "Extra i ts des d6ta i l s authentiques.. . ," Col s., F3/197, Arch. Nat.

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.

74. M. Craton, "Chris t iani ty and Slavery i n the British West Indies," Historical Ref1 ections, 5 (1978 1: 156-7; "Passion ," 14; "Proto-Peasant Rev01 t s? The Late Slave Rebellions i n the British West Indies, 1816- 1832," Past & Present, 85 (Nov., 1979): 115; Walvin (ed. ) , Slavery, p. 117.

75. 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 (July , 1968): 123. Both wr i te r s , however, note divergent a t t i t udes among the rebels.

76. Genovese, Rol l , pp. 271-9, 728; Craton (ed . ) , 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. Sos i s , "The Colonial Environment and Religion i n Ha i t i " (Columbia Univ. Ph.D. t h e s i s , 19711, ch. 10, no t e s 50 and 51.

78. The chant i s i n Kikongo. I am g ra t e fu l t o Dr. Hazel Ca r t e r f o r i t s t rans1 a t i on .

79. Dossier 11; Dxxvll, see Arch. Nat., Pa 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., Pa r i s .

80. In Craton, Roots, p. 130.

81. C. Malenfant, Des co lon ie s modernes ( P a r i s , 18141, p. 18; Geggus, Occupation, pp. 312 - 3.

82. See Craton (ed . ) , Roots, pp. 131-3.

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

84. See above, n. 69.

85. A. Dalmas, H i s t o i r e de l a r6volu t ion de Saint-Domingue (Paris, 18141, pp. 117-8; Ardouin, Ha f t i , vol . 1 , pp. 228 - 9 ; T. MBdiou, H i s t o i r e d ' ~ a i t y ( 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 eo l i zed tended t o mock what they regarded a s s u p e r s t i t i o n .

87. Fouchard, L ibe r tg , p. 528, n. 3; Malenfant, Colonies , p. 219.

88. Gros, I s l e St . Domingue, Province du Nord. P rec i s His tor ique [Pa r i s , 17931, p 14 ; Gabriel B e l l a i r e t o Joaqu'in Garcib, no da t e , Aud. Santo Domingo, 1031, Arch. Gen. de Ind ias , 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 Pr ince , 1865) p. 55.

90. Madiou, I-lai'ti, vol . 1 , pp. 72-73; G. Laurent, Quand les cha ines vo l en t en 6clat-rt au Prince. n.d.1. D. 202: above. no te 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 const i tu ted 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) : 5- 42, 25 and passim.

"Revol ts," pp. 370, 378.

B. Edwards, Historical Survey of the Island of St. Domingo (London, 1801), p. 16.

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, the invading Spaniards had declared f r ee a l l rebel slaves who would join their army. In July, the French Civil Commissioners i n Sa in 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 Par is the following February.

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

Genovese, Rebel 1 ion, 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 iv ing on h i s master 's plantat ion. 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 lea r , however, from one of the 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 ear ly a s February 1792, who presented a repor t by the absent Garran-Coul on ca l l i n g for the eventual abol i t ion 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 t w i t h the - . . col oni sts over racial equal i ty but imp1 i e s , I t h i n k ~n rea ' sonab l~ , t h a t the Jacobins w i shed t o destroy economical l y "the At1 ant i c-ori ented bourgeoisie" and would have abol ished slavery even i f there had been no slave revol t or 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 en 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 1 es troubles des Sant-Domingue (Par i s , 1797-99), vol. 4, p. 561; J. Morse Stephens, Speechs of the Statesmen and Orators of the French Revolution (Oxford, 18921, vol. 2, pp. 281 - 2.

120. Synnott, "Rev01 ts ," 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 fu r ther maroon sett lements and so forcing subsequent rebels t o attempt t o overthrow the system, but he comments t h a t "this tendency did not mature unti l the in te r re la ted revolutions i n France and Saint-Domingue created a new system of international power and a more coherent revol utionary ideol ogy ." Rebel 1 i o n , pp. 35-36.

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