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LAST 344/AFAM 344: The Haitian Revolution Beyond Borders Fall 2018 Syllabus

Wesleyan University

CAMS (Center for the Americas) 1 & 2, Mon. and Wed., 8:20AM – 9:40AM

Above: Map of the Caribbean, circa 1840. Source: Alexandre Vuillemin, Atlas universel de géographie ancienne et moderne à l'usage des pensionnats (Paris: J. Langlumé et Peltier, 1840).

Course Description: In 1791, enslaved people rose up against their masters in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, at the time one of the most profitable plantation societies in the world. Thirteen years later, their efforts would culminate in the declaration of independence of Haiti, a nation founded on the pillars of antislavery, anticolonialism, and racial equality. This course interrogates the regional and global significance of this revolution through its interconnections with Haiti’s neighbors in the Caribbean and across Latin America. First, we will look at the immediate implications of Haiti’s founding for the fate of New World slavery during the Age of Revolutions. Next, we will consider Haiti’s long-term impact on national identities, racial formations, and future revolutionary struggles in the Americas over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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Instructor: Andrew Walker, Postdoctoral Fellow in Caribbean Studies Center for the Americas, Office 215 Office Hours: Mondays, 2-4 PM or by appointment

Course Textbooks: For Download, Purchase, or Borrowing Note: All but two of these textbooks are available to Wesleyan Students as open-access E-Books through the online library system. Please contact me if you have any questions or trouble accessing them. The two books that are not available in open-access are noted below and are available at the Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore and through Amazon. Anne Eller, We Dream Together: Dominican Independence, Haiti, and the Fight for Caribbean Freedom (Duke University Press, 2016) Ada Ferrer, Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2014) Julia Gaffield, Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World: Recognition after Revolution (UNC Press, 2015) Graham Nessler, An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom: Revolution, Emancipation, and Reenslavement in Hispaniola, 1789-1809 (UNC Press, 2016, Not available in open-access) Edgardo Pérez Morales, No Limits to their Sway: Cartagena’s Privateers and the Masterless Caribbean in the Age of Revolutions (Vanderbilt Press, 2018, Not available in open-access) Rebecca J. Scott and Jean M. Hébrard, Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation (Harvard University Press, 2012) You will have the option to request a course pack, but all of the readings it contains will also be available online through Moodle.

Major Assignments:

Participation/Attendance, In-Class Assignments, and Low-Stakes Writing: 35% 15%: Participation. This includes attendance, class discussions, group activities, and in-class writing assignments. 5%: Map Quiz. To be given during the second week of classes. The quiz will include major territories and cities of the Greater Caribbean, circa 1791. 15%: Weekly Blog Posts on Moodle. Please use these posts to respond to pre-circulated guiding questions (to be shared via email and Moodle). about one or more readings for the week. Maximum one page, graded for completion. These posts are designed to give you the chance to organize and expand on your initial thoughts before our discussions, as well as to help you

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prepare for the response papers. Feel free to choose to respond to any of the readings assigned for the first session of the week on Monday, those assigned for the second session of the week on Wednesday, or both. The blog entries will be due at 5PM on Sunday of each week, except the first week of classes. Short Response Papers: 30% 15%: 1st Paper (3-5 pages, double-spaced) 15%: 2nd Paper (3-5 pages, double-spaced) For each short paper, you will be asked to synthesize and analyze the major readings for one or two weeks of the class. You may use additional secondary sources. Feel free to write to me for suggestions about additional readings to incorporate into the papers. You may submit the first short paper via Moodle or email at any time before October 14 at 10 PM. Please submit the second short paper via Moodle or email at any time before November 20th at 10 PM. Proposal and Take-Home Final Exam: 35% 5%: Paper Proposal (1-2 pages double-spaced) 30%: Final Draft (8-10 pages double-spaced) For the “take-home final,” you will be asked to write an 8-10 page essay in which you develop an argument about the relative force or limits of Haiti’s impact on slavery and colonialism in the Americas. In mid-November, I will pass out detailed instructions with several essay questions, of which you may choose one. Feel free to rely primarily on evidence from the major course readings or to seek out any other additional readings that you may desire to use.

General Course Policies

Subject Matter: In this course, we will confront the realities of colonialism and slavery in the Americas. Understanding the stakes of the Haitian Revolution requires that we put it into historical context and consider what it was responding to: the human catastrophe of the Atlantic slave trade, institutionalized sexual violence of slavery, state terror and racial discrimination, torture, and, ultimately, campaigns of extermination waged by whites against people of color. Please contact me privately if you have any questions or concerns about the subject matter of the course.

Revisions to Syllabus: This syllabus is a negotiable contract, one which is subject to your feedback and input as well as the general direction of the course discussions. I will be happy to incorporate and take out readings based on your individual interests and questions, provided that these revisions do not jeopardize the overarching course objectives.

Students with Disabilities: Wesleyan University is committed to ensuring that all qualified students with disabilities are afforded an equal opportunity to participate in, and benefit from, its

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programs and services. To receive accommodations, a student must have a disability as defined by the ADA. Since accommodations may require early planning and generally are not provided retroactively, please contact Accessibility Services as soon as possible.

If you have a disability, or think that you might have a disability, please contact Accessibility Services in order to arrange an appointment to discuss your needs and the process for requesting accommodations. Accessibility Services is located in North College, rooms 021/022, or can be reached by email (accessibility@wesleyan.edu) or phone (860-685-5581).

Students Representing Wesleyan: If you will be representing Wesleyan as part of any athletic team or campus organization, please provide me with an official schedule. We can make arrangements to make up any missed work. Mental Health and Wellbeing: If you or someone you know is feeling overwhelmed, depressed, anxious and/or in need of support, please know that you are not alone. For routine appointments and crisis support, students may contact Counseling and Psychological Services is located at 327 High St. on the 2nd floor of the Davison Health Center. CAPS is open from 9 AM – 4:30 PM Monday through Friday with some evening appointments available. Their telephone number is 860-685-2910. Academic Integrity: Students are expected to adhere to Wesleyan University’s Honor Code, described in the Student Handbook, https://www.wesleyan.edu/studentaffairs/studenthandbook/StudentHandbook.pdf

Course Schedule

Keep in mind that readings should be completed before class. Week 1: Introduction to Colonial Saint-Domingue and the Haitian Revolution No blog post is due this week. Monday, September 3: During our first meeting, will consider why some are celebrating- and why others are mobilizing against- the unveiling of a new “Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard” in Brooklyn. For more, see the following recommended (but not mandatory) article: Julia Gaffield, “Meet Haiti’s founding father, whose Black revolution was too radical for Thomas Jefferson,” The Conversation. Available at the following link: https://theconversation.com/meet-haitis-founding-father-whose-black-revolution-was-too-radical-for-thomas-jefferson-101963 Wednesday, September 5:

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Laurent Dubois, “Atlantic Freedoms: Why Haiti Should Be at the Center of the Age of Revolutions,” Aeon Essays (2016). 10 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, “An Unthinkable History,” chapter 3 of Silencing the Past (Beacon Press, 1995). 37 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Week 2: Atlantic Circuits of Information and the Outbreak of Revolution Monday, September 10: Laurent Dubois, “Fermentation” and “Fire in the Cane,” chapters 2 and 4 of Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Belknap Press, 2004). 47 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Ada Ferrer, “An Excess of Communication: The Capture of News in a Slave Society,” chapter 2 of Freedom’s Mirror. 39 pages. Wednesday, September 12: MAP QUIZ Edgardo Pérez Morales, “Heralds of Liberty and Disobedience,” chapter 2 of No Limits to Their Sway. 11 pages. James Alexander Dun, “Unthinking Revolution: French Negroes and Liberty,” chapter 2 of Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016). 31 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Primary source: Abraham Bishop, “The Rights of Black Men,” 22 November 1791, The Argus, Boston, MA. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Week 3: Antislavery Insurgents and the Spanish Crown Monday, September 17: Ada Ferrer, “An Unlikely Alliance: Cuba, Santo Domingo, and the Black Auxiliaries,” chapter 3 of Freedom’s Mirror. 63 pages. Graham Nessler, “I am the King of the Counter-Revolution: Revolution and Emancipation in Hispaniola, 1789-1795,” chapter 1 of An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom. 39 pages. Wednesday, September 19: Primary Sources: The Black Auxiliaries of Carlos IV, in David Geggus, The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History (Hackett Publishing, 2014), 109-111. Available in PDF format online through Moodle.

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Toussaint Louverture to Georges Biassou, 15 October 1791. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Week 4: Proclaiming Emancipation in Hispaniola Monday, September 24: Graham Nessler, “The Courage to Conquer Their Natural Liberty: Conflicts over Emancipation in French Santo Domingo, 1795-1801” “Santo Domingo and the Rise of Toussaint Louverture, 1795-1801” “Uprooting the Tree of Liberty? Toussaint Louverture in Santo Domingo, 1801-1802,” chapters 2-4 of An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom. 74 Pages. Wednesday, September 26: Graham Nessler, “The Shame of the Nation: The Force of Reenslavement and the Law of Slavery under the Regime of Ferrand, 1804-1809,” chapter 5 of An Islandwide Struggle for Freedom. 32 Pages. Week 5: Haitian Independence and the Major Atlantic Powers Monday October 1: Julia Gaffield, “I Put Fear in the Hearts of Those Who Engage in This Trade: French Efforts to Isolate Haiti in the Atlantic World,” “Legislators of the Antilles: British Regulation of Trade with Haiti,” and “Aiming a Blow at their Very Vitals: U.S. Interdiction of Trade with Haiti” chapters 1, 3, and 4 of Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World. 101 Pages. Wednesday, October 3: Marlene Daut, “Baron de Vastey in Haitian (Revolutionary) Context,” introduction to Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 25 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Primary Source: Haitian Declaration of Independence (English Translation), in The Haitian Declaration of Independence: Creation, Context, and Legacy, edited by Julia Gaffield (University of Virginia Press, 2016). Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Week 6: The Antislavery State(s) of Dessalines, Christophe, and Pétion There is a fair amount of reading this week, so please plan ahead. Monday, October 8:

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Ada Ferrer, “Masters of All: Echoes of Haitian Independence in Cuba,” and “Haiti, Cuba and History: Antislavery and the Afterlives of Revolution,” chapter 5 and epilogue of Freedom’s Mirror. 63 pages Marlene Daut, “The Uses of Vastey: Reading Black Sovereignty in the Atlantic Public Sphere,” chapter 3 of Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 46 pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Wednesday, October 10: Ada Ferrer, “Haiti, Free Soil, and Antislavery in the Revolutionary Atlantic,” American Historical Review 117 (2012). 40 pages Primary Source: Correspondence between Alexandre Pétion and Robert McKowen, January 1817, National Archives of the United Kingdom, ADM 1/268. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Note: You do not need to read the entire document source package. Instead, focus on one document within the package and try to find it in the footnotes of Ferrer’s article. Be prepared to discuss how Ferrer uses this primary source in order to make an argument about the antislavery activism of the Haitian state. Week 7: Haiti and the Cartagena Privateers Monday, October 15: Edgardo Pérez Morales, “Introduction,” “Cartagena de Indias and the Age of Revolutions,” “Detachment from the Land and Irreverence at Sea,” “Under the Walls of Havana,” “chapters 3, 5, 6 of No Limits to Their Sway. 61 pages. Wednesday, October 17: Edgardo Pérez Morales, “Haiti: The Beacon Republic,” “Horrors of Cartagena,” and “Robbery, Mutiny, Fire,” chapters 7-9 of No Limits to Their Sway. 33 Pages. Week 8: Conflicting Imaginaries of Haiti Monday, October 22: Fall Break, No Class Wednesday, October 24: Ada Ferrer, “A Black Kingdom of This World: History and Revolution in Havana, 1812,” chapter 7 of Freedom’s Mirror. 58 pages.

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Marlene Daut, “Baron de Vastey and the Twentieth-Century Theater of Haitian Independence,” chapter 5 of Baron de Vastey and the Origins of Black Atlantic Humanism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). 46 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Week 9: Haiti’s Ambivalent Role in the Transitions to Independence in Latin America Monday, October 29: Sybille Fischer, “Bolívar in Haiti: Republicanism in the Revolutionary Atlantic,” in Haiti and the Americas (University of Mississippi Press, 2014), edited by Carla Calargé, Raphael Dalleo, and Luis Duno-Gottberg. 29 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Aline Helg, “Simón Bolívar and the Spectre of Pardocracia: José Padilla in Post-Independence Cartagena.” Journal of Latin American Studies 35, no. 3 (2003). 24 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Wednesday, October 31: Vanessa Mongey, “A Tale of Two Brothers: Haiti’s Other Revolutions.” The Americas 69 (2012). 23 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Week 10: Emancipation and Unification in Hispaniola Monday, November 5: Anne Eller, “Roots and Branches of the Tree of Liberty,” and “Life by Steam: The Dominican Republic’s First Republic,” introduction and chapter 1 of We Dream Together. 58 pages. Wednesday, November 7: Sara E. Johnson, “‘Une et indivisible?’ The Struggle for Freedom in Hispaniola,” chapter 2 of The Fear of French Negroes: Transcolonial Collaboration in the Revolutionary Americas (University of California Press, 2012). 42 Pages. Available in PDF format online through Moodle. Week 11: The Spanish Annexation of Santo Domingo Monday, November 12: Anne Eller, “Soon It Will Be Mexico’s Turn: Caribbean Empire and Dominican Annexation,” “The White Race is Destined to Occupy this Island: Annexation and the Question of Free Labor,” chapters 2 and 3 of We Dream Together. 58 pages. Wednesday, November 14:

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Anne Eller, “The Haitians or the Whites? Colonization and Resistance,” chapter 4 of We Dream Together. 27 Pages. Week 12: Haiti and the Restoration of the Dominican Republic Monday, November 19: Anne Eller, “You Promised to Die of Hunger: Resistance, Slavery, and All-Out War,” “The Lava Spread Everywhere: Rural Revolution, the Provisional Government, and Haiti,” “Nothing Remains Anymore: The Last Days of Spanish Rule,” and “Between Fear and Hope,” 5-7 and epilogue of We Dream Together. 93 Pages. [No Class on Wednesday, Thanksgiving Break] Week 13: The Revolution’s Diaspora and Generations-Long Struggles for Equality Monday, November 26: Take-Home Final Proposal due Rebecca J. Scott and Jean M. Hébrard, “Introduction,” “Prologue: The Cigar Maker Writes to the General,” “Rosalie, Black Woman of the Poulard Nation,” “Rosalie…My Slave,” intro, prologue and chapters 1 and 2 of Freedom Papers. 55 Pages. Wednesday, November 28: Rebecca J. Scott and Jean M. Hébrard. “Citizen Rosalie,” “Crossing the Gulf,” “The Land of the Rights of Man,” chapters 3, 4, and 5 of Freedom Papers. 51 Pages. Week 14: Conclusions Monday, December 3: Rebecca J. Scott and Jean M. Hébrard, “Joseph and His Brothers,” “The Term Public Rights Should Be Made to Mean Something,” Chapters 6 and 7 of Freedom Papers. 53 Pages. Wednesday, December 5: Rebecca J. Scott and Jean M. Hébrard, “Horizons of Commerce,” “Citizens Beyond Nation,” “For a Racial Reason,” Chapters 8, 9, and Epilogue of Freedom Papers. 54 Pages. FINAL PAPERS DUE DECEMBER 15th at 5 PM

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“Could I but fly to your assistance and break your fetters! Alas, an insurmountable barrier separates us. Perhaps a spark from the same fire which inflames us, will alight into your bosoms: perhaps at the sound of this commotion, suddenly awakening from your lethargy, with arms in your hands, you will reclaim your sacred and imprescriptible rights.”

Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Proclamation, 28 April 1804

Above: Celebrations in Brooklyn at the public unveiling of Jean-Jacques Dessalines Boulevard, August 18, 2018.