Haiti Alternative

A JOURNAL OF HAITIAN POLITICS

Theoritical Approaches to Undertand the Haitian Revolution
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There have been debates among historians and students of Revolution about how and why the Haitian Revolution occurred.  While the French Revolution of 1789, key personalities and foreign intervention are among the contributing factors, social and racial conflict remains the main theme of the Haitian Revoultion.

The Aggregate-psychological Approach
Ted Gurr, a student of revolution, would argue that the Haitian Revolution was the result of psychological change of the time in St. Domingue, a colonial society. The colony had three main groups: whites, mulattoes and slaves.  After the situaton exploded, whites who owned plantations and slaves and occupied the most prestigious positions in the colony, failed to bring peace because there was no unity among them.  While the  mulattoes  had everything in common with the grands blancs except skin color, the slaves had to work for white and mulatto masters and were sometimes abused and killed.  Each group hated each other.  St. Domingue was a relatively unstable society, for mulattoes and blacks were unable to realize their expectations.  For example, the May Decree which announced the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens raised the value expectations of everyone in the colony, particularly of the mulattoes, who received their  education in France, owned  slaves and plantations, but felt they had been deprived certain rights as the whites saw them as unequal.  The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizens incited mulattoes to demand equal rights, an issue that locked les grands blancs et les gens de couleur in a struggle that led to other revolutionary movements.  Also, the Declaration of Rights raised the value expectations of blacks who felt that slavery decreased their value capabilities.  The most important event that raised blacks' value expectations was the abolition of slavery, a policy that upset all colonial castes except blacks.  When whites and mulattoes could not reach a compromise in their struggle, France sent to St. Domingue the able Felicite Sonthonax who on August 29, 1793 abolished slavery in the name of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.

The Institutional Theory
Equally important to relative deprivation was the colonial breakdown, the other main factor that contributed to the explosive situation.  Note that the bourgeois class was weak.  Whites did not unite themselves.   They opposed to the implementation of the May Decree that gave mulatoes citizenship and political rights.  There were rising demands among mulattoes who wanted to enjoy rights of men and citizens and  to send representatives to the Colonial and National Assemblies, yet the white elites did not want to make rooms for them to particiapte in colonial politics.  St. Domingue was unable to respond to some fundamental changes such as the Declaration of Rights and abolition of slavery, two events that shook the entire colonial structure.  The colonial elites did not try to accommmodate the changes that the colony underwent.  Weak institutions, white disunity and divisions among colonial castes resulted in, as would argue S. P. Huntington of Harvard University, "a full scale revolution that involved the rapid and violent destruction of the then existing colonial political institutions, the mobilization of new groups and the creation of  new political institutions."

In short, Haitian scholars usually argue that the French Revolution was not the principal cause of the Haitian Revolution.  They are correct, for the French Revolution, the abolition movement, key personalities and outside intervention were all contributing factors, but they were secondary reasons at best.  Relative deprivations and weak colonial institutions were the main reasons the Haitian Revolution took place.  The Haitian Revolution was indeed a great social revolution that set a dangerous precedent for the Western Hemisphere and the colonial world as well.
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Readers are strongly encouraged to consult the following for furter readings on the Haitian Revolution.

Thomas, Ott. The Haitian Revolution 1789-1804. The Univ. of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1973.
Leyburn, James G. The Haitian People.  Institute of Haitian Studies , University of Kansas, 1998.
Martin, Ros. Night of Fire:  The blacks Napoleon and the Battle for Haiti. Ford Trep, Sarpeon, NY, 1994.

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