So this further inflamed things. [91], After the departure of the British, Toussaint turned his attention to Rigaud, who was conspiring against him in the south of Saint Domingue. Others had purchased their freedom from their owners through the sale of their own produce or artistic works. The biggest slave revolt in U.S. history was the 1811 German Coast uprising in Louisiana. Two-thirds of the slaves were African born, and they tended to be less submissive than those born in the Americas and raised in slave societies. Beginning during the slave insurrections of 1791, white refugees from Saint-Domingue fled to the United States, particularly to Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York, and Charleston.
Mike Duncan (podcaster) - Wikipedia 1 September 2012.
| The Christian Century Main [169], The role of women in the Haitian Revolution was for a long time given little attention by historians, but has in recent years garnered significant attention.[170][171][172]. We look at the life of revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture, confront the atrocities committed against the people of Haiti and the literal price they were forced to pay for their freedom. Do not worry about the liberty of your fellow citizens". The Declaration was ambiguous as to whether this equality applied to women, slaves, or citizens of the colonies, and thus influenced the desire for freedom and equality in Saint-Domingue. [66], To prevent military disaster, and secure the colony for republican France as opposed to Britain, Spain, and French royalists, separately or in combination, the French commissioners Sonthonax and tienne Polverel offered freedom to the slaves who would agree to fight alongside them. [74] Whyte took Port-au-Prince, but Sonthonax and the French forces were allowed to leave in exchange for not burning the sugar-loaded ships. A black leader named Goman kept alive the angry spirit of Dessalines in the southern mountains of the Grand-Anse, resisting several mulatto punitive expeditions. [114] Trapped, engaged in a vicious race war, and with much of his army dying of yellow fever, Rochambeau fell to pieces. Big fan! Also Place Hotel de Ville. The French historian Paul Fregosi wrote: "Whites, mulattos and blacks loathed each other. Those who refused were slaughtered. [79] The overall forces in St Domingue was at that time under the command of the lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, Sir Adam Williamson. In Dublin and Cork, soldiers from the 104th, 105th, 111th, and 112th regiments rioted when they learned that they were being sent to Saint-Domingue. [73] Rather than attacking the main French bases at Le Cap and Port-de-Paix, Whyte chose to march towards Port-au-Prince, whose harbour was reported to have forty-five ships loaded with sugar. Accessed 25 March 2015. Posted by: [8][9][10] The revolution represented the largest slave uprising since Spartacus' unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Republic nearly 1,900 years earlier,[11] and challenged long-held European beliefs about alleged black inferiority and about slaves' ability to achieve and maintain their own freedom. It involved black, biracial, French, Spanish, British, and Polish participantswith the ex-slave Toussaint Louverture emerging as Haiti's most prominent general. An interactive 17-map progression and timeline project tracing power and shifting alliances across geography and time from precolonial kingdoms through the Revolution and up to Haiti's current borders with the Dominican Republic. Except they say the Zapatistas "surrendered" in the end when, at least according to the podcast, they got 90% of their economic demands satisfied, plus official military positions - not jails or ropes. [72] After arriving in the West Indies in February 1794, Grey chose to conquer Martinique, Saint Lucia, and Guadeloupe. Saint-Domingue's free people of color, or gens de couleur libres, numbered more than 28,000. This is great thanks! [105] The first of the French columns to appear before the fort was commanded by General Jean Boudet, whose men were harassed by skirmishers until they reached a deep ditch the Haitians had dug. And Domingo became Domingue. [81], General Ralph Abercromby, the commander of the forces committed to the "great push", hesitated over which island to attack when he arrived in Barbados on 17 March 1796. In parallel to the killings, plundering and rape also occurred. The French planters were disappointed as they had hoped to regain power; Sonthonax was relieved, as he had twice refused ultimatums from Commodore John Ford to surrender Port-au-Prince. "International Repercussions of the Haitian Revolution.
Two days later an independently sailing French frigate was chased down and captured in the same waters. [101] Once that was completed, slavery would be ultimately restored. Popkin, Jeremy D. 'You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery. Youve got characters like Nero who are these insane, larger-than-life, operatic madmen driving their country to ruin. Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, United States Declaration of Independence, French Declaration of the Rights of the Man and of the Citizen, "Hero of two worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette and the Age of Revolution /", "Eye on Italy Interview: Episode 55: The History of Rome with Mike Duncan", "How Mike Duncan turned a passion for history into a podcasting career", "The Morning News: Articles Written By Mike Duncan & Jason Novak", "The Storm Before the Storm: An Interview With Historian and Podcast Superstar Mike Duncan", "Podcast Awards - Past Winners 2005-2016", "Podcasts Are Doing To Advertising What Uber Has Done To Transportation", "The Best History Podcasts to Listen to Right Now", "These Fascinating Podcasts Will Turn You Into a History Buff", "Revolutions, self-help and the election podcasts of the week", "The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic", "Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - November 12, 2017 - The New York Times", "The Lawfare Podcast: Populisms Ancient and Modern with Mike Duncan", "5 HOT BOOKS: A History of Bunk, the Fall of Rome (with Modern Parallels) and More", "Hardcover Nonfiction Books - Best Sellers - Books - Sept. 12, 2021 - the New York Times", "Why Don't the French Celebrate Lafayette? Posted by: I always keep a map open while listening to your podcasts anyways, so having one specifically annotated for what you're going over is a great help. The podcast covers the time period from the origin of the Roman Kingdom to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, focusing on the most accepted chain of events according to historical consensus. Around that time, colonial legislations, concerned with this growing and strengthening population, passed discriminatory laws that required these freedmen to wear distinctive clothing and limited where they could live. Benjamin Wittes, after hearing the first two episodes of Revolutions, called the podcast "informative, engaging, told in Duncan's usual easygoing, somewhat comic style that packs a lot of history into relatively brief discussions". Bonaparte ordered that Toussaint was to be treated with respect until the French forces were established; once that was done, Toussaint was to be summoned to Le Cap and arrested; if he failed to show, Leclerc was to wage "a war to the death" with no mercy and all of Toussaint's followers to be shot when captured. [114] Dessalines marched into Port-au-Prince, where he was welcomed as a hero by the 100 whites who had chosen to stay behind. Revolutions aired from 15 September 2013 to 3 July 2022. Dessalines paid large sums of money to liberate slaves on slave ships near the Haitian coast. [105] All of the French assaults ended in total failure, and after the failure of their last attack, the Haitians charged the French, cutting down any Frenchmen. [139] By an order of 17 April 1825, the King of France renounced his rights of sovereignty over Santo Domingo, and recognized the independence of Haiti. (Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press 2001). David Geggus, "The British Army and the Slave Revolt". Slavery sustained sugar production under harsh conditions; diseases such as malaria (brought from Africa) and yellow fever caused high mortality, thriving in the tropical Caribbean climate. Tear up the roads with shot; throw corpses and horses into all the foundations, burn and annihilate everything in order that those who have come to reduce us to slavery may have before their eyes the image of the hell which they deserve". The Africans mostly allied with the royalists and the British, as they understood that if Saint-Domingue's independence were to be led by white slave masters, it would probably mean even harsher treatment and increased injustice for the African population. In November 1803 slaves managed to defeat the greatest European military power. john | Polish soldiers participated in the Haitian revolution of 1804, contributing to the establishment of the world's first free black republic and the first independent Caribbean state. [89] Maitland disbanded his "Black Shot" troops, and left them in St Domingue, fearing they might return to Jamaica and start a revolution to overthrow slavery in the British colony. [114] (Other sources suggest the dogs may have been dogo cubanos sourced in their hundreds from Cuba rather than Jamaica. [35], In July 2022, Duncan released, through his Revolutions podcast, a one-man table read of a script he created for a proposed Marquis de Lafayette TV show. He was able to start organizing armies of former slaves and defeat the Spanish and British forces that had invaded Haiti. The Southern province lagged in population and wealth because it was geographically separated from the rest of the colony. The French arrived on 2 February 1802 at Le Cap with the Haitian commander Henri Christophe being ordered by Leclerc to turn over the city to the French. Haiti struggled to recover economically from the war. In cooperation with their former mulatto rivals, blacks ended the Revolution in November 1803 when they decidedly defeated the French Army at the Battle of Vertires. [56] The same month, a coalition of whites and conservative free blacks and forces under French commissaire nationale Edmond de Saint-Lger put down the Trou Coffy uprising in the south,[50][57][58] after Andr Rigaud, then based near Port-au-Prince, declined to ally with them. 09 December 2015 at 05:24 PM. While the southern republic did not have as much focus on economic development, and put more attention on liberal land distribution and education, the northern kingdom went on to become relatively wealthy, though wealth distribution was disputed. [38], Saint-Domingue's free people of color, most notably Julien Raimond, had been actively appealing to France for full civil equality with whites since the 1780s. The revolution of 1911 was a critical moment in Chinese history because of how it paved the way for the Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949, an uprising that established the People's Republic of China. He sent a letter to slaves all over the island introducing himself. Since white planters refused to comply with this decision, within two months isolated fighting broke out between the former slaves and the whites. Sugar is a labor-intensive crop, which requires more slaves. [113], Dessalines and Ption remained allied with France until they switched sides again, in October 1802, and fought against the French. In addition, in early 1791, some of the gens de couleur tried to use force to get their citizenship and equality of rights. Some[who?] Many of the whites and free people of color who left Saint-Domingue for the United States settled in southern Louisiana, adding many new members to its French-speaking, mixed-race, and black populations. Led by charismatic leaders such as Toussaint Louverture it was the only example of a successful slave revolution and the state that was founded was one free of slavery. [10] The project turned into an award-winning weekly podcast which aired for 179 episodes until 2012 and was downloaded more than 100 million times.[8][10]. When slaves left the plantations or disobeyed their masters, they were subject to whipping or to more extreme torture such as castration or burning, the punishment being both a personal lesson and a warning for other slaves. Shanna Mills. Main, Here is a link to the map if you don't like the embed: The July Revolution Map. Thomas E. Weil, Jan Knippers Black, Howard I. Blustein, Kathryn T. Johnston, David S. McMorris, Frederick P. Munson. This allowed certain categories of whites to be excluded from massacre who had to pledge their rejection to France: the Polish soldiers who deserted from the French army; the group of German colonists of Nord-Ouest who were inhabitants before the revolution; French widows who were allowed to keep their property;[132] select male Frenchmen;[136] and a group of medical doctors and professionals.
Revolutions | Podcasts on Audible | Audible.com He also predicted a general slave revolt in the colonies, saying that there were signs of "the impending storm". [19], The larger groups of runaway slaves who lived in the hillside woods away from white control often conducted violent raids on the island's sugar and coffee plantations. Frank Gulla | [13] The commodity crops were traded for European goods. [16] The death rate was so high that polyandryone woman being married to several men at the same timedeveloped as a common form of marriage among the slaves. Here is a link to the map if you don't like the embed: The July Revolution Map To select and de-select layers click that little white box in the upper-left. . [105] General Boudet himself was wounded and as the French dead and wounded started to pile up in the ditch, the French retreated. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. "[9], Duncan began The History of Rome in 2007, after failing to find any good podcasts about ancient history. Georges Danton, one of the Frenchmen present at the meeting of the National Convention, expressed this sentiment: Representatives of the French people, until now our decrees of liberty have been selfish, and only for ourselves. Sylvia Musto, "Portraiture, Revolutionary Identity and Subjugation: Anne-Louis Girodet's Citizen Belley". Many runaway slavescalled maroonshid on the margins of large plantations, living off the land and what they could steal from their former masters. These laws also barred them from occupying many public offices. [105] After losing 800 men, Toussaint ordered a retreat. [43] One such sign was the action of the French revolutionary government to grant citizenship to wealthy free people of color in May 1791. [29][pageneeded], Like Louverture, Jean-Baptiste Belley was an active participant in the insurrection. [21] The Kongolese at 40% were the largest of the African ethnic groups represented amongst the slaves. The exiles causing the most alarm were the African slaves who came with their refugee owners. The constitution of 1793 never went into effect, but that of 1795 did; it lasted until it was replaced by the consular and imperial constitutions under Napoleon Bonaparte. [82] As more ships arrived with British troops, more soldiers died of yellow fever. You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post. As the French retreated, Haiti, which had once been called the "Pearl of the Antilles", the richest French colony in the world, was impoverished, as its economy was in ruins after the revolution. When the colonial governor refused, Og led a brief 300-man insurgency in the area around Le Cap, fighting to end racial discrimination in the area. 13 September 2013. [102] When Christophe refused, the French assaulted Le Cap and the Haitians set the city afire rather than surrender it.
Macron Honors Toussaint Louverture, Haitian Revolutionary - The New Once the French got control of Haiti [St-Domingue], what was life like in the colony? Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Haitian Revolution of 1791-1804. 07 December 2015 at 01:41 AM. Haitian Revolution. Whats interesting is that they had their freedom, and they were recognized by their fathers, which we dont frequently see in other parts of the new world, and sent by their fathers to be educated in France. [13] Many freedmen were also artisans and overseers, or domestic servants in the plantation houses. This was a special, public punishment dealt out because the whites in Haiti didnt want to extend full rights to the gens de couleur. ), Posted by: As a result, many Polish soldiers admired their opponents, to eventually turn on the French army and join the Haitian slaves. [107], For a few months, the island was quiet under Napoleonic rule. [34] The death rate in the Caribbean exceeded the birth rate, so imports of enslaved Africans were necessary to maintain the numbers required to work the plantations. 07 December 2015 at 10:12 PM. Given that, what was the social and economic landscape of Haiti in the years leading up to the revolution? Taking no prisoners, Rigaud's predominantly mulatto forces put blacks and whites to the sword. [20], The majority of the slaves were Yoruba from what is now modern Nigeria, Fon from what is now Benin, and Kongo from the Kingdom of Kongo in what is now modern northern Angola and the western Congo. Soon after, the few remaining French-held towns in Saint-Domingue surrendered to the Royal Navy to prevent massacres by the Haitian army. [107] Rochambeau invented a new means of mass execution, which he called "fumigational-sulphurous baths": killing hundreds of Haitians in the holds of ships by burning sulphur to make sulphur dioxide to gas them. In 2018 Duncan relocated to Paris, France in order to do research for his 2021 book Hero Of Two Worlds, a biography on the Marquis de Lafayette. [115], Women and children were generally killed last. Du Bois said that the Haitian Revolution was an economic pressure without which the British parliament would not have accepted abolitionism as readily. (Real Audiencia of Panama, New Spain, suppressed), (British Province of New York, suppressed), (British Chesapeake Colonies, suppressed), (British Province of South Carolina, suppressed), (off the Southern U.S. coast, victorious), Guillaume Raynal attacked slavery in the 1780 edition of his history of European colonization. Revolutions also featured supplemental episodes, excluded from the normal count of episodes, and of varying length (compared to roughly half-hour normal episodes). [174] The French media also played an important role in the Haitian Revolution, with contributions that made many French upstarts quite interested in the young, passionate Toussaint's writings of freedom. For most of the conflict, the British and Spanish supplied the rebels with food, ammunition, arms, medicine, naval support, and military advisors. The black rebel was trapped and shot off a 1,000-foot-high cliff. The revolution was the only slave uprising that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery (though not from forced labour)[4] and ruled by non-whites and former captives. [59], Meanwhile, in 1793, France declared war on Great Britain. Slave boats that were captured and brought to Haiti's shores resulted in the liberation and integration of all captives on board into Haitian society. [104] The French had been expecting the Haitians to happily go back to being their slaves, as they believed it was natural for blacks to be the slaves of whites, and were stunned to learn how much the Haitians hated them for wanting to reduce them back to a life in chains. [83] Even though Toussaint had been repulsed, the British were astonished that he had turned a group of former slaves with no military experience into troops whose skills were the equal of a European army. Browse the 18th Century era within the In Our Time archive. [28], Duncan's second book, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution, is a biography about the Marquis de Lafayette during the American and French revolutions and their aftermaths. [14] Publications including Time,[15] Popular Mechanics,[16] and The Guardian [17] have included Revolutions on their lists of recommended podcasts. The Haitian Revolution. [119] The last battle on land of the Haitian Revolution, the Battle of Vertires, occurred on 18 November 1803, near Cap-Hatien fought between Dessalines' army and the remaining French colonial army under the Vicomte de Rochambeau; the slave rebels and freed revolutionary soldiers won the battle. June 3, 2022 Hosted by Michael Barbaro Produced by Mooj Zadie , Rob. [30], In 1789, Saint-Domingue produced 60% of the world's coffee and 40% of the sugar imported by France and Britain. For example I even heard that the name "Bahamas" is a corruption of the spanish "Islas de bajamar" "that would be something as like "low tide islands" ;), Posted by: [104] Dessalines never received the letter as he had already taken to the field, evaded a French column sent to capture him and stormed Logne. He lost interest in commanding his army and as James wrote, he "amused himself with sexual pleasures, military balls, banquets and the amassing of a personal fortune".[114]. [119] One of Rochambeau's ships was almost wrecked while leaving the harbour, but was saved by a British lieutenant acting alone, who not only rescued the 900 people on board, but also refloated the ship. The 1804 massacre was carried out against the remaining white population of French colonists[128] and loyalists,[129] both enemies and traitors of the revolution,[130] by the black population of Haiti on the order of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who declared the French as barbarians, demanding their expulsion and vengeance for their crimes. The French colony of Saint-Domingue was the single most lucrative colony in the New World. [19] Most slaves spoke a patois of the French language known as Haitian Creole, which was also used by island-born mulattoes and whites for communication with the workers. [52], Though demanding freedom from slavery, the rebels did not demand independence from France at this point. Posted by: In the north of the country, the French forces were isolated in the two large ports of Cap Franais and Mle-Saint-Nicolas and a few smaller settlements, all supplied by a French naval force based primarily at Cap Franais. Seasons began with one or two episodes dedicated to the pre-history of the revolution and its causes, sometimes highlighting when and how the revolution could have been avoided. Find the Data. [114] Bonaparte, hearing that most of his army in Saint-Domingue had died of yellow fever and the French held only Port-au-Prince, Le Cap, and Les Cayes, sent about 20,000 reinforcements to Rochambeau. No one would eat fish from the bay for months afterward, as no one wished to eat the fish that had eaten human flesh. [106] Despite Bonaparte's attempt to keep his intention to restore slavery a secret, it was widely believed by both sides that was why the French had returned to Haiti, as a sugar plantation could only be profitable with slave labour. [94], In the early 21st century, historian Robert L. Scheina estimated that the slave rebellion resulted in the death of 350,000 Haitians and 50,000 European troops.
)[116] At the Bay of Le Cap, Rochambeau had blacks drowned. Download programmes from the huge In Our Time archive. These texts also generally fell into two campsone being proslavery authors who warned of a repetition of the violence of St. Domingue wherever abolition occurred; and the other being abolitionist authors who countered that white owners had sown the seeds of revolution.[175]. Posted by: "Impact of the French and Haitian Revolutions." PBS. The planters would be free to operate slavery as they pleased without the existing minimal accountability to their French peers. Posted by: [126] Those that possessed skills outside of plantation work, like craftsmanship and artisans, were exempt from this ordinance. Land could not be privately owned; it reverted to the State through Biens Nationaux (national bonds), and no French whites could own land. By the time the revolution erupted in 1791 hed been a free man for over a decade, meaning he was able to circulate around the island and get a sense of what was going on more broadly. He paid for the expenses of the returns of the thousands of Haitian refugees that left during the revolution. [84] Simcoe used the new British troops to push back the Haitians under Toussaint, but in a counter-offensive, Toussaint and Rigaud stopped the offensive. [14] The livelihood of 1 million of the approximately 25 million people who lived in France in 1789 depended directly upon the agricultural imports from Saint-Domingue, and several million indirectly depended upon trade from the colony to maintain their standard of living. How were they able to successfully fight off one of the worlds strongest military powers? [38] Similarly, Peter Adamson mentioned Duncan as one of the reasons he started his History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast. These valedictory moments assess, with poignant but unsparing clarity, both the rulers who ultimately couldn't save the old order and the revolutionary firebrands . [104] The Haitians burned down Logne and killed all of the French with the Trinidadian historian C. L. R. James writing of Dessalines's actions at Logne: "Men, women and children, indeed all the whites who came into his hands, he massacred. [103] When Toussaint still failed to appear at Le Cap, Leclerc issued a proclamation on 17 February 1802: "General Toussaint and General Christophe are outlawed; all citizens are ordered to hunt them down, and treat them as rebels against the French Republic". [67], Sonthonax sent three of his deputies, namely the colonist Louis Duffay, the free black army officer Jean-Baptiste Belley and a free man of color, Jean-Baptiste Mills, to seek the National Convention's endorsement for the emancipation of slaves near the end of January 1794. A limited amount, he concludes, for slavery flourished in the western hemisphere for many more decades. [119] Commodore Loring, however, refused the French permission to sail and agreed terms with Dessalines that permitted them to safely evacuate provided they had left the port by 1 December. [32] Duncan has also expressed interest in developing a TV series based on the biography, having drafted a pilot script for the proposed show. [114] In November, Leclerc died of yellow fever, like much of his army. The masters and mistresses were dragged from their beds to be killed, and the heads of French children were placed on pikes that were carried at the front of the rebel columns. [45] In the south, beginning in September, thirteen thousand slaves and rebels led by Romaine-la-Prophtesse, based in Trou Coffy, took supplies from and burned plantations, freed slaves, and occupied (and burned) the area's two major cities, Logne and Jacmel. [Update: I also now realize you can't get the street view guy on this map but you should still go drop in on Place Joachim du Bellay to get an idea of what this all looked like. "The Haitian Revolution." Much of Caribbean economic development in the 18th century was contingent on Europeans' demand for sugar. Many years later Franois Duvalier, the president of Haiti who was known for his black nationalist and Pan-African views, used the same concept of "European white negroes" while referring to Polish people and glorifying their patriotism. [92] In June 1799, Rigaud initiated the War of Knives against Toussaint's rule, sending a brutal offensive at Petit-Gove and Grand-Gove. Read about our approach to external linking. The series covered the English Civil War, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution, Simon Bolivar and Gran Colombia, the July Revolution, the Revolutions of 1848, the Paris Commune, the Mexican Revolution, and finally the Russian Revolution, ending its run of narrative episodes in July 2022. Baur, John.
Centuries of Suffering: The Haitian Revolution Aftermath - Apple Podcasts Mike became especially interested in Roman history while reading his grandfather's paperback version of Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.