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Bonjour et bienvenue au Feature
History where on top of our figurative butchering of French
we’ll be featuring literal butchering of French. Who wrote this shit? I did.
We’ll be using today to take a look at the often overshadowed Haitian Revolution.
Given the generic title it’s easy to assume that this was just one of them wars in one of
them countries - but what if I told you that the Haitian Revolution tore down slavery,
and empires, and colonialism - before all that was in vogue.
Haiti would become the first independent nation of Latin America, the second republic of America, the
first to permanently abolish slavery in the world and the only state in history founded by slaves.
That’s what really makes this revolution stand out is the fact that it all started
as a slave insurrection, it was led by slaves and fought by slaves.
In response to humanity’s greatest atrocity Haitians took the reins of history
and changed the world, and well, I’m gonna try to tell you about it.
So clear the distractions, close your eyes - don’t actually this took forever
to animate - and picture the island of Haiti, Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, the Spanish Island,
the Pearl of the Caribbean - it’s gone by a lot of names. It’s the 2nd largest island
of the West Indies and it would be the first colonised by Christopher Columbus.
Originally populated by the Taino people, after the island was settled in 1493 by
the Spanish the indigenous people were systematically killed through disease,
slavery, and massacre. Haiti was seized for its gold deposits,
and once exhausted many left the island, and it became home to French, English, and Dutch pirates.
It wasn’t until the late 17th century that France officially laid claim to the western
third of the island, establishing their colony of Saint-Domingue.
It wasn’t long before its value was found in coffee, indigo, and infamously, sugar. The French
landowners, the grand blancs, established large plantations and imported slaves from West Africa.
The colony would go on to produce 60% of the world’s coffee, 40% of France and Britain’s sugar,
and would be the most prosperous colony in the West Indies, and the French Empire as a
whole. The colony grew to a population of 550 odd thousand people - 500,000 being slaves.
In all of Saint-Domingue’s history the majority of its population
was African-born. It was rare a slave would live past 3 years on the island. Those who were able
to survive the middle passage were subjected to cruel and unending work on the sugar plantations.
The grand blanc practiced in methods of slow torture, the importation of man eating dogs,
and apathy to the Yellow fever that ravaged much of their workforce.
Outside of the grand blanc and their slaves the island was home to European artisans,
merchants, and workers who often held animosity to the minority of
freed slaves and mixed-race mulattoes - the affranchis.
The colony was starved of European women, and so the practice of taking slave wives wasn’t
uncommon, and the resulting children were emancipated. Add in the few freed slaves,
and you have the affranchis. Some affranchis owned their own plantations and their own slaves,
and aspired to be equal to their white counterparts.
However the society was built on inequality in race,
gender, and class. The colony wasn’t self-sufficient; the majority of its crop
exported, and the majority of its food imported. With a population
of 90% African slaves, responsible for a third of the entire Atlantic slave trade,
the foundation of Saint-Domingue was the suffering of the majority for the welfare of the minority.
It worked well, for the grand blanc, for over a hundred years. It all changed however in 1789
with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen.
The newly established French First Republic would decree all men free and equal - ambiguous as
to whether that included women, slaves, or even anybody outside France proper.
The affranchis had long been pushing for their own equality, and after the declaration Vincent
Oge would launch a failed uprising against the colonial government for the right to vote. With
his brutal execution the affranchis would turn to petitioning the revolutionary government in Paris.
In 1791 they were awarded limited freedoms in the May 15th Decree,
however the colonial government never complied with this order.
As a consequence isolated skirmishes broke out between affranchis and whites,
sowing the seeds of insurrection in St. Domingue.
On the night of the 21st of August 1791 thousands of slaves would gather in a secret vodou ceremony.
Despite their disparate backgrounds many of these slaves had been prisoners of war,
and the loose West African elements of vodou served as a common heritage for these people.
The vodou high priest, Dutty Boukman, would give the signal for rebellion
that night. The island was shrouded in a deep darkness under the clouds of a tropical storm,
and the slaves would take their machetes that they used to cut the sugar cane
to cut down their masters and light up the night with burning plantations.
The initial uprising was an unprecedented success. Their organisation begged disbelief,
the affranchis would be blamed, the affranchis would blame the grand blancs - nobody believed the
slaves could do this themselves. In just 10 days the slaves held control of the Northern Province.
The fighting was brutal, there was no semblance of honour as on both sides civilians were targeted,
captives executed, and heads rolled. It wasn’t long before the white population
had retreated to the urban centres and left the mountains to the rebels.
The National Assembly in Paris would respond in September by revoking the May 15th decree,
which only incentivised the affranchis to align themselves with the slave rebellion and bring
the fight to the cities. Soon enough the capital of Port-au-Prince (Por-o-prance) was in flames.
Former slave, affranchis, and educated individual Toussaint Louverture would be
a part of this. He’d separate himself from his family and his plantations to join the
rebellion. Despite being a slave owner, he sought to establish himself as a leader for the rebels.
With the death of Boukman in November, Toussaint would naturally fill his role.
Toussaint opened negotiations with the colonial government, offering peace in return for the
freedom of the rebellion’s leadership and the end of lashings on the plantations.
It’s dubious whether or not he’d actually be able to convince the slaves to return
to the plantations, but regardless, the colonial government rejected the best deal they’d ever get.
It was at this time the proverbial sharks had smelt blood in the water and foreign powers
looked to intervene. The Spanish would offer aid to the revolt, supplying arms and even
recruiting their leadership into the Spanish Army in February of 1793. The promise was the
abolishment of slavery in St. Domingue in return for France’s share of the pearl of the caribbean.
The grand blancs themselves held little faith in France’s revolutionary government,
and they would turn and invite the British to claim St Domingue. The empire had its
own interest in containing this rebellion before it spread, and the free colony was
just the cherry on top. The British would begin an expedition of her navy and soldiers to the island.
The National Assembly knew they would need to make radical changes to avoid military disaster.
The Civil Commissioner of St Domingue, Leger-Felicite Sonthonax , would abolish
slavery in the colony in August of 1793. He’d secure the endorsement of the National
Assembly in February of the following year, and slavery would be abolished in France and
all her territories. A revolutionary move by the revolutionary government.
At this time Spain and Britain were allies against France, they promised conflicting futures for St
Domingue and so Toussaint and others would defect from the Spanish Army and rejoin the
French in May. Toussaint expelled his former Spanish allies, and for the British expedition,
their largest ever, it would cost their treasury four million pounds
and leave 100,000 men dead or permanently disabled from the effects of yellow fever.
The British fought from 1793 to 1798 - St Domingue became infamous among British ranks
and deployment there was often protested. The British had captured Port-au-Prince in June of
1794, but in April of 1798 Toussaint would secure
a treaty that saw the British return the city to French rule and leave the colony.
The slave rebellion in St. Domingue had been a success. The people were freed,
but the war was far from over. Though slavery had been abolished Toussaint’s quest for power
had yet to end and his enemies would only continue to amass against him.
The initial slave insurrection was only the first part of the Haitian Revolution
and only the beginning of Haiti’s history.
And this is also only the beginning of content from me
because over on Nebula you can go over and watch my exclusive 16 minute video
going into the history of Assassin’s Creed 2 and doing my thing where I’m very pedantic,
you love that shit. Me and other creators such as City Beautiful, Real Life Lore,
Tier Zoo, and a whole lot of other people are creating content that we couldn’t do on Youtube.
Such as featuring our video libraries ad-free and creating exclusive originals for the service.
I plan on doing a whole lot more videos going over history in video games for the platform,
and this has all been made possible thanks to Nebula’s partnership with Curiositystream.
There are thousands of documentaries on Curiositystream covering history, science,
nature, technology, society, and why yes, 19th century revolutions. I can recommend their 2 part
series covering the French Revolution, it’s called the French Revolution so I trust you’ll find it.
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Please, pretty please.
So before we finally wrap up this video I thought it’d be a fun
idea to take some questions from you, the viewers - let’s see how much I regret this.
Some Guy asks “What’s your favourite state in the United States?”
Well, I’ve never been there, but you can smoke doinks in
Colorado and it doesn’t get over 40 degrees so that sounds pretty good.
Yyy aaa asks “Is NZ Australia’s waifu?”
Well it has a better government and they talk very adorably, so I’d say yes, absolutely.
Cheers.com.au asks “Coles or woolies?”
Who do you take me for mate? Fucking local IGA mate, every day.
And to everyone that asked when I’m going to cover a topic as their question, I hate you all.
And with that thanks to the patrons, you boys always been there for me,
that’s pretty ripper. Um and yeah, there will be a part 2 at some point in the future, it’d be
weird if it was in the past, the topic is, but the video won’t be, it’ll be in the future. Okay bye.