This is Crash Course World History.

And apparently it’s

revolutions month here at Crash Course, [seriously… all month]

because today we are going to discuss the oft-neglected Haitian Revolutions.

The Haitian Revolutions are totally fascinating

and they involve two of my very favorite things.

1. Ending slavery and

2. Napoleon getting his feelings hurt.

I can’t help myself, Napoleon.

I like to see you suffer.

[Intro music]

[intro music]

[intro music]

[intro music]

[intro music]

[intro music]

[intro music]

So,

the French colony in Saint Domingue

began in the 17th century as a pirate outpost.

And its original French inhabitants

made their living selling leather and a kind of smoked beef

called boucan.

All that beef actually came from cattle left behind by the Spanish,

who were the first Europeans to settle the island.

But anyway,

after 1640,

the boucan-sellers started to run low on beef.

And they were like,

“You know what would pay better than selling beef jerky?

Robbing Spanish galleons,” [beef jerky still winner of taste test]

which as you’ll recall were loaded

with silver mined from South America. [heavy metallic undertaste]

So, by the middle of the 17th century,

the French had convinced many of those buccaneering captains

to give up their pirating and settle on the island.

[arrrr you kidding?]

Many of them invested some of their pirate treasure

in sugar plantations,

which, by 1700 were thriving

at both producing sugar and working people to death.

And soon,

this island was the most valuable colony in the West Indies,

and possibly in the world. [sugar is pretty much totally awesome]

It produced 40% of Europe’s sugar,

60% of its coffee,

and it was home to more slaves than any place except Brazil.

And as you’ll recall from our discussion of Atlantic slavery,

being a slave in a sugar-production colony was exceptionally brutal.

In fact,

by the late 18th century,

more slaves were imported to Saint Domingue

EVERY YEAR—

more than 40,000—

than the entire white population of the island.

By the 19th century,

slaves made up about 90% of the population.

And most of those slaves were African born,

because the brutal living and working conditions

prevented natural population growth.

Like,

remember Alfred Crosby’s fantastic line,

“it is crudely true that if man’s caloric intake is sufficient,

he will somehow stagger to maturity,

and he will reproduce?”

Yeah, well,

not in 18th century Haiti,

thanks to Yellow Fever

and smallpox

and just miserable working conditions.

So,

most of these plantations were pretty large,

they often had more than 200 slaves,

and many of the field workers—

in some cases, a majority—

were women.

Colonial society in Saint Domingue was divided into four groups,

which had important consequences for the revolution.

At the top,

were the Big White planters who owned the plantations

and all the slaves.

Often these Grand Blancs

were absentee landlords

who would just rather stay in France and let their agents do,

you know,

the actual brutality.

Below them

were the wealthy free people of color.

Most of the Frenchmen who came to the island were,

you know, men,

and they frequently fathered children with slave women.

[not An Abundance Of love stories]

These fathers would often free their children.

Wasn’t that generous of them.

So,

by 1789,

there were 24,800 free people of color along with

about 30,000 white people

in the colony.

The free people of color contributed a lot to the island’s stability.

They served in the militia,

and in the local constabulary,

and many of the wealthier ones

eventually owned plantations and slaves of their own. [ #awkward ]

And then,

below them on the social ladder were the poor whites,

or the petit blancs,

who worked as artisans and laborers.

And at the bottom were the slaves

who made up the overwhelming majority.

I know what you’re thinking:

this is a recipe for permanent social stability.

No, it wasn’t.

Okay,

so when the French Revolution broke out in 1789,

all these groups had something to complain about.

The slaves, obviously,

disliked being slaves.

The free people of color were still subject to legal discrimination,

no matter how wealthy they became.

And the poor whites,

in addition to being poor,

were resentful of all the privileges held by the wealthy people of color.

And the Grand Blancs were complaining about French trade laws

and the government’s attempts

to slightly improve the living and working conditions of slaves.

[#slaveowningwhitepeopleproblems]

Basically they were saying

that government shouldn’t be in the business of regulating business.

So everyone was unhappy,

but the slaves were by far the worst off. [Ya think?]

Mr. Green, Mr. Green!

You’re always saying how much slavery sucks,

but is it really any worse than having to work for,

like, subsis--

Yeah,

I’m gonna stop you right there,

Me from the Past,

before you further embarrass yourself. [good call, You From the Now]

You often hear from people attempting to comprehend the horrors of slavery that slavery couldn’t

have been all that bad,

and that it wasn’t that different from working for minimum wage.

And that we know this because

if it HAD been so bad,

slaves would have just revolted, which they never did.

Yeah. Well,

1. equating slavery to poor working conditions

ignores the fact that if you work at, like, Foxconn, Foxconn doesn’t get to sell your

children to other corporations.

And 2. As you are about to see,

SLAVES DID REVOLT.

So,

the unrest in what became Haiti started in 1789

when some slaves heard a rumor that the King of France had freed them.

Even though it was across the ocean,

word of the changes in France reached the people of Haiti,

where The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen,

while terrifying to planters,

gave hope both to free people of color and to slaves.

At the same time, some petit blancs argued that there was inadequate

discrimination against blacks. [quite a classy crowd pleaser there]

They identified with the third estate in France,

and they called for interest rates to be lowered

so they could more easily pay their debts.

[if wishes were horses…]

And they began lobbying for colonial independence.

The psychology here shows you

the extent to which slaves were not considered people.

I mean,

these radical petit blancs thought

that they were the oppressed people in Saint Domingue because

they couldn’t afford to own slaves.

And they thought if they could become independent from France,

they could take power from the people of privilege

and institute a democracy where everyone had a voice--

except for the 95% of people who weren’t white.

Then in 1791,

these radical petit blancs seized the city of Port au Prince.

You’ll remember that by 1791,

France was at war with most of Europe,

and just like with the 7 Years War,

the wars of Revolutionary France played out in the colonies as well as at home.

So the French government sent troops to Saint Domingue.

Meanwhile,

urges toward liberty, fraternity, and equality

were only growing in France,

and it didn’t seem very equitable to grant citizenship based solely on race.

So in May of 1791,

the National Assembly gave full French citizenship to all free men of color.

I mean,

if they owned property,

and had enough money,

and weren’t the children of slaves.

The petit blancs weren’t thrilled about this,

and that led to fighting breaking out between them and the

newly French free people of color.

And then in August of 1791,

the slaves were like,

“Um, hi, yes. Screw all of you.” [expletives deleted]

And a massive slave revolt broke out.

Among the leaders of this revolt

was Toussaint Breda, a former slave of full African descent,

who later took the name Toussaint L’ouverture.

L’Ouverture helped mold the slaves into a disciplined army that could withstand attacks

from the French troops.

But again,

the context of the wider revolution proves really important here.

So,

the Spanish had consistently supported slave revolts in Saint Domingue

hoping to weaken the French.

But, by 1793 they were offering even more support.

In fact,

L’Ouverture became an officer in the Spanish military

because the emancipation of the slaves was more important to him than

maintaining his rights as a French Citizen.

So then,

in October of 1793

the British,

whom as I’m sure you’ll recall were also at war with France,

decided to invade Saint Domingue.

And at that point,

the French military commanders were like,

We are definitely going to lose this war if we fight

the British,

the Spanish,

and the slaves,

so let’s free the slaves.

So they issued decrees freeing the slaves

and on February 4, 1794

the National Convention in Paris ratified those decrees.

By May,

having learned of the Convention’s actions,

L’Ouverture switched allegiances to the French

and turned the tide of the war.

Thus,

the most successful slave revolt in human history

won freedom and citizenship for

every slave in the French Caribbean.

But emancipation didn’t end the story because the French were still at war

with the Spanish and the English in Saint Domingue.

Luckily for France,

L’Ouverture was an excellent general,

and luckily for the people of the island,

L’Ouverture was also an able politician.

And between 1794 and 1802,

he successfully steered the colony toward independence.

So,

although slavery was abolished,

this didn’t end the plantation system

because both L’Ouverture and his compatriot Andre Rigaud

believed that sugar was vital to the economic health of the island.

But now at least people were paid for their labor

and their kids couldn’t be sold.

Now you can compare it to Foxconn.

But soon,

L’Ouverture and Rigaud came into conflict over Rigaud’s refusal to give up control

over one of the Southern states on the island,

and there was a civil war,

which L’Ouverture,

with the help of his able lieutenant Jacques Dessailines,

was able to win after 13 months of hard fighting.

L’Ouverture then passed a new constitution,