Triumph and Tragedy: The Haiti Revolution Free Essay Example

Part 1: Annotated Bibliography

Glick, J. M. (2016). The Black Radical Tragic: Performance, Aesthetics, and the Unfinished Haitian Revolution . NYU Press.

The book examines the staged representation of the Haiti Revolution. It focuses on the trials and tribulations that the heroes went through and the military strategic aspects that have continued to warrant novelistic attention. The author speaks from a personal perspective of the twentieth-century performances as he engages in the revolution as the laboratory for political thoughts. The author asks readers to regard the revolution as a fixed event as compared to the ongoing and open-ended history that resonates across the Atlantic world intellects. Glick, the author is an associate professor of African Diaspora and modern drama in the Cuny. The major strength of the book is that it explores the work from other authors including Malcom X and Sergei Eisenstein, while it enacts a speculative encounter between Bertolt Brecht and CLR. The major weakness is that it falls short of reconsidering the relationship between the tragedy and the revolution. Even though there are identified shortfalls of the book, it is relevant in the context of explaining the Haitian Revolution and its influence on the ideologies of freedom and self-determination.

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Daut, M. (2015). Tropics of Haiti: race and the literary history of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic world, 1789-1865 (Vol. 8). Oxford University Press.

The book shows how the Haitian Revolution was an event of monumental world-historical significance. The author examines the Haiti War of independence through the lenses of its actual and imagined participants, observers, and survivors. The author successfully uses the analysis of the transatlantic print culture to reveal how the enlightenment racial science was the primary vehicle of interpreting the revolution. The author is successful in showing the ways in which the tendency of the nineteenth century in the primary racial terms has impacted the current demonization of the nation and its citizens. The author is the Assistant Professor of English and Cultural studies at the Claremont Graduate University. Even though the reading is depicted with the major weakness of evading the interpretation of other authors on the racial impact of the Haitian Revolution, it has a major strength of exploring how the revolution has influenced today’s Haiti.

Ghachem, M. W. (2012). The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution . Cambridge University Press.

The book shows how the Haiti Revolution was an epoch that led to the galvanization of slaves in as much as it was a source of terror to the Atlantic World. Malick Ghachem uses the innovative study to show that emancipation in the country was a long-term product of its colonial and legal history. The author is an Associate Professor of law at Maine School of Law. The book is essential for this study as it examines the interpretation of the Code Noir, a law that was used to regulate the master-slave relations in France. The author is successful in showing the impact of the law on freeing and punishing slaves that were at the center of the revolution. The major strength of the source is that it brings its audience into face to face with the revolutionary invocation of the law by the very administration that sought for stability in Haiti. The study material is relevant for this analysis as it takes the readers into the deep volatile colonial past, where it digs beyond the letter of the law while reenacting the episodes of torture and killings of the slaves. The source has a major strength in the sense that it shows the influence of the free people of color and slaves in the revolution and their quest for the end to the brutality. The end result is a portrayal of the strategic stakes of colonialism in the land that would become Haiti.

Ferrer, A. (2012). Talk about Haiti: The Archive and the Atlantic’s Haitian Revolution. In Haitian History (pp. 149-166). Routledge.

The article gives the impacts of the Haiti Revolution including appreciating the fact that the revolution in the Atlantic World was tempting to think about in binaries. For instance, it shows that the revolution led to fear and terror among the whites, while it was a source of hope for the slaves and the free people of color. The article shows that the revolution led to the radicalization in as much as it put to an end the slavery in Saint Domingue and other areas such as Cuba, Southeastern Brazil and other parts of the USA. The author examines the different ways in which the revolution acted as a catalyst to further enslavement. Moreover, the author succeeds in bringing the audience into the knowledge that postcolonial Haiti had the promise of radical revolution, bearing in mind that the despotism and mass poverty of the colonial servitude were configured during the post-colonial period. The author is a professor and writer at Center for Black Studies at the University of California.

Sepinwall, A. G. (2013). Still Unthinkable?: The Haitian Revolution and the Reception of Michel-Rolph Trouillot's Silencing the Past. Journal of Haitian Studies , 19 (2), 75-103.

The author examines how historical writing is connected to power. The author looks at the ways in which history is produced and how historical writing is connected to power. The author goes ahead to examine the gaps that exist between what actually happened in the past and what is said to have happened. Sepinwall traces the reception of historical contexts in the remarkable books since from their publication. For instance, he argues that historical books explain the Haitian Revolution. The study is essential as it shows how authors have appreciated the existence of the Haitian Revolution and how the revolution has been put in the historical context. The author goes ahead to show how scholars worldwide have interpreted the happenings of the Haitian Revolution and its impacts on the slaves and the whites.

Dash, J. M. (2016). Haiti and the United States: National stereotypes and the literary imagination . Springer.

The author presents the state of the national stereotypes and literary imagination of the Haiti Revolution. Michael Dash, a Professor at the University of California takes the readers through imaginative literature as he reflects actively on the influences of the historical events leading to the revolution. In demonstrating the literature, the author gives a close examination of the relations that existed between Haiti and the United States through an imaginative literature of these two important countries. He successfully shows that the Mythification of Haiti by the West is the main strategy that is applied in justifying either ostracism or domination. The process is traced from the nineteenth century until the time when it emerges with a voyeuristic fierceness of the mid-1960s. Haitian literature here is considered to have been subversive as it has allowed the Haitians to rewrite themselves due to the high levels of stereotyping. The major strength of the source is that it weaves together the historical context to discuss the durability of the images that have continued to shape official policy and popular attitudes.

Eller, A. (2011). “All would be equal in the effort”: Santo Domingo's “Italian Revolution”, Independence, and Haiti, 1809-1822. Journal of Early American History , 1 (2), 105-141.

The article explores the colony of Santo Domingo after it had passed from the hands of the French and the Spanish in 1809. The author uses a case study analysis methodology to show the testimony of 1810 that had earlier failed, where he goes further to explore the enduring inequalities that existed in Santo Domingo and the ways in which Haiti influenced the West. Even though the Spanish authorities and other elites in the Caribbean Islands dismissed the colony as being marginal to the political events, the failed conspiracy can help in shedding light to the importance of the subaltern travelers and immigrants who lived in the neighboring islands. The author is successful in showing the symbolic influence of the Haitian Revolution on the neighboring colonies, where the author argues that the revolution had impacts such especially the lack of interrelations between the two sides of Hispaniola.

Geggus, D. (2011). The Haitian Revolution in Atlantic Perspective. In The Oxford Handbook of the Atlantic World .

The author carries out a case study to compare the impacts of the Haitian Revolution to other Atlantic Revolutions that have ever occurred. He presents his findings by showing that the fifteen-year struggle that led to the transformation of the French Saint Domingue into an independent Haiti had the highest degree of social and economic change in as much as it embodies the current pursuit of freedom, equality, and independence. The author goes ahead to define the successions of major precedents of the revolution including the winning colonial representation and racial discrimination. The author, a Professor at the University of Florida shows that the success of Saint Domingue highly contributed to the revolution in as much as the population comprising of slaves had little possessions. The major strength that the article presents is that it shows that the divisions among the free colored, the slaves and the Whites were fueled by each group having separate struggles. The major weakness of the article is the author’s use of subjective thoughts, where he makes the audience to believe that these are his personal thoughts, which further limits the research therein.

Cantir, C. (2017). ‘Savages in the midst’: revolutionary Haiti in society (1791–1838). Journal of International Relations and Development , 20 (1), 238-261.

The author begins by analyzing the triumphs of the revolution, where it shows that the Haiti revolt contributed to the independence of Haiti. It shows that the French colony was the first modern state that was born out of a successful slave revolt, where it was isolated diplomatically until the early 19 th century. The author, a Professor at the University of Florida shows that even though the country was on the minds of the contemporary diplomats, it had complications in terms of the relationship it had with the society of the states. The author uses a literary analysis of the findings of the success of the Haitian Revolution, where he attributes the revolution to colonialism, institutional slavery and the abolitionism in the process of expansion. The distinct strength of the article is that it incorporates literature findings from other authors, which makes the results more reliable considering that they are similar in different situations.

Nesbitt, F. N. T. (2008). Universal Emancipation: The Haitian Revolution and the Radical Enlightenment . University of Virginia Press.

The author examines the impact of the Haitian Revolution, where compared to the American and French Revolutions, the Haitian led to the emancipation of the modern state in as much as it implemented the universal and unconditional human rights. Nick Nesbitt, an author of the Research Output argues that the Haitian Revolution was of great importance as it solved the emergent problems including the social injustices and human rights. The author combines archival research, political philosophy, and the context of intellectual history to explore the fundamental event of modern history. For instance, he identifies how the revolution led to the invention of universal emancipation in all contexts such as the age of enlightenment and the relation to certain key players. In his research, the author elucidates the theoretical implications of the Haiti Revolution for the eighteenth century and the Twenty-first century. The major strength of the article is that it goes beyond explaining how universal emancipation will be of interest not only to the students but to the students of the revolution.

Garraway, D. L. (Ed.). (2008). Tree of Liberty: Cultural Legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World . University of Virginia Press.

The book gives the historical events that led to the transformation of Saint Domongue into an independent state in the Western Hemisphere. The book records the account of the events starting from the declaration of the independence of Haiti to the final end of the slave revolution in the country. The author, an Associate Professor of French at Northwest University gives the historical significance of the Haitian revolution using research findings from different authors. It also sheds light on the profound silence that surrounds the Haitian Revolution in the history of the West and the Caribbean cultural production that followed the revolution. His tree of liberty integrates the historical, literary, and political discourses that were produced by the revolution. The book puts the major emphasis on the analysis of enlightenment as the biggest triumph of the Haitian Revolution, which is part of its strengths.

Bhambra, G. K. (2016). Undoing the epistemic disavowal of the Haitian revolution: a contribution to global social thought. Journal of Intercultural Studies , 37 (1), 1-16.

The source identifies how the Haitian Revolution became the most important foundational moments in the emergence of the modern world. It also shows that the revolution has not received the scientific audience as required. The author, French Professor in History questions what can be learned from the omission of the account of events that were of great significance to the world. The author successfully uses a theoretical framework to rethink about how authors should take the events of the revolution seriously to help in contributing to the wider perspective of historical contexts. The major strength is that the article examines the stake in approaches and alternative formulations through a connected sociology approach.

Johnson, S. E. (2012). The Fear of French Negroes: Transcolonial Collaboration in the Revolutionary Americas (Vol. 12). Univ of California Press.

The author presents the possible fears that the French had as an interdisciplinary study exploring how the Africans responded to the collapse of reconsolidation of the colonial life following the Haitian revolution. The article essentially uses visual culture including popular music, periodical literature, and the historical memoirs to examine how people and ideas migrated to lead to the significant historical event of the revolution. The major strength of the book is that it builds on the previous scholarships on black internationalism and traces the existence of the competitions among the Inter-Americans. The author is successful in uncovering the struggle for unity amidst the realities of other factors such as class and lingual diversity. The stories give transcend above the consideration of the well-documented anxiety that was occasioned by the blacks in the slavery systems.

Forsdick, C. (2011). “Burst of thunder, stage pitch black”: the place of Haiti in US inter-war cultural production. Contemporary French and Francophone Studies , 15 (1), 7-18.

This article gives the discrepancies regarding historical information that can help understand Haiti. It begins by giving the geographical place of Haiti in the US inter-war cultural production. The article notes that even though recent progress has been made by a number of scholars to address the knowledge gaps about Haiti and to challenge and combat the ideas that have been collected, still literature is lacking in addressing such gaps. The comment of the author is to be read and to understand the place of Haiti in the US intercultural war. The principal aims of the author are two-fold, where it explores the rich and diverse traces of artistic and other intercultural connections between the two countries during the Haitian Revolution and to give the interpretive structures of French Atlantic have permitted in pioneering recent work.

Forsdick, C., & Høgsbjerg, C. (2014, September). Sergei Eisenstein and the Haitian Revolution:‘The Confrontation Between Black and White Explodes Into Red’. In History Workshop Journal (Vol. 78, No. 1, pp. 157-185). Oxford University Press.

The source gives an analysis of how the confrontation between the Black and Whites exploded into the red during the Haitian Revolution. The author notes high levels of presentation of the American and French Revolution as regularly commemorated in film, while he argues that the Haitian equivalent still awaits serious cinematic representation. The author's project involves accomplishing his project of making a film that can stir the imagination of his work. The paper presents one of the great unmade movies of the twentieth century while it examines how the film is situated in the wider dramatic context of the 1930s. The author proposes that the cinematic representation of the Haitian Revolution is going to be one of the best ways through which the literature on the history of the revolution can be memorized. The author is successful in offering a comprehensive account of the genesis of the cinematic representation of the Haitian Revolution.

Yingling, C. W. (2013). No One Who Reads the History of Hayti Can Doubt the Capacity of Colored Men: Racial Formation and Atlantic Rehabilitation in New York City's Early Black Press, 1827—1841. Early American Studies , 314-348.

The article acknowledges the fact that anyone who reads the history of Haiti will always doubt the capacity of colored men. The author gives an account of the historical analysis of the representation of the history of Haiti from the inception of the black newspapers and the colored American of the New York City. The authors try to counter the aspersions against their race by renegotiating the identity of their community within the matrix of Black Atlantic. The author successfully shows that the newspapers used the Haitian Revolution to exemplify resistance, abolitionism, and autonomy. The author also identifies how in the later stages, the colored American newspaper would be used to project the Republic of Haiti as a model of governance.

White, A. (2010). Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the making of the early republic . JHU Press.

Encountering Revolution reexamines the profound impact of the Haitian Revolution in the United States. The book redefines the understanding of the relationship between republicanism and slavery at the heart of an important period in the history of the US. The author identifies some of these impacts including laying bare the contradiction between democratic principles and the practice of slavery. The book acknowledges the fact that for over thirteen years, the slaves and free people of color in Haiti battled for equal rights in the form of the French Revolution. Ashli White, an experienced historian is successful in examining the ways in which the Blacks and Whites pondered the implications of the revolution in Haiti.

Buck-Morss, S. (2009). Hegel, Haiti, and universal history . University of Pittsburgh Press.

This is a path-breaking work, where the author tries to draw the current connections between history, inequality, social conflict and human emancipation in Haiti. The book offers a fundamental reinterpretation of the master slavery dialects of Hegel, Haiti, where it also points to the free and critical theoretical practice from the continuing debates. The book historicizes the thoughts of Hegel and the actions that took place during the revolution. The author, a historian, examines the startling connections and challenges the audience to widen the boundary of their historical imagination. The author is successful in locating the discontinuities in historical flow and proposes the new humanism that goes beyond the idea of usual ideological implications required in embracing radical neutrality.

Geggus, D. (2010). The Caribbean in the age of revolution. The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760-1840 , 83-100.

This book brings together the distinguished international team of historians who examine the dynamics of global and regional changes during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The authors provide a uniquely broad coverage of the events that led to the independence in Haiti. The chapters shed new light on the pivotal period in the history of the world. The authors offer a fresh perspective on the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions, while they also give the moments that led to the break-up of the Iberian empires. The volume is important for this study as it presents the ground-breaking treatments of the history of the world from the perspective of countries such as Africa and the age of revolution in South Asia. The authors recognize the fact that the revolutions led to the stability of other nations, while they also contributed to instability especially among the colonies.

Fidler, D. P. (2009). After the revolution: global health politics in a time of economic crisis and threatening future trends. 2 Global Health Governance (2008/09) .

The article examines the tragedies related to the Haitian Revolution by examining how the revolution impacted the global health politics in a period of economic crisis and threatening future trends. The author shows that after the revolution can the global climate change, energy, food and economic crises as the limitations in the global health ability in shaping the large-scale political and economic problems. The author also finds out how the projected trends in the world affairs can threaten the global health and the ability of global nations to craft effective collective actions in response to the global problems. The author successfully shows that in the post-revolution period, global health will continue to face daunting challenges of making the re-globalization process called for by the global economic crises such as the Haitian Revolution.

O’Rourke, K. H. (2006). The worldwide economic impact of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1793–1815. Journal of Global History , 1 (1), 123-149.

The paper gives a comparative historical analysis of the economic impact of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. The authors focus relative price evidence, where they show that the conflict had major economic impacts across the globe. Since Britain was in control of the seas, it was much less affected compared to the belligerent nations including France and the US. The authors acknowledge the fact that the conflict had different economic impacts around the world, which is a suggestion that the mercantilist conflicts prevented the emergence of a more pronounced commodity market integrations during the eighteenth century. The authors succeed ungiving the effects of the war in the long-run, where they identify the ways in which the revolution hindered the integration of international commodity markets.

Knight, F. W. (2011). The Caribbean: The genesis of a fragmented nationalism. OUP Catalogue .

The article offers a rare pan-Caribbean perspective on a region that has moved from the very center of the western world to its current heights. The source journeys through five centuries of economic and social development, where it emphasizes on topics such as slave-run plantation economy and the changes in political control over the centuries. The authors succeed at integrating the social analysis with political narrative, where they provide an explosive political climate.

Knight, F. W. (2000). The Haitian Revolution. The American Historical Review , 105 (1), 103-115.

The article acknowledges the fact that the Haitian Revolution represents the most thorough case study of revolutionary change anywhere in the history of the modern world. The authors recognize the contribution of the colony that was predominantly populated by the plantation slaves and the way in which they threw the colonial status and the economic system, leading to the establishment of a new political state of entirely free individuals. The authors examine the contribution of these ex-slaves who now became part of the new political authority. Even though the state declared its independence, in America, Haiti did not have the viable administrative models to follow. It is imperative that the authors recognize that the British North Americans who had declared independence in 1776 left slavery intact, while the success of the revolution made social revolutions a sensitive issue among the political class across the world.

Blackburn, R. (2006). Haiti, slavery, and the age of the democratic revolution. The William and Mary Quarterly , 63 (4), 643-674.

The author recognizes the fact that the Haiti Revolution has rarely been given its due even though there is much that cannot be accounted for without it. The article calls for a system of interconnection between the American, French, and the Haitian Revolutions, where each should be seen to be helping in the radicalization of the others. For instance, he recognizes how the American Revolution launched the idea of popular sovereignty, where the cost of the war helped provoke the downfall of the French Monarchy. On the other hand, the French revolution is seen to have been a fundamental event in the new world since it was meant to challenge slavery and royal power. The author goes ahead to acknowledge the interconnectedness between these wars and the Haitian Revolution, where the events in one revolution set the pace for the next revolution.

Girard, P. R. (2011). The slaves who defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian war of independence, 1801–1804 . University of Alabama Press.

The book explains the happenings of the 1804 Haiti Massacre, which led to the death of the remaining whites in Haiti after the revolution. The book acknowledges the fact that Dessalines was behind the 1804 Haiti massacre, where he ordered his soldiers to execute the remaining white population of native French people and the Franco-Haitians. The authors also describe the ways in which Dessalines put a decree in which those who were suspected of conspiring in the acts of the expelled army would be killed. The massacre, which took place throughout the region began in early 1804 and ended in April the same year. The total number of deaths that were recorded from this massacre was more than 5,000 men, women, and children.

Part 2: Analysis

The Haitian Revolution has always been regarded as the largest and most successful slave rebellion in the Western hemisphere. The revolution was a servile uprising that resulted in the creation of an independent nation, Haiti. During the revolution, the slaves are believed to have initiated the rebellion in 1791, whereby 1803; they had been successful in ending both slavery and the French control over the colony (Bhambra, 2016). The revolution is regarded as having been complex, where it involved several revolutions that went on simultaneously. The French Revolution of 1789 was the main source of influence of the Haitian Revolutions, where they all represented the new concept of human rights, universal citizenship, and political emancipation. Before the Haitian Revolution, Saint Dominigue was one of the wealthiest overseas colonies of France because it sustained the production of sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton, while it depended on the slave labor force (Blackburn, 2006). The breakout of the French Revolution meant that there would be five distinct sets of interest groups in the colony. The first group comprised of the white planters, who were the owners of the plantations, while the other groups comprised of the slaves, the artisans, shopkeepers, and teachers. Most of these groups had a right of owning slaves. In total, there were more than 40,000 colonial residents.

Most of the whites in Saint Dominigue supported an independence movement that had been launched after realizing that the French had imposed steep tariffs on items that were imported into the colony (Buck-Morss, 2009). The planters became disenchanted with the French colonies because they were restricted from trading with any other nation. On the other hand, the white population of Saint-Dominique lacked a system of representation in France. There were occasional calls for independence, even though the planters and the Petit Blancs showed their commitment towards the institution of slavery. The groups from the African descent comprised of those who were free, the slaves, and those who had run away. The region comprised more than 30,000 black people with half being the mulatto who was wealthier as compared to the Petit Blancs. The population of slaves was at its highest, where there were more than half a million slaves comprising of the runaway slaves that were called Maroons. The maroons retreated to the mountainous region of Saint Dominique, where they relied on subsistence farming as their economic activity (Cantir, 2017). Saint Dominique had a history of rebellions, where the slaves were not willing to submit to their status because they were high in numbers. The region was cruel and harsh to slaves even though there were slave rebellions before the Haitian Revolutions. The major plot involved the poisoning of the masters.

The Haitian-born revolutionary movement emerged, where it is believed to have been inspired by the events in France. The movement was used as the vehicle for the declaration of the rights of man. The General Assembly in France had to respond by enacting a law that gave the colonies some autonomy at the local level. The legislation, among other things, called for all local proprietors to become active citizens. In Saint Dominique, this legislation only applied to the planter class, while it excluded petit blancs from the government (Dash, 2016). The law further allowed free citizens of color who owned substantial property to participate. Essentially, France saw the importance of the law in Haiti as it would keep the region in the colonial empire. Instead, the law led to the generation of a three-sided civil war between the planters, free blacks, and the petit blancs. On the other hand, all these groups were challenged by the enslaved black majority that was the source of inspiration to the events in France. The enslaved would act first, where they rebelled against planters in 1791 (Daut, 2015). A year later, the slaved were in control of a third of the island. On its part, France responded with reinforcements on the areas of the colony held by the rebels grew just like the violence grew. Before the end of the fighting, more than 100,000 and more than 20,000 whites were killed. Nonetheless, the former slaves were able to stave off the forces from the French and the British who had conquered the colony. By 1801, the slaves expanded the revolution beyond Haiti in the Spanish-speaking colony with the declaration of their leader as the governor-general for life over the entire island of Hispaniola.

At this moment, the Haitian Revolution had outlasted the French Revolution that had been its inspiration. King Napoleon, who was the ruler of France, dispatched French troops to capture L’Overture and to restore the French rule and slavery in Saint Dominique. L'Ouverture was imprisoned in France until his death (Eller, 2011). In November 1803, Jean-Jacques, who worked as a general and a former slave led the revolutionary at the Battle of Vertieres, which meant that the French forces would be defeated. The general, a former slave then declared the independence of the nation and changed the name from Saint Dominique to Haiti. France was the first nation to recognize the impact of the revolution and the independence of the new state. Haiti emerged as the first black republic in the world and the second nation after the US in the western hemisphere to have won its independence from the European power.

Triumphs of the Haitian Revolution

The Haitian Revolution is regarded as one of the most successful antislavery and anticolonial insurrection that was carried out by the slaves against the French colonial rule in today's Haiti. The revolution had different levels of triumphs with the first being the birth of the sovereign nation of Haiti. The revolution highly impacted the institution of slavery, whose effects were felt beyond the USA (Eller, 2011). The slaves defeated the French rule and abolished slavery, which was followed by a successful defense of the freedoms they had won. The revolution was also a triumph as it challenged the traditional beliefs among the Europeans about the alleged black inferiority and the capacity of the enslaved people to achieve and maintain their freedoms and rights.

The major result of the revolution was the creation of an independent government in Haiti, where the society in the country could remain deeply affected by the patterns that had earlier been established under the colonial rule (Ferrer, 2012). The revolution was fueled by the emergence of the free people of color after the centuries of French rule in Saint Domonique. Most of the planters and the young unmarried men developed relations with the African and Afro-Carribean women, which was a source of freedom for the women and their children. The intermarriage also meant that the children would access education, where most of them were sent to France for education and training that gave the opportunity to serve in the French Military (Fidler, 2009). Most of the Mulattoes who successfully returned to Saint Dominique were the elite people of color. Most of them were wealthier as they used their social capital for investments in as much as some of them owned land. On the other hand, the mulattoes were more identified with the French colonialists as compared to the ways in which they were identified with the slaves (Forsdick, 2011). By contrast, most of the free people of color were raised in the French culture, where they would access certain rights in the colonial society in as much as they spoke French.

Mulattoes dominated politics and economics, while they enjoyed an urban life after the revolution. This group created a different kind of two-caste society because most of the Haitians were rural subsistence farmers (Forsdick & Høgsbjerg, 2014). Most of the economic development in the Caribbean was contingent on the demand for sugar in Europe. Plantation owners relied on the production of sugar as the commodity crop that was produced from the cultivation of sugar cane that relied on the slaves for intensive labor (Ferrer, 2012). Saint Dominique also produced other food crops such as coffee, cocoa, and indigo even though these were smaller and less profitable as compared to the sugar plantations. The plantation owners traded the commodity crops with the European goods. The plantation owners relied on imposing harsh conditions on slaves to sustain the sugar production. For instance, the slaves were subjected to the unhealthy climate of the Caribbean, where they were susceptible to different diseases including yellow fever and malaria (Forsdick & Høgsbjerg, 2014). The revolution put to an end the harsh treatments, where the death rates from yellow fever and malaria were at its rise before the beginning of the revolution. The slaves did not have legal rights, where they faced cruelties including rape by their masters.

The surge in the number of slaves was an added advantage even though the white planters and their families used threats and acts of physical violence to suppress any form of rebellion from the slaves. Any form of disobedience on the part of the slaves meant that there would be harsher conditions including burning or castration as a warning for other slaves. The harsh penalties that the slaves were subjected to resulted in passage of the Code Noir back in France as a way of regulating the violence and harsh treatment of the slaves (Garraway, 2008). Despite the passage of the law, the masters openly and consistently broke the code, which implied that the slaves lacked all avenues that could address their tribulations.

The national assembly in France made radical changes in French law with the consequent publication of the declaration of the rights of man. The changes meant that all men were equal and free. The revolution in France highly impacted on the conflict in Haiti and was highly welcome in the Caribbean island. The wealthy whites had to strive to gain independence from France, where they wanted to take full control of the island and create trade regulations that would enhance the growth of their wealth and power (Ferrer, 2012). The twists of the turns of leadership in France also meant that there would be more complex events that would take place in Saint-Domingue. Moreover, the Haitian revolution was the test of the French revolution as it led to the radicalization of the question of slavery and forced the leaders in France to recognize the full meaning of the revolution. The slaves were aware of the agitation for independence among the rich European planters and the grands Blancs (Geggus, 2010). The African population was allied to the royalists and the British as they understood that if the white slave masters would agitate for independence in Saint Dominque, they would face harsher treatments and increased injustices. The independence would mean that the plantation owners would operate slavery as they pleased without the minimal accountability to the French peers who were fighting for equality.

The revolution in Saint Dominque can be regarded as a success because it was the best way of appealing for the full civil equality with the whites (Yingling, 2013). Having found its inspiration from the French revolution, the Haitian revolution called for the equality between the whites and the slaves. Moreover, the revolution meant that there would be an end to the harsh treatment from the white settlers who were fighting for the full control of the slaves after the declaration of the rights of man.

Tragedy (Haitian Revolution)

The Haitian Revolution was largely ignited from the underrepresented majority of the population. The majority of the supporters of the revolution comprised of the slaves and freed Africans who faced discrimination from the colonial society and the law (Ghachem, 2012). The revolution received idealist and utopian thoughts even though extreme brutality was the fundamental aspect of the uprising in Haiti. The initial cruelty would just create precarious conditions that would later breed the revolution even though there were high levels from both sides throughout the revolution. The moments of the reign of terror were marked by the high levels of violence during the French Revolution (Ferrer, 2012). Any wave of suspicion meant that the government would kill thousands of suspects ranging from the aristocrats to the persons who would openly oppose the leaders as well as those who supported the revolution. Many people were killed during the revolution with the mobs attacking the people, while other death machines were used. The death toll during the revolution was estimated to range from 18,000 to 40,000, while the total number of casualties was more than 160,000 (Girard, 2011). The violence during the Haitian Revolution was largely characterized by military confrontations and the murder of the slave owners and their families in the guerrilla warfare. The Haitians tried to stop the French at the create-a-pierrot battle. During those battle, the Haitians had to abandon the conventional warfare and revert back to the guerilla tactics (Glick, 2016). During this warfare, the rainy season cane to Saint Domingue with the collection of stagnant water that brought yet another tragedy of outbreaks such as malaria and yellow fever. By the end of March, more than 5000 French soldiers had succumbed to yellow fever, while more than 5,000 were admitted with the disease.

By January 1804, the new Haitian leader declared the state a free republic in the name of the Haitian People. This was followed by yet another tragedy that involved the massacre of the remaining whites (Johnson, 2012). Dessalines was behind the 1804 Haiti massacre, where he ordered his soldiers to execute the remaining white population of native French people and the Franco-Haitians. Dessalines put a decree in which those who were suspected of conspiring in the acts of the expelled army would be killed. The massacre, which took place throughout the region began in early 1804 and ended in April the same year (Ferrer, 2012). The total number of deaths that were recorded from this massacre was more than 5,000 men, women, and children. The massacre involved squads of soldiers moving from house to house to torture and kill the entire families. Moreover, those whites who had been sympathetic to the black population were jailed and later killed (Knight, 2000). The second wave of the massacre targeted the white women and their children. The tragedies in the Haitian Revolution were well known to the United States, where they were called the horrors of Santo Domingo. Mass killings took place in the streets and outside the cities.

The Haitian Revolution was also a tragedy bearing in mind that it led to the slave insurrections of 1791. In the insurrection, the refugees from Saint Domingue had to flee to the USA in parts like Philadelphia and the New York. There was an increase in the immigration in the wake of the crisis of 1793, where the American families had to raise money to open up their homes and help exiles in what became one of the first refugee crises in the USA (Knight, 2011). The white refugees condemned the French Revolutionary government for having sparked the violence in Haiti even though others supported the Republican regime as they expressed open support for the Jacobins. The revolution of the African slaves led to the rise in the fears of most of the colonies surrounding the Caribbean and Haiti. Most of the wealthy American Slave owners were worried about what may happen in their states (Ferrer, 2012). However, most news agencies like the Colombian Centinel supported the revolution as it brought to an end the harsh treatment of slaves by their masters.

Conclusion

The Haitian revolution was a source of triumph for the slaves, while it was a tragedy for the slave owners. By emphasizing on the relative price evidence, it is easy to show that the conflict led to major economic effects across the world. The revolution became of the most successful anti-slavery insurrections against the colonial rule in Haiti. Having lasted for over thirteen years, the revolution had both negative and positive impacts. The major positive impact was that it led to the rebirth of an independent Haiti that was free from slavery. The revolution is perhaps a defining moment in the history of racial segregation in the Atlantic World. In as much as it put an end to the institution of slavery, the revolution came with its price including a number of tragedies. For instance, the conflict led to the death of both the slaves and the slave owners. The revolution also coincided with the outbreak of tropical diseases including malaria and yellow fever, which contributed to more than 5,000 deaths. Violence in the region during the revolution was highly characterized by military confrontations and the murder of slave owners. For instance, the 1804 Haiti massacre that was carried out on the remaining white population led to the murder of more than 5000 native French people. The blacks also suffered from the violence, where from 1791 to 1804, more than 200,000 blacks died either from the fighting or from the outbreak of diseases such as yellow fever.

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