“In 1789 the French West Indian colony of San Domingo (Haiti) supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade of France and was the greatest individual market for the European slave-trade. It was an integral part of the economic life of the age, the greatest colony in the world, the pride of France, and the envy of every other imperialist nation. The whole structure rested on the labour of half-a-million slaves.
“In August 1791, after two years of the French Revolution and its repercussions in San Domingo, the slaves revolted. The struggle lasted for 12 years. The slaves defeated in turn the local whites and the soldiers of the French monarchy, a Spanish invasion, a British expedition of some 60,000 men, and a French expedition of similar size under Bonaparte’s brother-in-law.
“The revolt is the only successful slave revolt in history, and the odds it had to overcome is evidence of the magnitude of the interests that were involved.”
– pg. ix, PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, The Black Jacobins, by C. L. R. James, Random House, New York, 1963
What is going on in Haiti makes some problems in Belize, like garbage and potholes, suddenly seem trivial. The suffering of the injured, trapped, hungry, thirsty and cold is heart-wrenching. How about the grief of the survivors for the still uncounted tens of thousands of dead? Everything is worse than it would be anywhere else in our part of the world, because Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
CNN reports that the people of Haiti are 95 percent black and 80 percent Roman Catholic. We mention this because the people of Belize are majority Roman Catholic, and the population of Belize was majority black less than three decades ago. Belizeans should therefore feel an immediate kinship with the Haitian people, but this is probably not so. This is probably not so because there is a fundamental core of anti-black racism in Belize. It is disguised, well disguised, but we all know it is normally not a good thing to be black in Belize.
Over the years, we have done our best at this newspaper to educate our readers about the unique and incredible history of Haiti. On Thursday morning we read a history primer about Haiti’s woes on the BBC online news. As we expected, that BBC history primer does not go as far back as the Haitian Revolution in 1791, and Haiti’s establishment of the first black republic in 1804. The reason the British will not go that far back is because they do not want to bring up the dread issue of slavery, in which they, the British, played a “starring” role for centuries. Discussion of slavery would lead to a look at white supremacy, and no European nation will want to recognize and review that reality.
There was a time when Haiti, which occupies the western half of the island known historically as Hispaniola (the Dominican Republic being on the eastern side of the island), was the richest colony owned by France, Haiti’s primary products being the sugar and molasses deriving from their lush cane fields. The wealth of Haiti (then known as “Saint Domingue” by the French) was built on the backs of black slaves transported in chains in the holds of ships from West Africa. And Saint Domingue was a debauched place. Excessive wealth always leads to debauchery. This is the lesson of history. Not only were the slave/plantation owners debauched, they were also very brutal and very cruel.
Today, the French are considered the most cultured and civilized of Europeans, and Paris is lovingly referred to as the “City of Light.” That culture and that civilization and that light, they all came from blood – the blood of slave men and slave women and slave children.
Inside continental France itself, there was also a debauched, wealthy class of nobles and corrupt church prelates, who gave their loyalty to an established, sick monarchy. The people of France finally rose up in the most savage of revolutions in July of 1789. They slaughtered their oppressors and declared “liberty, equality and fraternity.” Events in Paris contributed to a campaign for similar rights among the mulatto class in San Domingo. Turmoil there led in 1791 to a revolt of the masses of the black slaves. A remarkable leader/general by the name of Toussaint L’Ouverture led the slaves to victory after victory. They defeated French, British and Spanish armies, and during the time of the Battle of St. George’s Caye in 1798, Toussaint L’Ouverture ruled the whole of Hispaniola. He was the single most powerful man in this region.
A vile racism thereupon rose in the heart of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had become the ruler of France, whereupon he sent a French military expedition under his brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, to vanquish Toussaint, although Toussaint’s stated and manifest loyalty was to France, where he had sent his two sons to be educated. Understanding that an all-out war between himself and Leclerc would devastate Haiti, Toussaint hesitated. Leclerc captured him using a subterfuge, and sent him to France in chains, where he died in a dungeon.
The black Haitians, who had won their freedom in war, chose total war instead of capitulation and return to slavery. Led by the implacable Dessalines, whom C. L. R. James describes as “a barbarian,” they defeated Leclerc. That war to preserve the freedom of the slaves from the white supremacy of the French, began the destruction of the Haiti which had been so wealthy.
Haiti became a black republic in 1804 under the emperor Dessalines (who was assassinated in 1806), but the United States of America, fearful that the Haitian example of slave revolt would infect their own massive slave population in the Southern U.S., refused to recognize Haiti’s independence until 1862. United States Marines invaded Haiti in 1913. Haiti was isolated and victimized in every other part of the Western Hemisphere.
As people who have lived under the umbrella, so to speak, of white supremacy for the last centuries, we Belizeans, both consciously and subconsciously, tried to move ourselves and our families from blackness into whiteness. Our slogan was, “Raise yu colour.” It was real. We believed this was the way to self-preservation. We turned our backs on our own blackness: we shunned our black brothers and sisters. We were ashamed of Haiti, and did not accept Haitians as our brothers and sisters. But they are our brothers and sisters. They are our brothers and sisters from way back in the West African reality. Embrace our roots, Belizeans. Feel the pain. Reach out to Haiti. Pray for the Haitian people, created in the image and likeness of God. Solidarity with Haiti.
Power to the people. Power in the struggle.