La esclavitud atlántica a través de la novela gráfica: análisis crítico del estallido de la Revolución haitiana (1791) en La niña Bois-Caïman, de François Bourgeon

La revolución esclava de Saint-Domingue en agosto de 1791 fue un fenómeno derelevancia innegable porque sacudió los cimientos del mercado esclavista internacionaly cuestionó los límites de los valores defendidos en las revoluciones atlánticas;además, originó la primera república negra independiente de la historia: Haití, nacidaen 1804. Ello explica la atención suscitada desde diferentes perspectivas, entre ellas lanovela gráfica. En el presente artículo se aborda un análisis crítico de su enfoque enlas páginas de La niña Bois-Caïman, continuadora de la serie iniciada por Los pasajerosdel viento, del autor francés François Bourgeon.

Popular Sovereignty versus State Sovereignty: Haiti, Popular Equality and the Birth of the Neocolonial State

Through a review of the two works below, I discuss how the Saint Domingue/Haiti Revolutions clarify the history of the opposition between popular sovereignty and state sovereignty. The people and the state developed as distinct political actors throughout the nineteenth century in particular. The former constructed a completely new society founded on egalitarian norms influenced by African cultures. The latter failed to establish its sovereignty and reverted to a colonial form, thus illustrating the core characteristics of the neocolonial state now widespread in the Global South in general and in Africa in particular.

The Chapuizet Affair

This article examines a 1779 legal dispute involving Pierre Chapuizet, a wealthy and well-connected sugar planter of the north province of Saint-Domingue who was denied a commission as an officer in the colonial militia due to allegations of mixed-race origin. Although the Conseil Supérieur of Cap Français had recognized Chapuizet's status as “white and unblemished” (blanc et ingénu) in 1771, the colonial administration and much of the white elite argued that his descent from a Black great-great-grandmother made him ineligible for the honor of a militia commission. This article argues that the Chapuizet affair demonstrates a shift in the boundaries of whiteness in the French Antilles. Traditional “color prejudice,” in which skin color was one factor among many others, such as wealth and family connections, gave way to modern scientific racism defined by biological descent, according to which a single Black ancestor, however remote, sufficed for exclusion from the white elite. Cet article examine une dispute légale de l'année 1779 qui visait à Pierre Chapuizet, un colon riche et renommé de la province nord de Saint-Domingue, à qui on refusait une commission d'officier de milice à cause des allégations qu'il était d'origine sang mêlé. Bien que le Conseil supérieur du Cap Français l'eût reconnu comme « blanc et ingénu » dans un arrêt de 1771, l'administration coloniale et la plupart de l’élite blanche considéraient que son ascendance, notamment son arrière-grand-mère noire, l'excluait de l'honneur d'une commission militaire. A travers l'affaire Chapuizet on constate une modification des identités raciales et du statut de l'homme blanc dans les Antilles françaises. Le « préjugé de couleur » traditionnel, selon lequel la couleur de la peau n’était qu'un facteur parmi d'autres comme la richesse et les alliances familiales cède au racisme scientifique moderne, défini par la filiation biologique, selon lequel un seul aïeul noir, aussi lointain qu'il soit, suffit pour l'exclusion de l’élite blanche.

A Tale of Two Boycotts: Riot, Reform, and Sugar Consumption in Late Eighteenth-Century Britain and France

Atlantic sugar production and European sugar consumption rose dramatically in the late eighteenth century. Despite this increase, there were two separate calls to refrain from consuming sugar in both Britain and France at the end of the eighteenth century. Demands for abstinence were directed toward women to stop household consumption of sugar. In Britain, abolitionists urged women to stop buying West Indian sugar because it was a slave good, produced on plantations where enslaved Africans were subject to cruelty and where mortality rates were high. In France, the call to forego sugar came during the early years of the Revolution of 1789, in response to rising sugar prices. The women of Paris were asked to refrain from buying sugar at high prices that were assumed to be a result of market manipulation by speculators and hoarders engaging in anti-revolutionary behavior. The increase in Parisian sugar prices was not driven primarily by profiteering, but by a global shortage caused by the slave revolt in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now Haiti. Comparing these two sugar boycotts, one in Britain, the other in France, provides an opportunity outside of national historical narratives to consider how both events employed the same technique for very different aims. The call to renounce sugar in both cases used economic pressure to create political change. An exploration of these movements for abstinence will provide a better understanding of how they critiqued consumption, and translated discourses, both abolitionist and revolutionary, into practice.

One and Indivisible?

Histories of the French Revolution usually locate the origins of the “one and indivisible Republic” in a strictly metropolitan context. In contrast, this article argues that the French Revolution's debates surrounding federation, federalism, and the (re)foundation of the French nation-state were interwoven with colonial and transimperial matters. Between 1776 and 1792 federalism in a French imperial context went from an element of an academic conversation among bureaucrats and economists to a matter of violent struggle in Saint-Domingue that generated new agendas in the metropole. Going beyond the binary language of union and secession, the article examines the contest over federation and federalism in Saint-Domingue between free people of color and white planters who, taking inspiration from both metropolitan and non-French experiences with federalism, sought to alter the colony's relationship with the metropole while also maintaining the institution of slavery. Revolutionaries on both sides of the Atlantic, unsure which direction to take and without the benefit of hindsight, used the language of federalism to pursue rival interests despite a seemingly common vocabulary. This entangled history of conflicts, compromises, and misunderstandings blurred ideological delineations but decisively shaped the genesis of the French imperial republic. Généralement, les histoires de la Révolution française placent les origines de la « République une et indivisible » dans un contexte strictement métropolitain. Cet article soutient en revanche que les débats de la Révolution française sur la fédération, le fédéralisme et la (re)-fondation de l'Etat-nation français étaient liés à des questions coloniales et transimpériales. Dans le contexte impérial français, entre 1776 et 1792, le fédéralisme ne fut plus seulement un objet de débats académiques entre bureaucrates et économistes, mais devint un élément central dans une lutte violente à Saint-Domingue qui contribua à infléchir les choix politiques faits en métropole. Au-delà du langage binaire de l'union et de la sécession, l'article examine les conflits cristallisés par les notions de fédération et de fédéralisme entre des libres de couleur et des planteurs blancs qui, s'inspirant d'expériences fédéralistes métropolitaines et étrangères, cherchèrent à modifier la relation de la colonie avec la métropole tout en maintenant l'institution esclavagiste. Des deux côtés de l'Atlantique, les révolutionnaires, qui ne savaient quelle direction emprunter, employèrent le langage du fédéralisme pour défendre des intérêts contradictoires malgré l'usage d'un vocabulaire apparemment commun. Cette histoire faite de conflits, de compromis et de malentendus contribua à brouiller les partages idéologiques mais n'en influença pas moins la genèse de la République impériale française.

Open the gate

This chapter opens with Sonthonax’s decree of 1793 that emancipated the enslaved people of Saint-Domingue. French revolutionary Léger Félicité Sonthonax brought a Civil Commission to Saint-Domingue in 1792 along with 6,000 soldiers. Their mission was to convince white landowners to form a coalition with mulatto landowners in order to crush the rebellion of enslaved people and preserve the colonial system. This delegation was fraught with contradictions as it was a microcosm of the conflict that had engulfed France: the struggle between aristocrats (the king, military leaders and Church leaders, and powerful landowners) and the bourgeoisie (businessmen and factory owners). Saint-Domingue’s social fissures were complex, with six major groups vying for power: the partisans of the new French government; the aristocrats; the freedmen, mixed race and black; the small whites; the leaders of the rebel slaves; and the masses of enslaved people. Trouillot explores the quicksand of shifting alliances and feuding rivalries during this early period of the Haitian Revolution. The white aristocrats refused to ally with the landowning and slave-holding mulatto and black freedmen. The new French government formed a coalition with the freedmen. The small whites resisted and were crushed by the new French government troops. The aristocrats turned to England and Spain for military assistance against the new French government, and these nations invaded and occupied parts of Saint-Domingue. To gain the upper hand, Sonthonax emancipated enslaved people willing to fight with the new French government in June 1793. Days afterward 10,000 French colonists fled the colony by ship. Sonthonax attempted to recruit the leaders of the rebel slaves; however, they were already fighting in the Spanish army and enjoying their freedom—some were even trafficking slaves. By emancipating the enslaved population in August of 1793, Sonthonax lost the support of the slave-owning aristocrats and freedmen, who were the principle power holders, and he was unable to recruit the leaders of the rebel slaves who saw no advantage in collaborating with an army that was losing ground. Having lost control of the traditional alliances, Sonthonax had overcorrected and found himself leaning upon those who had nothing to lose, the enslaved population.