The Opening
May 20, 2017
Opportunism and Hypocrisy
May 21, 2017
By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (May 19th 2017)
A Free Hand
Baron William Grenville, succeeded William Pitt the Younger as Prime Minister in 1806. Four years earlier he played an important in securing a temporary peace with Napoléon Bonaparte’s France- the Treaty of Amiens. While some condemn Grenville over it, the Treaty of Amiens allowed Britain to rebuild after the disastrous Haiti campaign and a war that showed few signs of ending favourably.
Amiens allowed Napoléon to put his resources and efforts into regaining Saint-Domingue. Both the British and Americans were secretly informed of Napoléon’s plans and approved them at least by inaction.
Betrayed
The USA in particular benefited from Revolutionary Saint-Domingue as it provided a useful trading partner and outlet for them, but despite the contribution of Haitian Revolutionaries to US independence – the Savannah Monument acknowledges this, as the drummer-boy in the Monument is Henri Christophe, who had escaped slavery to assist – and after Toussaint Louverture became the Governor, the revolutionaries restored the economy to two-thirds of its pre-Revolution state.
Toussaint’s government provided an important trading outlet for the Americans. But there was a huge contradiction in the amerce approach. They needed an alternative trading partner, or they would be dependent on Britain or France, and Saint-Domingue was geographically more convenient too, but the US economy needed and depended on slavery.
Their War of Independence consciously chose to retain slavery. Haiti’s chose to abolish it, and that offered an example the Americans feared greatly. It speaks volumes that Britain, very recently at war with Napoléon’s France, was prepared to allow the French dictator a free hand in his efforts to restore slavery.
Given the constant battles and destructive effect they had on the country, that is remarkable. It was however, achieved with a harsh agrarian-based economy.
Scorched Earth
Napoléon had underestimated Haitians’ desire to be free. Toussaint and the Haitian revolutionaries had a potent weapon. A decade before General Winter demolished Napoléon’s plans to conquer Russia, the Haitian revolutionaries used their local weapon too. It is no coincidence that they ended hostilities with the French at the time of year they did – exactly when Yellow Fever started to bite. Instead of fighting the French, the Revolutionaries settled a few scores and left the French to do the same.
Just as Britain was beaten by a combination of guerrilla warfare and Yellow Fever, Bonaparte proved that his arrogance knew no bounds. He made the same mistake and suffered the same fate.
Toussaint was fortunate that he had a ‘liberal’ master who allowed him to learn to read and write. He was later influenced by French Enlightenment philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The French Revolutionaries who overthrew Louis XVI did not abolish slavery and eventually withdrew the limited rights that it gave to free Mulattos and blacks – this contributed to Saint-Domingue’s Revolution.
Toussaint was on the moderate side of the Revolution in Saint-Domingue. He did not want independence and saw no need for it. He trusted the French to act honourably, but he had miscalculated. There were hidden agendas. Louverture was arrested in May 1802 by Jean-Baptiste Brunet. It breached the agreement between Napoléon’s representative in Saint-Domingue, Charles Leclerc and Toussaint. The trigger for Louverture’s arrest was a letter to Leclerc, denouncing him for not ordering a rebel leader to lay down is arms, as was required by the ceasefire agreement – the author of that letter was Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
It gave the pretext needed. Louverture later claimed that following bad behaviour by his troops, he sought a meeting with Brunet and was arrested at it – Brunet absented himself, but Toussaint’s arrest and subsequent treatment was planned.
Years later – a prisoner himself – Napoléon was confronted over his dishonourable treatment of Toussaint. He didn’t see why he should be bothered about the treatment of ‘one wretched Negro’. Toussaint was deported to France arriving on July 2nd 1802. He was imprisoned in the mountain jail Fort-de-Joux from August 25th. He was starved in the cold, dying on April 7th 1803 from the neglect he suffered.
Louverture learned too late that Leclerc and Brunet had an agenda to execute – reversing the gains of the Revolution Louverture had led for over a decade. Prophetically, he told his captors that his comrades would not repeat his mistake. “In overthrowing me you have cut down in Saint Domingue only the trunk of the tree of liberty”, Louverture said. “It will spring up again from the roots, for they are numerous and they are deep”.
The French intentions were demonstrated clearly, as not only was Louverture deported, but Mulatto leader André Rigaud too. Rigaud was imprisoned in the same jail. It became clear later that year that the French intended to restore slavery in Saint-Domingue – they did that in Guadeloupe on July 16th 1802, just two weeks after Louverture was deported. The threat of that in Saint-Domingue was the final straw for the Revolutionaries, black and Mulatto. Pétion and Dessalines met secretly and switched sides in October 1803. The following month under Dessalines’ leadership they attacked the fort of Vertières – the final battle of the Haitian Revolution.
