Haitian Revolution
 The Treaty of Rijswijk (1697) formally ceded the western third of Hispaniola
from Spain to France, which renamed it Saint-Domingue.
 The colony’s population and economic output grew rapidly during the 18th
century, and it became France’s most prosperous New World possession,
exporting sugar and smaller amounts of coffee, cacao, indigo, and cotton.
 By the 1780s nearly two-thirds of France’s foreign investments were based on
Saint-Domingue, and the number of stopovers by oceangoing vessels sometimes
exceeded 700 per year.
 The development of plantation agriculture profoundly affected the island’s
ecology.
 African slaves toiled ceaselessly to clear forests for sugar fields, and massive
erosion ensued, particularly on the steep marginal slopes that had been allocated
to slaves for their subsistence crops.
 Soil productivity declined markedly in many areas, and formerly bountiful
streams dried up.
o European investors and landowners remained unconcerned about or
unaware of the long-term consequences of their actions, believing instead
that an overpopulation of slaves was the key to wringing more profits from
the region.
 In 1789 Saint-Domingue had an estimated population of 556,000
o Roughly 500,000 African slaves—a hundredfold increase over the
previous century
o 32,000 European colonists
o 24,000 affranchis (free mulattoes [people of mixed African and European
descent] or blacks).
 Haitian society was deeply fragmented by skin color, class, and gender.
 The “white” population comprised grands blancs (elite merchants and
landowners, often of royal lineage), petits blancs (overseers, craftsmen, and the
like), and blancs menants (laborers and peasants).
 The affranchis, who were mostly mulattoes, were sometimes slave owners
themselves.
o They aspired to the economic and social levels of the Europeans, and they
feared and spurned the slave majority
o The colonists generally discriminated against them, and the aspirations of
the affranchis became a major factor in the colony’s struggle for
independence.
 The slave population, most of whom were bosal (African-born), was an admixture
of West African ethnic groups.
o The vast majority were field-workers; more specialized groups included
household servants, boilermen (at the sugar mills), and even slave drivers.
o Slaves in the colony, like those throughout the Caribbean, endured
lengthy, backbreaking workdays and often died from injuries, infections,
and tropical diseases.
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o Malnutrition and starvation also were common because plantation owners
failed to plan adequately for food shortages, drought, and natural disasters,
and slaves were allowed scarce time to tend their own crops.
o Some slaves managed to escape into the mountainous interior, where they
became known as Maroons and fought guerrilla battles against colonial
militia.
o Large numbers of slaves, Maroons, and affranchis found solace in Vodou
(Voodoo), a syncretic religion incorporating West African belief systems.
o Others became fervent adherents of Roman Catholicism, and many began
to practice both religions.
The revolution was actually a series of conflicts during the period 1791–1804 that
involved shifting alliances of Haitian slaves, affranchis, mulattoes, and colonists,
as well as British and French army troops.
Several factors precipitated the event, including the affranchis’ frustrations with a
racist society, the French Revolution, nationalistic rhetoric expressed during
Vodou ceremonies, the continuing brutality of slave owners, and wars between
European powers.
Vincent Ogé, a mulatto who had lobbied the Parisian assembly for colonial
reforms, led an uprising in late 1790 but was captured, tortured, and executed.
In May 1791 the French revolutionary government granted citizenship to the
wealthier affranchis, but Haiti’s European population refused to comply with the
law.
Within two months isolated fighting broke out between Europeans and affranchis,
and in August thousands of slaves rose in rebellion.
The Europeans attempted to appease the mulattoes in order to quell the slave
revolt, and the French assembly granted citizenship to all affranchis in April 1792.
The country was torn by rival factions, some of which were supported by Spanish
colonists in Santo Domingo (on the eastern side of the island, which later became
the Dominican Republic) or by British troops from Jamaica.
In 1793 Léger Félicité Sonthonax, who was sent from France to maintain order,
offered freedom to slaves who joined his army; he soon abolished slavery
altogether, and the following year the French government confirmed his decision.
Spain ceded the rest of the island to France in the Treaty of Basel (1795), but war
in Europe precluded the actual transfer of possession.
In the late 1790s, Toussaint L’Ouverture, a military leader and former slave,
gained control of several areas and earned the initial support of French agents.
He gave nominal allegiance to France while pursuing his own political and
military designs, which included negotiating with the British, and in May 1801 he
had himself named “governor-general for life.”
Napoléon Bonaparte wishing to maintain control of the island, attempted to
restore the old regime (and European rule) by sending his brother-in-law, Gen.
Charles Leclerc, with an experienced force from Saint-Domingue that included
several exiled mulatto officers.
Toussaint struggled for several months against Leclerc’s forces before agreeing to
an armistice in May 1802; however, the French broke the agreement and
imprisoned him in France. He died on April 7, 1803.
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Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henry Christophe led a black army against the
French in 1802, following evidence that Napoleon intended to restore slavery in
Saint-Domingue as he had done in other French possessions.
They defeated the French commander and a large part of his army, and in
November 1803 the viscount de Rochambeau surrendered the remnant of the
expedition.
The French withdrew from Haiti but maintained a presence in the eastern part of
the island until 1809.
http://www.britannica.com/place/Haiti/Government-and-society#toc217447
Mexico and South America
 Napoleon occupying Spain sparked a crisis in the Spanish Empire.
 Due to Spanish bourbons falling captive to Napoleon in 1807, colonial elites in
Buenos Aires (Argentina), Caracas (Venezuela), and Mexico City (Mexico)
enjoyed self-rule without an emperor.
 When Bourbons returned to power in 1814 after Napoleon was crushed, creoles
(American-born Spaniards) resented it when Spain reinstated peninsulars
(colonial officials born in Spain) and wanted to free themselves of these officials
 In Mexico, the Royal Army prevailed as long as there was any hope that the
emperor in Madrid could maintain political authority.
 From 1810 to 1813, two rural priests, Father Miguel Hidalgo and Father Jose
Maria Morelos, electrified an insurrection of peasants, Indians, and artisans.
 They sought an end to abuses by the elite, denounced bad government, and called
for redistribution of wealth, return of land to the Indians, and respect for the
Virgin of Guadalupe (who later became Mexico’s patron saint).
 The rebellion nearly choked off Mexico City, the colony’s capital, which horrified
peninsulars and creoles alike and led them to support royal armies that eventually
crushed the uprising.
 Even though the military was victorious, Spain’s hold on its colony weakened.
 Similar to the Creoles of South America, those of Mexico identified themselves
more as Mexicans and less as Spanish Americans.
 So when the Spanish King appeared unable to govern effectively abroad and even
within Spain, the colonists considered home rule.
 A critical factor was the army, which remained faithful to the crown.
 However, when anarchy seemed to spread through Spain in 1820, Mexican
generals (with support of the creoles) proclaimed Mexican independence in 1821.
 Different from Brazil, Mexican secession did not lead to stability.
South America – Other
 The loosening of Spain’s grip on its colonies was more prolonged and militarized
than Britain’s separation from its American colonies.
 Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), the son of a merchant-planter family
who was educated on Enlightenment texts, dreamed of a land governed by reason.
 He revered Napoleonic France as a model state built on military heroism and
constitutional proclamations.
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The Argentine leader General Jose de San Martin (1778-1850) agreed.
Men like Bolivar, San Martin, and their many generals waged extended wars of
independence against Spanish armies and their allies between 1810 and 1824.
In present-day Uruguay and Venezuela, the wars left entire provinces
depopulated.
What started in South America as a political revolution against Spanish colonial
authority escalated into a social struggle among Indians, mestizos, slaves, and
whites.
The militarized populace threatened the planters and merchants
o Rural folk battled against aristocratic creoles
o Andean Indians fled the mines and occupied great estates
o Provinces fought their neighbors
Popular armies, having defeated Spanish forces by the 1820s, fought civil wars
over the new postcolonial order.
New states and collective identities of nationhood now emerged.
A narrow elite led these political communities, and their guiding principles were
contradictory.
Simon Bolivar, urged his followers to become “American”, to overcome their
local identities.
o He wanted the liberated countries to form a Latin American confederation,
urging Peru and Bolivia to join Venezuela, Ecuador, and Colombia in the
“Gran Colombia.”
o But local identities prevailed, giving way to unstable national republics
o Bolivar died surrounded by enemies
o San Martin died in exile
The real heirs to independence were local military chieftains, who often forged
alliances with landowners.
The legacy of the Spanish American revolutions was contradictory
o The triumph of wealthy elites under a banner of liberty, yet often at the
expense of the poorer, ethnic, and mixed populations.
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