Haiti-A Call For Global Action
by Randall Robinson
January 07, 2004
Part I
January 1, 1804 - January 1, 2004:
This day is sacred.
It is the 200th anniversary of the Haitian Revolution.
Fought by Haitians.
Won for us all.
Between 1791 and 1804, hundreds of thousands of Africans
enslaved in Haiti ignored the rivers, forests, precipices, swamps,
mountains, gorges, bloodhounds, rifles, cannon, and whips that separated
them and united to launch a massive, brilliantly executed, spectacular
war of liberation that the armies of Spain, England, and France (with
the help of the United States) all fought desperately - and failed
absolutely - to crush.
The Haitian Revolution was no "lucky break" involving "a few
unruly slaves."
This was no "plantation uprising."
St. Domingue (as Haiti was then called by the French) was at
that time the most prosperous colonial possession of any European power.
It created far greater wealth for France than the thirteen American
colonies combined. Its massive wealth-generating capacity caused it to
be known far and wide as "The Pearl of the Antilles" and its French
owners had a clear and proven management strategy for profit
maximization: push the slaves to their absolute physical limit, work
them literally to death, and then quickly import replacement slaves from
Africa who would, in turn, be worked to death. This, St. Domingue's
plantocracy had discovered, controlled operating costs, kept the pace of
economic activity at a highly efficient and productive pace, minimized
slack and wastage, and produced massive, stupendous profits.
Two hundred years ago today, however, after a 13-year war of
liberation, the slaves of St. Domingue celebrated their victory over
France and other European powers by establishing the Republic of Haiti.
They had wrested from Napoleon the engine of France's economic
expansion, banished slavery from the land, and ended European domination
of 10,000 square miles of fertile land and hundreds of thousands of
slaves to work it.
They had shattered the myth of European invincibility.
"Most have assumed that (Haiti's) slaves had no military
experience prior to the revolution," John K. Thornton explains in
African Soldiers in the Haitian Revolution. "Many assume that they rose
from agricultural labour to military prowess in an amazingly short
time.... However, it is probably a mistake to see the slaves of St.
Domingue as simply agricultural workers, like the peasants of Europe...
...A majority of St. Domingue's slaves, especially those who fought
steadily in the revolution, were born in Africa... ...In fact, a great
many... ...had served in African armies prior to their enslavement and
arrival in Haiti... ...Sixty to seventy per cent of the adult slaves
listed on (St. Domingue's) inventories in the late 1780's and 1790's
were African born... ... ...(coming) overwhelmingly from just two areas
of Africa: the Lower Guinea coast region of modern Benin, Togo and
Nigeria (also known as the "Slave Coast"), and the Angola coast area....
"Where the African military background of the slaves counted
most was in those areas, especially in the north (of St. Domingue),
where slaves themselves led the revolution, both politically and
militarily... ... ...These areas...threw up the powerful armies of
Toussaint Louverture and Dessalines and eventually carried the
revolution."
A successful revolution in Haiti, Thornton explains, "required
the kind of skill and discipline that could be found in veteran
soldiers, and it was these veterans, from wars in Africa, who made up
the general will of the St. Domingue revolt... ...Kongolese armies
contributed the most to St. Domingue rebel bands... ...(Their) tactical
organization was very different from that of Europe... ...(and they) had
learned to deal successfully with Portuguese armies and tactics in the
years of struggle (in Africa), driving out invaders... ...No doubt these
tactics could help those who found themselves in St. Domingue on the eve
of the revolution.
"Kongolese armies seem to have been organized
in...platoons...that struck at enemy advancing columns and sustained an
engagement for a time before breaking off and retreating... ...They made
use of cover, both from terrain and from woods and tall grass, in hiding
their movements and directing their fire. When they fled it was not
possible to follow them." Portuguese troops who had fought the Kongolese
in Africa also reported that the Kongolese used "shocks - larger
engagements involving massed Kongolese units. According to the
Portuguese accounts, large bodies were assembled for shocks supported by
artillery, sometimes they formed in extensive half moon formations which
apparently sought partial envelopment of opposing forces, in other cases
in columns of great depth along fronts of 15-20 soldiers....
"Their tactics showed a penchant for skirmishing attacks rather
than the heavy assaults favoured by Europeans in the same era...
...Kongolese armies had a higher command structure that could mass
troops quickly, and soldiers were also accustomed to forming effectively
into larger units for major battles when the situation warranted....
...Dahomey's armies included a fairly large professional force... ...Oyo
relied heavily on cavalry forces, had relatively few foot soldiers and
throughout the 1700's was the pre-eminent...military power in (west
Africa)... ...Dahomey's troops... ...fought in close order using fire
discipline quite similar to that of Europe... ...
"It was from these disparate 'arts of war' that the
revolutionary African soldier of St. Domingue was trained... ...
"One can easily see, in the formation of the bands mentioned in
the early descriptions of the (Haitian Revolution), the small platoons
of the Kongolese armies, each under an independent commander and
accustomed to considerable tactical decision making; or perhaps those
small units characteristic of locally organized Dahomean units; the
state armies of the Mahi country; or the coastal forces of the Slave
Coast... ...
"In addition the pattern of attacks with small scale harassing
maneuvers, short, sustained battles and then rapid withdrawals are also
reminiscent of the campaign diaries of the Portuguese field commanders
in Angola. Felix Carteau, an early observer of the war in the north of
St. Domingue noted that the (slave revolutionaries) harassed French
forces day and night. Usually, he commented, they were repelled, but
each time, they dispersed so quickly, so completely in ditches, hedges
and other areas of natural cover that real pursuit was impossible.
However, rebel casualties were light in these attacks, so that the next
day they reappeared with great numbers of people. They never mass in the
open, wrote another witness, or wait in line to charge, but advance
dispersed, so that they appear to be six times as numerous as they
really are. Yet they were disciplined, since they might advance with
great clamor and then suddenly and simultaneously fall silent....
"It was not long before observers noted that the rebels (in St.
Domingue) had developed the sort of higher order tactics that was also
characteristic of Kongolese forces, or those of the Slave Coast....
"In addition to these tactical similarities to African wars,
especially in Kongo, there were other indications of the African ethos
of the fighters... ...they marched, formed and attacked accompanied by
the 'music peculiar to Negroes....' Their religious preparation,
likewise, hearkened back to Africa....
"It is unlikely that many slaves would have learned equestrian
skills as a part of their plantation labor... ...Since there was
virtually no cavalry in Angola, one can speculate that rebels
originating from Oyo might have provided at least some of the trained
horsemen. Also, the Senegalese, though a minority, also came from an
equestrian culture... ...
"African soldiers may well have provided the key element of the
early success of the revolution. They might have enabled its survival
when it was threatened by reinforced armies from Europe. Looking at the
rebel slaves of Haiti as African veterans rather than as Haitian
plantation workers may well prove to be the key that unlocks the mystery
of the success of the largest slave revolt in history."
St. Domingue's policy of working its slaves to death and then
quickly importing replacements from Africa proved to be the ultimate
karmic boomerang. St. Domingue's African-born slaves not only were not
yet broken psychologically, but they were also in possession of
significant military training and experience gained on the other side of
the Atlantic. And they combined with brilliant, indefatigable, St.
Domingue-born blacks like Toussaint L'Ouverture and Dessalines to create
a black revolutionary juggernaut the likes of which Europe and the
United States had not seen before - or since.
The blacks of St. Domingue forced the world to see both them and
the millions of other Africans enslaved throughout the Americas with new
eyes. No longer could it be assumed that they could forever be
brutalized into creating massive fortunes and building sprawling empires
for the glory of Europe and America.
On January 1, 1804, hundreds of thousands of slave
revolutionaries established an independent republic and named it Haiti
in honor of the Amerindian people, long since killed off by European
brutality and diseases, who had called the land Ayiti - Land of Many
Mountains. They had banished slavery from their land and proclaimed it
an official refuge for escaped slaves from anywhere in the world. They
had defeated the mightiest of the mighty. They had shattered the myth of
European invincibility.
Europe was livid. America, apoplectic. The blacks in St.
Domingue had forgotten their place and would be made to pay. Dearly. For
the next two hundred years.
Toussaint L'Ouverture, Dessalines, and their slave
revolutionaries must forever live in our hearts as inspiring, authentic
counterweights to the "yassuh-nosuh-scratch-
where-ah-don'-itch-and-dance-tho-there-ain'-no-music" image of our
forebears that Europe and the United States have drilled into our
psyches.
And we must remember that history forgets, first, those who
forget themselves. Via means direct and indirect, crass and subtle,
there have been whispers and street corner shouts that "current
conditions in Haiti" make our celebration of the Haitian Revolution
"inappropriate" at this time.
We, whose souls and psyches have been bleached of everything
prior to the Middle Passage are now being told that we must tear from
our consciousness and rip from our hearts the most dramatic and
triumphal assertion of forebears' dignity, worth, and perspicacity since
the Middle Passage.
How diabolically contemptuous.
Not only must we not forget the Haitian Revolution, we must
celebrate it. Today, through all of this its bicentennial year, and
beyond.
And we must research, understand, and expose what happened to
Haiti and in Haiti since the revolution. We must become fully conversant
with the role of "the world's leading democracies" in Haiti between 1804
and today. We must develop a keen understanding of the repercussions of
the 61-year economic embargo that the United States imposed on Haiti in
response to its declaration of independence, and we must recognize the
current-day consequences of France forcing Haiti to pay 90 million in
gold francs (equivalent today to some $20 billion) in 1825 as
"compensation" for Haiti declaring its independence - or be crushed
militarily by France.
Today, "the world's leading democracies" cluck and gloat at
their ongoing stranglehold - in the form of a crushing financial embargo
- on today's descendants of Toussaint, Dessalines, and their freedom
fighters. Throughout the Americas, we who benefited from the daring war
waged by the slaves of St. Domingue, must reject the maneuverings of the
world's most powerful nations in Haiti and find ways to build bridges to
the Haitian people and the officials they choose - through the ballot -
to lead them.
Just over two hundred years ago, after there had been a
"cessation of hostilities" and the brilliant military strategist
Toussaint L'Ouverture had already retired to a quiet life in the St.
Domingue country-side, France decided, nonetheless, to arrest and ship
him to a prison cell 3,000 feet up the Jura Mountains of France where he
would freeze to death. As he stepped on board the boat that would
forever take him away from St. Domingue, Toussaint issued a promise to
his captors and a call to us all.
"In overthrowing me, you have cut down in St. Domingue
only the trunk of the tree of liberty. It will spring up again by the
roots for they are numerous and deep."
We are those roots.
The revolution was fought by Haitians, but won for us all.
Through our work and with our resources, in a spirit of
self-respect and self-awareness, we must serve as counterweights to the
powerful nations who deem the ballot box sacrosanct in their countries,
but surreptitiously encourage and manipulate its rejection by "the
opposition" in Haiti. We must serve as proponents of political civility
and social justice in Haiti while "the world's leading democracies"
slyly encourage recalcitrance, tumult, and division. We must reject
being manipulated by the corporate media into embracing the notion that
in France, Germany, the United States and other "civilized nations"
elections are the only legitimate determinant of the will of the people,
but in Haiti those street demonstrations specially selected by the
corporate media for coverage tell us all we need to know about anybody's
will. We must impress upon all Haitians the fact that the outside world
does not distinguish between - and cares nothing about - Lavalas,
Convergence, or any other political grouping. The world sees only
"Haiti," "Haitians," and all the connotations that western media have
attached thereto. Those nations that two hundred years ago failed
desperately in their attempts to crush the Haitian Revolution today have
a deep psychic need to "prove" Toussaint's progeny capable of nothing
but disaster. We must reach out to and work with our Haitian brothers
and sisters to prove these nations wrong.
Throughout the Diaspora, we must stand with and defend Haiti -
on this the anniversary of the Haitian Revolution, throughout this
bicentennial year, and for all time. For in so doing, we stand for and
defend ourselves.
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