Question

Describe the white planters in the Haitian revolution and why they wanted a revolution

Answer 1

Answer:

The American Revolution of 1776 proclaimed that all men have “inalienable rights,” but the revolutionaries did not draw what seems to us the logical conclusion from this statement:  that slavery and racial discrimination cannot be justified.  The creation of the United States led instead to the expansion of African-American slavery in the southern states.  It took the Civil War of 1861-65 to bring about emancipation.

         

Toussaint Justifies His Forced-Labor Program (1800)

“In order to secure our liberties, which are indispensable to our happiness, every individual must be usefully employed, so as to contribute to the public good…  Whereas, since the revolution, labourers of both sexes, then too young to be employed in the field, refuse to go to it now under pretext of freedom, spend their time in wandering about, and give a bad example to the other cultivators… I do most peremptorily order as follows: “Art. 1.  All overseers, drivers, and field-negroes are bound to observe, with exactness, submission, and obedience, their duty in the same manner as soldiers….  Art. 3 “All field-labourers, men and women, now in a state of idleness, living in towns, villages, and on other plantations than those to which they belong… are required to return immediately to their respective plantations…” (G. Tyson, Toussaint L’Ouverture, 52-3)

A French Description of Toussaint in 1801

“Toussaint, at the head of his army, is the most active and indefatigable man of whom we can form an idea…  His great sobriety, the faculty, which none but he possesses, of never reposing, the facility with which he resumes the affairs of the cabinet after most tiresome excursions, of answering daily a hundred letters, and of habitually tiring five secretaries, render him so superior to all those around him that their respect and submission are in most individuals carried even to fanaticism.  It is certain that no man, ion the present times, has obtained such an influence over a mass of ignorant people as General Toussaint possesses over his brethren in St. Domingue.”

Bibliography

David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution.  A general history of early movements for abolition throughout the western world.

C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins.  The best-known history of the Haitian Revolution in English, first published in 1938.  James sees the Haitian Revolution as a black version of the revolution in France.

Thomas Ott, The Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804.  Ott’s account is especially strong on the military and diplomatic aspects of the Haitian Revolution.

David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies.  Geggus is the leading historian of the Haitian Revolution in the United States

John D. Garrigus, “White Jacobins/Black Jacobins:  Bringing the Haitian and French Revolutions Together in the Classroom”.  French Historical Studies 23 (2000), 259-75.  An excellent bibliography of recent publications about the Haitian Revolution.

Explanation:

because when they Among the causes of the conflicts were the affranchis' frustrations with a racist society, turmoil created in the colony by the French Revolution, nationalistic rhetoric expressed during Vodou ceremonies, the continuing brutality of slave owners, and wars between European powers.

Answer 2

Answer:

  By the fall of 1792, French troops had succeeded in regaining control of most of the island.  But the French and the whites in the colony were becoming increasingly divided among themselves about the French Revolution.  In France, the king, Louis XVI, was overthrown in August 1792, and a new, more radical assembly, the National Convention, was elected.  When this news reached Saint Domingue, it split the white population.  The radical revolutionaries in France sent a commissioner, Sonthonax, to take charge of the island, but most whites refused to obey him.  Sonthonax began to seek support among the free coloreds, insisting that they should have the same rights as whites.  In June 1793, white forces opposed to the Revolution and the granting of rights to people of color tried to seize control of the island’s main city, Cap Français.  Outnumbered, Sonthonax made a radical move:  he called on the black in surrectionaries to attack the city, promising that slaves who fought on the side of the Revolution would be freed.  This allowed him to defeat the whites, although Cap Français was burned down in the fighting.  In August 1793, Sonthonax extended his abolition decree to cover the entire slave population.

Althea de Puech Parham, ed., My Odyssey:  The first person account of a young white man from France who fought against the slave revolt.  He gives some interesting descriptions of the black fighters.

Madison Smartt Bell, All Souls’ Rising and Master of the Crossroads:  a novel series by a contemporary American author that gives a dramatic and fairly accurate picture of the Haitian Revolution.  Bell plans a third volume carrying the story down to the achievement of Haitian independence in 1804.

Explanation: This may help you if you read it i want to make sure u get it in your own words hope this helped but probably not