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  • Hi, I’m John Green.

  • This is Crash Course World History.

  • And apparently it’s

  • revolutions month here at Crash Course, [seriouslyall month]

  • because today we are going to discuss the oft-neglected Haitian Revolutions.

  • The Haitian Revolutions are totally fascinating

  • and they involve two of my very favorite things.

  • 1. Ending slavery and

  • 2. Napoleon getting his feelings hurt.

  • I can’t help myself, Napoleon.

  • I like to see you suffer.

  • [Intro music]

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  • So,

  • the French colony in Saint Domingue

  • began in the 17th century as a pirate outpost.

  • And its original French inhabitants

  • made their living selling leather and a kind of smoked beef

  • called boucan.

  • All that beef actually came from cattle left behind by the Spanish,

  • who were the first Europeans to settle the island.

  • But anyway,

  • after 1640,

  • the boucan-sellers started to run low on beef.

  • And they were like,

  • You know what would pay better than selling beef jerky?

  • Robbing Spanish galleons,” [beef jerky still winner of taste test]

  • which as youll recall were loaded

  • with silver mined from South America. [heavy metallic undertaste]

  • So, by the middle of the 17th century,

  • the French had convinced many of those buccaneering captains

  • to give up their pirating and settle on the island.

  • [arrrr you kidding?]

  • Many of them invested some of their pirate treasure

  • in sugar plantations,

  • which, by 1700 were thriving

  • at both producing sugar and working people to death.

  • And soon,

  • this island was the most valuable colony in the West Indies,

  • and possibly in the world. [sugar is pretty much totally awesome]

  • It produced 40% of Europe’s sugar,

  • 60% of its coffee,

  • and it was home to more slaves than any place except Brazil.

  • And as youll recall from our discussion of Atlantic slavery,

  • being a slave in a sugar-production colony was exceptionally brutal.

  • In fact,

  • by the late 18th century,

  • more slaves were imported to Saint Domingue

  • EVERY YEAR

  • more than 40,000—

  • than the entire white population of the island.

  • By the 19th century,

  • slaves made up about 90% of the population.

  • And most of those slaves were African born,

  • because the brutal living and working conditions

  • prevented natural population growth.

  • Like,

  • remember Alfred Crosby’s fantastic line,

  • it is crudely true that if man’s caloric intake is sufficient,

  • he will somehow stagger to maturity,

  • and he will reproduce?”

  • Yeah, well,

  • not in 18th century Haiti,

  • thanks to Yellow Fever

  • and smallpox

  • and just miserable working conditions.

  • So,

  • most of these plantations were pretty large,

  • they often had more than 200 slaves,

  • and many of the field workers

  • in some cases, a majority

  • were women.

  • Colonial society in Saint Domingue was divided into four groups,

  • which had important consequences for the revolution.

  • At the top,

  • were the Big White planters who owned the plantations

  • and all the slaves.

  • Often these Grand Blancs

  • were absentee landlords

  • who would just rather stay in France and let their agents do,

  • you know,

  • the actual brutality.

  • Below them

  • were the wealthy free people of color.

  • Most of the Frenchmen who came to the island were,

  • you know, men,

  • and they frequently fathered children with slave women.

  • [not An Abundance Of love stories]

  • These fathers would often free their children.

  • Wasn’t that generous of them.

  • So,

  • by 1789,

  • there were 24,800 free people of color along with

  • about 30,000 white people

  • in the colony.

  • The free people of color contributed a lot to the island’s stability.

  • They served in the militia,

  • and in the local constabulary,

  • and many of the wealthier ones

  • eventually owned plantations and slaves of their own. [ #awkward ]

  • And then,

  • below them on the social ladder were the poor whites,

  • or the petit blancs,

  • who worked as artisans and laborers.

  • And at the bottom were the slaves

  • who made up the overwhelming majority.

  • I know what youre thinking:

  • this is a recipe for permanent social stability.

  • No, it wasn’t.

  • Okay,

  • so when the French Revolution broke out in 1789,

  • all these groups had something to complain about.

  • The slaves, obviously,

  • disliked being slaves.

  • The free people of color were still subject to legal discrimination,

  • no matter how wealthy they became.

  • And the poor whites,

  • in addition to being poor,

  • were resentful of all the privileges held by the wealthy people of color.

  • And the Grand Blancs were complaining about French trade laws

  • and the government’s attempts

  • to slightly improve the living and working conditions of slaves.

  • [#slaveowningwhitepeopleproblems]

  • Basically they were saying

  • that government shouldn’t be in the business of regulating business.

  • So everyone was unhappy,

  • but the slaves were by far the worst off. [Ya think?]

  • Mr. Green, Mr. Green!

  • Youre always saying how much slavery sucks,

  • but is it really any worse than having to work for,

  • like, subsis--

  • Yeah,

  • I’m gonna stop you right there,

  • Me from the Past,

  • before you further embarrass yourself. [good call, You From the Now]

  • You often hear from people attempting to comprehend the horrors of slavery that slavery couldn’t

  • have been all that bad,

  • and that it wasn’t that different from working for minimum wage.

  • And that we know this because

  • if it HAD been so bad,

  • slaves would have just revolted, which they never did.

  • Yeah. Well,

  • 1. equating slavery to poor working conditions

  • ignores the fact that if you work at, like, Foxconn, Foxconn doesn’t get to sell your

  • children to other corporations.

  • And 2. As you are about to see,

  • SLAVES DID REVOLT.

  • So,

  • the unrest in what became Haiti started in 1789

  • when some slaves heard a rumor that the King of France had freed them.

  • Even though it was across the ocean,

  • word of the changes in France reached the people of Haiti,

  • where The Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen,

  • while terrifying to planters,

  • gave hope both to free people of color and to slaves.

  • At the same time, some petit blancs argued that there was inadequate

  • discrimination against blacks. [quite a classy crowd pleaser there]

  • They identified with the third estate in France,

  • and they called for interest rates to be lowered

  • so they could more easily pay their debts.

  • [if wishes were horses…]

  • And they began lobbying for colonial independence.

  • The psychology here shows you

  • the extent to which slaves were not considered people.

  • I mean,

  • these radical petit blancs thought

  • that they were the oppressed people in Saint Domingue because

  • they couldn’t afford to own slaves.

  • And they thought if they could become independent from France,

  • they could take power from the people of privilege

  • and institute a democracy where everyone had a voice--

  • except for the 95% of people who weren’t white.

  • Then in 1791,

  • these radical petit blancs seized the city of Port au Prince.

  • Youll remember that by 1791,

  • France was at war with most of Europe,

  • and just like with the 7 Years War,

  • the wars of Revolutionary France played out in the colonies as well as at home.

  • So the French government sent troops to Saint Domingue.

  • Meanwhile,

  • urges toward liberty, fraternity, and equality

  • were only growing in France,

  • and it didn’t seem very equitable to grant citizenship based solely on race.

  • So in May of 1791,

  • the National Assembly gave full French citizenship to all free men of color.

  • I mean,

  • if they owned property,

  • and had enough money,

  • and weren’t the children of slaves.

  • The petit blancs weren’t thrilled about this,

  • and that led to fighting breaking out between them and the

  • newly French free people of color.

  • And then in August of 1791,

  • the slaves were like,

  • Um, hi, yes. Screw all of you.” [expletives deleted]

  • And a massive slave revolt broke out.

  • Among the leaders of this revolt

  • was Toussaint Breda, a former slave of full African descent,

  • who later took the name Toussaint L’ouverture.

  • L’Ouverture helped mold the slaves into a disciplined army that could withstand attacks

  • from the French troops.

  • But again,

  • the context of the wider revolution proves really important here.

  • So,

  • the Spanish had consistently supported slave revolts in Saint Domingue

  • hoping to weaken the French.

  • But, by 1793 they were offering even more support.

  • In fact,

  • L’Ouverture became an officer in the Spanish military

  • because the emancipation of the slaves was more important to him than

  • maintaining his rights as a French Citizen.

  • So then,

  • in October of 1793

  • the British,

  • whom as I’m sure youll recall were also at war with France,

  • decided to invade Saint Domingue.

  • And at that point,

  • the French military commanders were like,

  • We are definitely going to lose this war if we fight

  • the British,

  • the Spanish,

  • and the slaves,

  • so let’s free the slaves.

  • So they issued decrees freeing the slaves

  • and on February 4, 1794

  • the National Convention in Paris ratified those decrees.

  • By May,

  • having learned of the Convention’s actions,

  • L’Ouverture switched allegiances to the French

  • and turned the tide of the war.

  • Thus,

  • the most successful slave revolt in human history

  • won freedom and citizenship for

  • every slave in the French Caribbean.

  • But emancipation didn’t end the story because the French were still at war

  • with the Spanish and the English in Saint Domingue.

  • Luckily for France,

  • L’Ouverture was an excellent general,

  • and luckily for the people of the island,

  • L’Ouverture was also an able politician.

  • And between 1794 and 1802,

  • he successfully steered the colony toward independence.

  • So,

  • although slavery was abolished,

  • this didn’t end the plantation system

  • because both L’Ouverture and his compatriot Andre Rigaud

  • believed that sugar was vital to the economic health of the island.

  • But now at least people were paid for their labor

  • and their kids couldn’t be sold.

  • Now you can compare it to Foxconn.

  • But soon,

  • L’Ouverture and Rigaud came into conflict over Rigaud’s refusal to give up control

  • over one of the Southern states on the island,

  • and there was a civil war,

  • which L’Ouverture,

  • with the help of his able lieutenant Jacques Dessailines,

  • was able to win after 13 months of hard fighting.

  • L’Ouverture then passed a new constitution,

  • and things were going pretty well on Saint Domingue

  • with the small problem that it was still technically part of France,

  • which meant that it was about to be ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte.

  • Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. [Finally!]

  • So, in 1799,

  • Napoleon seized power in France in a coup.

  • And, his new regime, called the Consulate (because he was the First Consul a la the

  • Roman Republic) established a new constitution that specifically pointed out its laws did

  • not apply to France’s overseas colonies. Napoleon had plans to reconstruct France’s

  • empire in North America that it had lost most of in the 7 YearsWar,

  • and to do this he needed tons of money from France’s most valuable colony, Saint Domingue.

  • And the best way to maximize profits?

  • Why, to reintroduce slavery, of course.

  • ["gotta get offa this merry-go-round"]

  • That’s certainly what the former slaves thought was the plan when in 1802, a French

  • expedition commanded by Napoleon’s brother in-law

  • Charles-Victor-Emmanuel- I-Have-Too-Many-Names - Leclerc

  • showed up in Saint Domingue.

  • This started the second phase of the Haitian revolution,

  • the fight for independence.

  • So, Leclerc eventually had L’Ouverture arrested and shipped to France where he died in prison

  • in 1803.

  • But this itself did not spark an uprising against the French because L’Ouverture wasn’t

  • actually that popular, largely because he wanted most blacks on the island to continue

  • to grow sugar.

  • Instead, the former slaves only started fighting when Leclerc tried to take away their guns,

  • thus beginning a guerrilla war that the French, despite their superior training and weapons,

  • had absolutely no chance of winning.

  • Although the French were exceedingly cruel,

  • executing women as well as men and

  • importing man-eating dogs from Cuba,

  • the Haitians had the best ally of all:

  • Disease,

  • specifically in the form of Yellow Fever,

  • which killed thousands of French soldiers, including Leclerc himself.

  • Oh,

  • it’s time for the Open Letter?

  • Stan!

  • Where is my chair?

  • Stan,

  • youre telling me the yellow chair has been lost?

  • The yellow chair is the star of the show.

  • The stars, in order, are

  • 1. me,

  • 2. yellow chair,

  • 3. the chalkboard,

  • 4. Danica, [bazinga]

  • 5. Meredith the Intern,

  • 6. you, Stan. Youre sixth.

  • [Sorry Thought Bubblers, must be Johnny Bookwriter's domestic list]

  • Oh, I’m mad. [Not as mad as the ThoughtBubblers…]

  • Let’s see what’s in the secret compartment today.

  • It’s a giant squid of anger!!!

  • I’M A GIANT SQUID OF ANGER!!!!

  • Oh, no.

  • It broke.

  • An open letter to disease.

  • Dear disease,

  • why do you always put yourself at the center of human history?

  • Most of you are just tiny, little single-celled organisms,

  • but youre so self-important and self-involved

  • that youre always interfering with us.

  • Admittedly,

  • sometimes you work for the good guys,

  • but usually you don’t.

  • It seems like even though youre constantly interfering with human history,

  • you don’t even care about it.

  • I just hate when people,

  • and also microbes,

  • are super self-involved.

  • Like,

  • don’t tell me you gotta take a day off to go to your mom’s birthday party,

  • Stan.

  • That’s not imagining me complexly. [there it is]

  • I’ve got needs over here.

  • Best wishes, John Green.

  • So continued defeat and the death of his troops eventually convinced Napoleon to give up his

  • dreams of an American empire

  • and cut his losses.

  • He recalled his surviving troops,

  • of the 40,000 who left, only 8,000 made it back.

  • And then,

  • he sold Thomas Jefferson Louisiana.

  • And that is how former slaves in Haiti

  • gave America all of this.

  • On January 1, 1804,

  • Dessaillines who had defeated the French,

  • declared the island of Saint Domingue independent

  • and re-named it Haiti.

  • Which is what the island had been called by the native inhabitants

  • before the arrival of Columbus.

  • The Haitian Declaration of Independence was a rejection of France and,

  • to a certain degree

  • of European racism and colonialism.

  • It also affirmed,

  • to quote from the book Slave Revolution in the Caribbean,

  • “a broad definition of the new country as a refuge for enslaved peoples of all kinds.”

  • So,

  • why is this little island so important

  • that we would devote an entire episode to it?

  • [cuz we're an office of sugar junkies?]

  • First,

  • Haiti was the second free and independent nation state in the Americas. It also had

  • one of the most successful slave revolts ever.

  • Haiti became the first modern nation to be governed by people of African descent, and

  • they also foiled Napoleon’s attempts to build a big new world empire.

  • Of course,

  • Haiti’s history since its revolution has been marred by tragedy,

  • a legacy of the loss of life that accompanied the revolution.

  • I mean, 150,000 people died in 1802 and 1803 alone.

  • But the Haitian revolutions matter.

  • They matter because the Haitians,

  • more than any other people in the age of revolutions,

  • stood up for the idea that

  • none should be slaves,

  • that the people who most need the protection of a government

  • should be afforded that protection.

  • Haiti stood up for the weak when the rest of the world failed to.

  • The next time you read about Haiti’s poverty,

  • remember that.

  • Thanks for watching.

  • I’ll see you next week.

  • Crash Course is

  • produced and directed by Stan Muller.

  • Our script supervisor is Danica Johnson.

  • The show is ably interned by Meredith Danko.

  • And our graphics team is Thought Bubble.

  • Oh, right,

  • I write it with my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer.

  • Actually, he does most of the work,

  • who am I kidding. [plenty of folks, apparently ;]

  • Last week’s phrase of the week was

  • fancy footwear.”

  • If you want to guess this week’s phrase of the week

  • or suggest future ones,

  • you can do so in comments, where you can also ask questions

  • that will be answered by our team of historians.

  • Thanks for watching Crash Course,

  • and as we say in my hometown,

  • Don't forget to Always Take A Banana To A Party.

  • ...woo!

Hi, I’m John Green.

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