23383: Esser: Freed because of Haitians (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser <torx@joimail.com>

The Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com

Freed because of Haitians
HEART TO HEART
Betty Ann Blaine

October 12, 2004

Dear Reader,

There's a somewhat indescribable feeling you get - a kind of pain in
your heart, or a knot in your stomach when there is injustice or when
cruelty or unkindness is meted out. That's the feeling I got when I
heard the news of the decision to repatriate the Haitian refugees.

Aside from any legal, policy, economic or whatever imperatives there
are, it seems to me that there is a moral imperative that should have
guided our sensitivity on this matter. How could we have made this
announcement at a time when the Haitian people are undergoing such
great suffering? Have we become a country without a heart, or is it
that we view our Haitian brothers and sisters with disdain?

If the answer to the latter question is yes, then it seems
appropriate to me to remind ourselves of the significant role our
Haitian brothers and sisters have played in our own liberation.

When the brilliant and heroic ex-slave, Toussaint L'Ouverture (a name
that his soldiers applied to him meaning 'a man who always found his
opening'), led Haitians to victory over the French colonial power in
1794, it spawned a spirit of hope and inspiration that reverberated
across the black world in unparalled proportions. Here was a group of
slaves, under bondage for 250 years, finding the courage to overthrow
a formidable colonial power. It was unthinkable, it was
mind-boggling, and it had serious psychological effects on white
people throughout the colonial world and beyond.

The island of Haiti (then named Saint Domingue), was not simply a
slave outpost. Saint Domingue prided itself on being the richest
colony in the world. The country in the 1780s accounted for some 40
per cent of France's foreign trade; its 7,000 or so plantations were
absorbing, by the 1790s, 10-15 per cent of United States exports; its
relatively small coastal plains produced about two-fifths of the
world's sugar, and its mountainous interior delivered over half of
the world's coffee. What could have given a group of slaves the nerve
to think that they could topple this type of establishment?

It took 250 years to enslave the population of Saint Domingue, but it
only took 15 years for a colony of coerced and exploited slaves to
successfully liberate themselves, and the rest of us.

The Haitian Revolution completely "metamorphosised" the social,
political, intellectual and economic life of the colony. Socially,
the lowest order of the society - slaves - became equal, free, and
independent citizens. Politically, the new citizens created the
second independent state in the Americas, and the first independent
non-European state to be carved out of the European universal empires
anywhere.

According to one scholar: "The Haitian model of state formation drove
xenophobic fear into the hearts of all whites from Boston to Buenos
Aires and shattered their complacency about the unquestioned
superiority of their own political models."

But by far the biggest blow that the revolution registered was its
far-reaching psychological impact. It completely destroyed the myth
of white invincibility and superiority, and of course, blacks' apathy
and inferiority. In the words of an English planter living in Jamaica
and member of the British Parliament: "A spirit of subversion had
gone forth that set at naught the wisdom of our ancestors and the
lessons of experience." The notion that slaves who were thought to be
indispensable "chattel", could free themselves, named themselves
Haitians, and proceeded to define all Haitians as "black", produced a
massive body blow to the accepted view that in the world hierarchy
only one colour dominated - white. Most profound of all, the Haitian
Revolution represented living proof of the consequences of not just
black freedom, but black rule.

The revolutionary consequences of the Haitian experience were
immediate. Anti-slavery uprisings quickly sprung up in Jamaica and St
Kitts. At least two slave uprisings in the United States - Gabriel
Pressor's campaign in l800, and Denmark Vesey's revolt in 1822 - were
unquestionably inspired by the Haitian Revolution.

American President Jefferson was terrified of what happened in Saint
Domingue. He referred to Toussaint's army as cannibals, and feared
that Black Americans would be inspired by what they saw taking place
just off the shore of America. Jefferson spent virtually his entire
career trying to shut down any contact, and therefore any movement of
information between the American continent and the Caribbean island.
He called upon Congress to abolish trade between the United States
and Haiti, and in 1806 trade was formally cut off, sending the
already weakened Haitian economy into collapse.

Lessons of history are always instructive, and in the case of Haiti
it is important that we as Black people, and Jamaicans, never forget
the Haitian contribution to our collective freedom. Our
responsibility is to act rightfully and righteously in the face of
the historical facts, and make sure that what we know is passed on to
future generations. Jamaica owes a big debt to those courageous
freedom fighters of Haiti.
With love.
.