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Haitian Revolution and French Revolution
Department of History
1400-001
Dr. Michael Kozakowski
12/12/16
Table of contents:
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..3
Political culture French Revolution
Radicalization of French revolution
End of French revolution and the rise of Napoleon
Comparison of French and Haitian revolution
Aftermath………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….9
Introduction
This paper will discuss both the Haitian and the French revolutions in details and give the relationship between both. The Haitian revolution gets a round of applause for being the greatest and most influential Western revolution slave rebellion. The Haitian rebellion took place from 1791, and when it ended by 1803, the revolution not only succeeded in reigning over French colony but also ended slavery. The Haitian revolution comprised more than a single revolution taking place at the same time.
The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a period of political and social upheaval in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, formerly an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent a radical change, based on Enlightenment principles of nationalism, citizenship, and inalienable rights.
The changes were accompanied by violent turmoil, including the trial and execution of King Louis XIV, massive bloodshed, and repression during the Reign of Terror, and warfare involving every other major European power. The two revolutions were fought the” right for power”.
Revolution at Versailles
The French population underwent great revolutions from 1614. Popkin, (2012) argued that the Third Estate of non-aristocratic individuals occupied ninety-eight percent of the population, yet could get voted by the two percent. The lead off was the 5th of May when there occured a meeting where the Third Estate began to ask for people’s hand to ensure equal representation and wanted to rule out the voting by status and enact the voting by numbers or heads.
Next, when Estate-General held a meeting at Versailles, there erupted hostile exchanges among the debaters that spoilt the original purpose of the person who convened the meeting. Later in June, talks concerning the procedure could not go on as expected. Dubois, (2014) added that third Estate came together formulating talks that saw the adoption of National Assembly title. The group held a meeting in an indoor tennis court and took an oath which made sure that not a single person broke from the group till a constitution got made. In a span of a week, the group got joined by forty-seven liberal nobles and clerical deputies. On the 27th of June, Louis XVI inculcated the three groups to the new assembly.
Streets French Revolution
According to Gaspar, and Gigues, (2013), twelve of June, the national assembly met another time at Versailles, making violence and fear build up at the capital. Parisians panicked about a revelation of a military coup despite the royal power that they broke. Rioters resulted into an insurgency when they broke into Bastille fortress to acquire weapons and gunpowder. The event gets commemorated in France being a national holiday because it marked the start of French Revolution.
The revolutionary wave spread amongst the people like fire. People wanted to revolt against suffering and exploitation they underwent. Popkin, (2012) argued that the peasants and slaves gathered and razed the homes belonging to landlords and tax collectors, not leaving behind the elite seigniorial. The period got referred to as the Great Fear period and fastened the pace with which nobles exited the country, forcing the National Constitution Assembly to do away with feudalism that got completed in 1789, 4th of August. The abolishment of feudalism saw the signing of old order death certificate.
Political culture French Revolution
Dubois, (2014) added that the 4th of August saw the adoption of Citizen and Rights of Man by the Assembly. The statement illustrated the creation of democratic ideologies that emanated from Enlightenment thinkers’ perspectives like political and philosophical ideas. The document signed on the 4th of August saw the demolition of past regime with a new one that would introduce equality, popularize sovereignty, freedom of speech and representative form of government.
However, the people at that time got the drafting of the formal constitution relatively cumbersome to the National Constituent Assembly, since the Assembly had an additional duty of operating as a legislature in the turbulent economic era. Popkin, (2012) argued that the Assembly members argued for several months concerning the expansion and the shape of France’s political landscape. The members argued over who would get responsible for the election of delegates. Similarly, the assembly members did not know that amount of authority to endorse the King. Worsening everything being that the king’s image deteriorated after the flee attempt failed in 1971. The French developed their first constitution in 1971, when they wrote their first Constitution which they adopted in 1971, September. The first constitution gave the King mandate to rule over the entire French, appointed ministers, having veto power.
Radicalization of French revolution
Then in 1792, the then Legislative Assembly declared war against Prussia and Austria because they felt that French émigrés created alliances with counterrevolutionary alliances. The Legislative Assembly intended to spread revolutionary ideologies to other parts of Europe through the warfare. However, things took a different turn back home when Jacobins led other insurgents against the Paris residence arresting the King in August of 1972. The following month saw the replacement of Legislative Assembly by National Convention. The Paris insurrectionists attacked those they felt counterrevolutionaries, resulting in the rise of French Republic and demolition of the monarchy.
According to Gaspar, and Gigues, (2013), the king got executed, followed by a series of wars against other European powers which left France during its most turbulent era, adding to the National Convention divisions. Jacobins took control of National Convention resulting in the creation of radical measures alongside eradication of Christianity and creation of the new calendar. The establishment of a Terror Reign was characterized by the killing of people thought to go against the revolution. Robespierre gave the orders which killed the people. The death of Robespierre saw the rise of Thermidorian Reaction, and the French nationals started rebelling against the Terror’s reign.
End of French revolution and the rise of Napoleon
The French Revolution, though it seemed a failure in 1799 and appeared nullified by 1815, had far-reaching results. In France, the bourgeoisie and landowning classes emerged as the dominant power. Feudalism was dead; the Code Napoleon consolidated social order and contractual relations. The Revolution brought the people of France together and strengthened the power of the national state. The France Revolution and Napoleonic Wars brought down the ancient structure of Europe, hastened the advent of nationalism, and inaugurated the era of modern, total warfare.
Although some historians view the Reign of Terror as an ominous precursor of modern totalitarianism, others argue that this ignores the important role the Revolution played in establishing the precedents of such democratic institutions as elections, representative government, and constitutions. The failed attempts of the urban lower middle classes to secure economic and political gains foreshadowed the class conflicts of the 19th cent. While major historical interpretations of the French Revolution differ greatly, nearly all agree that it had an extraordinary influence on the making of the modern world.
Haitian Revolution
The Haitian revolution was entirely influenced by the French revolution that occurred in 1789 and resulted in the representation of universal citizenship, the concept of human rights, and the citizen’s participation in the government. Saint Dominique, as Haiti was once called, ended being France’s wealthy colony, during the 18th century. Slave labor resulted in the production of indigo, coffee, sugar, cotton, among other cash crops. According to Gaspar, and Geggus, (2013), the breaking of the French colony in 1789 saw the emergence of five different parties which required a share of the colony. The white planters are having slaves and several chunks of plantations, teachers, shopkeepers, artisan petit Blanc. A portion of the other parties had slaves, who collectively formulated forty thousand colonial residents.
A majority of Saint Dominique started supporting an independence movement that existed the same time when France placed high taxes on goods imported to Haiti, then Saint Domingue. The planters got unhappy with what France performed since they did not let them trade with other countries. On the other hand, Saint Domingue lacked representatives in France. Thus nobody fought for their rights, making them think of other options.
Popkin, (2012) argued that Petit Blanc's planters remained with slavery despite their independence calls. The other three groups emanated from Africa comprising the free, enslaved ones and the runaway. There existed thirty thousand freed blacks by 1789. Half the number included mulatto who had more wealth compared to petit blanc. The population under slavery comprised five hundred thousand.
Maroons made the runaway slaves, who went further into the thickets of Saint Dominique Mountain carrying out small-scale farming. Dubois, (2014) added that Haiti had many cases of slave rebels because the number of slaves became so significant that they did not want to submit to their masters. Slave rebels existed before 1791, despite the harsh treatment of the slaves. Some of the slaves even planned to poison their masters.
Following the events that occurred in France, Haitian created revolutionary movements rose concurrently. Rights of man Declaration became the inspirational factor that in Haiti. The Paris general assembly responded by placement of legislations that made local colonies rule within their regional levels. The creation of legislation that required local proprietors to become citizens was radical and ambiguous. Liberal voters of color who had properties participated without restrictions.
According to Popkin, (2012) argued that the legislation created to place Saint Dominique within French colonial empire led to the creation of three-faceted war among planters, petit blanc and free blacks. The events that occurred in France challenged the war that existed among the groups. There lived a revolution with the enslaved blacks led by Toussaint l’Overture rebelled against the planters in 1791.
The enslaved blacks controlled a third of island by 1792, and the area controlled by the rebels grew despite the French reinforcement. When the fights ended at least a hundred thousand of the five hundred thousand already got killed, twenty-four thousand out of the forty thousand whites died. Former slaves starved French and British forces that came in 1793 to take over the colony and later withdrew in 1793, following L’Overture’s defeat.
Dubois, (2014) added that the revolution expanded beyond Haiti in 1801, an accomplishment by l’Overture, and he conquered Santo Domingo, a Spanish colony, presently known as the Dominican Republic. L’Overture ended slavery in Spain speaking colony, placing himself the Governor-General, for the rest of his life, reigning the whole Hispaniola Island.
The Haitian revolution ousted the French that aimed at conquering them, and it became a significant inspiration. According to Gaspar, and Geggus, (2013), Napoleon Bonaparte who ruled France by 1801 sent his army, led by General Charles Leclerc, alongside forty-three thousand French troops who captured L’Overture. L’Overture got caught, and slavery got restored, alongside French rule. L’Overture got imprisoned, and he died serving his tenure in prison.
L’Overture Generals led a revolution against French and defeated them in 1803, and declared the nation independent giving it the name Haiti, and France being the foremost nation to recognize their independence. Haiti became the inaugural Black republic, in the universe and second country to obtain their independence from a European power, after America in 1776.
Aftermath of the Revolution
In 1804, Haiti announced its independence from France as a republic. As all of the groups in the revolution except the slaves thought about freedom and regarding their situation, none of them had supported the permanent ending of slavery. It was this, however, that the slave population demanded. The whites, both guards and petits blancs, wanted to hold on to the power. The fighters in the same way/in that way drove them off the island. The gens de couleur wanted the right to own slaves. They were also driven off or starved of their slave property, though some of them stayed and kept/held money-based and social power.
The Haitian revolution permanently stopped slavery on the island. It was the first major successful slave Revolt in the Atlantic world, and L'Ouverture became known among the slave population of the Americas as a freeing hero. The Haitian revolution also gave strength to the people. Haiti, for at least 20 years was used as an example to convince slave owners that using free labor was, if nothing else, a good way to avoid a bloody, violent effort by a group of people.
Despite becoming a newly-independent nation, Haiti, however, faced economic challenges. On the one hand, slave-owning country, like the United States, placed an embargo on Haiti, fearing that its example would encourage other slave revolts. This embargo affected Haiti greatly. On the other hand, the former slaves proved very unwilling to continue plantation labor, which they very sensibly associated with slavery. Consequently, this led to class tension among those who remained on the island and a rapid transition from democracy to dictatorship.
Comparison of French and Haitian revolution
The events that occurred in the Haitian revolution related much with those that happened in the French revolution. Foremost, the timelines varied, by a small margin. The wealthy French citizens alongside the peasants rose-up against their government which led to alterations in the social and political structure. The French revolution went on control, despite its objective to end a corrupt and dysfunctional reign and get rid of the tyranny and human rights suppression.
Another significant similarity that existed for many other groups of people in Haiti, just as there existed in France, comprising the poor whites, slave owners, free blacks, alongside the wealthy whites, who had a conflicting interest. Popkin, (2012) argued that in France and Haiti there existed the oppressed category of individuals, comprising the slaves and free colored individuals who jointly fought violently and peacefully against the government mistreatment and suppression. They fought against governmental laws that restricted the movement of people and denied them basic human rights.
The Haitian revolution came after the France Revolution and got affected by several other political and social features that existed in the French revolution. Enlightenment ideology from the freedom and progress changed most of the Haitian revolution trends since French Enlightenment beliefs comprised Declaration of rights of Man and Citizen Rights. According to Gaspar, and Geggus, (2013), the ideas led to the formation of the proper groundwork for the French Revolution, which later depicted and entirely transformed itself to the Haitian Revolution. Slave rebels in Haiti got borrowed from France, slave emancipation and finally Haiti’s independence.
The ideas that affected Haiti also brought about an element of equality among the two revolutions; the occurrence of events in France gave the same consequences as those of Haiti. The Haiti Revolution also created National Assembly following Three Estates, which got integrated into one body and led to changes that took place in Haiti. The creation of various legislatures resulted to the abolishment of mistreatment and rise of equality among blacks and white, extending to the slaves. The absence of the changes that occurred in French Revolution perhaps there would not have happened changes as those witnessed in Haiti.
Enlightenment ideas and Revolution that happened in France around 1790, resulted in numerous effects in Haiti, in the short and long term. The most notable effect was the creation of the abolishment of the slave trade, through slave rebels. The rise of the colony, which created a country called France out of the French.
Both revolutions were a fight for power. The Haitians revolution was fought for the power to control their own country, whereas, the French Revolution was fought for retribution of power.
References
Dubois, L. (2014). Avengers of the New World: The story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Gaspar, D. B., & Geggus, D. P. (2013). A turbulent time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press.
Garraway, D. L. (2014). Tree of liberty: Cultural legacies of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic world. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.
Geggus, D. P., &Fiering, N. (2013). The world of the Haitian Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Popkin, J. D. (2012). A concise history of the Haitian revolution. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Thornton, J. K. (1991). African soldiers in the Haitian Revolution. The Journal of Caribbean History, 25(1), 58.
Toussaint Louverture, Aristide, J., & Nesbitt, N. (2008). The Haitian revolution (1st ed.). London: Verso.