Haiti

In 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, St. Domingue was the world's most prosperous colony. It was "an integral part of the economic life of the age, the greatest colony in the world, the pride of France, and the envy of every other imperialist nation."1 Its plantation economy produced an abundance of crops, of which sugar was by far the most important. At its peak, St. Domingue produced more sugar than all the British Caribbean islands put together and was responsible for forty percent of the overseas trade of France.2 2 haiti social structure The Haitian Revolution changed the country's social structure. The colonial ruling class, and most of the white population, was eliminated, and the plantation system was largely destroyed. The earliest black and mulatto leaders attempted to restore a plantation system that relied on an essentially free labor force, through strict military control, but the system collapsed during the tenure of Alexandre Pétion (1806-18). The Haitian Revolution broke up plantations and distributed land among the former slaves. Through this process, the new Haitian upper class lost control over agricultural land and labor, which had been the economic basis of colonial control. To maintain their superior economic and social position, the new Haitian upper class turned away from agricultural pursuits in favor of more urban-based activities, particularly government. economic structure. The entire economic structure of St. Domingue rested on the backs of a population denied any participation in the colony's prosperity3--the more than one-half million black slaves who were raided from their homelands in Africa and brought in slave ships to the New World to fill an ever-expanding demand for labor and profits. Black slavery in St. Domingue, as in the rest of the Western Hemisphere, was brutal and dehumanizing. The Code Noir enacted by the French government in 1685, ostensibly to ensure humane treatment for slaves, was ignored from the start by the plantation owners in St. Domingue.4 The Catholic Church, although a political force in the colony, was itself a slaveholding institution and, accordingly, both unwilling and unable to exercise its moral authority on the issue of slavery.5 Therefore, the upper class, or grands blancs, who owned slaves were left to treat them in any way they chose. The Haitian Revolution (1791-1803) is the period of violent conflict in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, leading to the elimination of slavery and the establishment of Haiti as the first republic ruled by people of African ancestry. Although an independent government was created in Haiti, its society continued to be deeply affected by the patterns established under French colonial rule. The French established a system of minority rule over the illiterate poor by using violence and threats. The racial prejudice created by colonialism and slavery outlived them both. The post-rebellion racial elite (referred to as mulattoes) were descended from both Africans and white planters. Some had received an education, served in the French military, and even acquired land and wealth. Lighter complected than most Haitians, who were descendants only of enslaved Africans, the mulattoes dominated politics and economics. [1] In addition, the still-new nation's future was literally mortgaged to French banks in the 1820s as it was forced to make massive reparations to French slaveholders in order to end French aggression, permanently affecting Haiti's economy and wealth. [2] freance The French Revolution (1789-1799) was a period of radical social and political upheaval in French and European history. The French Revolution (1789-99) violently transformed France from a monarchical state with a rigid social hierarchy into a modern nation in which the social structure was loosened and power passed increasingly to the middle classes.