Monthly Archives: February 2010
Haiti: Maroons
The Haitian nation, the result of the only successful slave revolt in history, was formed, organized and maintained by the maroons, the slaves who had run away from the slave society organized by the Metropolitan forces and made a place for themselves in the inaccessible hills.
CLR James, “The Haitian Maroons,” Black World/Negro Digest (November [...]
Posted in Haiti Tagged Haiti, history, independence, maroons, revolution, slavery, sovereignty 1 Comment
Haiti: Americas
Haiti did not forget what she considered her duty toward those who were fighting to free themselves from European domination. She gave a hearty welcome to Simon Bolivar…
Jacques Nicholas Leger, Haiti: Her History and Her Detractors (1907)
Haiti: Africa
Jean Price-Mars avowedly sought to renovate and redeem Haiti precisely by prescribing the place of Africa within the nation. Price-Mars looked to history to understand what he saw as the historical processes involved in creating a unique Haitian being and ethnos.
Gérarde Magliore and Kevin A. Yelvington, “Haiti and the anthropological imagination,” Gradhiva (2005)
Haiti: History
Amid evocations of a desperate people and festering landscape, the media and the “humanitarian” community continue to ignore the history of the island. Without reference to the foreign occupation, intervention, and exploitation that define the Haitian political experience, we cannot appreciate the sinister politics of Clinton and Bush’s promise of “compassion.”
Colin Dayan, “Civilizing Haiti,” The [...]
Posted in Haiti Tagged aid, exploitation, Haiti, history, intervention, media, occupation, representation Leave a comment
Haiti: Liberty or Death
Never again shall a Colonial or an European set his foot upon this territory with the title of master or proprietor. This resolution shall henceforward form the fundamental basis of our constitution.
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, “Liberty or Death: Proclamation,” Balance and Columbian Repository (June 19, 1804)
Posted in Haiti Tagged 1804, constitution, Dessalines, Haiti, history, independence, race, revolution, slavery, sovereignty 3 Comments
Roger L. Farnham of the National City Bank of New York on Haiti
I think that the Haitian can be taught to become a good and efficient laborer. If let alone by the military chiefs, he is as peaceful as a child, and as harmless. In fact, today they are nothing but grown up children, ignorant of all agricultural methods and they know nothing of machinery. They must [...]
Posted in Haiti Tagged 1915, 1922, administration, banking, Haiti, history, independence, intervention, occupation, race, sovereignty 3 Comments
Haiti: Democracy
The Haitian Revolution truly deserves the title of repetition of the French Revolution: led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, it was clearly “ahead of his time”, “premature” and doomed to fail, yet, precisely as such, it was perhaps even more of an event than the French Revolution itself.
Slavoj Zizek, “Democracy versus the people,” New Statesman (August 14, [...]
Posted in Haiti Tagged democracy, freedom, Haiti, history, independence, revolution, sovereignty, Toussaint Leave a comment
Haiti: Debt