Constitution of Haiti

Context

As a French colony, Haiti was a leading supplier of sugar and, as such, was France's most lucrative colony—and, in fact, the most lucrative European colony in the world. It had been under the firm control of the French since 1697, when the Treaty of Ryswick divided the island of Hispaniola between France, which controlled Saint Domingue (the western third of the island), and Spain, which controlled the Dominican Republic. White landowners developed immense plantations for the raising of sugarcane, coffee, indigo, and other crops for export, all labor-intensive industries that depended on slave labor. Because they were vastly outnumbered, plantation owners lived in fear of slave rebellions. They passed repressive laws that had the effect of creating a caste system. At the top of the system, of course, were blancs, or the white planters, who in turn were divided into grand blancs, or wealthy, aristocratic planters, and petit blancs, a class consisting of shopkeepers, artisans, and free day laborers. Occupying a middle tier were free blacks and mixed-race people (often the offspring of white planters and slave mothers), frequently referred to as mulattoes or gens de couleur. Members of this tier were typically educated and either worked as overseers on the plantations or served in the army; most had formerly been slaves. The lowest caste, of course, were black slaves.

Throughout the middle and late 1700s, whites and blacks engaged in a series of violent clashes. Large numbers of escaped slaves, called Maroons, formed gangs that lived in the forests. These gangs, which were generally small but sometimes grew to thousands of men, repeatedly attacked French plantations. Their efforts tended to be disorganized, however, until the emergence of François Mackandal, a Maroon and reputed Vodou priest who in 1751 succeeded in organizing the groups in a rebellion that lasted until 1757, when the French captured Mackandal, who was executed in 1758. (Vodou, popularly spelled “voodoo,” is an indigenous religion that blends traditional West African religious beliefs and Christianity.) But despite the loss of Mackandal, the spirit of rebellion continued to grow and spread.

By the late 1700s, Haiti was riven by caste, racial, and national rivalries. The petit blancs resented the grand blancs because of their wealth and power. The grand blancs resented the French government's restrictions on their trade and supported the concept of an independent Haiti. The white colonists numbered about forty thousand, while the gens de couleur numbered about twenty-eight thousand. Meanwhile, the number of slaves was at least a half million, and the slaves resented not only the abuses of their masters but also the privileges of free blacks. Complicating matters was competition for control of the lucrative colony among the French, Spanish, and British. Throughout the colony could be found advocates for independence, French loyalists, those who were loyal to Spain, and those who saw the British as their allies and liberators. On top of that, there were strong regional rivalries, with the colony's southern and western regions vying for economic supremacy against the more fertile and profitable northern coast.

While this complex stew was brewing in the New World, back in Europe, 1789 saw the beginning of the French Revolution. Haitians of all classes and colors watched the revolution with interest. Free people of color were emboldened by the revolutionary government's 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and consequently were often called Black Jacobins, a reference to political radicals in revolutionary France. The people of color agitated for civil rights, particularly the right to vote, sending emissaries to Paris to lobby for their cause. Whites supported the revolution, believing that it would lead to Haitian independence and that independence would give them a free hand in world trade. When the French government granted French citizenship and civil rights to free people of color in May 1791, white colonists refused to recognize the decision (which was later revoked). The result was a state of high tension between Haiti's former slaves and whites, particularly the grand blancs. Developments in France, where power after the revolution rapidly changed hands, added to the air of uncertainty.

The fuse was lit, and the explosion occurred on August 22, 1791, when the Haitian Revolution began at the instigation of Dutty Boukman, a Vodou priest and Maroon leader. Events over the next three years unfolded rapidly. In the early months, some hundred thousand slaves joined the revolt and embarked on a campaign of retaliation that killed two thousand whites and burned nearly two hundred plantations (out of a total of about eight thousand). Alarmed, the French dispatched six thousand troops to the island to quell the revolt. After the French declared war on England in 1793, white planters signed treaties with the British, intending for the British to gain sovereignty over the island. Meanwhile, the Spanish still occupied the Dominican Republic. Sensing an opportunity to expand their sphere of influence, the Spanish invaded Saint Domingue with the support of Saint Domingue's slaves.

By the time hostilities had been suspended in 1794, a hundred thousand blacks and twenty-four thousand whites had been killed. That year, the French National Convention abolished slavery and granted full civil and political rights to all blacks in Haiti. Napoléon Bonaparte issued the Proclamation on Saint Domingue in December 1799. In it, he asserted that he and the French government supported the colony's blacks: “The Consuls of the Republic, in announcing to you the new social pact, declare to you that the sacred principles of the freedom and equality of blacks will never suffer among you the least attack or modification.”

Amid this chaos, Toussaint-Louverture emerged as the most dominant figure in Saint Domingue. A skilled, if untutored military commander, he initially fought on the side of the Spanish. In response to the arrival of British troops, he agreed to fight for France on the condition that slaves would be freed. Under his leadership, the Spanish were driven out of Saint Domingue. He subdued local rivals for preeminence, defeated a British contingent of forces in 1798, and in 1801 freed the slaves in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. (That city changed hands from the Spanish, to the French, to the Haitians, back to the French, then to the Spanish, and then again to the Haitians, all in a span of about twenty years.) By this time he was the de facto ruler of an autonomous Haiti. He issued the constitution on May 9, 1801, and the constitution took effect on July 8 of that year.