Read Online Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution by Laurent Dubois - Free Book Online
Authors: Laurent Dubois
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Americas, and could be applied as much to animals and plants as to
people, and as well to those of European descent as to those of African de-
scent—captures this difference.
Some writers explained the difference of white Caribbean creoles in ra-
cial terms. The English-born planter Bryan Edwards, for instance, identi-
fied two physical differences from the “natives of Europe”: their “consider-
ably deeper” eye sockets guarded them “from those ill effects which an
almost continual strong glare of sunshine might otherwise produce,” and
their skin felt “considerably colder than that of a European; a proof, I
think, that nature has contrived some peculiar means of protecting them
from the heat.” Others fixated on the corruption fostered in the personali-
ties of creoles by the limitless power they had over their slaves. Moreau de-
scribed dangers faced by creole men who never left the colony, shaped by
their constant ability to turn their “will into law for the slaves,” and who
ended up abandoning themselves to music and dance and existing “only
for the voluptuous pleasures.” The naturalist Michel Etienne Descourtilz,
who visited Saint-Domingue in the late 1790s, similarly blamed the cli-
mate for corrupting the “virtue” of creole women, whose “sedentary life”
excited their “voluptuous affections.” He claimed that although creoles
were born good and virtuous, they were corrupted by the fact that they
were destined to command slaves, and developed a “savage, ferocious, ego-
tistical and dominating instinct.” He blamed the looseness of their up-
bringing, in which every “extravagant desire” was entertained by their par-
ents, and so created men who were the “burden of European societies who
disdain the ridiculous.” Viewing the colonies as distant realms of excess
34
av e n g e r s o f t h e n e w w o r l d
and violence, and their inhabitants as fundamentally different, served to
create a distance between slavery and the Europeans who profited from it
and consumed what it produced.56
Fantasies of depravity and rapid evolutionary adaptation among the
creoles were a skewed response to the fact that settlers did create societies distinct and different from those of their fellow nationals across the Atlantic. This circumstance was something the creoles of the Caribbean shared
with those of the mainland to the north and south. But their destiny would
be quite different. When the thirteen colonies revolted, the wealthiest col-
onies of the British empire—those of the Caribbean—did not join them,
in part because concern about controlling their slaves overshadowed a de-
sire for independence. While slaves played a major role in the American
Revolution, primarily by escaping to join the British, who held out the
promise of freedom, in the new United States slavery was ultimately con-
solidated rather than destroyed. In contrast, the victorious struggle for na-
tional independence that soon followed in Saint-Domingue became a suc-
cessful struggle against slavery. And its major protagonists were not slave
owners but slaves themselves.57
The creoles of Saint-Domingue, after all, were a tiny minority sur-
rounded by a vast population with their own interests and interpretations
of the world. The enslaved were “omnipresent and attentive observers”
who had an astute sense of the divisions among their oppressors and devel-
oped a rich vocabulary to describe it. They referred to the newly arrived
whites who often served as their overseers as moutons France —French
sheep. (The term would be used later to refer to the French troops that
arrived, and were decimated, in 1802.) They coined the term petit
blancs —little whites—to refer to those who did not own land, contrasting them to the grand blancs (big whites), also called Blancs blancs, or
“White whites,” whose ownership of property made them true whites.
The vocabulary of the
people, and as well to those of European descent as to those of African de-
scent—captures this difference.
Some writers explained the difference of white Caribbean creoles in ra-
cial terms. The English-born planter Bryan Edwards, for instance, identi-
fied two physical differences from the “natives of Europe”: their “consider-
ably deeper” eye sockets guarded them “from those ill effects which an
almost continual strong glare of sunshine might otherwise produce,” and
their skin felt “considerably colder than that of a European; a proof, I
think, that nature has contrived some peculiar means of protecting them
from the heat.” Others fixated on the corruption fostered in the personali-
ties of creoles by the limitless power they had over their slaves. Moreau de-
scribed dangers faced by creole men who never left the colony, shaped by
their constant ability to turn their “will into law for the slaves,” and who
ended up abandoning themselves to music and dance and existing “only
for the voluptuous pleasures.” The naturalist Michel Etienne Descourtilz,
who visited Saint-Domingue in the late 1790s, similarly blamed the cli-
mate for corrupting the “virtue” of creole women, whose “sedentary life”
excited their “voluptuous affections.” He claimed that although creoles
were born good and virtuous, they were corrupted by the fact that they
were destined to command slaves, and developed a “savage, ferocious, ego-
tistical and dominating instinct.” He blamed the looseness of their up-
bringing, in which every “extravagant desire” was entertained by their par-
ents, and so created men who were the “burden of European societies who
disdain the ridiculous.” Viewing the colonies as distant realms of excess
34
av e n g e r s o f t h e n e w w o r l d
and violence, and their inhabitants as fundamentally different, served to
create a distance between slavery and the Europeans who profited from it
and consumed what it produced.56
Fantasies of depravity and rapid evolutionary adaptation among the
creoles were a skewed response to the fact that settlers did create societies distinct and different from those of their fellow nationals across the Atlantic. This circumstance was something the creoles of the Caribbean shared
with those of the mainland to the north and south. But their destiny would
be quite different. When the thirteen colonies revolted, the wealthiest col-
onies of the British empire—those of the Caribbean—did not join them,
in part because concern about controlling their slaves overshadowed a de-
sire for independence. While slaves played a major role in the American
Revolution, primarily by escaping to join the British, who held out the
promise of freedom, in the new United States slavery was ultimately con-
solidated rather than destroyed. In contrast, the victorious struggle for na-
tional independence that soon followed in Saint-Domingue became a suc-
cessful struggle against slavery. And its major protagonists were not slave
owners but slaves themselves.57
The creoles of Saint-Domingue, after all, were a tiny minority sur-
rounded by a vast population with their own interests and interpretations
of the world. The enslaved were “omnipresent and attentive observers”
who had an astute sense of the divisions among their oppressors and devel-
oped a rich vocabulary to describe it. They referred to the newly arrived
whites who often served as their overseers as moutons France —French
sheep. (The term would be used later to refer to the French troops that
arrived, and were decimated, in 1802.) They coined the term petit
blancs —little whites—to refer to those who did not own land, contrasting them to the grand blancs (big whites), also called Blancs blancs, or
“White whites,” whose ownership of property made them true whites.
The vocabulary of the
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