Doctoral research project

(Abridged version)

 

 

 

Name: Alejandro E. Gómez

Institution: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales,

École doctorale d’Histoire et Civilisations (Paris, France)

Supervisor: Mme Frédérique Langue (EHESS/CNRS)

Dissertation title: The Syndrome of Saint-Domingue: Perceptions and

representations of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1791-1886

 

The Haitian Revolution’s impact on White elites of slave societies in the Americas, has been traditionally studied in terms of the fear they experienced in view of the possibility of eventually having to endure a similar Black revolution in their own territories. To describe it, historians have not hesitated on using adjectives as harsh as “psychosis”, “dread”, “fright” and even “horror” to describe it. In most cases, these descriptions appear isolated in studies about slave resistance, slave rebellions, the revolutionary conflicts in the Caribbean, and the political responses to the shifts of power in Saint-Domingue, and almost always in works developed from a national or culturally-centered perspective.

Although some historians have made efforts to look beyond these boundaries, by asserting that the so-called ‘Haitian Fear’ was a phenomenon common to the referred societies from the 1790's onwards, they have done so without counting with enough empiric support to sustain their assumptions. Recent scholarship has revealed that the impact of the events in Saint-Domingue was far more extended and complex than historians had originally believed.[1] They triggered a series of reactions which continued to appear for at least a generation, and which, at times, ended up affecting the historical dynamic of the regions where they appeared.

An important breakthrough in the study of this phenomenon (mostly through works on the cases of Cuba and Antebellum America[2]) is that those manifestations did not responded solely to emotive causes, as there were other sorts of responses closer to the domain of ideology. Thus, we find them emerging in ideological realms as different as racism, religion, abolitionism, proslavery thought, and radical republicanism. Some of these could not even be considered as reactions, because they appeared many years after the Haitian Revolution had ended, but rather as attempts to manipulate the 'collective memory' white citizens had of that event, for political or other purposes.

Where does the ‘Haitian Fear’ ends, and where manifestations of a rather more conscious nature began to appear? This is the central question this research project intends to answer. To accomplish this, I am applying a methodological approach which, on the one hand, opens the scale of analysis to cover multiple cultural regions aiming to recognize common behavioral patterns -this is why I describe my object of study as a Syndrome. I have focused my attention on the cases of Jamaica, Virginia and the Hispanic Caribbean (most particularly on Cuba and Venezuela), mainly because of the overwhelming presence of migrants from La Hispaniola in those territories. This aspect of the analysis also includes the interactions between them and their respective metropolis (Britain, Spain) or national governments (Greater Colombia, United States), and it lasts until slavery was abolished in either one of them.

On the other hand, that approach also aims to establish differences between emotive and non-emotive manifestations associated to what had happened in Saint-Domingue, in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. For this, I am making use of the Theory of Fear (from both its psychological and sociological meanings), which discerns by steps, following an ascending order, the transition from ‘distress’ to ‘fear-panic’ caused by a potential menace (real or imagined), as it becomes more cognoscible. This theoretical precept has become a framework through which I have structured the argumentative discourse of my dissertation. The resulting work is divided into three major parts:

 

A.                 Bad and worst news from La Hispaniola (1791-1806): News and accounts of the perils and losses experienced by the white population of La Hispaniola, and the circulation of information on those subjects throughout the Atlantic World.

1.                 Oral accounts of the 'horrors' in Saint-Domingue: Testimonies from migrants, merchants, officers and transient travelers.

2.                 Atrocities in ‘written words’: Newspapers, pamphlets, historical accounts and other published materials.

B.                 The formation of a conjunctural distress (1791-1864): Testimonies that put into evidence the formation of a frightful imaginary about what happened in La Hispaniola, and the transition into ‘Fear-Panic’ in times of violent events in which colored people are or could be involved.

1.                 Avoiding the revolutionary contagion: Manifestations in forms of anxiety of the incidence on Whites of the distressful events in Saint-Domingue, mostly in form of measures taken by the authorities.

2.                 The planters’ nightmare comes true: Fearful reactions of Whites during violent short term events (slave insurrections, wars), in which the distance with the "horrors" of Saint-Domingue seemed to narrow.

C.                 Beyond the 'Haitian Fear' (1792-1886): Manifestations that cannot be considered as emotive responses to what happened in Saint-Domingue, but as reactions and even initiatives of a rather more conscious nature.

1.                 A very convincing argument: The Haitian and French revolutions' impact on 'radical republicanism' in Greater Colombia and the United States, and Saint-Domingue's collapse as an economic opportunity for Cuba, Jamaica and their respective metropolis.

2.                 Haiti in the 'seats of power': The use of the “good” or “bad” examples of Haiti in the debates on Slavery and Slave Trade: Britain, Spain and United States.