Preface: Why This Book
EditorsThis book is a joint project of the Haiti Support Network (HSN) and the International Action Center (IAC). Both organizations since their founding have tried to promote solidarity with the continuing Haitian Revolution.
As the bicentennial of Haiti's independence approached, we considered how to commemorate this singular event in the history of the world, the successful revolution in Haiti against the French slave owners. Just holding a meeting or a series of meetings didn't seem to be enough. So we decided to compile a book to mark Haiti's 200 years of struggle against racism and colonialism, to mark the only time slaves managed to rise up, break their chains and set up a new state and social order that reflected some of their aspirations and hopes.
The mainstream press and politicians say they celebrate the bicentennial of the world's first Black republic and its achievements. But they explain its poverty and political instability by pointing to "poor leadership," a lack of "democratic traditions" and isolation due to geography and language.
This book is going to combat 200 years of racist indoctrination and propaganda about the Haitian Revolution. It is essential to challenge these stereotypes in order to build true, informed solidarity with Haiti.
Chapters in this book point out how the United States and other imperialist powers like France and Germany have persecuted, exploited and from time to time, occupied Haiti and how the Haitian people have resisted by any means possible.
At least half of Haiti's population in 1790 were killed before 1802 and still the Haitian people won. They crushed France's genocidal attempt to re-enslave them by crushing Napoleon's army. This hard-won victory meant Haiti was a beacon of hope and inspiration to enslaved African people of the United States, even after they obtained their freedom. Frederick Douglass, the famous Black abolitionist who was the U.S. consul in Port-au-Prince in the 1880s, expressed this clearly in a speech, included in this book.
This book is not a traditional history of Haiti. It's a people's history. We link historical events to current realities and show a continuity of oppression and resistance.
This book exposes some little known and carefully hidden history. For example, how the slave-owning George Washington got his slave-owning secretary of state Thomas Jefferson to send $400,000 -- a vast sum at the time -- to support the slave-owners of Haiti in their vain attempt to put down the revolt. We connect this, the first significant foreign aid the United States ever granted, to the millions the U.S. gave Marc Bazin, a former World Bank Official, to run against Aristide in his first campaign.
The Jefferson-Washington grant and the money granted to Bazin are the historical precedents for the funds the International Republican Institute gives to fund the so-called Democratic Convergence, which opposes the current Aristide government.
We include the explanation given by Ben Dupuy, the leader of the National Popular Party, of why the United States invaded Haiti in 1994. We have an analysis of the huge demonstrations that the Haitian community in the United States held to protest the coup against Aristide, police brutality and how they were stigmatized using the AIDS hysteria. These were not just demonstrations, they were also one-day strikes.
Since this is a people's history, we have a diversity of voices. Edwidge Danticat, a well-respected Haitian-American author, has a chapter on how Haitian refugees are detained in Florida. We included a chapter from Stan Goff's book Hideous Dream. Goff, who served in the U.S. Army's Special Forces during the 1994 occupation of Haiti, was moved to condemn this occupation in this book. Goff currently is an organizer with Military Families Speak Out, mobilizing military families, veterans, and GIs themselves to demand an end to the occupation of Iraq.
Fleurimond W. Kerns, a columnist for Haïti-Progrès, points out in his chapter on the birth of the Haitian flag that the Congress of Arcahaie in 1803 was the occasion when the more privileged sectors in the Haitian revolution put themselves under the command of the most oppressed. Former U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, who is the founder of the IAC and investigated the 1991 coup as a member of the Haiti Commission, has an overview of Haitian history.
We were very happy when Local USWA 8751, representing Boston school bus drivers, a union which is 75% Haitian, asked to contribute a chapter. The struggle that the Haitian working class in the diaspora has waged against racism and U.S. neocolonialism has been part and parcel of the local's daily activity.
We hope the translations from two of Haiti's most celebrated poets – Paul Laraque and the late Félix Morisseau-Leroy – will give the reader an impression of the Creole language's beauty and imagery and how Haitian poets raise political themes.
We could not cover every aspect of Haitian history we would have liked: for example, Haiti's intervention in the Dominican Republic, which ended slavery there; the cacos' struggle against the U.S. occupation from 1916 to 1922; the mass uprisings against the U.S. occupation in the late '20s and early '30s. We wanted to focus on the impact Haiti has and has had on the United States.
We hope this book builds a better understanding of Haiti's importance in the history of this hemisphere, and indeed, the world.
Pat Chin, Greg Dunkel, Sara Flounders, Kim IvesNotes
If a chapter appeared earlier in another publication, we put the date when it appeared at the beginning of the chapter and the publication where it appeared at the end. We indicate the translator for chapters that earlier appeared in French or Creole.
We spell the last name of Toussaint Louverture the way he did; a common alternative is L'Ouverture. We italicize all the quotes from Creole that are used in this book. We use the word "voodoo" to refer to a religion in Haiti that is called and spelled "vodou" in Creole because we want to examine the contexts in which this word is used in North American English.
Here are some terms that are used in the book:
Cacos were armed peasants, who fought under the leadership of Charlmeagne Péralte and then Benoît Batraville against the first U.S. occupation;
affranchis were slaves who bought or were granted their legal freedom under French rule, or the children of colonists and enslaved mothers freed at birth; often they had significant wealth and were slave owners;
putsch is a sudden political uprising, almost a synonym for coup d'état;
Lavalas, what Aristide called his movement, is a Creole word meaning sudden flood;
Macoutes or Tonton Macoutes, formally the Volunteers for National Security, were a paramilitary organization that François Duvalier set up to neutralize the Haitian Army and terrorize the Haitian people.
Tenth Department is used to refer to Haitians living outside of Haiti, which has nine department (regions or provinces).
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