Haitian Revolution - Impact

Impact

The Haitian Revolution was influential in slave rebellions in the United States and British colonies. According to Haitian writer Michael J. Dash, the U.S. government feared that a successful slave revolt in Haiti would inspire a similar revolt in the United States. The revolution likely inspired a temporary increase in slave rebellions in the US, and this scared Southern plantation owners concerned about their own slaves rebelling. This fear resulted in a growing conservatism in US political culture, and leaders began to turn against the ideology of the French Revolution when they saw its influence in the Caribbean. The neighboring revolution brought the slavery question to the forefront of US politics, and the resulting intensification of racial divides and sectional politics ended the idealism of the Revolutionary period.

Beginning during the slave insurrections of 1791, white refugees from Saint-Domingue fled to the United States, particularly Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York and Charleston. The immigration intensified after the journée (crisis) of June 20, 1793, and soon American families began to raise money and open up their homes in order to aid the exiles in what became the United States' first refugee crisis. While some white refugees blamed the French Revolutionary government for sparking the violence in Haiti, many supported the Republican regime and openly expressed their support of the Jacobins There is also some historical evidence suggesting that displaying solidarity with the French Revolution was the easiest way for the refugees to earn the support and sympathy of the Americans, who had just recently fought their own battle for liberty. American slaveholders, in particular, commiserated with the French planters who had been forcibly removed from their plantations in Saint-Domingue. While most of the exiles found themselves in a relatively peaceful situation in the United States—safe from the violence raging in both France and Haiti—their presence complicated the already precarious diplomatic relations between Great Britain, France and the United States.

Many of the white and free people of color who left Saint-Domingue for the United States settled in Southern Louisiana, adding many new members to its French-speaking, mixed-raced, and African populations. The exiles causing the greatest amount of alarm were the African slaves who came with their refugee owners. Southern planters grew concerned that the presence of these slaves who had witnessed the revolution in Haiti would incite similar revolts in the United States, and therefore went to significant lengths to prevent the widespread trade of these persons.

In 1807 Haiti was divided into two parts, the Republic of Haiti and the Kingdom of Haiti in the North. Land could not be privately owned as it was reverted to the state through Biens Nationaux (national bonds), and no French whites could own any land. The remaining French settlers were forced to leave the island. Those who refused were slaughtered. The Haitian State owned up to 90% of the land and the other 10% was leased in 5 year intervals. Individuals were then divided by economic tasks, where a middle class did not exist. Bound to the plantation by birth approximately 90% of Haitians were in wage earning serfdom guaranteeing a permanent self-reproducing labor force also leading to legislation prohibiting marriage between urban individuals and agricultural laborers..

Because Napoleon was unable to regain control over Haiti, he gave up hope of rebuilding a French New World empire. The loss of revenues from Saint-Domingue's sugar plantations made maintenance of Louisiana impractical. Similarly, as a result of debts incurred fighting the slave revolt, Napoleon was forced to sell the American government its territories in Louisiana at a heavily discounted price.

While such a large-scale slave rebellion was never again repeated, the Haitian Revolution stood as a model for achieving emancipation for slaves in the rest of the Atlantic World. In 1807, Britain became the first major power to permanently abolish the slave trade, although the practice of plantation slavery was not fully abolished in the British West Indies until 1833. After the French Revolution, Napoleon reinstated slavery in the remaining French Caribbean colonies, which lasted until 1848. Slavery in the United States officially ended after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in late 1865.

In 2004, Haiti celebrated the bicentennial of its independence from France.