United States and The Haitian Revolution - Government Policy

Government Policy

When the news of the August 1791 slave revolt in Saint Domingue reached then-President Washington, he immediately sent aid to the white government there.

In 1791 Thomas Jefferson talked about gradual emancipation of U.S. slaves in his private correspondence with friends while publicly remaining silent on the issue. However by the time that the revolution was coming to an end and the debate over an embargo began, Jefferson's attitude shifted to support for the continuation of slavery. Louis Andre Pichon, the chargé d’affaires of France, felt that Jefferson would help to put down the slaves due to the fear of black rebellion in the U.S. Jefferson had, in fact, pledged to help starve out Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haïti's rebel leader, but due to fears of the ambitions of Napoleon Bonaparte Jefferson refrained from such action.

Haïti attempted to establish closer ties with the United States during the Jefferson administration, but this was difficult to do, in part because of the massacres of French whites in Haïti by Jean-Jacques Dessalines in the 1804 Haiti Massacre. Dessalines sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson calling for closer ties between the two nations but Jefferson ignored the letter.

Jefferson had wanted to align with the European powers in an effort to isolate Haïti, but was unsuccessful due to Britain's lack of interest in joining the proposed accord. France pressured for the end of American trade with Haïti, which they saw as aiding a rogue element in their colony. Jefferson agreed to cease trade in arms, but would not give up trade for noncontraband goods. Madison, commenting on the agreement to discontinue the arms trade, said that "it is probably the interest of all nations that they should be kept out of hands likely to make so bad use of them." The debate on an embargo on Haïti heated up in Congress and civil society, but it was not all one-sided. Many were at least sympathetic to the Haïtian revolution, even those who would not characterize themselves as being anti-slavery. Federalist newspaper Columbian Centinel compared the Haïtian revolution and the struggle for independence from a European power, with the United States' own revolution for independence.

However in Congress the proponents of an embargo had the clear advantage. Though the policy of John Adams was more constrained than others, it was still in favor of an arms embargo on Haïti. Federalists were in favor of his policy because they felt it would help to solidify U.S. dominance over the politics and economy of the country, and would help to bring security to white people in the South who were fearful of a hemisphere-wide slave revolt. However, many white people in the South thought Adams' pragmatic policy went too far and was equivalent to full-scale relations with Haïti. While such white people ignored oppression, exploitation and atrocities against enslaved Africans by white slave-traders, and by white slave-owners in Haiti and the USA (and indeed, carried out such abuses themselves), they were adamantly against reaching an agreement with people who had committed atrocities against slave-owners. When George Logan introduced a bill that would outlaw all trade with Saint-Domingue that was not under French control, it signalled a shift to the side of the hard-liners. Weapons could only be aboard ships for their own protection, and any violators of the embargo would lose their cargo as well as their ships. The embargo bill introduced by George Logan was adopted in February 1806, and then renewed again the next year, until it expired in April 1808. Another embargo had been adopted in 1807 and this one lasted until 1810, though trade did not again take place until the 1820s. However despite this, official recognition did not happen until 1862, after the southern states had seceded from the United States.