The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

by C.L.R. James

In 1789 the West Indian colony of San Domingo supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade of France. The entire structure of what was arguably the most profitable colony in the world rested on the labour of half a million slaves. In 1791 the waves of unrest inspired by the French Revolution reached across the Atlantic dividing the loyalties of the white population of the island. The brutally treated slaves of Saint Domingo seized at this confusion and rose up in rebellion against masters. In thisclassic work, CLR James chronicles the only successful slave revolt in history and provides a critical portrait of their leader, Toussaint L'Ouverture, 'one of the most remarkable men of a period rich in remarkable men'.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Race, Biography, Philosophy, Theory

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

C. L. R. James (1901–1989), a Trinidadian historian, political activist, and writer, is the author of The Black Jacobins, an influential study of the Haitian Revolution and the classic book on sport and culture, Beyond a Boundary. His play Toussaint Louverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History was recently discovered in the archives and published Duke University Press.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the classic account of the Haitian revolution; one of the most significant slave revolts. C L R James is a historian in the Marxist tradition and he is passionate about his subject. James was a Trinidadian and I knew him originally as a writer about cricket (I kid you not) and he has written one of the best books ever written about cricket (Beyond a Boundary). The Black Jacobins was first published in 1938 and was one of the seminal works of the history of the African diaspora.
James was a writer and thinker who covered a wide range of issues. His love of sport led to books and writing on cricket; asking the question "What do they know of cricket who only cricket know?", directly parodying Kipling and he showed how his love of the sport meshed with his political views. He wrote novels and plays (including one about Toussaint L’Ouverture which starred Paul Robeson). James was also a tireless political agitator over several decades. He met and worked with Trotsky, Kenyatta, Nkrumah to name a few and was very involved with many of the independence movements of the mid twentieth century.
In 1791 the French colony of San Domingo was the richest slave colony in the Caribbean. James charts the rebellion and struggle for independence which lasted until 1803; and the leadership of Toussaint L’Ouverture, himself a slave until the age of 45. James very consciously wrote this as a blueprint for how to run a successful revolution, he was aware that there would be a movement towards independence and away from the current imperial powers. He is clearly impressed by L’Ouverture;
“Pericles, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Marx and Engels, were men of a liberal education, formed in the traditions of ethics, philosophy and history. Toussaint was a slave, not six years out of slavery, bearing alone the unaccustomed burden of war and government, dictating his thoughts in the crude words of a broken dialect, written and rewritten by his secretaries until their devotion and his will had hammered them into adequate shape.”
This is history from below before historians like Hill and Hobsbawm popularized it. It is written almost in novel style, but the historical analysis is still there. The slaves are the agents of their own emancipation and the story as it develops is gripping. This is a detailed historical text and is not a quick read and there are plenty of twists and turns. The slave rebellion ultimately fought off attempts to overthrow it by the Spanish, British and the French. Toussaint L’Ouverture cuts a heroic figure as a wise and thoughtful (though flawed) leader. He did not survive to see the revolution safe and complete and was captured by the French and died in France. Wordsworth wrote a sonnet in lament which ends
thou hast great allies;
Thy friends are exultations, agonies,
And love, and man's unconquerable mind.
James argues against the prevailing historiography of the time. Traditionally it has been argued that the French expedition of 1801-3 which consisted of some 60 000 troops was only defeated by weather and yellow fever and the revolutionaries were inferior militarily and could only succeed with white officers, and that Napoleon was not trying to reinstate slavery. James explodes all these myths. Napoleon had appointed his brother-in-law to lead the expedition and James tracked down extensive correspondence and pieced together the campaign. It is clear that there was every intention by the French to reinstate slavery and James suggests that there is evidence of a plan to exterminate the whole non-white population (hundreds of thousands of people) and bring across new slaves from Africa because they would be less likely to rebel.
James takes on a few myths; one in particular, that the abolition of the slave trade was due to the campaigning of people in Britain like Wilberforce and other anti-slavery activists. James does not demean their views, but he argues they were being used and the real reasons were economic. San Domingo was an economic powerhouse, producing great riches for France and many of the slaves were being bought from the British. Voices in Britain were beginning to question why the government was helping fund a French colony. From a capitalist perspective Adam Smith was already arguing that slavery was not an efficient economic system. It may have made and kept much of the aristocracy and establishment rich, but it was ceasing to make economic sense in terms of the growing industrial revolution.
James brings the book up to date with an appendix written in the 1960s linking the Haitian revolution with that of Cuba. Of course the study of history moves on and some of James’s detailed work and conclusions have been amended and developed. He also does not detail the important role women played in the revolution. He hints at their importance and later historians have begun to tell their story. Despite its faults The Black Jacobins, as a review in Time Out says;
“Contains some of the finest and most deeply felt polemical writing against slavery and racism ever to be published”
I could not put it better.

[Naeem · Rating 5 out of 5]

James' masterpiece. It's considered one of the most important histories ever written. I consider it a landmark in my own life. It had explosive effects on my thinking. There is no way to do justice to this book in a review. But let me try.

I am going to rave about this book. But there is also plenty of criticism of it. Every historian of the Haitian Revolution has to comment on this book. All of them have to write in his shadow and in response to James. You can hardly call yourself a Third World type without having read and responded to this book.

James writes beautifully. Better even than R.G. Collingwood in philosophy. No history I have read comes close James' prose.

James makes the Haitian Revolution come alive. You get to know his hero, Toussaint, as if he were a family member. James makes sure we know Toussaint's failures as well. Not once but twice Toussaint is willing to turn over his army of former slaves to the French forces and betray the revolution for the price being acknowledged as a free Frenchman. Nor is James shy about exposing the violence committed by the former slaves against the white and mixed armies.

Perhaps the best aspect of this book is that it is an interactive history of the Haitian and French Revolutions. After reading this book it becomes impossible to think of the French Revolution without considering that its unfolding and its ultimate stillbirth is the result of the French revolutionaries' inability to think of the Haitian slaves as actual human beings. We are talking about the most progressive elements of the left here.

And so it is still today. It is in this book I began to understand how and why modern ideals bend back on themselves to reveal the barbarism of Europe's modernity.

James does all this by anticipating what I am calling "interactive, dynamic, third world histories" -- those written by the likes of Stavrianos, Eric Wolf, Janet Abu-Loughod, K.N. Chaudhuri, and even Amitav Ghosh. These are histories that do not limit themselves to the boundaries of states or false continents such as "Europe" (Western Asia) and which take global flows as the unit of analysis.

Further, white people are not limited to being bad guys. There are at least two or three characters who commit cultural suicide, forgo the benefits of power and privilege, and join up with the slaves. One could hardly believe this to be true. But there it is, an ambition for us all.

Also present is a careful and delicate tension between James' class analysis -- he is self-identified Marxist, and his analysis of race, culture, and nationalism. I have taught this book for years and have never felt that I broke through the surface of James' deeper yearnings.

There is no event in the modern period that is more important and less visible than the Haitian Revolution. (On the silence of which see, Michel Rolph-Trouillot's Silencing the Past.) This book explodes this silence and changes everything. It is as much a book as an event in history itself.

One criticisms: He does not pay enough attention to women or to the everyday actions of ordinary slaves. On this see Carolyn Fick's The Making of Haiti.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m too tired to do this book justice, for which I apologise. Briefly, I’d only come across references to the Haitian Revolution before in histories of the French Revolution. The two were closely entwined, however the importance of the Haitian Revolution is often overlooked as it was a revolution led by black slaves against their colonial oppressors: the French. It’s a great deal more complicated than that, however as the book closes an army of former slaves has defeated Napoleon’s army, the best in the world at that time, and won independence for Haiti. It’s a fascinating and complex story, which James elucidates without oversimplifying. It’s also moving and horrifying, as Haiti’s victory was achieved at the cost of devastation and thousands of deaths. James’ Marxist analysis considers it both a class- and race-based conflict and states that the two cannot be examined separately. He also links this revolution of late 18th to early 19th century to resistance against colonisation in the 20th century. ‘The Black Jacobins’ was written in 1938 and includes an appendix written later (in the 1960s I think), which compares Fidel Castro with the extraordinary leader of the Haitian Revolution, Toussaint L’Ouverture. James spends some time explaining the strengths and weaknesses, the many successes, and the few but critical failures of this incredible former slave. He consistently tried to negotiate rather than making war, but was constantly frustrated in this by the utter perfidy of the white forces, be they British, French, or Spanish. All three underestimated anyone not white and Toussiant L’Ouverture in particular. They were to learn their lesson, but not until decades had passes and thousands perished needlessly. James tells the story with nuance and sympathy, laying bare the evil of the slave trade and the scars it has left on Haiti, which remain to this day. James has an inspiring and invigorating writing style and this book has aged very well. An excellent introduction to a too-often forgotten revolution.

[BookOfCinz · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no possible way I can convey how important reading this book is. I am not a major reader of history books but in reading this I learned so much. I joked with my friend that when I finish this book I should be given a BA in Haitian History and rightly so. The Black Jacobins gives an in-depth look on the history of Haiti, the revolution and the impact the man called Toussaint L'Ovuerture.

I have always had a bit of fascination with the country Haiti mainly because of its rich culture and history. There is so much to explore and unpack about this country and I think C.L.R James did an exceptional job of putting a lot things in context and revealing the things that shaped this country into what it is today.

Haiti was the first country in the Caribbean to abolish slavery. They led the most successful slave revolt that impacted the world during that time. The revolt as a catalyst of things to come. In this book we are given an in-depth look of how the country was impacted by the British, French, Spanish and American influence. There are so many things at play in the history of Haiti and the revolution and it is covered in its entirety in this book.

It is a difficult book to read because of the timelines and numerous persons mentioned, but it is worth going through. I know about Toussaint L'Ouverture in passing, in reading this book I got a better idea of who this man is, what he stood for and how he impacted history in a major way.

A must read.

[Kiran Dellimore · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Black Jacobins is an enlightening and thought-provoking tome which is a must-read for anyone who is an avid student of Caribbean colonial history. CLR James skillfully and meticulously describes the vicissitudes of the Haitian war of independence which lasted from 1791 until Haiti won its independence from France in 1804. He provides intimate insights into the motivations and personalities of the major characters shaping the conflict including Toussaint L’Ouverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Napoleon Bonaparte, Andre Rigaud, Alexandre Pétion and Henri Christophe, among others. For me the key takeaway message which James eloquently communicates through The Black Jacobins is that the Haitian people of African descent were the architects of their destiny as free people. They fought for and won their freedom from slavery and European hegemony through their own actions. It was not, in any shape or form due to European compassion or enlightenment that slavery came to an end in Haiti. To achieve this triumph many black and mulatto Haitian men and women bravely sacrificed their lives, and made both France and England pay dearly for their refusal to let go of the crown jewel colony of the West Indies – over one hundred thousand European soldiers lost their lives by the end of the war. As James points out, Haiti’s independence was the European’s worst nightmare come true. Haiti showed the world that Black slaves were a formidable force to be reckoned with and that if they were not liberated sooner rather than later they would rise up violently to seize their freedom. The repercussions of this reverberated throughout the region, with the Haitian Revolution serving as a catalyst for many subsequent anti-slavery insurrections all over the Caribbean. The Black Jacobins further compels me, as a Black person from the Caribbean, to feel a debt of gratitude to Haiti for the pivotal role it played in bringing about the abolition of slavery. Had the black and mulatto Haitians not succeeded in this war it is quite likely that the scourge of enslavement of African people would have persisted in the Americas for much longer.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating and tragic story, one I knew very little about, and on the most basic level of simply understanding an incredibly complex part of history, this does a very engaging job. He writes the history of places like Haiti the way they should always be written, as playing a part on a world-wide stage, deeply influenced by and deeply influencing other countries. France's wealthiest colony, San Domingo funded the French Revolution, it diverted a sizeable number of (and bested) British forces from the war against Napoleon for years, and in turn decimated the immense flotilla that Napoleon himself sent against it. I had never heard or read of the immense importance this small island played in 'European affairs'. The other side? "The blacks were taking their part in the destruction of European feudalism begun by the French Revolution, and liberty and equality, the slogans of the revolution, meant far more to them than to any Frenchman." [198] It makes the key point that to write of a colonial power in the absence of the influence of its colonies makes as little sense as to write of colonies without connecting that history to the struggles within the Colonial power. An insight still ignored by too many who split knowledge and importance, cause and effect, by geography. The slave trade and mercantilism connected the world and its events in ways rarely acknowledged with any depth.

James rarely rises above his text to make this point (or the others), he simply makes the connections in the way he writes history. This is a strength in terms of thinking through how history is studied, but frustrating also, as I wanted a bit more filling out of these more theoretical insights, and the ones that follow, but they must be pieced together.

He is a key thinker on race, of course, and here we see him putting together how race was constructed, and it is clearly constructed in his account, and how race and class intersect. The first chapter is titled "The Property" followed by "The Owners", beginning with the economic relationship of profit, but not ignoring the many factors at play in this complex society. On the class differences between the white settlers:

"This was the type for who race prejudice was more important than even the possession of slaves, of which they had few. The distinction between a white man and a man of colour was for them fundamental. It was their all. In defence of it they would bring down the whole of their world." [34]

"The higher bureaucrats, cultivated Frenchmen, arrived in the island without prejudice; and looking for mass support used to help the Mulattoes a little. And mulattoes and big whites had a common bond -- property. Once the revolution was well under way the big whites would have to choose between their allies of race and their allies of property. They would not hesitate long." [44]

On the mulattoes and free blacks:

"In a slave society the mere possession of personal freedom is a valuable privelege ... Behind all this elaborate tom-foolery of quarteron, sacatra and marabou, was the one dominating fact of San Domingo society -- fear of the slaves" [38]

"The advantages of being white were so obvious that race prejudice against the Negroes permeated he minds of the Mulattoes who so bitterly resented the same thing from the whites [42-43]

Mulatto instability lies not in their blood but in their intermediate position in society. [207]

This was no question of colour, but crudely a question of class, for those blacks who were formerly free stuck to the Mulattoes. Persons of some substance and standing under the old regime, they looked upon the ex-slaves as essentially persons to be governed." [166]

A sophisticated analysis of race and class and political expediency, the idea of whiteness as privilege and property, a tale of how racial categorisations and boundaries were devised and then cemented into place. So impressive. A final quote on race and revolution:

Political treachery is not a monopoly of the white race, and this abominable betrayal so soon after the insurrection shows that political leadership is a matter of programme, strategy and tactics, and not the colour of those who lead it, their oneness of origin with their people, nor the services they have rendered." [106]

Of course, most of this book is about how Toussaint alone, ex-slave, genious, of inexhaustible physical stamina, and incarnation of the desire for freedom, could have led the struggle to end slavery.

Which leads into James's thinking on revolution itself, and I suppose that's where I break with him most. What I most fundamentally disagree with are statements like this, on Dessalines' betrayal of a fellow commander to the French just before he rose up in rebellion:

"It was a treacherous crime, but it was not treachery to the revolution." [346]

It's the old question of ends and means of course, and so what I find most chilling is this combination of ends justifying the means with an emphasis put on individual leadership. But that's always what I've found most chilling about Lenin and Trotsky.

This is activist history, which I much appreciate. I think it's vital that radical history should interrogate what went wrong and what we can learn, which C.L.R. James does openly (again thinking through race as it intersects with class):

Criticism is not enough. What should Toussaint have done? A hundred and fifty years of history and the scientific study of revolution begun by Marx and Engels, and amplified by Lenin and Trotsky, justify us in pointing to an alternative course. [282]

It was in method and not in principle, that Toussaint failed. The race question is subsidiary to the class question in politics, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental is an error only less grave than to make it fundamental. [283] ... Whereas Lenin kept the party and the masses thoroughly aware of every step, and explained carefully the exact position of the bourgeois servants of the Workers' State, Toussaint explained nothing, and allowed the masses to think that their old enemies were being favoured at their expense. ... and to shoot Moise, the black, for the sake of the whites was more than an error, it was a crime." [284]

Toussaint's error was that he lost touch with the masses, which was a tactical mistake. It was not his bid for power. James plays down the constitution that appointed Toussaint governor for life with the power to name his own successor with the curious phrase, "Constitutions are what they turn out to be..."

I suppose my own belief is that an individual will always go wrong, will always fail, will always make mistakes, will always be corrupted by power. This is a good portrait of a man who was undoubtedly most extraordinary, but I believe revolution is a collective activity. That seems to be just a political difference until you realise how little in this book there is about Dessalines or Moise or any of the other ex-slave leaders, what they thought and how they fought and how they worked together day in and day out with Toussaint (or not as the case was). Of course, what I love about James is that he seems to be continuously interrogating his own orthodoxies and challenging his own statements, there's a brilliant footnote on page 338 drawing parallels with a quote from George Lefebvre on the fact that we shall never know the real names of the leaders of the French Revolution, the ones who did most of the work and actually raised the masses far from the orations of the figureheads. James writes that "the tragedy of mass movements that they need and can only too rarely find adequate leadership." [25], the question becomes what that leadership should look like and how it carries out its role.

My last caveat is just that James definitely seems to share some of the Western and white prejudice floating around, although more critical of it than most. He writes:

"It is probable that, looking at the wild hordes of blacks who surrounded him, his heart sank at the prospect of the war and the barbarism that would follow freedom..." [107]

Always he supports and rationalises Toussaint's own defense, not to say courting, of the whites, his refusal to redistribute land or government position:

"It is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European
civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its
foundations among his people, he never had the illusion that it
conferred any moral superiority." [271]

So again you see a very orthodox Marxist sense of civilisation as being European, the march of history in a material though not moral sense. The clear descriptions of not simply the amorality, but the true barbarism of the Europen slavo-owner, the stripping of that moral superiority is incredibly important however, and undeniably differentiates him from almost all other historians. I think there is plenty of places in the rest of the book where James arguably undercuts some of these same ideas on progress and civilisation as well to some extent.

A classic. Just a couple more choice quotes to end with, not because I necessarily agree with them, but because they are both punchy and provocative, and a final rumination on the character of Toussaint that I'm not quite sure I understand and am still pondering:

That calm confidence in its capacity to deceive is a mark of the mature ruling class." [294]

The rich are only defeated when running for their lives. [78]

But in a deeper sense the life and death are not truly tragic. Prometheus, Hamlet, Lear, Phedre, Ahab, assert what may be the permanent impulses of the human condition against the claims of organised society. They do this in the face of imminent or even certain destruction, and their defiance propels them to heights which make of their defeat a sacrifice which adds to our conception of human grandeur.

Toussaint is in a lesser category. His splendid powers do not rise but decline. Where formerly he was distinguished above all for his prompt and fearless estimate of whatever faced him, we shall see him...misjudging events and people, vacillating in principle...

The hamartia, the tragic flaw...was in Toussaint not a moral weakness. It was a specific error, a total miscalculation of the constituent events. [291]

[Manray9 · Rating 3 out of 5]

With The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Overture and the San Domingo Revolution, C. L. R. James provided an ideologically-tinged account of the slave insurrection on the French colonial island of Saint-Domingue that created the nation of Haiti. In 1791 the oppressed black people of the island rebelled against their plight. The imperialist powers of France, Britain, and Spain fought at different times to suppress the uprising and reimpose slavery. They all underestimated the courage, tenacity, and natural talents of the untrained and uneducated black generals -- Toussaint L'Ouverture being the most notable -- who raised armies and fought European professional soldiers to a standstill between 1791 and 1804. The bitterness engendered by two centuries of barbaric treatment at the hands of white French planters created among the people a potential fighting force often eager to die rather than submit to defeat by white men. With just a modicum of military training, these forces -- using both conventional European and partisan tactics -- wore down their enemies.

Added to the vicious atmosphere of a war conducted outside the prevailing rules, was the plague of yellow fever. Saint-Domingue was the graveyard of many thousands of Europeans. In the British expedition of 1791-97, three of every five British soldiers died of yellow fever (according to James this fact was concealed by His Majesty's government). Napoleon's general, Leclerc, wrote that his expeditionary force lost four-fifths of its men due to a combination of bloody battles and yellow fever. While this was an exaggeration to excuse his failure to suppress the ex-slaves, 4,000 of the 5,000 Poles accompanying the French forces died -- mostly of yellow fever. At one point French surgeons reported the deaths of 100 men per day. Leclerc himself succumbed to the illness after only nine months on Saint-Domingue.

Although Toussaint L'Ouverture was captured through treachery and deported to France where he died imprisoned by Bonaparte at Fort-de-Joux, the fighting continued under Generals Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Henri Christophe, and others. At last, in November of 1803, the French gave up. They evacuated Saint-Domingue with the aid, rather surprisingly, of the Royal Navy. On 4 January 1804, Haiti -- having been restored to the Arawak name -- was declared free and independent.

C. L. R. James was a Trinidadian journalist and political activist who strongly supported anti-colonialist and pan-African causes. His book, while thoughtful and skillfully-presented, is not conventional history. James' views were strongly leftist and The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Overture and the San Domingo Revolution is undermined by occasionally dipping into bald Marxist polemics. Nevertheless, James earned a solid Three Stars from me and sparked my interest in further reading on Toussaint L'Overture and the slaves who won their own freedom in 1804.

[Malcolm · Rating 5 out of 5]

James's history of the anti-colonial rising in what is now Haiti during the French revolution and its suppression by the revolutionary regime is one of the great analyses of colonial rebellion and struggles for liberation. Essential reading for a grasp of imperialism and colonialism – and I was delighted to see that Toussaint L'Ouverture is now commemorated in The Panthéon – France's monument to national heroes. He is not buried there: he died in a French prison and the location of his place of burial is unknown.

The Haitian revolution was one of the great moments of world history - an event now overshadowed by Euro-centric histories celebrating the marvel that was the French revolution and that fail to mention that revolution's attempts to suppress the rising in its spirit in Haiti (or the French soldiers sent to repress the revolution who refused to fight the people they saw as acting as they had). It is also overshadowed by Haiti's underdevelopment, decades of US supported dictatorships, underdevelopment of Haiti by imperialism.

James wrote this as part of a set of books that set out to show the depth of anti-colonial spirits, to decentre Eurocentric histories and to tell the stories of the agency and success of the suppressed; this remains one of the most important works in his enormous body of work, a tale of successful action by the most oppressed to slough off their chains and their oppressors, and to confront revolutionary France with the implications of its actions. Vibrant, dynamic, and essential reading for all historians and just about anyone with a concern for social justice.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, were those French some brutal folks. Lest anyone think Napoleon a compassionate dictator, just have a look at how he directed his troops in Haiti, San Domingo as it was then known. I guess there’s no end to the tales of deprivations and sufferings that our civilization inflicts, is there? Maybe I should stop reading tales of woe and shift to things happy?

I noted a worthy remark in the author’s bibliography regarding histories of the French Revolution written in England and the United States:

But they are of little value, for the writers, particularly in England, usually try to be what is known as “fair to both sides.” Thus the reader is led to see most of the explosive incidents of the Revolution, which was really a series of gigantic explosions, as unfortunate excesses. A reactionary historian might miss much of the creative actions and ideas of the revolutionary forces, but he would hardly fail to portray the clash of an irresistible conflict, of suddenly emergent forces pursuing unsuspected aims. In a revolution excesses are the normal, and the historian who does not accept that does not accept the revolution and therefore cannot write its history.

[E. G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Map
Preface to the Vintage Edition
Preface to the First Edition

--The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution

Bibliography
Appendix: From Toussaint L'Ouverture to Fidel Castro
Index

[Andrew]

So this is the classic history of the Haitian Revolution at this point, told by one of the most important Marxist scholars of the 20th Century. And it is a story of how revolutions both succeed and fail, with their infinite counterrevolutions and white terrors, alongside the various empires seeking to derail the slave rebellion from outside. Toussaint is of course the hero, and it's hard not to love him – an unlettered slave who becomes a political visionary, it's a story worthy of Hollywood. That being said, I do think James was a better historian and researcher than storyteller, and given the sheer number of dramatis personae, I think I needed some greater context. I’ll return to it later.

[Zach Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important works of history and scholarship. I wanted to revisit this after Julius Scott's The Common Wind, and I'll just reiterate: that we're not taught about one of the most important revolutions in world history is both an indictment of our education system and instructive, particularly as we see modern manifestations of ghetto/slave uprisings and the ways they are discredited. There's a direct line from the imperialist white supremacists of the 18th/19th centuries and the imperialist white supremacists of today.

[Differengenera · Rating 5 out of 5]

mandatory

[X · Rating 5 out of 5]

“During ten years, what have you not undertaken for liberty?” - Toussaint L’Ouverture (the way that just typing this out made me tear up)

In the intro to the edition I read, it says you should read this like a novel. You should! What an inspiring, heartbreaking fucking series of events to have lived through (and died through).

I didn’t know much about the Haitian Revolution other than the blurb in my American History textbook in high school - in addition to the American Revolution, there was a Haitian Revolution, led by Toussaint L’Overture, a former slave. Now, onto the election of 1800 or whatever. I didn’t realize that the kind of ~secondary~ or ~precipitatory~ revolution that really mattered to (what is now) Haiti wasn’t the American one at all, it was the French one.

And be ready for French Revolutionary politics - I definitely found the waves of names and facts confusing at times. But I’ve come out of this book knowing WAY more about the French Revolution than I ever did before, which is an unexpected bonus. At every stage, James is holding French revolutionaries to account, too - did they support the rights of all men? Did they support liberty for all? Who of them did, and who of them didn’t? When? How, when it mattered? This quote, from late in the book, when Napoleon (FUCK this guy) has sent troops to re-colonize Haiti, really struck me: “None of the French rank-and-file in San Domingo guessed that they were fighting to restore slavery. The war was for them a revolutionary war. But Toussaint’s soldiers and generals, illiterates and ex-slaves, had been molded by the same revolution. […] But the liberty and equality which these blacks acclaimed as they went into battle meant far more to them than in the same words in the mouths of the French.”

The last few chapters are harrowing. Napoleon sends Leclerc and the horrible ex-colonists to trick and then force their way back into power in Haiti, so that they can enslave everyone Black again, so that France can have its lucrative plantation colony back. The way that James excerpts Leclerc’s desperate, toadying letters to Napoleon as his mission goes more and more sideways reads less like history and more like a found footage horror novel, or some cross between a tragedy and a grotesque.

The way that Toussaint L’Overture’s story ends is so horrible and depressing and deeply, deeply sad. And I hate to lead with that because he was a genius, he was an extremely effective military leader, he was a diplomat for a country that no one wanted to believe existed, and he was far more fair than almost anyone in that kind of position is, ever. Just compare him to Napoleon……. The intro to my book says that James writes this history from a Great Man perspective, where it’s all about T.L’O. Which - he did a whole fucking lot tho!! And fwiw re. James, rarely if ever have I found the description of the military component of a revolution to be as interesting as I found it here.

On James - don’t expect to read about any women playing notable roles. And Romaine-la-prophétesse (check wikipedia!) gets a [sic] after her name and nothing else. But on the whole this book IS the classic it’s described as. James’ bibliographical notes at the end were really interesting also - cool to read about how he did the extensive research he clearly did.

This book also had me really reflecting on the North American experience - the way that having a country built on a foundation of genocide is (a) bad, but (b) sort of opens up some possibilities and stunts others, maybe more, at the same time. James writes, “The West Indies has never been a traditional colonial territory with clearly distinguished economic and political relations between two different culture. Native culture there was none. The aboriginal Amerindian civilization had been destroyed. Every succeeding year, therefore, saw the laboring population, slave or free, incorporating into itself more and more of the language, customs, aims and outlook of its masters. It steadily grew in numbers until it became a terrifying majority of the total population. The ruling minority therefore was in the position of the father who produced children and had to guard against being supplanted by them. There was only one way out, to seek strength abroad. This beginning has lasted unchanged to this very day.”

And I thought this, about colonial-era Haiti as a modern economy, was super thought-provoking as well: “When three centuries ago the slaves came to the West Indies, they entered directly into the large-scale agriculture of the sugar plantation, which was a modern system. It further required that the slaves live together in a social relation far closer than any proletariat of the time. The cane when reaped had to be rapidly transported to what was factory production. The product was shipped abroad for sale. Even the cloth the slaves wore and the food they ate was imported. The Negroes [of the West Indies], therefore, from the very start lived a life that was in its essence a modern life.”


I haven’t even begun to list out everything that was interesting and moving and inspiring and tragic about this book, which is probably a sign you should read it!Some other assorted quotes:

“Looked upon as dreamers and unpractical men, the solution they proposed, rights to Mulattoes and gradual abolition of slavery, would have best served the interests of France, and, as time proved, the interests of the colonists themselves. But when did property ever listen to reason except when cowed by violence?”

“If a revolution carries high overhead expenses, most of them it inherits from the greed of reactionaries and the cowardice of the so-called moderates. Long before abolition the mischief had been done in the French colonies and it was not abolition but the refusal to abolish which had done it.”

“It is Toussaint’s supreme merit that while he saw European civilization as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its foundation among his people, he never had the illusion that it conferred any moral superiority. He knew French, British and Spanish imperialists for the insatiable gangsters that they were.”

“Bonaparte was not going to be convinced by Toussaint’s justice and fairness and capacity to govern. Where imperialists do not find disorder, they create it deliberately.”

“That calm confidence in its capacity to deceive is a mark of the mature ruling class. This accounts for its wild fury when it runs up against the type which never pays any attention to its most solemn protestations.”

“The slopes to treachery from the dizzy heights of revolutionary leadership are always so steep and slippery that leaders, however well intentioned, can never build their fences too high.”

“Between 1789 and Waterloo in 1815 the people of France staggered Europe and the world with the colossal scope of their achievements in war and in peace. No one had previously conceived that so much power was hidden in a people. Hilaire Belloc has perhaps expressed it best when he said that after August 1792 the reactionary classes of Europe armed against this new monster and set themselves two tasks, to reach Paris and to destroy democracy. The first task, he continues, took them twenty-two years; on the second they are still engaged.”

“The rich are only defeated when running for their lives.”

I read the 2022 paperback Penguin Classics edition, published by Penguin Random House UK and printed in “Great Britain.” The intro was by Christienna Fryar and the cover art was by Jacob Lawrence, done in 1986.

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written in 1938, C.L.R. James' The Black Jacobins remains the definitive account of the Haitian slave revolt which created the world's first Black republic. James captures the savage, dehumanizing brutality of San Domingo's slave regime under the French, where slaves were regularly worked to death or subjected to a variety of gruesome punishments (many involving insects and gunpowder) by their masters. Such a stratified environment could not long survive the French Revolution; the revolt spread to Haiti, first among the white bourgeoisie, who outlawed slavery while doing little alleviate racial disparities; disputes between recently freed slaves, emancipated Blacks, privileged Mulattoes and whites of various classes tip the country into civil war, in turn triggering a failed British invasion and an attempted reconquest by Napoleon's Grand Armee. It's a dizzyingly complex topic which James makes commendably lucid and compelling. Toussaint L'Ouverture inevitably takes center stage, though James casts him a wary eye as a brilliant leader, but also a compromiser not willing to make full-scale revolution (Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, his generals and successors, receive more flattering treatment). James' unabashed Marxism informs much of his analysis, framing the conflict more through class than racial terms and emphasizing, constantly, how San Domingo's importance to the French economy led the revolutionaries to betray their principles by reinstating slavery. He's not wrong, but the constant relapse into proletarian rhetoric feels grating at times. Still, if any historical subject invites an Afro-Marxist reading it's Haiti, a country who, after its victory over France, became an outcast in the white-dominated world and struggles to this day to overcome the legacy of its mistreatment. A masterful work of historical polemic.

[Nicole Drapluk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly incredible account of the Haitian revolution.

I had a bit of trouble following at the beginning of the book since I lacked foundational knowledge of the Haitian and French Revolution that would’ve been helpful. However as the book went on I overcame that relatively quickly.

The detail and verbiage by CLR James was extremely powerful and passionate, making this a great read. The determination and resistance of the Haitian people is inspiring and there is so much to take away from this book. As the first revolution of the third world, the Haitian revolution laid a foundation for future slave revolts, independence movements, and revolutions across the world. There are many strengths and weaknesses of Toussaint’s leadership to learn from. As we continue to study and prepare for revolution this is undoubtedly a book I will bring myself back to.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't too interested in third world liberation movements until quite recently when Ethiopians rid themselves of an oppressive regime (more on this later) right in front of my eyes, bringing to the fore the age old questions of class, identity and the potential for emancipation within one of the poorest countries which is deeply embedded in global capitalism and imperialism. So while there are 'no' parallels, I went back to this brilliant account - which is nothing less than a master piece - of the first revolution in the third world led by the former slaves 'Black Jacobins' in the late 18th century in San Domingo (Haiti) - Then again, CLR James' analysis on class and race in the Haitian revolution remain insightful and inspiring for any emancipatory political project.

[Artnoose McMoose · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the earthquake in Haiti, all books about Haiti in the Pittsburgh library system were checked out. I was on the wait list for this book for about 6 months. Unfortunately it finally arrived at a time when I was trying to finish up another non-fiction book before going out of town. I was only able to get through about half of the book.

That being said, it was a lot more dry than I expected and had I not read another history on Haiti first, I may have been pretty lost. I think I must have a contemporary taste on how history is written--- somewhat exciting and with a specific theme or narrative. This was kind of like fact after fact, with some Marxist opinion thrown in now and then.

Without a knowledge of the history of the French Revolution, it's easy to get a little confused when reading a history of the Haitian Revolution, because it's all a little combined. I would recommend reading up a little on the French Revolution before tackling this book, because names and places can start to get muddled.

[prz grz · Rating 5 out of 5]

a passionate and meticulously sourced account of the Haitian Revolution and the life of its most celebrated leader, Toussaint L'Ouverture. James pulls no punches when discussing the contradiction between the lofty ideals of the French Revolution and the bourgeoisie's unwillingness to let go of the tremendous wealth of slave-cultivated San Domingo, nor does he spare the European abolitionists of the time.

it's a book full of gut-wrenching horrors, as any honest account of colonialism must be. it's also full of hope; it takes the side of the oppressed without equivocation, and reminds us that against impossible odds, against both the vast forces of reaction and the wavering, misguided or treacherous leaders of the people, victory is possible.

[Vince Will Iam · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a passionate and masterful work by James! A must-read for all descendants of Africans and for the world to learn about the tragic yet inspiring history of the first Black-led republic.

When it comes to Toussaint L'Ouverture, I'm just speechless at such bravery and wisdom in one man. This book reveals the evil character and hypocrisy of the European imperialist powers. Toussaint has paid dearly for his blind love for France and its humanistic ideals. As always, freedom has come with a price for what was once the richest and most prosperous colony in the West Indies.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

The history of a most significant revolution brought to light by C L R James. This was a revolution to make everyone free, not just a select few. One wonders at how different the world would be if the founders of Haiti had had been given an opportunity to establish themselves!
This for is for me is one of the best histories coming from the Caribbean! A book which brings the Haitian revolution and the characters involved to life.

[ollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

definitely recommended, very informative, very readable and straightforward- was surprised to learn how old this book was when i looked it up 1-2 chapters in. i have to tell on myself in two ways here, the first one is that i've read hardly any (maybe.. no?) straightforwardly historical texts, in the form of "here's what happened in this place at this time, in order" - and given you know, limited experience, i did think this was a great account of history. the second way is that i don't know very much about the french revolution and i think i would have gotten more from this if i'd had that context. but even absent that it's very good and interesting and id recommend

[RC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly an important chapter in history, and one that’s too often overlooked, but the hagiographic depiction of Touissant and the welter of names and places, too often provided without appropriate context or background, detracted from my ability to really become engrossed in this. The narrative seems to often lose the forest for the trees; occasional pauses to step back and give a broader picture would’ve been helpful.

[zara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read!!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daniel Meltzer wrote a wonderful review of this book, which I agree with:


This book was excellent read. The strengths included breathtaking battle scenes, rousing rhetoric for freedom and against slavery, brilliant stories of liberation, and page-turning political intrigue. The weaknesses in the book come from self-defeating politics of discipline for the sake of discipline, and the heart-rending compromises that Toussaint L'Overture makes with people who see him and the republic he created as nothing more than slaves to be punished for their insubordination.

The utter brutality and injustice of slave ownership, and the barbaric treatment of slaves is scandalous. You will literally shake your head at the stories of how slaves were treated under the law in Haiti. A particularly unnerving example is the slavemasters filling a slave up with gunpowder and lighting a fuse, exploding the body of the slave, perhaps for punishment, but seemingly just as often because the slavemasters could. And the slaves began creating a series of low-level daily resistance to such a situation that is tragic and fascinating. "The majority of the slaves accomodated themselves to this unceasing brutality by a profound fatalism and a wooden stupidity before their masters. [...]Through the shirt of [a slave] a master can feel the potatoes which he denies he has stolen. They are not potatoes, he says, they are stones. He is undressed and the potatoes fall to the ground. "Eh! master. The devil is wicked. Put stones, and look, you find potatoes."

There is also a peculiar living of the slaves when they are so close to brutal death. The phenomenon of poisoning struck me particularly, which was apparently quite commonplace in Haiti before the revolution. Slaves used poison to alleviate their slavery at great expense of human life. Revenge poisoning by a slave of a slave master was common, as was the avoidance of splitting up families by poisoning all but one son of a slavemaster so that there would be but one heir. But so was other, more insidious poisonings. If it was heard that a master was to undertake more ambitious plantations, the slaves would poison one another until the numbers had been reduced to where such an undertaking would be impossible, in order to keep their workload down. Or if a kinder master were leaving town, some of the slaves and the property (cattle) would be poisoned, so that the master would have to stay to sort out the mess.

It is no wonder, given the ferocity of life for a slave, that when they organized insurrection, not just day-to-day resistance, they were ferocious themselves. I was dazzled by haunting images of the oppressed Haitians finding their revenge. "The slaves destroyed tirelessly[...]they were seeking their salvation in the most obvious way, the destruction of what they knew was the cause of their sufferings; and if they destroyed much it was because they suffered much. [...] "Vengeance! Vengeance!" was their war-cry, and one of them carried a white child on a pike as a standard. And yet they were surprisingly moderate, then and afterwards, far more humane than their masters had been or would ever be to them."

One particular passage left me breathless: that of Hyacinth. "Hyacinth, a bull's tail in his hand, ran from rank to rank crying that his talisman would chase death away. He charged at [the French] head, passing unscathed through the bullets and the grape-shot. Under such leadership the Africans were irrisistible. They clutched at the horses of the dragoons, and pulled off the riders. They put their arms down into the mouths of cannon in order to pull out the bullets and called to their comrades "Come, come, we have them." The cannon were discharged and blew them to pieces. But others swarmed over guns and gunners, threw their arms around them and silenced them."

Very quickly, the narrative of the Haitian Revolution is made into the narrative of Toussaint L'Overture. Toussaint's nickname and eventually surname, means "the opening," which refers to the skilled general's ability to tear holes through the lines of the French forces in the initial battles of the Haitian anti-colonial war, but also to the fact that he, like the author of this review, has a gap between his front two teeth. This is an adorable factoid.

There was much colonial political intrigue that I wasn't expecting. The slaves initially fought the French, and Toussaint allied himself with the Spaniards, the enemy of his enemy. England, smarting from a recent defeat in North America, also wanted new colonies. Spain had the best offer on the table, so the Haitian slaves fought both the French and the English. Then a revolution broke out in France, and the new republic abolished slavery and held that the Haitian slaves deserved freedom, a much stronger sentiment than Spain's promises. Toussaint and the slaves did a dramatic 180 degree turn, conquering the lands won for Spain back for the new French Republic, returning Spanish lands to France, losing land to the English, whom Toussaint expended a great deal of energy expelling from the colony. As the French revolution turned sour and the Jacobins were replaced by the Napoleonic forces of reaction, Toussaint and his slave army attempted to stay loyal to France. But Napoleon had no use for a colony without slavery, and Toussaint's slave army was forced to negotiate secretly with the English and fight off the French again, while the Spanish eagerly looked for a chance to take over. It was a pretty tense relationship with the major powers of Europe.

This was not the book I thought it would be. In ignorance, I had thought of the title of the book as an analogy, where the Haitian revolutionaries were akin to the Jacobins in France. As it turns out, Toussaint and his followers were in constant contact with the Jacobins, and saw themselves as fighting for the Jacobin revolution in France in one of France's colonies. This social revolution in France is borne out in Haiti. Unfortunately, the book spent a great deal of time describing Toussaint L'Overture avoiding social revolution, and attempting stability on the shakiest ground with conniving politicians that wished to see him back in chains. Toussaint was a brilliant general, to be sure, but he wanted to be a brilliant diplomat as well. This might have seemed practical at the time, but does not make for exciting reading, and is certainly not good revolutionary policy. Every inch that Toussaint gave, the French took a foot, and insulted the bravery of the slave army. Toussaint began to mold himself to the wishes of these conniving politicians, and this was especially distressing. He even went as far as executing his cousin Moises, who was leading insurrection against the French at a time when Toussaint was attempting to make conciliations that would have deeply compromised the freedom he had already won for his people. It is in these moments of weakness and betrayal that "the masses looked on, confused, bewildered, not knowing what to do."

But even Toussaint at his most bumbling knew of the inability to reenslave a free people. "We have known how to face dangers to obtain our liberty, we shall know how to brave death to maintain it." He was, for the most part a pretty amazing badass. He kept language about the slave trade in Haiti's constitution, so that slavers would continue to bring slaves to the Haitian shores, where he would free them from bondage. He invited slaves in the United States to escape to Haiti, where they would be free. He sent millions of francs to America to arm a militia to oust the European slave trade from Africa. And it was to his brilliant maneuvers on the battlefield that we credit the freedom of the Haitian black slaves, and the creation of the first black ex-colonial republic on the planet, and the second republic in the Western Hemisphere.

CLR James spends an unfortunate amount of time praising the discipline of the slave army in not destroying the material conditions that kept them in slavery. Though slavery was abolished, in order to prevent in the slaves the "slip into the practice of cultivating just a small patch of land, producing just sufficient for their needs," Toussaint "confined the blacks to the plantations under rigid penalties," with practices not unlike later feudalism, where a quarter of the produce was given to the laborers. "Toussaint knew the backwardness of the laborers; he made them work." "Losing sight of his mass support, taking it for granted, he sought only to conciliate the whites at home and abroad." There are also several remarks as to the discipline of the former slaves in not destroying property, when it was property that kept them enslaved. I am not impressed by morose discipline for the sake of discipline. CLR James wished to see in Toussaint and the Haitian revolution a Lenin figure, and Toussaint at his weakest, was able to give him that satisfaction.

The book takes a turn for the better just before the end, as the clutter of diplomacy with slaveowners and the compromise for the sake of discipline gave way to yet another war with France in the Haiti's war for independence. "neither Dessalines' army nor his ferocity won the victory. It was the people. They burned San Domingo flat so that at the end of the war it was a charred desert. [..."]We have a right to burn what we cultivate because a man has a right to dispose of his own labor, was the reply of this unknown anarchist.["]" "It was a people's war. They played the most audacious tricks on the French. [A French officer] heard at a musket's distance a low voice psaying "Platoon, halt! To the right, dress!" The French made their dispositions and waited all night for a sudden attack. When the day came, they found that they had been the dupe of about a hundred laborers. "These ruses, if one paid too much attention to them, destroyed one's morale; if they were neglected, they could lead to surprises."" The people of Haiti fought fiercely, not just with their lives, but with their deaths for freedom. "When Chevalier, a black chief, hesitated at the sight of the scaffold, his wife shamed him. "You do not know how sweet it is to die for liberty!" And refusing to allow herself to be hanged by the executioner, she took the rope and hanged herself."

[Yuri Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

It may be that this work has been a little oversold, but I was somewhat disappointed. I think a large part of my problem is that the story is more complex than I expected, filled with many unknown characters, and therefore is not always easy to follow. The shifting loyalties and allegiances often confused the players at the time – so how are we to fare at this remove? Napoleon was a bastard – that I understand. I also understand (and this is where the book succeeds) that the San Domingo revolution and the creation of Haiti is an event of world significance.

[Nada Elshabrawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m just posting Argon’s verse here to express my frustration and heartbreak.

Certains jours j'ai rêvé d'une gomme à effacer l'immondice humaine.

[Misha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only is Toussaint one of the most interesting persona in history, C.L.R. James knows how to make of that a legend. It is worth considering just how good James is, since I remain just slightly suspicious of some of the descriptions, which make of Toussaint a more than human character. But there are enough cold hard facts to dispel even the most bitter of us, and draw us into Toussaint's story.

Generally, I don't find histories to be gripping, but Toussaint's fight is the best kind of fight; few compare in importance and complexity, and few have been so ignored. His ideas may in some ways have helped us define freedom. I often think about his style of leadership and try to learn from it. And the way in which he imagined something and then made it happen with such single-minded energy captures me and accuses me.

[Linn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have held a long fascination for Haiti, first because of voodoo, but then because it was the first really successful slave revolt in the history of the western hemisphere. The Black Jacobins was written in the 1930's, and it shows, but James has a sharp tongue and an even sharper eye for the hypocrisies of revolutionary France and their bourgeoisie. He lays the Haitian revolution out clearly from the heyday of the slave-owning San Domingo colony, through the start of the French Revolution, and to the bitter end of Dessalines' declaration of independence.

The last chapter, on the War of Independence, is a whopper and a half, and I frequently felt like throwing the book across the room and clawing at my own face because European politicians are BASTARDS, but in the end, I prevailed and didn't commit manslaughter, so bravo for me.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you ever want to explore the sorrows that are the reality of today's Haiti, you should start with this book. The book explores the seeds of revolution in Haiti, the attempts by soldier/statesman L'Ouverture to diplomatically secure freedom for enslaved Africans in Haiti, to final military victory secured by Dessaline. It is a well written book about a country and people just written off by Nations of the Western Hemishphere and by France. The conditions and the brutality endured by the Africans at the hands of the French were every bit as brutal and crushing as the Africans endured in the United States and elswhere. The seeds of the problems of modern-day were sown during this period and in many ways the people are still suffering.