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Yale Agrarian Studies Series
Maroon Nation: A History of Revolutionary Haiti
A new history of post‑Revolutionary Haiti, and the society that emerged in the aftermath of the world’s most successful slave revolution
Haiti is widely recognized as the only state born out of a successful slave revolt, but the country’s early history remains scarcely understood. In this deeply researched and original volume, Johnhenry Gonzalez weaves a history of early independent Haiti focused on crop production, land reform, and the unauthorized rural settlements devised by former slaves of the colonial plantation system. Analyzing the country’s turbulent transition from the most profitable and exploitative slave colony of the eighteenth century to a relatively free society of small farmers, Gonzalez narrates the origins of institutions such as informal open-air marketplaces and rural agrarian compounds known as lakou. Drawing on seldom studied primary sources to contribute to a growing body of early Haitian scholarship, he argues that Haiti’s legacy of runaway communities and land conflict was as formative as the Haitian Revolution in developing the country’s characteristic agrarian, mercantile, and religious institutions.
Haiti is widely recognized as the only state born out of a successful slave revolt, but the country’s early history remains scarcely understood. In this deeply researched and original volume, Johnhenry Gonzalez weaves a history of early independent Haiti focused on crop production, land reform, and the unauthorized rural settlements devised by former slaves of the colonial plantation system. Analyzing the country’s turbulent transition from the most profitable and exploitative slave colony of the eighteenth century to a relatively free society of small farmers, Gonzalez narrates the origins of institutions such as informal open-air marketplaces and rural agrarian compounds known as lakou. Drawing on seldom studied primary sources to contribute to a growing body of early Haitian scholarship, he argues that Haiti’s legacy of runaway communities and land conflict was as formative as the Haitian Revolution in developing the country’s characteristic agrarian, mercantile, and religious institutions.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published June 25, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 11, 2020
We all enjoy reading about revolution. I've always been more interested in who cleans up the rubble and rebuilds society afterwards.
MAROON NATION is the first in-depth study of the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolt in history. Historians of the Caribbean generally focus their attention on the Haitian uprising itself and dismiss the post-independence period as one of corruption, civil war, and economic decline. Johnhenry Gonzalez disagrees, arguing that Haiti's most conspicuous socioeconomic failures came in the twentieth century, as a result of American military occupation and neocolonial exploitation. In the nineteenth century, most Haitians lived through a different and much more positive reality. They replaced the brutal plantation regime with small-scale farming, dramatically increasing both the island's food supply and its population (500 percent by 1900). They concurrently eschewed the language and religion of the Europeanized elite in favor of their own Afro-European language (Kreyol) and the syncretic voudon faith. Much like the inhabitants of Zomia in James Scott's THE ART OF NOT BEING GOVERNED, Haiti's free majority ignored the unsuccessful state-building efforts of the wealthy minority, and concentrated instead on creating a successful society.
MAROON NATION is the first in-depth study of the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution, the most successful slave revolt in history. Historians of the Caribbean generally focus their attention on the Haitian uprising itself and dismiss the post-independence period as one of corruption, civil war, and economic decline. Johnhenry Gonzalez disagrees, arguing that Haiti's most conspicuous socioeconomic failures came in the twentieth century, as a result of American military occupation and neocolonial exploitation. In the nineteenth century, most Haitians lived through a different and much more positive reality. They replaced the brutal plantation regime with small-scale farming, dramatically increasing both the island's food supply and its population (500 percent by 1900). They concurrently eschewed the language and religion of the Europeanized elite in favor of their own Afro-European language (Kreyol) and the syncretic voudon faith. Much like the inhabitants of Zomia in James Scott's THE ART OF NOT BEING GOVERNED, Haiti's free majority ignored the unsuccessful state-building efforts of the wealthy minority, and concentrated instead on creating a successful society.
December 27, 2019
An extraordinary book. One of the most important interventions into Caribbean history in the past decade.
April 6, 2021
Supported by impressively rich archival material, the fruit of a meticulous investigation, this work is crucial in the historiography of post-1804 Haiti. There is no need to blame it for the many repetitions. Because while they can become off-putting in the eyes of some readers, they can, at the same time, be very effective on a mnemonic level. Nevertheless, something is missing in this study. The author does not mention the noble and concrete participation of the young Haitian State in the liberation of the Latin American nations against the Spanish slave power. They did that in the name of the right to freedom of all men.
December 7, 2020
I love this book so much, and I enjoy reading it. I like the witty footnotes on modernism. The notes on archives are also intriguing. A history of freedom that centers around the end of the plantocracy, and not just a false premise of liberation.
May 4, 2024
On the test case of Haiti, the book confirms the view that mass enslavement in Africa and New World in pre-modern times was a result of lack of a profitable division of labor alternative in the given circumstances.
The author argues that Haitian revolutionary and post-revolutionary leaders looked for an alternative way to organize economic life of the island, and they repeatedly came up with something which was uncomfortably close to slavery. When the freshly liberated population understandably took a dim view of such arrangements, Haitian economy decomposed into many subsistence farms with no real economic ambition.
The writing is well-researched, with a number of interesting anecdotes. It lacks the bitterness of Haitian historians of earlier generations, which I count as a win. It may appear somewhat repetitive. Still, the book is a great place to learn about a key event in world history.
The author argues that Haitian revolutionary and post-revolutionary leaders looked for an alternative way to organize economic life of the island, and they repeatedly came up with something which was uncomfortably close to slavery. When the freshly liberated population understandably took a dim view of such arrangements, Haitian economy decomposed into many subsistence farms with no real economic ambition.
The writing is well-researched, with a number of interesting anecdotes. It lacks the bitterness of Haitian historians of earlier generations, which I count as a win. It may appear somewhat repetitive. Still, the book is a great place to learn about a key event in world history.
September 20, 2021
This is the kind of book that fills a huge hole in the (widely) available scholarship, and does so with a relatively concise, clear and comprehensible voice. Not really beholden to any particular ideology, this book provides a very fresh, and much needed look into what went right and what went very, very wrong in the years after the Haitian Revolution. Richly researched and full of fascinating details, he makes the case that if the priority of the Revolution was to dismantle the structure of plantation slavery and ensure that it never returned to the island, it was wildly successful. And most intriguingly, that most of the problems plaguing Haiti ever since are consequences of that priority. Easy to read and judgment-free, this is historical scholarship of the highest order.
October 13, 2021
This is absolutely required reading for anyone who wants to understand post-revolutionary Haiti. An amazing piece of historical scholarship that unlocks Haiti from many of its stereotypes.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews