Saint-Domingue and Haitian Revolution I

Overview Lecture

Core primary readings

*L. Mason & T. Rizzo, FRDC, Documents 4, 23, 27

* Grievance ListLink opens in a new window of Free Blacks and Mulattos in 1789.

Viefville des Essarts, On the Emancipation of the NegroesLink opens in a new window (1790).

Core secondary readings

J. Popkin, A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution, intro and chapters 1 & 2.

C. Fick, 'Slavery and Slave Society' in The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below (1994). Digital copy.

Background, overview

M. Covo, ‘Race, Slavery, and Colonies in the French Revolution’ in Andress (ed.), OHFR, pp. 290-307.

F. Régent, ‘Slavery and the Colonies’ in CFR, pp. 397-418.

 

Further primary sources

Primary Documents on Saint-Domingue and the Haitian Revolution

• Laurent Dubois and David Garrigus, Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789-1804 (2017) Library, digital.
• David Geggus, The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History (2014). Library, digital.
• See the collection on Haiti, in French and English, at the John Carter Brown LibraryLink opens in a new window.
• J. Popkin, Facing Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Uprising (2007). Library, hardcopy and digital.

Further reading

• Y. Bénot et al., The Abolitions of Slavery from Léger-Félicité Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher

• D. Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (1975)
• R. Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1845 (1989)

• T. Burnard and J. Garrigus, The Plantation Machine: Atlantic Capitalism in French Saint-Domingue and British Jamaica (2016)
• P. Cheney, Cul-de-sac, Patrimony, Capitalism, and Slavery in French Saint-Domingue (2017)
• S. Dunn, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light (1999)
• L. Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (2004)
• L Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1824 (2004)

• L. Dubois, 'The price of Liberty: Victor Hugues and the administration of freedom in Guadeloupe, 1794-1798', in French Revolution. New Debates and controversy, pp. 254-282.
• C Fick, The Making of Haiti: the Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below (1990)
• A. Forrest, The Death of the French Atlantic: Trade, War, and Slavery in the Age of Revolution (2020)
• C. Forsdick and C. Hogsbjerg, Toussaint Louverture: A Black Jacobin in the Age of Revolutions (2017)

• D. Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (2002)
• D. Geggus, Before Haiti: Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue (2006)
• D. Geggus, ‘The Haitian Revolution’ in F.W. Knight & C. Palmer (eds), The Modern Caribbean (1989)

• D. Geggus, The Impact of the Haitian Revolution on the Atlantic World (2001)
• D. Geggus & B. Gaspar, A Turbulent Time: the French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean (1997)
• D. Geggus and Norman Fiering (eds.), The World of the Haitian Revolution (2009)

• M. Ghachem, The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (2012)
• P. Girard, Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life (2016)
• S. Hazareesingh, Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture (2020)
• P. Higonnet, Sister Republics: The Origins of French and American Republicanism (1988)
• C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L-Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution (1963/2001)
• P. Linebaugh & M. Rediker, The Many-headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (2000)
• J. E. McClellan, Colonialism and Science: Saint-Domingue in the Old Regime (1992)
• J. L. Palmer, Intimate Bonds: Family and Slavery in the French Atlantic (2016)
• R.R. Palmer, The Age of Democratic Revolution (2 vols) (1959 & 1964)
• S. Peabody, 'There are no slaves in France': The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime (1996)
• J. Popkin, You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery (2010)
• A. Sepinwall, Haitian History: New Perspectives (2014)
• M. Spieler, Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana (2012)
• R. L. Stein, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic (1985)
• Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995)
• 'Revolutions in the Americas', Forum, American Historical Review (2000)
• 'Slavery and Citizenship in the Age of the Atlantic Revolutions', Special issue, Historical Reflections (2003)