Saint-Domingue and Haitian Revolution III

Core primary reading

J. Popkin, Facing Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of teh Haitian Revolution (2007).

Skim this document collection and choose sources according to your interests. Chapters 6 ('Inside the Insurgency') and 12 ('Imagining the Motives') lend themselves to comparison, not only with each other but also with primary sources on the French Revolution, such as the Burke and Ménétra, which we read earlier in the year.

Core secondary reading

J. Popkin, A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution, chapters 5-6.

J. Dayan, 'Haiti, History and the Gods' in G. Prakash (ed.), After Colonialism: Imperial Histories and Postcolonial Displacements (1995), pp. 66-97.

 

Optional Podcast

'The Greatest Heist In HistoryLink opens in a new windowLink opens in a new window': How Haiti Was Forced To Pay Reparations For Freedom

 

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)