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What's been on your mind?

0:02

What's the kind of thing you've been posting about lately?

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Maybe it's the sewage in your rivers, or

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Russell Brand, or what's going on over

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at GB News? Crumbling schools

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perhaps, or even Soheila Braverman's

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latest debacle. Yeah, us too.

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I think you need to head over to the Trawl

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and the politics of broken

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Britain. We play the funniest takes, the viral

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clips, and we also read the wittiest

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comments, so there are quite a lot of laughs, believe it or not.

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Essentially,

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we scroll through social media so

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you don't have to, and it's with me, Marina Perkis.

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And me, Gemma Forte. Find The Trawl

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wherever you listen to your podcasts. That's The

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Trawl, T-R-A-W-L.

0:47

Hello,

0:47

and welcome to We Are

0:49

History, now officially the most popular

0:52

podcast in the world, if you discount

0:54

all the podcasts

0:55

more popular than this one. It's a great achievement,

0:57

Angela, and I think it's a testament to our

0:59

rigorous adherence to the facts and the

1:01

honesty of us as presenters.

1:04

And that's not me talking, that was King Charles III

1:06

talking to the Pope about the two of us only

1:09

the other day.

1:10

Oh, we're so deluded. So,

1:12

John, you've chosen this week's subject

1:15

matter, and it's not an event

1:17

we ever got taught about in school,

1:19

even though it feels pretty significant and

1:22

something we probably ought to know about. And

1:25

even today, in Black History

1:27

Month, I don't think this massive story

1:30

ever really makes the cut. Yeah,

1:31

I'm going to stick my neck out about

1:33

Black History Month, Angela, which I think

1:35

is a great innovation and much needed.

1:38

But, but, the stuff

1:40

that gets taught in Black History Month is,

1:43

in a way, its own sort of neo-colonialism,

1:46

because all my kids were ever taught was Black

1:49

American history. Rosa Parks,

1:51

Martin Luther King, the Selma March, they

1:53

were taught the same bits of Black history over

1:55

and over again, and all from

1:57

the most powerful country in the world, the country which...

1:59

which currently dominates the culture and economies

2:02

of many other countries in the way that European

2:05

colonial powers did when all these racist

2:07

problems took root. So what I'm saying

2:09

is stop making everything, including

2:11

Black History Month, about the USA. That's

2:14

my two cents. Oh,

2:16

Tucson teams. Those were two

2:19

euro cents, not dollar cents.

2:21

Of course they were, John. So what you're saying,

2:23

John, if I've got this right, is

2:25

you're against Black History Month. That's

2:27

what you're saying. What you're saying

2:30

is why isn't there a white

2:31

history month? I'm not saying that, Angela. I'm

2:33

not a racist old boy, Angela. I'm just

2:35

saying maybe kids in British schools

2:38

doing Black History Month might also learn

2:40

some history from Africa or what the

2:42

British Empire did in Jamaica or maybe

2:45

the history of Haiti.

2:47

I like your segue there, John. I see. Bringing

2:49

it back to the subject in hand. I would say, John,

2:52

I know you said about

2:54

your kids learning. Your kids were at school what?

2:57

10, 15 years ago now. I think things have changed

2:59

a bit. No, we still haven't. Still going on,

3:01

though. I was a chair of governors and it was always pictures of

3:03

Rosa Parks on the bus. And it's like, fine,

3:06

we do need to learn that stuff. But they learned it over and over

3:08

again. Yeah. And it's still going

3:10

on. Anyway,

3:10

it was just a while ago they were at school. That's all I'm saying.

3:13

Thank you. Anyway, I'm very pleased with my segue.

3:15

Because this week we're doing a story from Haiti.

3:18

The slave rebellion that ended with independence

3:21

for that colony and the abolition

3:23

of slavery after the biggest slave rebellion

3:25

since Kirk Douglas said to the Romans, I'm Spartacus.

3:28

No, I'm Spartacus. Sorry, it's automatic,

3:31

isn't it? You can't help yourself. So

3:33

check the scene for us, John. Tell us

3:35

about Haiti

3:36

in the 18th century. I'm going back

3:39

even further than the 18th century, Angela,

3:41

which I'm sure you'll approve of because

3:44

the whole colonisation of

3:46

the Americas started in Haiti.

3:49

If you remember the Christopher Columbus episode, Columbus

3:52

left behind a colony on the island of Hispaniola,

3:55

of which modern day Haiti is the western half.

3:58

And when it came back, they were all dead. Brutally murdered

4:01

and the Europeans decided that creating

4:03

colonies in the New World was a terrible

4:05

idea and maybe they should forget the whole

4:07

thing.

4:08

Yeah, or perhaps not. So

4:10

eventually, Haiti becomes a

4:12

French colony called Saint-Domingue.

4:15

That's the west of the island and the east was a

4:17

Spanish possession. And even today

4:20

they're two separate countries, aren't they? Haiti and the Dominican

4:22

Republic. But before the slave uprising,

4:25

Saint-Domingue had been a French

4:27

possession for nearly a hundred years since 1697

4:31

and it was the most valuable

4:33

colony in the French Empire.

4:36

Yeah, amazingly, the French had opted to give

4:38

up Canada rather than their colony

4:40

in the Caribbean. Such was the income from the sugar

4:42

plantations in Saint-Domingue that they

4:44

were desperate to keep it at the end of the

4:46

Seven Years War.

4:47

How long was the Seven Years War, John?

4:49

Not sure. Probably should have looked that up

4:51

before I came.

4:52

I think it's about six years, eight months,

4:54

something like that. Was it? I

4:56

saw that. So Haiti was a huge

4:58

money spinner for France producing the very

5:01

essential commodity that was sugar.

5:04

Yeah, I think we talked about this, didn't we, in our episode

5:06

on Equiano and the Sons of Africa.

5:08

All that suffering, all that exploitation,

5:11

African families ripped apart, millions

5:14

of slaves transported across the Atlantic,

5:16

terrible conditions. And it was

5:18

all so Europeans could

5:20

have sugar. Yeah, not vital medicines

5:23

or essential minerals, just a bit of sugar

5:25

to have on their frosties. The frosties are already sweetened. You

5:27

don't need to add sugar. So you might be getting a

5:29

bit out of sync, John, because frosties weren't

5:31

invented until just a tiny bit later. Yeah,

5:34

the point is, Angela, sugar was big bucks

5:36

back then. Big francs, big quits, not

5:38

big bucks. The two biggest sugar

5:41

producing colonies in the Caribbean were

5:43

Jamaica, which was British, of course, and Saint-Domingue,

5:46

which was French.

5:47

And sugar was a particularly labour

5:50

intensive crop to produce, wasn't it? It had to be

5:52

processed on site. Yeah. There

5:54

were slaves in the fields planting the cane,

5:56

chopping the cane, and there were slaves working

5:58

extremely long hours. in the processing

6:01

plant, feeding in the cane to the crushers,

6:04

where slaves could often lose an arm or be crushed

6:06

to death. The mortality rates in Saint-Domingue

6:08

were incredibly high for slaves,

6:11

which meant they kept importing more and

6:13

more slaves from Africa. They were just

6:15

replaceable, weren't they? Dispensable.

6:18

50% of them died in the first year, often

6:20

of yellow fever or malaria, diseases

6:23

that thrived

6:24

in the tropical climate of the island.

6:26

Yeah, and you didn't get many second or third

6:29

generation slaves. And this will become significant

6:31

in the revolution to come, because most of

6:33

the slaves in the colony had known a life

6:35

in Africa before they were transported. They

6:38

weren't born subjugated by Europeans.

6:41

Some of them had been soldiers first before

6:43

they were sold into slavery.

6:44

I can see that being a potential for

6:46

some trouble brewing. And of

6:49

course, being African

6:51

born, many of the slaves still

6:53

practice the religion and customs of whatever

6:55

part of West Africa they came from, mostly

6:57

Congo, Nigeria, Benin, was

7:00

sort of morphed into the voodoo religion,

7:03

which was kind of mixed up with the French Catholicism

7:05

and elements

7:07

of religions from West Africa.

7:09

Yes, so the voodoo religion was, of course,

7:11

very sensitively examined in the

7:13

1970s James Bond film, Live

7:15

and Let Die. I think most of us have

7:18

a much more profound sense of the spirituality

7:20

of that particular faith after we saw Roger

7:22

Moore grimacing at a black hype piece

7:25

with a white skeleton painted on his body as

7:27

all the locals danced and went crazy.

7:30

Luckily, I've never seen Live and Let Die join. In fact, I've

7:32

never seen any James Bond films. Probably

7:34

just as well in this case, that the trouble is

7:36

everything I read about the voodoo religion does

7:38

seem to reinforce this idea of huge gathering

7:41

in woods at night with high priests conjuring

7:43

up the spirits of the dead and everyone dancing and going crazy.

7:46

It's tricky, isn't it? Because

7:48

it's so alien to us that

7:50

it's sort of portrayed as this weird

7:53

thing. But it's, you know, it's

7:55

sort of it's their religion. Our religion

7:57

looks mad if you look at it from the outside.

8:00

side, you know. The

8:02

language of Haiti was a Creole, which

8:04

was a mix of French and West Mexican

8:06

languages, although the language

8:08

of the ruling class was of course French.

8:11

Yeah, and the racial makeup of Saint-Domingue was

8:13

about 5% white, 5% free-coloured, and I'm

8:17

going to use the terminology of the book I

8:19

read on this. That was often the result

8:21

of interracial relationships. And

8:24

then most of the rest were black

8:26

slaves, about 90% of the island,

8:28

which meant that the whites were massively outnumbered.

8:31

So they used brutality and terror

8:35

to keep their power. The punishment for

8:37

rebellion wasn't just death, but long-drawn-out

8:40

torturous death, you know, being

8:42

crushed on a wheel or burnt at the stake

8:44

in front of all the other slaves to

8:46

instill fear into the rest of the

8:48

workforce. It

8:50

should be said that the free-coloured, often-owned

8:53

slaves themselves, but enjoyed fewer

8:55

rights than the white slave owners.

8:57

Some of the free-coloured were former slaves who had bought

9:00

their freedom using money they had saved

9:02

from selling their own craft work, or as the

9:04

conservatives at the time would have put it, by pulling themselves

9:06

up by their bootstraps and not just complaining

9:09

about slavery all the time. There

9:10

were slaves, weren't there, whose job it was

9:13

to oversee the other slaves

9:15

or slaves who had privileges because

9:17

they were domestic servants or looked after the children

9:19

of the plantation owners. And the hope

9:22

was that these overseers would jealously

9:24

guard their privileges and would mete out punishments

9:27

to the field slaves who were labouring long hours

9:29

in the plantations. This occurred to me, John,

9:31

when I was reading your notes here, this really reminded

9:33

me of the sort of thing that happened in concentration

9:35

camps, where you turn victims

9:37

of an awful regime against each other rather

9:40

than against the perpetrators, and

9:42

that people that

9:45

subjugate others do that. It's the

9:47

same reason why people in this country

9:49

are more angry with people on benefits than they are with billionaires.

9:52

Yes, absolutely. You know, it's turned the people against each

9:54

other. But

9:54

in fact, when

9:56

the time came, the privileged slaves

9:58

would also turn the people against each other. against their so-called

10:01

owners.

10:02

Yes, and there were also bands of runaway

10:04

slaves who lived in the mountains, and they would

10:06

sometimes raid the plantations for food.

10:09

So everyone could see it was possible to defy

10:11

the authorities and survive outside the

10:14

slave system.

10:14

Now the colony was the richest in the Caribbean.

10:17

In the hills above the sugar plantations there

10:19

were coffee farms, so if you like the Starbucks

10:21

iced brown sugar oat-shaking espresso, this

10:24

was the place for

10:24

you, John. It was also a place for me because

10:27

the only other significant crop was indigo,

10:29

which is of course a clothing dye used to turn

10:31

denim blue. So very important

10:33

for men of a surname. The

10:36

colony was probably the richest in the whole new world.

10:38

They called it the Pearl of the Antilles, but

10:41

it could only trade with France, sell to

10:43

France, buy from France, which was sort of annoying

10:45

for everyone there. A system called L'Exclusif,

10:48

no idea what that means. And

10:51

their colonial society obviously very influenced

10:53

by France, the white kids were sent there

10:55

to be educated, etc. And

10:57

they aspire to French culture and all

10:59

French values.

11:00

It was all very well until France goes

11:02

and has this thing called the French Revolution.

11:04

Yeah, this was quite a big

11:07

deal apparently Angela. We

11:09

haven't done an episode on it because it's

11:11

too big a subject on its own. But

11:14

apparently after 1789,

11:16

France went through a massive change

11:19

to a mulch's change and a different strata of Sander

11:21

Man's society interpreted the opportunities

11:24

in their own

11:25

way. It should be said that the French Revolution

11:28

was a process of a few years. But

11:31

by 1791, when the Declaration of the Rights of Man was

11:33

published and adopted, these ideas were

11:36

eagerly received

11:36

in France's colonies.

11:39

Yeah, the white population saw this new moral

11:41

code as a chance to throw off the restrictive trade

11:43

limits. And they were like, we could be like

11:46

the 13 American colonies and be independent

11:48

and get richer by and so with the British, Spanish

11:50

empires, etc.

11:52

Imagine seeing the phrase Declaration of the

11:54

Rights of Man and thinking it was only about white

11:56

people. Imagine the thought

11:58

process at that.

12:01

The free-coloured thought had been proved their rights,

12:03

which had been diminishing over the previous decades, and

12:06

should mixed-race people get rights, was debated

12:09

in the new National Assembly in France. And

12:12

inasmuch as they got to hear about it, the ordinary

12:15

working slaves thought, men are

12:17

born and remain free and equal. That

12:20

sounds like that might be an improvement on things right now. So

12:24

at the time of the revolution, there were about 465,000 slaves in this colony, 31,000

12:29

slaves, and 28,000 free-coloured. According

12:32

to the most exhaustive inventory

12:34

of slave trading, about 685,000 slaves were

12:38

transported to Saint-Domingue during

12:41

the 18th century. Over 100,000 were

12:43

reported to have died during the Middle Passage, then they were

12:45

worked to death and replaced with new slaves. Jeez.

12:49

This is a Darkest Episode, I think it's fair to say.

12:51

Yeah, it is dark. It's a comedy podcast, guys. Yeah,

12:53

it's,

12:53

well, sometimes the comedy's a little

12:56

less than the other types. It goes out the window. Although

12:59

the days were long and the slaves were made to

13:01

work excessive hours, France

13:04

had made it compulsory that the slaves didn't

13:06

work on Sundays. And

13:08

this was intermittently enforced by the governor

13:11

of Saint-Domingue, and it meant that the slaves

13:13

had this time when they could congregate,

13:15

get together, ostensibly worship,

13:18

but these occasions became increasingly political

13:21

and militant, and slave leaders emerged

13:23

and preached about spreading the French Revolution

13:26

to France's richest colony.

13:28

Yes. So to begin with, the tension was mainly

13:31

between the whites and the free-coloured, with the

13:33

slaves looking on from the sidelines. And

13:35

actual fighting broke out between these two groups.

13:39

And in May 1791, after

13:41

the French National Assembly granted

13:44

rights of citizenship to the free-coloureds,

13:47

then the whites in Saint-Domingue refused to comply

13:49

with this decision. But

13:52

the outbreaks of violence helped create this atmosphere

13:54

in which the brutally treated slaves

13:56

started to plan revenge and rebellion.

14:00

in August 1791, one of

14:02

those forest meetings from Live and Let Die

14:04

was held. A plan had been hatching

14:07

to attack the whites and burn down the plantations

14:10

and Dutty Buchman, a high

14:12

priest of Voodoo, who would be one of the

14:14

early leaders of the rebellion, he led them

14:16

all in the swearing of a secret oath

14:19

of vengeance. And there was this tropical storm

14:21

which had been brewing and suddenly there was lightning and thunder

14:24

and they all took a divine call

14:26

to action.

14:27

I feel like in the film of this scene, the

14:29

director is going to find it really hard to resist all the

14:31

cliches. They make the decision, there's a thunderbolt,

14:34

there's

14:34

lightning, there's a storm. Yeah,

14:37

yeah. Every night is party night, especially

14:39

as on this occasion, they

14:42

sacrificed a pig and they drank the

14:44

blood of the pig to show their commitment.

14:47

Now actually, I'm not going to pass comment on the different

14:49

traditions of different faiths. The Church

14:51

of England have coffee mornings where sometimes you can have

14:53

a chocolate digestive with a vicar, 18th century

14:56

Haitian Voodoo religion involved

14:58

draining the blood from the neck of a slaughtered pig

15:00

and passing that round to gather in the forest. I'm not

15:02

saying one is better than the other. If

15:04

the Church of England started showing fresh pig blood,

15:06

that would be fine too. It's whatever floats your boat, isn't

15:08

it? Yeah, I mean, like I said,

15:11

all religions look pretty mad from the

15:13

outside when you look in on them. So who are we to

15:15

pass any judgment on that? But of

15:17

course, the Europeans who are at

15:19

the time trying to insist that these African

15:21

slaves were not savages, who

15:23

didn't need slavery to civilize

15:26

them. Maybe this whole blood

15:28

from a slaughtered pig image wasn't helping

15:30

them

15:31

in that time. Yeah, it's like, yeah, we had the PR

15:33

agency in and the focus groups are saying religion

15:35

great, but sacrifice the pig in the forest drinking

15:37

its blood. Definitely not helping with the brand

15:40

guys. So these

15:43

slaves spread across the colony,

15:46

setting fire to plantations and the rebellion

15:48

spread well like wildfire. And although

15:51

the plantation owners had long feared an

15:53

uprising, the suddenness with which it happened

15:55

and the enormous scale shocked everyone. A

15:58

week after that call to action in the middle of

16:00

August 1791, 1800 plantations

16:04

had been destroyed and a thousand slaveholders

16:07

killed. Well

16:09

John, maybe we'll have a little break there

16:11

while we digest what we've heard. Yeah, we'll

16:13

be back right after this.

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16:56

Okay, welcome back. We're talking about the Heithi

16:58

Slave Rebellion of 1791. The

17:02

colony had always been a particularly violent and

17:04

brutal place before the revolution and

17:06

this was reflected in the nature of

17:09

the revenge. Extreme violence was

17:11

a characteristic of the revolt. Slave

17:13

owners' families were murdered, the reports of their

17:16

children's head were displayed on spikes at the

17:18

heads of rebel columns. I'm not sure this is actually true

17:20

but it was reported.

17:21

So within weeks the number of slaves

17:24

who had joined the revolution reaches 100,000

17:26

and they weren't

17:29

all one disciplined army of slaves but

17:31

many different marauding bands of different

17:33

and disparate groups, burning

17:35

sugar plantations and coffee plantations.

17:38

I mean it must have been the best smelling revolution ever,

17:40

John.

17:41

That's a good point. In

17:43

September the surviving whites organised into

17:45

militias and struck back killing about 15,000 people.

17:49

Dutty Bookman was killed, huge numbers were killed on

17:51

both sides. Frankly Sandermann Life Insurance

17:53

Company was like, wow, we really chose the wrong place to set

17:55

up.

19:56

Yeah,

20:00

well, it's currently undergoing some changes, but

20:02

it has been a very profitable plantation

20:04

in the past. Great potential as a restoration

20:07

project. Right, right. And it comes with

20:09

the workforce. Yeah, they're listed

20:11

with the sale. I mean, they're away at the moment on

20:14

a team building exercise in the mountains. All

20:16

these burned down buildings, very much part

20:19

of that. But when they're ready to give up

20:21

their newfound freedom and return to brutal

20:23

slavery, yep, this is where they

20:25

all slept before in this charred ruin

20:28

here. So

20:28

by 1792, rebels controlled a

20:32

third of the colony.

20:33

Yeah, there were still some plantations functioning,

20:36

some slaves working as normal. And there were

20:38

black people employed to fight the rebels.

20:40

In fact, it seems like this whole episode is packed

20:42

with people switching sides, betraying

20:44

each other, misunderstanding what

20:46

their enemies stood for, the three colors

20:49

fought in the name of the king because they thought he still

20:51

ruled France. And it was him

20:53

who wanted greater rights for them than the slaves supported

20:55

the British as enemies of the French. But

20:58

the British actually wanted to restore slavery.

21:01

It's confusing.

21:02

Yeah, it's right. That's crazy. And finally, France's National

21:04

Assembly decided it's time for action. And they sent 6000

21:07

troops and a new governor who tried to

21:09

stop the killing by abolishing

21:11

slavery in the northern province. Saint-Thana

21:15

was a product of the French Revolution, which

21:17

until the podium came on the scene was ideologically

21:20

against slavery.

21:21

But this move, of course, infuriated the local

21:24

whites who decided they didn't want to be a French

21:26

colony anymore. And some of them contacted

21:28

Britain to inquire about British sovereignty

21:31

over the colony. I mean, French people,

21:33

John, saying they would rather be

21:35

British. Things got to be pretty bad before

21:37

you can imagine them doing that. No,

21:39

no, I always thought that

21:41

England is much better than France. Warm

21:43

beer overcooked meat, the process cheej. I

21:46

love old Blighty Moi, just with Delmon Glenmoi.

21:48

So

21:51

then in 1793, Britain and France went to war.

21:54

Not because of Haiti, but over minor points

21:57

of etiquette, like whether it's acceptable to

21:59

guillotine your king. silly little things like

22:01

that. Britain had thought it might be

22:03

able to seize the colony and William Pitt

22:05

the Younger had been worried that the revolt might inspire

22:08

similar uprisings in Jamaica and Barbados

22:10

and other British colonies in the Caribbean. So

22:13

thousands of British troops were sent to the island

22:15

where they would die heroically of

22:18

yellow fever. Initially the rebels

22:20

welcomed British soldiers as allies against the French

22:22

whites but everywhere the Brits controlled they

22:24

restored slavery which made them hated by

22:26

the vast majority of people.

22:28

And as we said the Spanish had the eastern

22:30

half of the island and they were now

22:33

at war with revolutionary France as

22:35

well. So it meant the rebels were butter

22:37

armed and supplied although this wasn't a

22:39

war of pitch battles and marching armies. The

22:42

rebel former slaves lived in the mountains

22:44

and they would attack the plantations or the authorities

22:47

before disappearing again whereas

22:49

the European soldiers struggled to find them

22:52

or to employ their big guns and their horses.

22:55

Yeah, not every plantation was abandoned

22:57

or burned many slaves were still working in the south

22:59

and west of the colony but the slave drivers

23:01

found those slaves less compliant and passive

23:04

and there was a fear that at any time they might

23:06

turn round and murder their masters and run off

23:09

to the mountains. So the plantation

23:11

owners found themselves not using the whiff but

23:13

instead say, you know, do as I say or I'll

23:15

be really upset, you know, you really have to think about

23:17

me, I don't feel safe in this space. So eventually

23:21

the governor, something I

23:23

think he said, made this very

23:25

bold and courageous decision to abolish

23:28

slavery. Now

23:29

this is pretty radical and a shocking

23:31

announcement in the 18th century

23:34

and it said shockwaves to

23:35

the Caribbean and the Americas and imperialist Europe

23:38

because so much money was tied

23:40

up in the slave trade. The plantations, sugar,

23:42

coffee, tobacco, huge fortunes

23:45

have been made and economies relied on

23:47

the free labour of the slaves that had

23:49

been taken across the Atlantic.

23:51

But it was the only way he could see forward. He

23:53

understood that the rebels were never going to go back

23:55

to the plantations as slaves. Maybe

23:58

they go back as free men and women. be

24:00

paid for their work and the colony could start

24:02

again. Then, amazingly, his

24:05

decision was ratified by the French National

24:07

Assembly, who had taken the text of the rights

24:10

of man to heart. For a brief period,

24:12

abolitionists around the world thought

24:14

that slavery might be on the way out.

24:17

This whole thing about Britain taking

24:19

pride in being the first European power to

24:21

abolish slavery is pretty ridiculous.

24:24

I mean, credits were all before us, and the abolitionists

24:26

and the Whigs that pushed it through when the Tories were

24:29

briefly out of power. But this idea that Britain

24:31

as a country should be proud to be the first

24:33

to abolish slavery

24:35

doesn't make you heroic that you were

24:38

perpetrating slavery in the first place.

24:40

Exactly. Yeah, I remember somebody on Twitter saying, it's

24:42

like, I was actually the first serial killer

24:44

to stop murdering loads of people. Yeah.

24:46

And apart from everything else, Britain wasn't

24:49

the first to abolish slavery. Revolutionary France

24:51

did it before Britain. It's just that Napoleon

24:54

came along and overturned it and reversed it. So

24:56

there's this debate in the French National Assembly

24:58

about whether the citizens of Saint -Domingue could

25:01

be considered French. And the progressives

25:03

all said, yes, they are free Frenchman now. And

25:05

then the conservatives were like, yeah, but not the ones who were

25:07

born in Africa. We can't say they're French. And

25:09

nonetheless,

25:09

it's like, come on, they didn't really get

25:12

much

25:12

choice in the matter. It's not like they came here because

25:14

they bought a coastal timeshare apartment.

25:18

So many of the Haitian leaders were killed

25:20

in the ongoing bloody struggle. But one

25:23

figure emerged above all the others to become

25:25

the first significant black freedom fighter

25:27

of the American colonies. Toussaint

25:30

Louverture was a former slave, but

25:32

rose to become a brilliant politician, a general

25:35

and the leader of the revolution. In fact, the great

25:37

Caribbean writer, C.L.R. James, compared

25:39

him to Fidel Castro.

25:41

C.L.R. James, by the way, he wrote the first great

25:44

history of this revolution, which was called the Black

25:46

Jacobins. And it was published in 1938 when

25:50

this story was a bit of a forgotten backwater

25:52

of history.

25:53

Yeah, eventually Louverture became a free

25:55

man and even owned slaves himself. One

25:58

of them is thought to be Jean-Jean. back to Saline,

26:01

who would eventually succeed Louverture and rule Haiti

26:03

himself. So it shows you, Angeline, if you can

26:05

work your way up from slavery, if you make enough effort

26:08

through hard work and enterprise.

26:09

Oh dear. Louverture's

26:12

tactics in fighting the British was to

26:14

wait a couple of weeks and then watch them all

26:16

die of horrible tropical diseases. And

26:18

sure enough, this came to pass and disease

26:21

was a constant

26:21

impediment to European armies.

26:23

What a shame. Because they weren't inured

26:25

to

26:25

yellow fever or malaria in the way that the

26:27

locals were. So it got them.

26:29

Yeah, that's not to say there were no battles

26:32

between them. There was one occasion where the rebels attacked

26:34

a British fort, found that their ladders were

26:36

not tall enough, and so they had to stand

26:38

on each other's shoulders at the top of the ladders

26:40

while they're being shot at by the British from inside

26:42

and the bodies were piling up down

26:44

below. It's all pretty heroic and brave

26:47

stuff, foolhardy, if you prefer.

26:49

Yeah. Then in August 1798, having lost maybe

26:51

as many as 100,000 men in Haiti and having spent millions

26:57

of

26:57

pounds, the British withdrew.

26:59

The whole episode had been a military

27:02

and humanitarian disaster. We're

27:05

fighting on the wrong side for the wrong reasons

27:07

and it ends in total failure. So

27:09

is it any wonder that, you know, this is something

27:11

the British history books prefer to forget about?

27:14

I wonder why?

27:15

I wonder why, Ian. Maybe that's another good

27:17

place to take a break.

27:22

So

27:30

we're back in Haiti. The rebellion has continued

27:33

for years as the French kept their governor on

27:35

the island and debated the best way to restore

27:37

order to the colony. The former slaves

27:40

grew food and raised animals in small holdings

27:42

up in the mountains or in the plains. There

27:44

are so many battles and massacres and sieges

27:47

and public executions over these years that it

27:49

would take a whole podcast series to

27:51

recount them

27:52

all. Yeah. But basically it

27:54

just settled into this impossible stalemate

27:57

where the former slaves were not going

27:59

back to the plantation. and the former plantation owners

28:01

still believe they should be in charge and all the

28:03

black people should do exactly as they were told.

28:06

Yeah, in fact, one attempt at a peace negotiation

28:08

did not start well when the leaders from

28:10

the two sides met, one of the former slave

28:13

owners went up and struck one of the former

28:15

slaves thinking that was some breeding him into line.

28:17

Jesus. When Louverture

28:20

negotiated terms with the British and

28:22

Spanish without checking with his supposed

28:24

masters back in Paris, this

28:26

was seen as a very provocative act.

28:29

He was still claiming to be acting in the interests

28:31

of France to whom he declared his loyalty

28:33

and yet he was behaving like the ruler of an island

28:36

which in effect he was even though Sontana

28:38

was still in office.

28:39

Yeah, so Louverture was effectively

28:42

the ruler of the colony by now. He conquered

28:45

the Spanish colony in the east. So

28:47

now the whole island of Hispaniola

28:49

was his. He actually received advice

28:52

from Alexander Hamilton in America

28:54

who said he should be in the room where it happened and

28:56

that he should not give up his shot. Anyone

28:59

who hasn't seen him in Hamilton will not know what I'm talking about.

29:03

Louverture lost some support among

29:05

the former slaves by advocating a return

29:07

to the plantation system as he believed

29:10

the country could not survive without any

29:12

sort of economic activity. And

29:13

don't tell me everyone was like, sell

29:16

out, traitor, we will never go back to

29:18

the plantations, down with this government. Yeah,

29:20

and he's like, we are the government, that's how this works.

29:23

But he insisted he wasn't bringing back

29:25

slavery but they could go back to working

29:27

on their old plantations with their old slave

29:29

drivers and they could agree to this

29:32

new contract where they weren't allowed to leave.

29:34

And maybe he even said maybe we could bring some

29:36

extra workers over from Africa to help

29:38

in the field. Oh my god,

29:39

so Louverture suggested to Sontana

29:42

that he leave the colony and the

29:44

French governor took the hint and got out of there.

29:46

Yeah, so in 1801 Louverture issued a constitution

29:50

for Saint-Domingue that decreed that he would

29:52

be governor for life and called for black autonomy

29:55

at a sovereign black state. That is quite a

29:57

big deal. Bye now. France

30:00

has shifted from the National Assembly to

30:02

a short bloke from Corsica called Napoleon.

30:05

Ah, now Napoleon wasn't having any of this,

30:07

was he? So he dispatched a

30:10

massive expeditionary force of

30:12

French soldiers and warships

30:14

led by his brother-in-law. I mean, it's always

30:16

who you know, isn't it, John? Typical, isn't it?

30:18

He had instructions to restore

30:21

French rule and secret instructions

30:23

to restore slavery. So

30:25

he'd sent back Louverture's two children

30:28

who'd been studying in France, which is one

30:30

way of getting out of handy in your dissertation, I suppose.

30:32

But they brought a letter in which

30:35

Napoleon promised his good intentions

30:38

towards the colony and its leader, which

30:40

is why the letter came with thousands of French

30:42

troops behind it, because it was completely innocuous.

30:45

Exactly. Napoleon has sent loads of Polish

30:48

troops, but when these soldiers got the measure

30:50

of the situation, they realised they were

30:52

fighting for the enemies of liberty, and

30:54

they promptly switched sides and fought against

30:56

the French, and the Poles had a special place

30:59

in Saint-Domingue ever after.

31:01

So Napoleon completely reversed

31:04

all the revolution's progressive ideas about

31:06

ending slavery and equality between all

31:08

men. He brought in racist

31:10

laws, making it illegal for black

31:12

soldiers to hold a rank above captain,

31:15

and so the rebels could be clear

31:16

about what they were fighting for.

31:18

Yeah, the French actually brought attack dogs

31:20

to terrorise the enemy, except once they're

31:23

on the battlefield, the dogs weren't clear who was the enemy

31:25

and who wasn't. They just start savaging the French soldiers.

31:27

So

31:27

in the end, most of the dogs were

31:29

just eaten by the French soldiers.

31:31

Well, Angel, that's the French for you. C'est l'beauge,

31:34

mongere. But

31:35

however many troops the French threw

31:37

at the colony, they couldn't defeat the guerrilla tactics

31:39

of the rebels.

31:41

Yeah, and eventually a summit was called between

31:43

the French leaders and Louverture. But

31:46

when he turned up, Louverture's private

31:48

guards were overpowered, and the island's mercurial

31:51

ruler was taken prisoner. He was

31:53

put on a ship to France and imprisoned in a freezing

31:56

mountain top jail in the French Alps, where

31:59

he sadly died of pneumonia the following

32:01

year. Not even a Marx grave for

32:03

one of the most remarkable revolutionaries of the

32:05

modern age. Even if it did start sounding

32:08

a bit dodgy once he got to power. Well

32:10

that's just past the course isn't it really John?

32:12

With revolutionaries they're fine until they actually get

32:14

the power. Yeah. If

32:16

Citizen Smith had become ruler of Britain the whole

32:18

power to the people thing would probably have shifted to

32:21

all power to me on behalf of the people. Yeah

32:23

exactly. That's one for people of a certain

32:26

age that reference.

32:27

So now Jean-Jacques Dessalines

32:29

became the leader of the revolution. He

32:32

was less of a wily tactician than

32:34

his old boss and his policy was basically

32:37

just kill everyone, pretty effective. Yeah

32:40

and the French too discovered that the rebels were not

32:42

going to surrender just because they'd lost their inspirational

32:44

leader. Dessalines forces decisively

32:47

defeated the French at the battle of Wertier

32:50

on the 18th of November 1803 and

32:53

Saint-Domingue was declared independent on the

32:55

29th of November and then the

32:57

Republic of Haiti was declared on

32:59

January the 1st 1804. Yeah and the

33:02

name Haiti is derived from

33:04

the indigenous Taino-Arawak

33:07

name for the entire island of Hispaniola

33:10

which they called Haiti which meant land

33:13

of mountains.

33:14

Yeah the former slaves saw an affinity with the

33:16

native Americans who'd been persecuted by the Europeans

33:19

and they're not sure if there are any Arawak or Tarno

33:21

Indians left by this point.

33:23

So Napoleon decided he couldn't

33:25

afford to keep losing that many troops

33:27

especially as the short-lived peace with Britain was

33:30

over and he's locked back into a massive

33:32

continental war back home which, spoiler

33:34

alert, not going to end well.

33:36

Yes so Dessalines now

33:38

cemented his role with a brutal massacre

33:41

of all the remaining whites in Haiti. Haitian

33:44

massacres of 1804 saw between 3

33:47

and 4 000 white people murdered. That

33:49

was the level of mistrust of the whites and

33:51

their intention to restore slavery and

33:54

of course they had to factor in the threat from outside,

33:56

you know the danger of foreign powers re-occupying

33:59

the island. they would want to end this example

34:01

of a former slave colony governing itself.

34:04

Yeah, the Polish

34:05

occupants were excused

34:06

as they were seen as allies

34:08

in comrades and were honoured as the

34:10

blacks of Europe and granted full

34:13

citizenship. Some massacres weren't

34:15

spontaneous acts of brutality but happened

34:17

on the strict orders of Jean-Jacques Dessalines,

34:20

the first ruler of an independent Haiti.

34:22

He set out strict orders that these massacres

34:24

should happen but he found that

34:26

there was little appetite for more violence until

34:28

he travelled to each town to make sure that

34:30

his orders were carried out.

34:32

Yeah, one Haitian, Jean-Zombie,

34:35

carried out a particularly brutal public execution

34:38

and there's a theory that the Haitian voodoo

34:40

word zombie comes from this episode.

34:43

Or Jean might have been called zombie after

34:45

the voodoo concept of the living dead.

34:48

Anyway, that's where we get zombies from and

34:50

they've been a right nuisance ever since. I had to get

34:52

a council in when I had zombies in my basement.

34:56

Some of the white people escaped the massacre

34:58

and managed to flee to the United States

35:01

where Haiti became a terrifying warning

35:03

about what might happen if they abolished

35:05

slavery in the southern states. So

35:08

it sort of helped harden attitudes

35:10

about abolition for generations.

35:13

Yeah, the United States did not recognise

35:15

the independence of Haiti until 1862. It was always

35:18

blocked by the southern states. But without

35:20

defeat in Haiti, France would probably not

35:22

have sold its continental territories to the USA.

35:25

So no Louisiana purchase, no

35:27

expansion of the United States, a completely different

35:29

history for North America and the world.

35:32

Yeah, and independent Haiti

35:34

struggled in the international community for

35:36

the following decades. European powers

35:39

refused to trade with it or accorded

35:41

the status of a new regional power.

35:44

Yeah, and Haiti was forced to pay an indemnity

35:46

to France in order to restore diplomatic

35:49

relations. And when they couldn't pay, they

35:51

had to borrow money from France to pay it and

35:53

got trapped in a cycle of debt that continued

35:56

until the 20th century. So

35:58

it's basically a fine for having... a

36:00

revolution. And slavery

36:02

wasn't fully abolished in the French colonies

36:04

until 1848 and getting rid

36:07

of slavery in the United States. Well,

36:09

John, that was a right old kerfuffle. Tell

36:12

me about it. So that is the Haiti Revolution.

36:15

Thank you to Lauren Dubois for your book

36:17

Avengers of the New World. I can't remember that,

36:19

Angela, the last time I read an episode from history, so packed

36:21

with massacres, cruelty, tortures and then more

36:23

massacres.

36:24

It just became a bit of white noise

36:26

of violence, isn't it?

36:28

Sorry about that, but if you manage to

36:30

avoid all that, there's always the agonising death from yellow

36:33

fever.

36:33

It's me, our sincere apologies to the Haiti

36:36

Tourism Board. I don't think we've done much for them. It

36:38

doesn't make you sound like your number one holiday destination,

36:41

does it?

36:42

No, I mean, even today, there's massive food

36:44

insecurity in Haiti. Parliament isn't functioning

36:46

properly. The justice system has basically collapsed

36:49

and armed gangs control a lot of strategic

36:51

points in the country, ports, distribution, ceteras

36:54

and all that. Adult literacy is

36:56

around 50 percent and the violence continues. President

36:58

Moyes was assassinated in 2021 and

37:00

that year, of course, saw a massive earthquake and

37:03

there were huge challenges distributing aid

37:05

in what many international observers say

37:07

is a failed state. So that's

37:10

it for this week.

37:11

Yes, thank you for listening. Do go

37:13

to Apple Podcasts, give us five stars

37:16

and join the Patreon. Should

37:18

we do a shout out for our Patreons?

37:21

Yes, fantastic Patreon supporters. We love

37:23

them.

37:23

So we'll say hello to Luke Chanel,

37:26

to

37:26

Joel Burton,

37:27

to now this is someone I

37:29

know, John, to Gavin Saxby, who

37:32

listeners might be interested to know. You

37:34

know, the nuclear bunker in Dundee

37:37

where I have my haendu and I

37:39

talk about quite a lot. I'm a patron of their bunker. Gavin

37:42

Saxby is the manager of

37:44

the restoration project there. So

37:46

look that up. The 28th

37:49

group observed in Dundee.

37:51

Fantastic. Thank you to Lizzie Waterhouse.

37:54

And finally to Mel

37:56

Joel. And that's it for today.

37:59

We will see you. next time.

38:01

Fantastic thanks for

38:03

listening guys. God John I can't believe

38:05

you're against Black History Month.

38:07

I'm not against Black History Month I say it's your way more

38:09

diverse. Hasn't he been against Black History Month?

38:12

I never said that. Oh

38:12

why is there no International Wednesday that's

38:14

what John wants to know.

38:21

History is written and presented

38:23

by Angela Barnes and Jenna Farrell. With

38:26

audio production by me Simon Williams. The

38:28

lead producer is Anne Marie Lott and the group

38:30

editor is Andrew Harrison. With artwork

38:32

by James Parrott, real history is a

38:35

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