Unironically, how the fuck did Haitians lead the world's first and only successful large-scale slave revolt? Considering how shit Haiti is today, it seems almost miraculous that they managed to beat off the 2nd most powerful country in the world with so many odds stacked against them and retain said independance up until today.
>>18019461A confluence of the disease barrier, the logistical difficulty of sending the number of troops that would be needed to deal with the slaves to the island, and France being busy with other things. They were and are retarded niggers and never would have succeeded if Haiti had been anything other than a tropical island on the other side of the world from France.
>>18019464Haiti provided a plurality of France's economic output though, seems like something too important to just let go. Not to mention how other slave revolts in the Americas were crushed with ease, so what made Haiti different is all I'm asking.
>>18019461>With the official name of Saint-Domingue, French colony, western part of the island, name given by the colonizer (France), the island developed more quickly thanks to the plantation of coffee and sugar cane. On the eve of the French Revolution, approximately 75% of the world's sugar trade left the French colony (Haiti île de Saint-Domingue). In 1788, its trade abroad was valued at 214 million francs (French money at that time) and higher than that of the United States. Because of this great wealth, the French called Haiti the "Pearl of the Antilles">By 1789, the Saint Dominican population was composed as follows:>40,000 Grand-blancs (literally "Great whites" in French) and Petit-blancs ("Little whites")>28,000 Sang-melés (French for: "Mixed blood") or free people of color>452,000 slaves>Slavery of blacks was characterized as one of the most ruthless in which terror and severe punishments were applied to slaves. Not only were 90% of the population of Saint-Domimgue (Haiti) enslaved at the time of the Revolution, but almost 85% were African-born. It was cheaper for the French to make a slave work until he died and then bring another one straight from Africa than to keep him alive, have children, etc. There is no doubt that the worst place and time to have been enslaved in human history was Saint-Domimgue before the Haitian Revolution
>>18019507>French plantation-owners worked their African slaves so hard that half died within a few years; it was cheaper to import new slaves than to improve working conditions enough to increase survival. The rate of death of slaves on Saint Domingue's plantations was higher than anywhere else in the Western hemisphere. Over the French colony's hundred-year course, slavery killed about a million Africans, and thousands more chose suicide. Slaves newly arrived from Africa, particularly women, were especially likely to kill themselves; some thought that in death they could return home to Africa. Pregnant slaves usually did not survive long enough or have healthy enough pregnancies to birth live babies, but if they did, the children often died young. Food was insufficient, and slaves were expected to grow and prepare it for themselves on top of their already crushing, 12-hour workdays. It was legal for a slaveholder to kill a slave who hit a white person, according to the 1685 Code Noir, a decree by the French king Louis XIV regulating practices of slaves and slavers. Torture of slaves was routine; they were whipped, burned, buried alive, restrained and allowed to be bitten by swarms of insects, mutilated, raped, and had limbs amputated. Slaves caught eating the sugar cane would be forced to wear tin muzzles in the fields>Around 75,000 white French people died during the Haitian Revolution, a dramatic contrast to the more than 350,000 Black people who were killed. Yet it was rare in the nineteenth century to see any acknowledgment of this disparityJust for a comparison with the massacre that Dessalines carried out with the Petit-blancs later:>1804 Haitian massacre: 3,000–5,000 deaths
>>18019507>>18019510Damn, that's harsh. Doesn't answer my question though. Leopold II was similarly cruel in the Congo, yet they never revolted against the Belgians successfully like the Haitians did with the French.
>>18019461Robespierre freed the slaves and they tried to re-enslave the freedmen, basically. This is a very oversimplified version of the ten year conflict that eventually lead to Haitian independence. Haiti is the size of Brittany with much rougher geography and the further danger of tropical diseases. Plus by that point the cat was squarely out of the bag with blacks having had a very prominent role in the official politics of the Island for the last ten years. Leclerc's (unexecutable) orders notwithstanding.>>18019464France being busy is just cope. Napoleon Bankrupted france attempting to retake the island and sent comparable troop numbers to American revolutionary war.>>18019520Congo was a completely different thing. Leopold owned the Congo Free State as a private person, who also happened to be the King of Belgium. The Congo was annexed into Belgium to end the crisis. And the main reason for the atrocities was because the Free state allowed company yokels and native troops to do whatever.
>>18019580Led*to the* American revolutionary
>>18019461Disease. Everyone likes down playing the role disease plays in history, especially military history.
From what I understand the blacks did the exact same thing they did in South Africa. They lulled the whites into a false sense of security with "oh we'll be a colorblind republic, this will be a land for everyone", and then completely fucking rugpulled them and made it to be a black ethno-state.
>>18019614Actually the French were trying to exterminate them at that stage of the war. And if anyone got Rugpulled it was Louverture. Who was ostensibly loyal to the French government up until Leclerc was sent to throw overthrow them.
>>18019621Louverture promulgated his own constitution to preempt any law being imposed on them and was clearly angling if not for independence than at least self rule of Hispaniola, you could argue that was the logical step France had to take to keep it within the empire, but to paint him as loyal to France is somewhat misrepresenting what was happening.
>>18019625Ok fair enough. You are right in that.
>>18019461They timed their offensives to hit the French after they went through the first rounds of illness in the wet seasons and flushed them down to the lowland coastline. France couldn't use the slaves they controlled for much without securing the territory, while the Haitians could use any black body they came across. Likewise, they couldn't run their entire army to the island since they had a war to fight in Europe, and the men they sent were just frontier regiments to begin with.Morale dipped into hell since Haitians had the moral and physical high ground, and they played at convincing the French their men were able to revive themselves on the battlefield. At one point, the leading general (Rochambeau) got the idea to openly slaughter as many black people as he could find, using Cuban dogs and sulfur-filled hulls to do so. His aim was to kill off every freed slave and "reset" with a new wave, but by the time of the HR, many of the slaves being sent over from West Africa were just captured soldiers or militiamen, and turning the conflict into an explicit race war gave his enemy everything he needed to win it. If France hadn't returned to threaten them into submission in 1825, the country would be unrecognizably different today.
>>18019652Without all the debt it'd be Wakanda?
>>18019680It wouldn't be much different from Cuba or Jamaica, one would assume.
>>18019464fpbp
>>18019699There's a whole world of difference between Cuba and Jamaica man. Besides, there's plenty of majority-nigger affluent caribbean countries already. You've got Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and the Bahamas to name a few. Who needs one more?
My guess, other European nations had a presence in the new world and really hated Napoleon, a race war of extermination was also very different from the wars Napoleon won and fought.
>>18019652>If France hadn't returned to threaten them into submission in 1825, the country would be unrecognizably different tod-ACKYeah, that migthy French navy of 19th century threatened innocent haitians. But enough with fairy tales, let us clean this part of Hispaniola.
A variety of reasons:>Frenchmen were so hugely outnumbered by slaves and weapons at the time weren't advanced enough to makeup for the disparity>there was little or no help forthcoming from France or other French colonies because Haiti's french population had tried to stage their own independence movement in the wake of the French Revolution>once word of the massacre of the French population reached France, however, there was some impetus to do something but it was too far gone on the island, and France did not consider it worthwhile to try and take it back by force. >Instead, they isolated Haiti by embargo>Haiti has no navy, and its economy is basically 100% agricultural exports, so an embargo destroyed Haiti's prosperity completely. It was once the jewel of the Caribbean but after the French blockade it became totally destitute>Haiti caved and agreed to France's terms which basically put Haiti in insurmountable debt to France which it continued to pay off until the mid 20th century So yeah. Haiti succeeded because it was a very timely revolution that took advantage of France being preoccupied with its own Revolution, and then was allowed to keep the island because France decided to squeeze it for money instead of running the plantations themselves. The real miracle is how the slaves found the will to overthrow their masters in the first place because that is usually what prevents slave revolts from even starting, the spirit of the slaves are too broken to even rise up. But the French slavemasters on Haiti were supposedly very, very cruel. So they felt they had nothing to lose.
>>18019699Cuba is falling apart, not comparable to Jamaica. Though it's not necessarily because it is Cuba that it is falling apart now. More because the current communists are sclerotic party-parasites from a state still basically stuck in the late 20th century.Trinidad and Tobago a better reference, maybe.
>>18019733Afaik they believed that their African witchcraft(voodoo) could guarantee their victory by the magic powers it afforded to their leaders.
>>18019771And they were correct, clearly. Given that the name of the place is not Saint Domingue.
>>18019706>>18019741I explicitly mentioned Cuba so that people can establish a baseline with another nation the US embargoed and scorned because they were both antithetical to everything US politics stood for.
>>18019733>The real miracle is how the slaves found the will to overthrow their masters in the first place because that is usually what prevents slave revolts from even startingThe slave revolts ran away with free black political activism, I understand. The slaves themselves found enough commonality on shared elements of West African culture to create enough solidarity among themselves, plus the worst thing that could happen to them is dying, which would likely be their fate anyway a year or two down the line if they did not revolt.
>>18019461Because initially, French society actually SUPPORTED the revolt because they believed bringing down slavery and establishing equality was part of the French revolution and equally the haitians rebels were very enthusiastic abouth the French revolution and supported it.At some point french troops and haitians rebels actually collaborated in repelling the British invasion in the 1790s and haitians rebels and at this point haitian slaves led by Louverture were supposed to be officially freed and made citizens of the French republic but Napoleon was a moron and when he came into power in 1799, revoked the abolition Law of 1791 and deported the haitian leader to France, and this was a terrible mistake because Louverture was succeeded by independentist Dessalines and it ended very badly for the 2 sides...
Define successful, they bow down to france to this day.
>>18019461The Carribean before malaria drugs and sewage treatment was fucking hell. Disease spread rapidly among soldiers and fighting in the heavily forested and humid Haitian highlands killed many before the battle even began
The honorary nigger polish soldiers helped them
>>18019461France being at war with the entirety of the civilized world when the revolt occurred kinda helped.
>>18019461Because their leader was an octoroon lightskin who they subsequently betrayed
>>18020766Oh also, the reason they never got invaded by france was because the niggers, after killing the lightskin, enslaved the Haitian economy to paying a tribute to France until the like 1950's. They knew France had every right to come back and destroy them
>>18019497Napoleon made up for the losses in quelling the rebellion and losing its resources by selling liousiana for a fraction of its worth.In retrospect the napoleonic wars really fucked over france just for a few minutes of glory.
>>18020766Who exactly are you referring to?The two important figures in the Haitian side who were not full black and born into slavery were Petion and Boyer. Both of which had largely succesful presidencies.And neither of those were Octoroons.
>>18020782Imagine making up shit to dunk on niggers as if it's hard to dunk on them normally.
>>18019461The French are among the least competent colonizers in history.
>>18020782And Rigaud. Of course.
>>18019461>island>jungle>mountains>malaric swampsHave fun fighting in that terrain. On top of that frogs really fucking botched the logistics in their re-conquest operation to make thins even harder for themselves, and after it failed, decided to abandon/sell all their new world colonies altogether
The actual timeline of the Haitian Revolution is unknown to normies, who wrongfully see the whole thing as a big struggle against France.In 1791, in the midst of the French Revolution, a slave revolt started in Haiti.It was just your usual slave revolt like the Anglos had seen countless in Jamaica, but instead of just crushing it, the French Revolutionary governement, which was were busy fighting in Europe, said fuck it and just abolished slavery.Then for pretty much the next decade, France armed and trained the former slaves and used them to defend the colony against British and Spanish invasions.This worked pretty well and the former slaves (now part of the French army) kicked the ass of the Spanish and the British.By 1799, Haiti was secured for France, but Toussaint Louverture (the general that had led the former slaves against the British/Spanish) had grown very influential and was starting to demand more autonomy.He was also displeased when Napoleon took over.Napoleon wasn't willing to give in and even decided to reinstate slavery, which sparked the hostilities between France and the former slaves in 1802.Napoleon sent an expeditionnary force but it got decimated by Yellow Fever and then the rebels decisively defeated the survivors at the battle of Vertieres in 1804, securing victory and independence.Then all the remaining whites were massacred by Dessalines (who had taken over after Louverture was captured), with the exception of a few Polish deserters.So basically there were three different phases to the Haitian Revolution, including the long one during which France trained and armed the former slaves to use them against Britain and Spain.It wasn't just a slave revolt that got out of hands on its own.With this specific context it would have ended crushed like the countless Marroon Wars in Jamaica.
>>18020778>In retrospect the napoleonic wars really fucked over france just for a few minutes of glory.They were never going to keep overseas colonies vs England. Britannia truly did rule the waves.
>>18019461>they managed to beat off the 2nd most powerful country in the worldFrance was the most powerful country in the world in 1804, not second
>>18020782>Boyer>largely successful presidencyI can't even laugh at this. I just can't.
>>18020947Yeah, I mean he's literally the one who chose on his own volition to buy France's de jure claim Haiti (which is now wrongfully labeled as "reparations to France" by retards).
Haitians absolutely BTFO any Frenchie, then and now.
>>18020782The southern part of Haiti were plantation owners with a lot of mixed bloods in them. They were the intellectual leadership. The main leader was an octoroon planter that believed he deserved full citizenship or something, whatever rights he didn't have by being legally mixed race. About halfway through the rebellion the French cut him a deal that they can have special rights or whatever as long as they help keep the negroes in chains. The blacks and mostly black mulattos deported him or something "got him out of Haiti" and he got swept up by the US and died in a prison cell or something.Most of the whites from Haiti settled in the US
>>18020958>french father>african mother>sells out haiti to buy a title that only has meaning to france>after securing the rest of the island>knowing full and well that the legal arrangement would only punish the power base of the country>oversees the degradation of the army loss of the DR>runs away to france when he's done
>>18020908Debatable, their navy wasn't much to speak of and their economy wasn't nearly as good as their British rivals.
>>18020908Everyone likes to meme on the Qing dynasty for the Opium Wars, but in terms of actual, total strength, they held the 2nd place position, immediately behind Britain. France was 3rd.
>>18021097Dude what? XDChina was definitely not on the same level of power as the European empires during the late 18th century. It was comparable to, like, the Ottomans in strength.
>>18019461>Considering how shit Haiti is todaySo you think the people who did that rebellion hundreds of years ago are the people who occupy it today? Being born on a patch of land on which something great once happened a long time ago, doesnt make YOU great, you know?
>>18020984But can you tell the name of this octoroon lightskin?Because you seem to be talking nonsense mixed with misremembered bits of L'Ouverture, who was fully black.>>18021009>sells out haiti to buy a title that only has meaning to franceIt was more to prevent the possibility of a reconquest expedition/gain international recognition. >oversees the degradation of the army loss of the DRAfter conquering the DR.And for the record lasting, 25 years as dictator is fairly well accomplished by Haiti standards.
>>18023266I'm not saying Boyer was a good or comptent leader. But he was a very well accomplished private individual who kept a personal fief for several decades.
>>18023375And this is already puts him at the top of the list when it comes to Haiti. Right next to Papa Doc and uh, someone else.
>>18020642T/his/
>>18023192They're the descendants of those people is the thing.
>>18020970Their black kind is going extinct.
>>18019733>The real miracle is how the slaves found the will to overthrow their masters in the first placemany of them were fresh from africa and many of them used to be rival warlords, aritocracy, soldiers, people of prominence that victorious warlords who sold them wanted to get rid offthey weren't your 4th generation of chattel slaves types
>>18021074Before Trafalgar their navy was actually still amazing, it was just undertrained since the crews were stuck in port and they were dispersed.
>>18019461Haitian voodoo masters found European black magic books and made a deal with demons to free themselves but as a result forever cursed the island.
the entire french army that was sent there all died of disease, that's it, that's literally the reason
>>18019461White people helped them at first. They were killed later.
>>18023713>Before Trafalgar their navy was actually still amazing, it was just undertrained>my navy is amazing>I mean, it doesn't have any experience or discipline, and is forced to hide in ports forever >but on paper it's amazing
>>18021834>China was definitely not on the same level of power as the European empires during the late 18th century.It was. You're thinking of the 19th century and assuming all of a state's power will necessarily be useful in fighting a purely naval invasion.>>18023266>It was more to prevent the possibility of a reconquest expedition/gain international recognition.Sure, let's just promise all the wealth we'll ever have to a country that "threatens" us.>And for the record lasting, 25 years as dictator is fairly well accomplished by Haiti standards.Because the following leaders had to contend with his burdensome debt. That's not some argument in his favor.
