1989 Copyright © 1963 original 1938, ISBN: 0-679-72467-2
Bogen er beretningen om slaven, der overførte Den Franske Revolution til San Domingo (1791-1803) og skabte Haïti. En meget fascinerende beretning. Appendix postulerer en særlig Vestindisk kultur og en Vestindisk indflydelse på Afrika gennem Jomo Kenyatta og Kwame Nkrumah. Om Haiti og USAs manglende accept af en selvstændig sort stat så nær se Haïti.
James er fra Trinidad. Født 1901. Uddannet i England, kom til USA i 1938, blev udvist i 1953 men fik lov at vende tilbage i 1970, så der er et personligt engagement, som skinner positivt igennem.
Hans beskrivelse af Columbus og den efterfølgende civilisering af "de primitive" på Hispaniola er fremragende, kort, præcis og malende. Den dækker vel enhver kolonisering. [Inklusive USAs, som den pågår netop nu. Nu er det spekulation i fødevarer, der skal skabe den disciplinerende sult. Det er vel desværre ingen tilfældighed, at det er risprisen og ikke hvede- eller majsprisen, der virkelig er steget. OJ] Allerede i 1784 forsøgte man at undgå udbredelsen af enkle sandheder ved at forbyde bøger. På Haïti hande man allerede før 1789 forskellen mellem markslaver og husslaver, og Toussaint L'Ouverture var husslave. Han demonstrerer så også, at den status ikke nødvendigvis betyder, at man er (selv)tilfreds og passiv, man kan blive en fremragende revolutionær alligevel. James er klar og præcis også i sin afvisning af akademiske slaveri-apologeter. Som husslave lærte Toussaint at læse og han læste tydeligvis ikke - i hvertfald ikke kun - Familie-Journalen.
De stolteste slaver flygtede, i 1720 levede 1000 i bjergene, i 1751 mindst 3000. Og de levede naturligvis i bander med høvdinge, hvoraf i hvert fald en fik større planer om at forene alle negre og smide de hvide ud.
IN 1789 the French West Indian colony of San Domingo supplied two-thirds of the overseas trade of France and was the greatest individual market for the European slavetrade. ix
In August 1791, after two years of the French Revolution and its repercussions in San Domingo, the slaves revolted. The struggle lasted for 12 years. The slaves defeated in turn the local whites and the soldiers of the French monarchy, a Spanish invasion, a British expedition of some 60,000 men, and a French expedition of similar size under Bonaparte's brother-in-law. The defeat of Bonapartes expedition in 1803 resulted in the establishment of the Negro state of Haiti which has lasted to this day. ix
... the traditionally famous historians have been more artist than scientist: they wrote so well because they saw so little. ... Great men make history, but only such history as it is possible for them to make. Their freedom of achievement is limited by the necessities of their environment. x
[COLUMBUS] He sailed to Haiti. One of his ships being wrecked, the Haitian Indians helped him so willingly that very little was lost and of the articles which they brought on shore not one was stolen.
The Spaniards, the most advanced Europeans of their day, annexed the island, called it Hispaniola, and took the backward natives under their protection. They introduced Christianity, forced labour in mines, murder, rape, bloodhounds, strange diseases, and artificial famine (by the destruction of cultivation to starve the rebellious). These and other requirements of the higher civilisation reduced the native population from an estimated half-a-million, perhaps a million, to 60,000 in 15 years. 3-4.
... in 1517, Charles V. authorised the export of 15,000 slaves to San Domingo, and thus priest and King launched on the world the American slave-trade and slavery. 4
The Negro Code, Louis XIVs attempt to ensure them humane treatment, ordered that they should be given, every week, two pots and a half of manioc, three cassavas, two pounds of salt beef or three pounds of salted fish-about food enough to last a healthy man for three days. Instead their masters gave them half-a-dozen pints of coarse flour, rice, or pease, and half-a-dozen herrings, 11
"No species of men has more intelligence," wrote Hilhard dAuberteuil, a colonist, in 1784, and had his book banned. 18
All the slaves, however, did not undergo this régime. There was a small privileged caste, the foremen of the gangs, coachmen, cooks, butlers, maids, nurses, female companions, and other house-servants. These repaid their kind treatment and comparatively easy life with a strong attachment to their masters, and have thus enabled Tory historians, regius professors and sentimentalists to represent plantation slavery as a patriarchal relation between master and slave. Permeated with the vices of their masters and mistresses, these upper servants gave themselves airs and despised the slaves in the fields. 19
Toussaint L'Ouverture also belonged to this small and privileged caste. 19
The greatest of these chiefs was Mackandal. He conceived the bold design of uniting all the Negroes and driving the whites out of the colony. 20
The Home Government could pass what laws it liked. White San Domingo would not tolerate any interference with the methods by which they kept their slaves in order. 24
But among these literary opponents of slavery was one who, nine years before the fall of the Bastille, called boldly for a slave revolution with a passionate conviction that it was bound to come some day and relieve Africa and Africans. He was a priest, the Abbé Raynal and he preached his revolutionary doctrine in the Philosophical and Political History of the Establishments and Commerce of the Europeans in the Two Indies. It was a book famous in its time and it came into the hands of the slave most fitted to make use of it, Toussaint L'Ouverture. 24-5
Orla Jordal, 2007
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