【可汗學院】歐洲史（全16講）公開課 P6 - 6.06. 第五節 海地革命1

我現在就想轉眼,從所有在歐洲發生的瘋狂事件中, 走到半個世界的周圍,去到一個在菲律賓的法國殖民地, 那就是聖...聖...聖... 聖...聖...聖... 聖...聖...聖...聖... 聖...聖...聖... 聖... In 1492, Columbus showed up, and it was a Spanish colony. And I'm talking about just the western side. The eastern side continued to be a Spanish colony. But in 1697, it was officially given over to the French, but it was a Spanish colony until then. And then 1697, until the period that we're talking about right now, which is the late 1700s, or the period of the French Revolution, it was a French colony. It's a French colony. Now, you're probably saying, Sal, why are you... All of this craziness is happening in France. Kings are getting toppled. People are getting guillotined. There's wars with all of the empires. Why are you going all the way to this side of the world and focusing on this small little island? Well, the big answer, or I guess the main answer, especially from the perspective of the French, there's other historical reasons why this, I think, is relevant. But the major reason is that St. Domingue, at this time, was the most... Let me write that in. Most profitable slave colony in the world. Now, these colonialists, they cared about profit pretty much all the time, to a large degree at this point in history. That's all they cared about. But you have to think about it. Remember, what precipitated the French Revolution, or what I think was a major factor, was that France was broke. France is broke. So you have this little island here. It's a slave colony. Their plantations produce tons of sugar cane. Hugely profitable business. Anything that goes on in St. Domingue will matter to France because France is broke. And not only are they broke, but they have all of these wars with pretty much everybody in Europe. So let's go back and remind ourselves of what was actually happening in France at the time. We'll actually go back to France. So 1789,you had your convocation of the Estates General. The Third Estate, they were kind of a little peeved. So they met at the tennis court. They declared themselves the National Assembly. They had the tennis court oath. National Assembly, Third Estate. Actually, they declared themselves the National Assembly. Then they were kicked out of the room. And then they had to do the tennis court oath, where they promised that they would create a constitution. And they started talking about liberty and fraternity and brotherhood and all men are created equal. All of these great ideas of the Enlightenment. And while all that was happening, you had this businessman,Vincent Ogier. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right. He was a wealthy mixed race. So let me write that down. He was a mixed race. And he was 1 4th African descent. And he was 3 4ths European or French European descent. And he was in Paris on business. And while he was there, the French Revolution and the Convocation of the Estates General started happening. He said,gee, you know what? I'm a wealthy, educated guy. I own land in what is now Haiti, but in St. Domingue at the time. He actually owned slaves. I want to be very clear about this. He owned slaves as well. And he's like,you know,I am just as good as all of these,I guess you could say, purely European guys all around me. But I don't get equal rights now. But all of this great stuff is happening with talks of a new constitution. Let me get in on this. And so he started lobbying with several other,I guess you could say, forward-thinking individuals. He started lobbying for equal rights. So Vincent Ogier,he lobbied for equal rights. The rights to vote and not to be treated like a second-class citizen. Lobbied for equal rights. Now,at first,they were kind of ignored. Or,you know,the National Assembly, they wanted to do good things, but they didn't want to do something so extreme as considering this wealthy,educated, probably well-spoken individual an equal. So they were repuffed a bit. But eventually,in March of 1790, so 1790,we're talking about March, the National Assembly passed an amendment that had the wording, all proprietors ought to be, and there's some other stuff in between, ought to be active citizens. Well,Mr.Vincent Ogier and his collaborators say,this is our victory. This is the wording that tells us, look,anyone who's a proprietor, I own land. I'm a proprietor. It says we ought to be active citizens. This gives us the right to vote. So he declared that a victory for his rights or people like his rights. And so he goes back to St. Domingue and tells the governor, look,all of this craziness has been happening in France. We have a National Assembly, and they've essentially given me the right to vote. Unfortunately,the governor of St. Domingue, governor ignores him or essentially doesn't listen to him, ignores what he has to say. He says,you know, I don't care what's going on in France. I'm not going to give you and people like you the right to vote. So this obviously did not make him a happy individual. He seems like he has everything going in his favor. Even the National Assembly seems to be going in his favor, but the governor ignores him. So he starts a revolt. Starts a revolt when he returns and he's essentially rebuffed. He returned in October of 1790, ignored by the governor. So he starts a revolt. Unfortunately,his revolt wasn't successful. And I want to be very clear here. When he revolted, he wasn't revolting to abolish slavery. He wasn't revolting to give all black men on the island the right to vote. He was revolting to give free men of color who owned land the right to vote. And that was probably his mistake in the revolt. Because I want to give you a little sense of the demographics of St. Domingue at that time. There were 500,000 slaves of African descent. You had 40,000 white colonialists. And you had 28,000 mixed race. Mixed race free men of color or however you want to describe them. Now,if you're going to start a revolt, you're going to get some subset of... If you're starting a revolt to defend only your rights, you're going to get a subset of this 28,000 against a very well-armed,in-power 40,000. Now,if you thought maybe I should speak in a little bit broader terms, he was essentially trying to become a part of this club. But if he had spoken maybe in slightly broader terms, maybe he could have tapped into some of the angst of that 500,000. But he didn't. And so his revolt was unsuccessful. And he was captured. And then in February 1791,he was executed. So it seems like all was for naught. He went through all of this trouble to get some freedom. He was ignored,tried a revolt. His revolt wasn't done that well. He was executed. But it started to,I guess, simmer within the consciousness of the people of African descent at that time. And whether or not his revolt directly led to what is going to happen over the next few years,it's unclear. But it did happen. And he was,he did at least, he was the first one that really did try to start a revolt in a major way. But anyway,after he was executed, in 17,there started to be a little bit more murmurings, especially in the north. Most of the sugar plantations were focused around the north. And obviously,the more plantations, the more profit. And there was actually a voodoo ceremony that was run by an individual whose name was Duddy Bookman. And I looked for pictures of him. I couldn't find any. Unfortunately,there aren't. He ran this voodoo ceremony where he essentially instigated a slave uprising in Haiti or what is now Haiti,but in St. Domingue. Now,remember,look at those demographics. As you can imagine, if the slaves themselves were to rise up against everyone else on the island, you could imagine, even though they might not be as well organized or as well equipped as the other members, just by sheer force, they should probably do pretty good. And so in 1791, in August 1791, an all-out slave rebellion begins. Now,you can imagine, this scares France. You know,putting aside all of the things of the revolution and all of these new notions from the Enlightenment, here's your most profitable colony in the world, and all of a sudden, there's a revolt. People on both sides of the equation are getting slaughtered. Plantations are getting burned. From the new government in France's point of view, that's just going to hurt their own profitability. And this is at a time, remember,France is broke. They're at wars with other countries. So France sends a delegation headed by this guy. Headed by this guy right there. His name was... And I know I'm butchering the pronunciations. Santenot. I don't know the best way to pronounce it. And it was him plus 6 or 7,000 troops. 6 or 7,000 troops. And they essentially were sent from France to put down the slave rebellion, to kind of get things back to the way they were. And in order to kind of consolidate everyone on France's side right here, France in April 1792... So let me write this out. So in April 1792, the Legislative Assembly, you might remember, a new constitution was created at the end of 1791, and that entailed a new Legislative Assembly. Legislative Assembly. They essentially gave full citizenship to all free people of color. Full citizenship. So unfortunately, Vincent Ogier was a little bit ahead of his time. If he'd just waited a couple of years, he wouldn't have had to revolt. Or maybe he helped to precipitate this. So it's not clear. Maybe his revolt, which maybe helped precipitate the eventual slave revolt, which eventually might have helped the Legislative Assembly come to terms with this idea. Maybe he made it happen, or maybe it would have happened on its own. But they made full citizens out of people, free people of color. Free people of color. And they probably did that. I mean, you could view it as kind of a positive or a negative spin. The positive spin was this is consistent with the ideas of the Enlightenment and the Revolution. Or if you want to kind of view a more strategizing view on it, they probably said, Hey, there's all this craziness going on in Haiti. If we can at least get these people on our side, we might be able to properly suppress these people over here. And let's be clear. Many of these mixed-race free men of color, they owned slaves themselves. So from their own self-interest, they were actually very similar to the white colonialists in St. Domingue at that time. So if they were a little bit more strategic about it, it might have been just to kind of consolidate the power on the free people on the island or the landowners on the island. But they sent that message and 6,000 to 7,000 troops to get things back in order. But you might remember, and even that, this made many people very unhappy, even on the island. As you can see, some of those white colonialists at that time, they weren't the most liberal-thinking people, and they probably didn't appreciate this idea of free men of color being able to have all of the same rights as they did. So there was obviously a lot of antagonism against this guy, against Santano right there. And then you might remember that in February 1793, we saw that in the previous video, or in several videos ago, February 1793, you start having war with Great Britain. War with Great Britain. And Great Britain had control of this right here. That is Jamaica. Just to be clear and green right here, this is St. Domingue. So that is St. Domingue. And right here, this is Santo Domingo controlled by the Spanish. So you had a big problem. Here he is, Santanox right there. He's antagonized some of the whites. He's trying to put down a slave rebellion, or at least get things back to normal. And all of a sudden, you have the British over here, and you have a lot of these white colonialists that start saying, hey,you know what? If France is going to be like that, we're going to side with the British. We're going to side with the British, or we're going to get help from the British, and we're going to use that help from the British to essentially get our way back in St. Domingue. Now,the Santanox, who was,as far as I can tell, he was of a more liberal persuasion in that he was sympathetic to the plight definitely of people of mixed race, and even to the plight possibly of slaves themselves. But also for strategic reasons, he saw the writing on the wall as well. He said,gee,you know, I have 500,000 slaves, and we need to fend off the British. So this is a pretty bold action. This is in the history of slavery. This is actually one of the most significant declarations. In August of 1793, it might be a reflection of his own ideas, or it might have just been because of the threat from Britain, Santanox declares freedom for all the slaves. He wasn't saying that they would have all of the same rights as land-owning men, but he's essentially abolishing slavery. This was initially, he did it just in the north. So this was at first just in the north, but in September and October, he eventually extended it to all of the French possessions in Saint-Domingue. Now you can imagine the slaves that were revolting this entire time, they're a little bit suspicious of this gentleman. He was,it looks like, sent to Saint-Domingue, or what is now Haiti. It looks like he was sent there to put down the uprising. He shows up with 6,000 or 7,000 troops. He tries to side with essentially the enemies of the slaves to put down the uprising. Now all of a sudden, when the British look like a bit of a threat, he's like, hey,I'm ending slavery by myself. I'm just declaring slavery to be over. They've been tricked before, and they're saying, this is probably some type of a trick just to make us kind of become a little bit passive so that they can get back at us. So their leaders were a little bit suspicious of it. But then in February of 1794, this was ratified. His declaration was ratified by the French National Convention. By the time word got to the freed slaves or the rebelling slaves on the island, so we're now in May 1794, the rebel slaves' leader, and this is a super important name to know, Toussaint L'Ouverture. He was the leader of the rebels. He was a self-educated former slave himself, and actually he proves himself over and over again to be one of the best military generals actually in much of history. In May 1794,Toussaint L'Ouverture, I'll write his name twice,Toussaint L'Ouverture, decides to essentially join sides with the French Republic, joins with French Republic. Now once again,let's look at the numbers. You have Toussaint L'Ouverture. He is essentially the leader of the 500,000 newly freed slaves. He is in charge, I mean this is essentially going, this is the military of the island. He is now the leader of the island. Now he is essentially, you can almost view him as the general or the governor of the island of this colony. At the same time, despite the fact that he had very good leadership qualities, he also had a bit of a megalomaniacal side for himself. He actually declared himself governor for life. So in 1801,he issues a constitution that declares himself governor for life. And in his defense,I guess, I mean this wasn't that unusual for this time in the world. I mean you look across the Atlantic, look what Napoleon's doing. He takes over the French Republic. He essentially is declaring himself emperor and whatnot for life. And this guy says, hey,you know, I have the same right to do it. I've led these people to essentially their freedom. They trust me. I'll declare myself governor for life. And also in his defense, and this I think also speaks to him being a step ahead of many of the rulers at this time, is that he didn't have just plain old slash and burn tactics. He actually did enforce a lot of discipline amongst his troops. And we'll see one of his right-hand men, Desalines, I know I'm pronouncing it wrong. Desalines, he was much more, I guess, savage with the people that he was fighting against. But Toussaint Louverture was very disciplined. And when he came to power, he actually did not try to get revenge on the mixed race or on the white plantation owners. He realized that, hey,you know what, we are a new people in charge of what is essentially a new country. Or in his mind, it's a new country. But let's not try to rock too many boats. Let's try to kind of keep our society going in some reasonable way so that we don't just, you know, ruin ourselves into oblivion. And he also did not declare independence from France. So that's an important point too. He wasn't some type of, you know, he didn't want to completely destroy themselves from France. So no independence. He was just happy essentially being part of the French Empire, but he himself will be the governor. Well now, you can imagine on two levels, Napoleon was not happy. And you remember that in 1799, especially 1800, Napoleon comes to power, calls himself the first consul. Napoleon, not happy. And he's not happy on essentially two grounds. One, he's, you know, there's this upstart here declaring himself governor of, declaring him governor for life of this island. No one can do that, but Napoleon. The other problem that Napoleon had is all of a sudden, once you lose 500,000 slaves and they are now free men and they can essentially, you now have to pay them maybe slightly better wages instead of just making them do what you want and just extracting all the profits, the island, the colony becomes much, much less profitable. So in the back of his mind, he also wanted to reinstate slavery. And we'll see, you'll see that he does it explicitly later on. So doesn't like slave freedom. So he sends his brother-in-law. You need a, you need a dirty job to do. You got to send someone you trust. He sends his brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, with 40,000 troops, 40,000 troops. So Napoleon is definitely taking the situation seriously with 40,000 troops to essentially take back the island from Toussaint Louverture. And so you imagine there's this huge battle that goes on, on the island of Saint-Domingue or the western half of the island or the part that's controlled by the French. And eventually, they start to get the upper advantage. And this, it doesn't help the fact that Toussaint Louverture's some of his closest generals or his closest aides, when they kind of see the writing on the wall, when they see that this guy, in the next video, I'll talk about how barbaric some of the things this guy did was. But once some of Toussaint Louverture's generals started to see the writing on the wall, they actually turned on him. They actually, and one of them was, and he actually ends up completing the revolution, but while he was fighting for Toussaint Louverture, this is Jean-Jacques Dessalines, him and some of the other right-hand men to Toussaint Louverture, he actually joins the side of Leclerc. Leclerc is kind of, you know, making it look like he's not trying to reinstate slavery, he's not trying to take citizenship away from people of African descent. He makes it look like he's only trying to take Louverture off of his high horse. So this guy says, okay, fine, you know, for the betterment of St. Domingue, I'm with you. And at that point, Toussaint Louverture is essentially in a very tough situation. So Leclerc says, hey, you know, Toussaint, let's have some negotiations and maybe we can figure out some way for you to assimilate you and the people you're leading into essentially, you know, Napoleon's, what is now turning into Napoleon's empire. So Toussaint Louverture, being a kind of upstanding individual who trusts people and a man of honor, he says, oh, you know, this Charles Leclerc must be a man of honor as well. So he meets with them to discuss, you know, kind of the terms of assimilation. Well, it turns out Charles Leclerc was not a man of honor. Maybe I could draw some devil horns on him right there. And he, when Toussaint Louverture shows up by himself for a very civilized meeting, he gets some people to arrest him, capture him, and then send him on a boat to France. And essentially, Toussaint Louverture, he dies in France in a prison. So dies in France. So I'm going to leave this video here. It's kind of a very sad moment. You have freedom for the slaves temporarily. You have this major historic figure, Toussaint Louverture, leading the slaves and trying to establish a new government. But then it gets violently suppressed by Napoleon's henchmen, by Charles Leclerc, his brother-in-law. And I'm going to finish this video just with a quote from Toussaint Louverture because it kind of foreshadows what's going to happen in the next video. So this is actually something that he said on the boat to France after being captured. In overthrowing me... Let me make the whole quote here. In overthrowing me, you have cut down in Saint-Domingue only the trunk of the Tree of Liberty. It will spring up again from the roots, for they are many and they are deep.