{"id":264,"date":"2004-01-05T13:12:56","date_gmt":"2004-01-05T17:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tradermike.net\/movethecrowd\/2004\/01\/a_haitian_history_lesson\/"},"modified":"2004-01-05T13:12:56","modified_gmt":"2004-01-05T17:12:56","slug":"a_haitian_history_lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/01\/05\/a_haitian_history_lesson\/","title":{"rendered":"A Haitian History Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an excellent article by Randall Robinson about Haiti and its fight for independence 200 years ago<\/a>. Some highlights:<\/p>\n

\nSt. Domingue (as Haiti was then called by the French) was at that time the most prosperous colonial possession of any<\/i> European power. It created far greater wealth for France than the thirteen American colonies combined<\/i>. Its massive wealth-generating capacity caused it to be known far and wide as “The Pearl of the Antilles” and its French owners had a clear and proven management strategy for profit maximization: push the slaves to their absolute physical limit, work them literally<\/i> to death, and then quickly import replacement slaves from Africa who would, in turn, be worked to death. This, St. Domingue’s plantocracy had discovered, controlled operating costs, kept the pace of economic activity at a highly efficient and productive pace, minimized slack and wastage, and produced massive, stupendous profits. <\/p>\n

St. Domingue’s policy of working its slaves to death and then quickly importing replacements from Africa proved to be the ultimate karmic boomerang. St. Domingue’s African-born slaves not only were not yet broken psychologically, but they were also in possession of significant military training and experience gained on the other side of the Atlantic. And they combined with brilliant, indefatigable, St. Domingue-born blacks like Toussaint L’Ouverture and Dessalines to create a black revolutionary juggernaut the likes of which Europe and the United States had not seen before – or since. <\/p>\n

The Blacks of St. Domingue forced the world to see both them and the millions of other Africans enslaved throughout the Americas with new eyes.<\/b> No longer could it be assumed that they could forever be brutalized into creating massive fortunes and building sprawling empires for the glory of Europe and America.<\/p>\n

On January 1, 1804, hundreds of thousands of slave revolutionaries established an independent republic and named it Haiti in honor of the Amerindian people, long since killed off by European brutality and diseases, who had called the land Ayiti – Land of Many Mountains. They had banished slavery from their land and proclaimed it an official refuge for escaped slaves from anywhere in the world. They had defeated the mightiest of the mighty. They had shattered the myth of European invincibility. <\/p>\n

Europe was livid. America, apoplectic. The blacks in St. Domingue had forgotten their place and would be made to pay. Dearly. For the next two hundred years.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The complete article is a great history lesson, especially for those of us who were taught his-story in American schools. <\/p>\n

Happy Bicentennial to Haiti and thanks to Kamau<\/a> for highlighting the article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s an excellent article by Randall Robinson about Haiti and its fight for independence 200 years ago. Some highlights: St. Domingue (as Haiti was then called by the French) was at that time the most prosperous colonial possession of any European power. It created far greater wealth for France than the thirteen American colonies combined.… Continue reading A Haitian History Lesson<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":23,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/06\/25\/affirmative_action_response\/","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":0},"title":"Affirmative Action Response","date":"June 25, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Rob, the BusinessPundit, correctly states that the government should neither restrain nor aid the American people in their pursuits. (By the way, he used a quote from Thomas Jefferson, of all people, to make that point.) But he fails to even mention the centuries of free labor through slavery that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Current Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":387,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/09\/05\/mississippi_in_africa\/","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":1},"title":"Mississippi in Africa","date":"September 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's another book that caught my eye. I saw 'Mississippi in Africa: The Saga of the Slaves of Prospect Hill Plantation and Their Legacy in Liberia Today' in a book store yesterday. After a quick glance I knew I had to read it. (There are NEW copies available in Amazon's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Books"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":343,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/06\/17\/journals_of_2_ex-slaves_draw_vivid_portraits\/","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":2},"title":"Journals of 2 Ex-Slaves Draw Vivid Portraits","date":"June 17, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"If you haven't already done so, check out the New York Times' article about the soon to be published journals by two ex-slaves. (Link via Dana's Lincoln Didn't Free The Slaves post) As usual, I've 'emancipated' the text below. Journals of 2 Ex-Slaves Draw Vivid Portraits By RANDY KENNEDY Published:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Race"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":174,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/08\/29\/21st_century_slaves\/","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":3},"title":"21st Century Slaves","date":"August 29, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"This issue of National Geographic looks like a must read for the story on modern day slavery: There are more slaves today than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The modern commerce in humans rivals illegal drug trafficking in its global reach\u2014and in the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Current Events"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":81,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2003\/07\/16\/african_ceremonies_exhibit\/","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":4},"title":"African Ceremonies Exhibit","date":"July 16, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"From yesterday's Yahoo! Picks: African Ceremonies In this exceptional exhibit, photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher thoughtfully record the vanishing customs of tribal African cultures. Ten years in the making, the collection spans the continent of Africa and captures sacred birth, marriage, and death rituals. See how a Surma father\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Internet"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":360,"url":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/2004\/07\/22\/the_tivolution_claims_another_victim\/","url_meta":{"origin":264,"position":5},"title":"The TiVolution Claims Another Victim","date":"July 22, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I just had an instant message conversation with my boy Kamau. (Yes, this is the same guy that writes wrote at TheBlackHandSide.net. His blog disappeared because his hosting service has gone AWOL on him. I don't know if he's gonna start up a new site or not. If he does\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Technology"","img":{"alt_text":"DIRECTV by Rapid Satellite","src":"http:\/\/www.awltovhc.com\/image-1550889-10285737","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.michaelseneadza.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}