Introduction

Across the highest peaks of the Chaine de la Selle mountain range, shouts of freedom echoed on the first day of 1804 for the second time in the western hemisphere. After twelve years of fighting on the island of Hispaniola, the people of St. Domingo had declared their independence from France. Quite unlike the American Revolution, these were former slaves who had stood toe to toe with their masters and overcome. Their amazing story would be relegated to the traditional English textbook as a mere slave revolt that annoyed Napoleon and gave President Jefferson the greatest land acquisition in American history. And while the Louisiana Purchase was significant in its own right, the people of St. Domingo would be ignored by the United States until President Lincoln granted them recognition in 1862.


The Slave Rebellion

By late 1791, when the government of the United States was only being established, word began spreading north that slaves in this thriving sugar colony had taken up arms against their French masters. Only twenty years earlier, the island's sugar production exceeded the entire output of the British Empire and the very thought of revolution was a danger to the delicate economy of several nations. 1 Food quality, or the lack thereof, had not been the cause of inspirational uprise, however. Men in chains simply wanted to claim their right of freedom regardless of the cost.

As an "extreme supporter" of their rebellion, Abraham Bishop of Connecticut introduced a political segment for a small Boston newspaper called "The Rights of Black Men." Bishop demanded consistency from Americans who affirmed that all men were free by the Declaration of Independence, but somehow failed to recognize that this included black men as well. 2 "If freedom depends on color, we have only to seek for the whitest man in the world, that we may find the freest and for the blackest, that we may find the greatest slave." 3 Even Thomas Paine, who seemed to be present for every man's revolution, noted in the same year that the events of St. Domingo were a "natural consequence of slavery and must be expected everywhere." 4

Rumors began to spread throughout George Washington's administration in May of 1792 that the British Prime Minister, William Pitt, was involved in trying to free St. Domingo slaves from their French masters. Far more accurate was that Pitt had intended to bring an end to the Caribbean slave trade, launch an insurrection, and then offer the displaced residents protection under British rule. Pitt received a proposal to make an alliance with Spain for the purpose of keeping France and the United States from getting involved in the West Indies. 5 President Washington, who had come to see his own use of slave labor as a "misfortune," said very little on the subject. 6 However, if the uprise of August 1791 had been the isolated work of international conspiracy, then historians might look back and say that the enslaved people of St. Domingo had no mind to realize their own chains. But this was simply not the case.

Eighteenth-century French policies on slavery differed from those in the United States in that "the child shall follow the condition of its father." Thus, when black women in slavery would give birth to the children of their owner, the infants were free by law. At the end of the century, the number of citizens born under this system outnumbered whites by two-thirds. 7 Freedom was henceforth a breeding ground for more freedom. With the number of slaves far exceeding the number of masters on the island, revolution was a natural consequence.

Most remembered in this revolution is the name of Toussaint L'Ouverture, a slave who became the remarkable general of his people. When the "struggle of master and slave" was quickly over in 1791, L'Ouverture came to the aid of the "white people, who were now in turn the feeble and oppressed party." One story even suggests that he helped his own former master escape into North America. 8

Nicknamed "the Opener," L'Ouverture is often referred to as "the first of the blacks" and "the father of negro liberty in the New World." 9 One particular Spanish officer who had served alongside of him said, "If a heavenly being were to descend upon earth, he could not inhabit a heart more apparently good than that of Toussaint L'Ouverture." 10 By March of 1797, he was named "general in chief of the armies of St. Domingo" and would remain the understood governor of his people. 11

As the people of St. Domingo grew weary of their own revolution, the international community had cut them off from trading ports around the world. It was soon discovered that "foreigners were afraid" to deal with them. Those who had always known freedom could no longer enjoy the "comforts of life" and travel that they had once enjoyed under the French government. The people were divided. St. Domingo was now made up of the newly free who praised L'Ouverture and the formerly free who remembered the prosperity of French rule. 12 The seeds of civil war and betrayal had already been planted, but the pressing reality for L'Ouverture was that he needed help from someone who supported him on the outside. He could not achieve a peaceful republic without the aid of a foreign ally.


The Adams Administration

Among the great sympathizers of this island revolution was the recently elected President John Adams. Both he and his Federalist administration saw the spirit of George Washington in the character of L'Ouverture for "leading his people out of colonial domination." 13 In November of 1798, President Adams received a heartbreaking letter from the struggling governor saying, "It is with great surprise and much pain that I see your nation's ships abandon, after so many years, the ports of St. Domingo, renouncing in that way, all commercial relations between us." 14 As an unprecedented gesture of support, Adams encouraged his counterpart to speak with him further about the needs of the island.

Joseph Bunel, a representative of L'Ouverture, arrived in December of that year, and became the first man of "African descent" to dine with an American president. Already a young diplomat in his own right, the young John Quincy Adams had been pleading with his father to recognize St. Domingo as a "free and independent" nation. Hoping to receive the support of a Congressional body he once oversaw under Washington, the president took the word of his son along with his dinner guest and promptly pushed "Toussaint's Clause" through the House and Senate. 15 By the end of this effort in December of 1798, Adams would "dispatch arms and ships" for the cause of like-minded independence. 16

Alexander Hamilton, former Secretary of the Treasury under Washington and co-creator of the Federalist party, had been born in the Caribbean islands and saw no economic merit in the institution of slavery. As early as 1785, Hamilton and John Jay had been founding members of the New York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been or May Be Liberated. 17 There, he played a "key role in assisting" any slaves and former masters who came to the United States after the rebellion of 1791. 18

Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State under Adams, wrote to Hamilton on February 9, 1799 saying that "the president sees the immense advantage of the commerce of the island, and will undoubtedly give the act as liberal a construction as will be politically expedient." The letter would go on to speak informatively about the Adams agenda for supplying both arms and productive assistance in St. Domingo if, perhaps, Hamilton himself might get involved in drafting their constitution. He was hesitant to write a document of law before an official declaration of independence had been made, but he sent Pickering an unofficial letter by February 21 that later became the "core" foundation of law by 1801. 19 Soon after receiving this brief support of the United States, President Adams would lose re-election, Hamilton would lose his life, and the government of St. Domingo would be at the mercy of President Thomas Jefferson.


The Jefferson Administration

During the bicentennial celebration of 2004, famed comedian Bill Cosby thanked the Haitian people for "shaking the foundations of slavery everywhere in 1804." For it was on January 1, after twelve years of fighting, that they finally declared their independence. 20 Sadly denied his chance to see this moment, L'Ouverture had "frozen to death" on April 7, 1803 in a French "jail cell high in the Jura Mountains" after being betrayed by the military servants of Napoleon. 21 The loss of Governor L'Ouverture left a newly independent nation in the hands of a dangerous alternative who thought little of diplomacy and sought great revenge for the injustice of black slavery.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines had completed the revolution of his predecessor and seemed to be an appropriate replacement. But almost immediately upon taking authority, Dessalines abolished the foreign title of St. Domingo and restored the "aboriginal" word for such mountainous regions: Hayti. 22 According to the current curriculum for Palm Beach County schools, students are taught that the Haitian "blue and red flag" was devised by ripping away the French tricolor that included a central "white" band. 23 And soon after proclaiming himself Emperor of Haiti, Dessalines introduced the Constitution of 1805 out of which Article 14 would state that "all Haitians are to be referred to only by the generic word black." 24 The emperor was preparing to clear the land of any white power that remained.

Far from the hopes and vision of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haiti rapidly grew into a militaristic society living in defense of any French return. The new emperor divided his population into "workers and soldiers" while emphasizing the need for a strong standing army. Little attention was given to the once-thriving economy and the line between rich and poor was harshly split. 25 Striking fear into the hearts of an unsure U.S. government, Dessalines took his poorly equipped army and marched across the island "ruthlessly slaughtering every white person still alive." 26 As Lewis and Clark continued their exploration of the territory earned by the Haitian Revolution, merciless armies of Dessalines made it horribly difficult for Jefferson and his fellow slaveholders in Washington to change their thinking about free blacks.

Congressman John W. Eppes of Virginia, son-in-law to the president, stood on the floor of the House in 1805 and demanded that U.S. merchants should avoid all trade with Haiti. Eppes went so far as to declare that he would "pledge the Treasury of the United States that the Negro government should be destroyed." The Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, concurred with the Virginia Congressman by suggesting that any trade with Haiti would be "illicit." And when the debate crossed houses, Senator James Jackson of Georgia was echoing both men in favor of anything that could be done to destroy the economically weak island. By the end of 1806, the Senate had passed an embargo of Haiti to the president's desk. 27

After leading thirteen colonies to the climax of their own written independence just forty years earlier, Jefferson was now in a position to either look for solutions with his southern neighbor or ignore them altogether. The president chose to blacklist Haiti into a long-term vacuum of economic and social poverty. Jefferson was, after all, the very man who had sympathized with the French Revolution and once wrote to their local minister, "Nothing would be easier than to furnish your army and fleet with everything, and reduce Toussaint to starvation." 28 While Jefferson himself was not the source of Toussaint's death, a newly signed embargo would now lead Haiti into the depths of hunger for years to come.


Madison and Monroe

Following Jefferson in office were two natives of Virginia who held to the policies of non-recognition until 1825. James Madison, who had served as Jefferson's diplomatic Secretary of State, and James Monroe did little to change the philosophical landscape of non-recognition. It was Monroe, however, who had been notably shaken by the possibility of a domestic slave revolution while he was serving as the Governor of Virginia. Between 1799 and 1802, he saw the far-reaching impact of St. Domingo with the rise of Gabriel's Conspiracy.

Gabriel Prosser, a young slave in Henrico County, had hatched a plan in 1800 that included the governor's kidnapping. When warned of the impending threat, Monroe ignored it as nonsense. On August 30, two of the men preparing to serve in Gabriel's Rebellion "cracked under pressure" and made known the plot. The governor immediately sent the state militia after any rebels they could find. When Gabriel was finally captured around the middle of September, Monroe wrote to then Vice President Jefferson asking when or if he should "arrest the hand of the Executioner" and bring punishments to a more humane standard. Jefferson replied, "There is a strong sentiment that there has been hanging enough. The other states and the world at large will forever condemn us if we indulge in a principle of revenge, or go one step beyond absolute necessity." Monroe would heed Jefferson's advice and throw the vast majority of men who had plotted with Gabriel back into the slave trade. 29 Still, with or without mercy, the governor would never forget what had happened in Virginia.

As President of the United States, Monroe was encouraged to join the continually one-sided discussion of whether or not to extend diplomatic recognition to Haiti. The debate had been renewed in 1822 with little fanfare after the execution of Denmark Vesey of Charleston, South Carolina. Vesey was a former slave who had purchased his freedom in 1800, but spent most of his later years plotting the most violent insurrection that the south might have seen if it had been successful.

The Vesey conspiracy had its share of distressing connections with Haiti that simply made recognition more and more improbable. First, Vesey had himself "worked as a slave on the French sugar plantations of Haiti" while he was just a boy. 30 Secondly, in 1793, during the first two years of revolution in St. Domingo, "white refugees" arrived in Charleston with "stories of rape by blacks and other racial horrors." Third, and most importantly, Vesey had allegedly written a letter to President Boyer of Haiti "asking for possible refuge and military aid" in the event of his insurrection. 31 It is therefore of little surprise that the members of Congress, accompanied by the memories of a cautious president, did not look favorably upon the black citizens of Haiti.

Baltimore's highly influential newspaper, Niles' Weekly Register, had published an article in the early 1820s that implied a mandate for U.S. recognition of Haitian Independence. The Register made no attempt at subtlety. "The country is destined to be peopled by blacks, until the Ethiopian changes his skin or chaos comes again, and the island small be one no more. This is the truth, and we ought to look at it." The article went on referring to the people of the republic as "enlightened" and highly "liberal." 32 This had little impact on the southern senators who refused to consider the subject. "Our policy with regard to Haiti is plain. We can never acknowledge her independence…the peace and safety of a large portion of the union forbids us to ever discuss it." 33

Much as they had done during the Revolutionary War, merchants paid little attention to the embargo and policies of non-recognition. Nearly 45 percent of Haiti's imports in 1821 were coming from U.S. merchants who were purchasing at least 25 percent of their exports. This "trade imbalance" grew behind the scenes for many years and turned Haiti into a monopoly for big business. 34 Still, as pressure was mounting for legislators to address the market for Haiti's produce, Senator Robert L. Hayne of South Carolina refused any such discussion during a speech given in 1826. "To touch it at all is to violate our most sacred rights, to put in jeopardy our dearest interests. I consider our rights in that species of property as not even open to discussion, either here or elsewhere." Slaveholders throughout the south simply could not imagine the day when a "Haitian ambassador" would be welcomed in Washington because doing so would imply federal approval of revolutionary slaves. 35 Southerners were unmoved by sound reason or common sense. Haiti was now, sadly, not their problem.


The Second Adams Administration

One of the few Americans left to "champion" the recognition of Haiti was newly elected President John Quincy Adams. 36 During the days when his father offered military assistance to General L'Ouverture, Quincy had called for a "free and independent" St. Domingo "in close alliance and under the guarantee of the United States." Even as a "young senator" in 1804, Quincy had been a "passionate defender of the right of petition" for U.S. recognition of the Haitian government. 37 And now, as President of the United States, his philosophy had not changed.

Coincidentally, in the same year of Quincy's presidential inauguration, the "independent states of Latin America" gathered together for their first international meeting in Panama, but no one invited the leaders of Haiti to join in the event. 38 After being second only to the United States in declaring their independence, Haiti was now being relegated to second-class (or even "third world") participation. The young nations of Latin America were clamoring for U.S. support as debate over Haitian recognition continued in the Senate.

Senator John Berrien of Georgia declared that the full recognition of Haiti "would introduce a moral contagion, compared with which, physical pestilence, in the utmost imaginable degree of its horrors, would be light and insignificant." He continued the politics of fear by asking whether "the emancipated slave, his hands yet reeking in the blood of his murdered master, [should] be admitted into [Southern] ports, to spread doctrines of insurrection, and to strengthen and invigorate them, by exhibiting in his own person an example of successful revolt?" The more moderate Senator Thomas Hart of Virginia argued only for the value of "commercial" relations and insisted that those who murdered their masters and mistresses would never find "friends among the white People of these United States." 39 In order to garner the much needed support of North Americans, the Panama Congress had to ostracize Haiti from the gathering. And exclude them they did.


Tocqueville and American Colonization

President Adams drifted out of office almost as quickly as he had come into it, but his views on foreign policy would continue when he re-emerged as a Congressman of Massachusetts for the last seventeen years of his life. Succeeding him in the presidency was Andrew Jackson, who had shared a brief encounter with refugees and former slaves of Haiti. According to Ken Burns and his PBS documentary film, Jazz, many of the former slaves fought alongside of Jackson during the Battle of New Orleans in January of 1815. Burns goes on to make the argument that the Haitian revolution had led to an "influx of former French colonists and their slaves to Louisiana." 40 Regardless of any positive encounters he may have had at the time, Jackson did nothing to change the Jeffersonian policy of the United States toward Haiti. The only man to make an honest assessment of Haiti during Jackson's two terms was a French foreigner named Alexis de Tocqueville.

The visiting Frenchman published his extensive views of American Democracy in 1835 with specified attention to the problem of race. "In the West Indian Islands, the white planters are surrounded by an immense black population; on the continent, the blacks are placed between the ocean and an innumerable people… At whatever period strife may break out…the blacks will have numerical strength and the energy of despair upon their side, and these are powerful resources to men who have taken up arms." 41 Historians appear split over when France granted diplomatic recognition to Haiti, but some have suggested that it took place in 1838, just three years after the publication of Tocqueville's assessment. 42

Tocqueville also happened to make note of the rising policy toward racial colonization. Discontent with the idea of integration or assimilation, "a certain number of American citizens" had formed the American Colonization Society in 1820 for the express purpose of funding at least two separate colonies where black men and women could live apart from the "oppression to which they are subject" within the United States. 43 Established in 1816 as the "brainchild" of Reverend Robert Finley of New Jersey, the ACS offered assistance to "free black people" with the process of their African emigration. Joining Finley in his mission were Henry Clay and Richard Rush, the son of Benjamin Rush. Whether living at the time or analyzing such historical ethics today, the society was encouraged as a relief by some and rejected as foolishness by others. 44

The primary destiny of emigrants was the colony of Liberia, established by the ACS in 1819. Within just three decades, the new republic had declared itself independent of the United States and clamored for recognition as such. England moved for its recognition in 1848 followed by France in 1852. Together with Haiti, Liberia was now the second republic raised and maintained by an all black government only to find the backhanded refusal of America's pro-slavery foreign policy to extend recognition. 45

As Liberia became legitimately independent, prominent Americans doubled their efforts at colonization by turning their attention southward. Emigration to the lesser publicized island of Haiti seemed equally reasonable. James Redpath, after visiting in 1859, published A Guide to Hayti describing it as the potential "home of a coming race." 46 He referred to Haiti as "a new Eden" with plenty of opportunity. Similarly, Harriet Beecher Stowe believed that emigration to Haiti would allow blacks to develop "unhampered" by daily local battles with racism, segregation, and slavery. 47

Two prominent black businessmen from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, Paul Cuffe and James Forten, were "enthusiastic" about the early creation of the ACS, but when they tried to sell emigration in the black churches of the north, silent rejection was deafening. Truly "free" men, whether black or white, could hardly be expected to fall for the implication that their pursuits of happiness were to be found elsewhere. Most of the men born in the United States knew they were already home and would not be persuaded to re-establish themselves in another land distant from the shores of America. By the late 1850s and early 1860s, the ACS had little or no impact and fizzled into non-existence. 48


From Taylor to John Brown Avenue

Still looking to consider the idea of recognition, President Zachary Taylor sent Benjamin Green to the island for a period of evaluation. By the time Green arrived in 1849, Secretary of State John Clayton made sure that his objective was clear. The American visitor was to "determine whether the nation qualified for recognition." The most noted "criterion" for determination was to find "whether in point of numbers that race bears as fair a proportion to the others as it does in the Spanish American states." 49 The possibility of recognition was again set aside when Taylor determined that the majority of the country was overwhelmingly black. The president's premature death left no implication that anything was going to change.

Throughout the administrations of Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan, only one American seemed to achieve iconic status among Haitians for his violent actions against slavery on U.S. soil. On May 23, 1856, conditioned by his rage over his reason, John Brown took his sons to the heart of civil war in Kansas. He and his boys "hacked to death several proslavery men – even as the men's terrified wives pleaded for their lives." 50 When Brown was finally hung on December 2, 1859 for his significant role in the events of Harpers Ferry, politicians were divided over his actions.

Abraham Lincoln, now coming to the attention of others in the country, acknowledged Brown's courage, but felt that his actions "demonstrated insanity" rather than decency toward the rule of law. 51 Several miles off the coast of Florida, the flags of Haiti were "flown at half-mast" on the day that Brown was hung. Many knew that he had been deeply influenced by the potential of slaves to rise up and remove their own chains when he heard of their successful revolution. Today, one of the prominent roads to the presidential palace in Haiti is John Brown Avenue. 52


Final Recognition of Lincoln and Sumner

When it came to Brown's execution, Lincoln's conservative voice was not meant to encourage the practice of slavery. With his political number rising throughout the country, the future president was wrestling with the most appropriate way to remove slavery from the territory of the United States. Lincoln gained incredible insight from the writings of Thomas Paine as he evaluated the issue within his own mind. One of Lincoln's "most intimate friends" had said that "[Thomas] Paine became a part of Lincoln from 1834 to the end of his life." Indeed, Paine was a man who heard every man's call for rebellion from the U.S. to France, but when it came to slavery, he was known to foreshadow the dangers of long term oppression. As though he already knew the potential for Black Power movements in the twentieth century, Paine once said that slavery would "naturally fill them with abhorrence of Christians" because of the ignorance of owners to use "the sacred Scriptures to favor this wicked practice." 53 No doubt every scholar and historian can acknowledge that the issue of slavery weighed heavy on the heart of President Lincoln.

In April 1862, he organized $100,000 in federal aid for the "colonization and settlement" of "Hayti, Liberia, or any such country beyond the limits of the United States." Clearly the agenda of the ACS had not been going well up to this point, but several African Americans continued to hold out hope for the possibility of a new land free of the racism that hindered their rights. Prior to the releasing of these funds, approximately "forty of the leading African American citizens" in Washington had gathered together to write a petition for Lincoln outlining how that money might best be allocated if he were willing to hear their voices. 54 "Liberia is too distant from the land of our birth, and that however kindly and wisely the original plans of colonization may have been laid for that country, neither those plans, or that region, are suited to our present condition." Shifting their appeal toward colonization in Haitian territory, they used some of the most powerful words ever uttered from the failed hope of northern integration. "If we are regarded as an evil here (and may become so by our competing with your white labor while here for the necessities of existence), send us where, instead of being an evil, we may be made a blessing." 55

With war raging in the states, the decision to release funds for Haitian emigration prompted a final debate in the halls of Congress. Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner became the primary voice in the Senate arguing that the republics of Haiti and Liberia were formed "with governments modeled upon our own." It seemed inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy to throw Americans, whether they be black or white, into an unacknowledged republic. He put forth a bill before the Committee on Foreign Relations urging two key merits of recognition. First, that there be an exchange of "diplomatic representatives." Second, that Congress finally take note of the "natural advantages" and commercial importance of both Liberia and Haiti. 56

Of course, while most of the senators from slave-holding territories were not present to express their dissent, opposition was no secret. Willard Saulsbury of Delaware was explicit with racist sentiment. "I predict that, in twelve months, some negro will walk upon the floor of the Senate of the United States and carry his family into that gallery, which is set apart from foreign ministers… I will not be responsible for such an act." Garrett Davis of Kentucky was more concerned that recognition would mean an assumption of equality between "white" representatives and "full blooded negro" representatives. 57 Still, with voices heard and objections made, the opposition was not as heated as it had once been. Sumner closed out the debate with conviction:

"I content myself with a single remark. I have more than once had the opportunity of meeting citizens of those republics and I say nothing more than truth when I add that I have found them so refined, and so fully of self-respect that I am led to believe no one of them charged with a mission from his government will seek any society where he will not be entirely welcome." 58

With politicians of the deep south now engulfed in Civil War, the bill for recognition passed the Senate by a vote of 32-7. When legislation moved across to the House, Daniel Gooch of Massachusetts "championed" its passage where it won with a resounding majority of 86-37. Combined with a signature of the president, the United States began "a treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation" with Haiti, while fully recognizing Liberia as an independent nation. In the years that followed America's bloodiest war, prominent members of the Haitian government would express their gratitude to Sumner with a medal of honor and by "an order that his portrait be placed in its capitol." 59


Conclusion

For the first time in almost sixty years, the United States government actually recognized the republic of Haiti as legitimate. Ambassadors and representatives to the island would eventually include Frederick Douglass, but such recognition meant that the U.S. would now acknowledge their political and domestic affairs. Thus, Haiti became one of the first nations to which U.S. foreign policy found itself inconclusively bound. Today, the Republic of Haiti is widely recognized as the poorest nation in the western hemisphere.

Former Mexican President Vincente Fox wrote in his biography that this is a territory "the rest of the world could help transform overnight without a feather's weight of difference in our own prosperity." 60 By looking back through the eyes of American foreign policy, history shows that the proud people of Haiti deserved as much political recognition then as they deserve public recognition today. The western world need only set aside inconvenience to lift the weight of a feather.