“All would be equal in the effort”: Santo Domingo's “Italian Revolution”, Independence, and Haiti, 1809-1822
TL;DR: The authors explored the colony of Santo Domingo just after it had passed from French back to Spanish hands in 1809, using the testimony of a failed 1810 conspiracy known as the "Italian Revolution".
Abstract: This article explores the colony of Santo Domingo just after it had passed from French back to Spanish hands in 1809. Although impoverished and at the very margins of the Caribbean plantation system, revolutionary winds were nonetheless buffeting the colony. Using the testimony of a failed 1810 conspiracy known as the “Italian Revolution”, the article explores the enduring inequalities present in Santo Domingo, the immediate influence of the Haiti to the west, and the beginnings of Latin American independence more generally. Whereas Spanish authorities and other Caribbean elites might have dismissed the colony as marginal to the political events, therefore, the conspiracy sheds light on its importance to subaltern travelers and migrants from neighboring islands. Finally, it shows the tremendous concrete and symbolic importance of the Haitian Revolution on the neighboring colony, complicating a historiography that often argues for conflict, and not interrelation, between the two sides of Hispaniola.
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24 Nov 2014TL;DR: The Haitian Revolution and the slave society in the shadow of Haiti and Haiti's sugar revolution was studied in this article, where Haiti, Haiti, Cuba, and history were discussed. But the authors focused on the afterlives of antislavery and revolution.
Abstract: Introduction: the Haitian Revolution and Cuban slave society 1. 'A colony worth a kingdom': Cuba's sugar revolution in the shadow of Saint-Domingue 2. 'An excess of communication': the capture of news in a slave society 3. An unlikely alliance: Cuba and the black auxiliaries 4. Revolution's disavowal: Cuba and a counterrevolution of slavery 5. 'Masters of all': echoes of Haitian independence in Cuba 6. Atlantic crucible: 1808 between Haiti and Spain 7. A black kingdom of this world: making history, imagining revolution in Havana, 1812 Epilogue: Haiti, Cuba, and history: afterlives of antislavery and revolution.
85 citations
Book•
09 May 2017TL;DR: The authors reconstructs Haitian guestworkers' lived experiences as they moved among the rural and urban areas of Haiti, and the sugar plantations, coffee farms, and cities of eastern Cuba, offering an unprecedented glimpse into the daily workings of empire, labor, and political economy in Haiti and Cuba.
Abstract: Haitian seasonal migration to Cuba is central to narratives about race, national development, and US imperialism in the early twentieth-century Caribbean. Filling a major gap in the literature, this innovative study reconstructs Haitian guestworkers' lived experiences as they moved among the rural and urban areas of Haiti, and the sugar plantations, coffee farms, and cities of eastern Cuba. It offers an unprecedented glimpse into the daily workings of empire, labor, and political economy in Haiti and Cuba. Migrants' efforts to improve their living and working conditions and practice their religions shaped migration policies, economic realities, ideas of race, and Caribbean spirituality in Haiti and Cuba as each experienced US imperialism.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider the role of elite Dominican nationalism as synecdoche for popular thought and argue that privileging this anxious and divisive rhetoric forecloses study of the nation as an emancipated state, together with Haiti, in a hostile Atlantic.
Abstract: Historiography of the nineteenth-century Caribbean often holds Santo Domingo (later, the Dominican Republic) to be something of an anomaly. This essay reconsiders that scholarship in a Pan-Caribbean frame, demonstrating how such a characterization can lead to a number of distortions. First, it allows projections of elite Dominican nationalism to serve as synecdoche for popular thought. Second, privileging this anxious and divisive rhetoric forecloses study of the nation as an emancipated state, together with Haiti, in a hostile Atlantic. Common Dominicans had a keen sense of this regional context, as demonstrated by popular unrest in the 1850s and 1860s. In the absence of plantation records or other prolific documentation, scholarship has often rested on the testimony of foreign observers; these sources demand further critical attention. Creative research that pointedly seeks out popular thought promises to elucidate connections across the island as well as ties to networks and neighbors throughout the Caribbean.
15 citations
TL;DR: The authors reframes the origins and conseqseqseqes of the Boyer Declaration of Haitian Emancipation in 1822 in neighboring Santo Domingo, heralding a new epoch of "unification" in Haiti.
Abstract: In 1822, Haitian president Jean-Pierre Boyer proclaimed emancipation in neighboring Santo Domingo, heralding a new epoch of ‘unification’ in Hispaniola. This article reframes the origins and conseq...
12 citations
TL;DR: The Bourbon reforms tried to increase slavery in the Spanish Caribbean as discussed by the authors, and one of these projects was the creation of a new Legal Code pertaining to the relationship between owners and slaves, the Ordenanzas de Santo Domingo and, later, the Codigo Negro Carolino.
Abstract: The Bourbon reforms tried to increase slavery in the Spanish Caribbean. One of these projects was the creation of a new Legal Code pertaining to the relationship between owners and slaves, the Ordenanzas de Santo Domingo and, later, the Codigo Negro Carolino. These new laws were so far removed from pre-existing owner-slave customs and traditions in Santo Domingo that they were never were implemented.
7 citations