How Did The Ideals Of The French Revolution Influence The Haitian Revolution?

The Haitian Revolution was influenced initially by events in France, especially the French Revolution of 1789. According to Yvette Taylor Kanarick in Caribbean History Core Course, The events unfolding in France were to profoundly affect the course of the St.Domingue revolution. The first and second classes were made up of the clergy and the nobility, the third class was made up of all others from lawyers down to peasants. This unequal class structure created the atmosphere for the oppressed persons to fight for liberty, equality and fraternity. Upon the outbreak of the French Revolution, the people of St.Domingue, who were also French subjects, demanded their share of the slogan of liberty, equality and fraternity. This demand resulted in several conflicts between the different classes, which will later impact the revolt of the enslaved persons in the colony. The different classes were fighting for different reasons. The white plantocracy wanted equality with the whites in France and to rid themselves of the royalist bureaucracy to which they were subjected. The free colures on the other hand wanted equality with the whites politically and socially as well as an end to discriminations against them, while the enslaved people just simply grasped the opportunity to seek their freedom (Wahlke, 1962, pp. 126).

The success of the Haitian Revolution was not only based on the actions of the enslaved people as it states, the Haitian revolution was not just the result of the long struggle on the part of the slaves in St. Domingue, but it was also propelled by the free mulattoes who had long faced the trials of being seen as semi citizens. The whites in the colony saw the mulattoes as people of color and as such they were repressed by the conservative white power structure. This, by itself, was enough for this class of mullatoes to take things into their own hands. Even though many of the mullatoes were trained soldiers who could easily defeat the enslaved people uprising that followed, their battle was not against them but instead against their suppressors the white plantocracy. The new government in France which was faced with the dilemma of wanting gradual abolition of slavery, yet wanting to retain France's prosperous Caribbean colonies, was forced to pass a bill which emphasized liberty, equality and fraternity for the upper classes, but at the same time adopt a policy of gradualism for the enslaved people. The French government officials in the colony saw this split between the two white groups as beneficial to them as they had lost effective control of the colony, so this split would reduce the opposition that they were experiencing. The French national assembly was deeply worried by the independence movement among the white planters and free men of color. Yet, it was not the slaves whom the assembly focused on. It was rather the struggle between free persons of color and the white planters which was of greater concern to the ...