/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

in this house, dessalines is a hero!

Preface to the Second Edition

The book you are about to read appeared in 1954, published by Les Presses Libres, in Port-au-Prince. The printing was paid for collectively by a subscription paid by researchers in Haiti at the time: historians, history professors, and enthusiasts of Haitian history. Editing was performed by our whole family, meaning my grandmother, my mother, the author (who, in 1954, had just turned fifty years old), my brothers Daniel, Jacques, and yours truly. I had just turned ten, Daniel was fourteen, and Jacques, nine. The youngest, Max, was only five. Our parents never thought we were "too small" to deal with serious matters. I am very grateful to them.

Étienne Charlier's Overview has since been unavailable for more than fifty years. This is quite paradoxical, given the book's widespread critical success and the fact that it represented, for generations of rhetoric students, a true Holy Grail: the only Haitian history work covering the entire first part of the baccalaureate curriculum. Innumerable young people searched for it in vain, finding, in the best cases, only photocopies of chapters. Some also — the luckiest ones — bought a copy in more-or-less poor condition at exorbitant prices, which they immediately rushed to "crunch" from cover to cover, anticipating the looming exam. The publication of this edition finally changes a disastrous state of affairs for our young people, whose admirable patriotism deserves to be nurtured and supported by the best possible education. That is, by the most complete and reasoned knowledge possible of Haitian history. A people without history is a people without memory, a philosopher said. We have an exemplary history, both through its successes and its failures. We absolutely must know our roots. Étienne Charlier's book is certainly not the alpha and omega of historical science. But it is the work of a scrupulously honest historian, with an analytical mind devoted to truth that any reader, more than fifty years after the first publication of the work, cannot help but admire. For our young people, and also for our not-so-young people, such a work can only be enriching.

I would, however, feel remiss if I did not point out that another historian, a Trinidadian one, did just as well. This refers to C.L.R. James and his book The Black Jacobins.

Should we recall that Haiti, “bastard daughter of colonists and the sea” according to a poet, and distant daughter of West Africa, is also the daughter of the Bastille, Valmy, and the Convention? Because while happiness was suddenly a new idea in Europe, while suddenly, a people of serfs, artisans, and shopkeepers explained to the world, with bayonets and proclamations, that they had had enough of kings, the nobility, and their misery, some of our ancestors dared to think the unthinkable: of Liberty. And they were not content with just thinking about it.

The history that Étienne Charlier wrote is that of their fight. It is not, whatever one might say, a mere repeat, successful though it was, of the famous revolt of Spartacus against the Roman Empire (crushed by the Roman legions in the year 71 BC). The conditions were not the same. And, in Saint-Domingue in the 18th century, the word slave no longer meant the same thing.

To understand slavery in Saint-Domingue, and more broadly, the enslavement of Blacks in the Americas, one must understand Spanish colonization, the extermination of the Indians which is still ongoing today (such as in Amazonia), and the struggles between the different colonialist powers (Portugal, Spain, Holland, England, France). One must also understand the conditions that permitted the first looting of Africa and the infamous slave trade. But above all, one must understand what underlies these different phenomena: the development, starting from the end of the 15th century, of capitalism in Western Europe. And within the framework of this development, the critical importance of American gold and silver, of that gold which, in Hispaniola, was the primary cause of the extermination of the natives.

Once Hispaniola's gold was exhausted, the colonists moved on to the continent, to be replaced by buccaneers and filibusters. Filibustering is nothing more than armed robbery on the high seas of the precious metals looted in Peru and Mexico by Spanish gentleman-thieves. Then, to the misfortune of the Africans and Africa, another kind of gold was discovered: cane sugar. Whether gold, silver, or sugar, the meaning of the process is the same. It is the extreme exploitation of the new continent, of its inhabitants, and of Africa as a reservoir of slaves, with a view to the transfer, on a monstrous scale, of capital that would, firstly, make primitive capitalist accumulation in Europe possible and, secondly, enable the famous Western “industrial revolution,” that is, the definitive consolidation of European capitalism.

Economically speaking, it is about a massive transfer of capital seized by force of arms from America and Africa, into Western Europe. That is the ultimate meaning of this history. And this is what generations of historians in “civilized” countries have striven to erase from the memory of the peoples of the Third World.

The primitive accumulation of capital, the development of capitalism in Europe, and the industrial revolution took place within the framework of the extreme exploitation of the rest of the world, particularly America and Africa, by European colonialism. And, in Saint-Domingue, within the framework of inhuman slavery, established and maintained for the exclusive purpose of transferring the greatest possible wealth to the “metropoles,” to France.

Overview of the Historical Formation of the Haitian Nation is the history of a rupture: for the first time, a non-white people, slaves moreover, dared to revolt, throw the colonists into the sea, and proclaim their independence. It was the first decolonization of what was already the Third World, or better, the “periphery” of the West European “center”.

Tadeusz Lepkowski, Polish historian, in his excellent study on the history of Haiti, regrets that Étienne Charlier stopped at the symbolic January 1, 1804. He believes that the formation of the Haitian nation does not end with the proclamation of Independence. Charlier would have completely agreed, because he had written a sequel to his Overview, which he announced for upcoming publication in this book, under the title The Social and Political Crisis of 1946, a work in which he analyzed the various crises of the country since 1843. I do not believe that the importance of the Ordinance of Charles X (1825) could have escaped Charlier. But I know that, on the one hand, he was rushed to publish his book in the year of the 150th anniversary of Independence, and on the other, he was preoccupied by the printing costs of an already quite voluminous work, which had to be published by makeshift means. At the time, an independent historian had to publish either entirely alone, or by subscription, or leave his manuscript to the gnawing critique of mice. Étienne Charlier was able, thanks to his friends, particularly Antonio Vieux who printed the book, his acquaintances, and also his political opponents who did not hesitate to subscribe, to publish the Overview. His other manuscripts did not have this luck. They can be counted among the victims of the Duvalier cyclone.

A complete study of the historical formation of the Haitian nation should extend to the contracting of the Debt of Independence, and doubtless up to the revolution of 1843, or even the Dominican secession of 1844.

It should also be known that the present book, upon its publication, provoked a virulent controversy. This pitted the author first against Emmanuel C. Paul, who represented what must be called the Noiriste vision of Haitian history, then rather bizarrely, against Pierre Hervé, a prominent member of the French Communist Party at the time. This controversy did not end with Charlier's death from a sudden allergy in December 1960. Echoes of it are found in a book where the late Roger Dorsinville tells us about the “unforgiving hatred” Charlier allegedly harbored for Toussaint Louverture. The reader can happily, now, judge firsthand Charlier's admiration for the old fox of Ennery, whom he describes as “perhaps the most extraordinary genius of modern times”. But one can also note that this is a reasonable admiration, based on what Louverture did, and not on some legend. Charlier sought to scientifically evaluate the first stage of our history and its protagonists. He wanted to work as a historian, not as an apologist. This is what the supporters of the two legends that permeate Haitian historical bibliography found very difficult to admit, and even harder to forgive. Because in our social and political struggles, the history of Haiti has always been, and still is, a battleground like any other. Étienne Charlier, by presenting, to the best of his ability, the heroes of our independence as they were, and not as we might have wished them to be, made enemies in all camps. But he also made admirers and disciples. The extreme rigor of his analysis made all these contradictory consequences inevitable. The man of science, if he wants to produce worthwhile work, cannot afford to spare sensibilities.

—André Charlier, Port-au-Prince, December 2007

Notice to the Reader

To the irreducible independents,
to the rallied colonial troops,
and to the leaders who sought
to destroy in Saint-Domingue the regime of slavery
and raise upon its ruins the new State of Haiti.

The study you are about to read was initially conceived as an introduction to our manuscript work on Haitian society and the revolutionary movement of 1946. However, as our development progressed, it took on a scope that completely exceeded the original framework. Therefore, we are taking advantage of the Sesquicentennial of our National Independence to have it printed and to offer it to the memory of our Ancestors and to the reader.

We do not believe it too great a presumption to dedicate it equally to the oppressed men of all races, who are fighting in colonies and trust territories for the fullness of their rights and national independence: Guyanese, Puerto Ricans, Blacks of Africa, North Africans, Indo-Chinese, Malagasy, and of course the Black minority of the Northern United States of America, to whom a common destiny binds us.

We warmly thank the numerous well-meaning subscribers whose financial assistance allowed us to cover the printing costs of the work.

E. Ch.

>If we cast our eyes upon the past, upon what had to be undertaken to bring us to our present situation, we will take pride in the title of Haitians, we will find new strengths within ourselves to sustain it, and we could confidently assert that for having accomplished what we have done, we cannot be ordinary men.
ALEXANDRE PÉTION President of the Republic of Haiti (1807 - 1818), in his speech opening the first Legislature.

>>2577807

I'd reach out to Praire Fire Publishing when u finish this. Sounds like the type of thing they'd love to publish

Man Haiti has to be one of the most continuously fucked over nations on earth. As a yinzer I live only a drive near a town called Charleroi (My great aunt who my grandpa ghosted in vice versa actually lives there) and a bunch of Haitians immigrated there and despite the fact that they actually benefited this dilapidated unheard of declining rust belt town everyone hated them.

>nation
yawn

>>2579242
It likely wont be possible, sadly. This work is still-in-print and Charlier's family controls the rights. While it's entirely possible that they'd give the project their blessing, this wouldn't be something I could just take straight to a publisher. My current plan is it archive it on Library Genesis and format a digital version which could be bound from home.

Preface (1954)

Relatively few in number have, concerning the formation of the nation, presented the results of their work, and that work has been fragmentary. But through their work the materiality of the facts is now established, the essential character of the events acquired, barring, as always, a few possible clarifications and details.

It was inevitable that, from these accumulated scattered materials, a general overview would emerge; where the interplay of all these fragments, succeeding one another and clashing according to a rhythm, could be shown to conform to the laws of history which condition the constants of social evolution since the organization of the first societies.

The author of this book devoted himself to this task. Here is the result of enormous labor. So many questions which, until now, remained obscure in their complexity or poorly explained in their causality, despite the efforts of researchers, are treated and analyzed here according to the strictest methods of modern information. The mechanism that was the secret driving force, under a myriad of appearances, whose processes disconcerted the shortsightedness of many commentators, is explained here.

With an unparalleled wealth of detail, colonial society is brought back to life, torn between the demands of a revolutionary period and the imperative of class interests. Hence its inconsistencies, its sycophantic concessions, a seesaw game that is merely the political representation of the contradictions inherent to a political system destined for the worms. Hence the tenacious, fierce struggle of a reactionary bourgeoisie braced in defense of its privileges against the rush of the enslaved masses determined to violently seize the end of their exploitation; against the rise of the freedmen seeking to complete, through the conquest of political rights, the status acquired through the power of money.

The clarity of this critique, sharpened by the objective methods of the laws of science, is manifest in the examination of this Southern War where, alongside a question of epidermal nuance which is certainly not to be minimized, there is inscribed an economic content of capital importance. This refers to the action of the two colonialist powers, the English and the Yankee, trying to secure their interests against the French, as well as the class struggle in Saint-Domingue which had reached a point of exasperation.

The tone of this investigation is reflected in Saint-Domingue society as it is laid bare, with all its hypocrisies and realities, by the Constitution of July 1801. This constitution, which in principle guaranteed certain rights to the peasant people (meaning the immense majority), in fact maintained them in a subordinate position. This is because their access to property — kept to a minimum, to a certain area and well above their material means — practically excluded the working populace and thereby consolidated the exploitative primacy of the great landowner. Thus, progress toward emancipation was tangled in the thorns of a grumbling reaction. The pressure of reactionary forces on the emancipatory decision of the trailblazers, the liberation of the enslaved, will be, according to the author, the psychological cause of their own defeat. Well-armed, they believed the situation to not be desperate, and so their vacillating response proved to be a fatal political decision. For while the dilemma was clear — either the return, even camouflaged, to colonial domination, to its territorial omnipotence and its consequences, or complete social emancipation — the Supreme Leader* still deluded himself about a possible accommodation with the colonial center. Hence a fluctuation in his actions, between antagonistic positions, attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable. And the French attack was able to strike him down because, when it hit him squarely in the chest, he had neither the support of the freedmen class whose resentment was revived by the Southern War, nor, fully, that of the Black world haunted by the specter of Moïse. The man relied on the new freedmen, the privileged, and those whom P. Cabon calls his natural allies against the tyranny of the colonialist administration's principles.

The snows of the Jura in sight, the profits of Commerce with the dazzling island that France wants almost exclusively to reserve for itself will pit the ousted competitors, the English and the American concerned with preserving their lucrative positions, against its claim. The refusal of the requested aid for the supply of the Corsican’s expeditionary army externalizes, in this clash of forces, the constant nature of inter-colonialist contradictions. Here, an important aspect of Capitalism shows itself, which, more fundamentally than average profit or even superprofit, only strives for the realization of maximum profit, the essential driver of Monopoly Capitalism. The nervous fist clenches the sword because the magical prey threatens to escape.
The cloud of war on the horizon spreads. It will burst when the rage of the indigenous masses, never completely broken, finds an explosive outlet in the defection of the great Chiefs. And this will be, with the triumph of their military on the battlefield, the victory, on the political level, of their claims for justice.

The Historical Formation of the Haitian Nation has in the author of this book an expert analyst who scrutinized Haitian history, studied it under a new perspective—one that detects, beneath the turmoil of events and the falsehood of rhetoric, the driving force of history: the eternal clash of enslaver and the enslaved, the collision of antagonistic interests, the class struggle.

This opulent work deserves the highest praise and, revealing the secret causes of so many struggles and so many massacres, attests that despite debacle and centuries-old injustices, the march of history raises the laurel wreath of triumphant rectification.
Thomas H. LECHAUD

>>2579422
*Lechaud is referring to Toussaint L'Ouverture

Chapter 1.1 - The Conquistadors Found Hispaniola Upon the Ruins of Indigenous Communities

On December 6, 1492, while the natives of Marien(1) were peacefully going about their daily routines, they saw the arrival of three caravels(2) carrying men of an unknown race: it was Christopher Columbus and his companions who, after having discovered San Salvador and Cuba, landed in Haïti, which the admiral designated by the name of Hispaniola or “Little Spain”.

The Cacique of Marien, Guacanagaric, being of a peaceful nature, received the Spaniards with open arms and even granted Columbus a site to build a fort "La Natividad" with the debris of the Santa Maria, which had been shipwrecked. The admiral left a contingent there before departing for Spain.

However, as was to be expected, the Spaniards departed Fort La Natividad expecting to act as masters and lords: they had an easy time with the gentle Guacanagaric but when they moved on to Maguana, in search of gold, they found themselves facing a man of a different caliber: the Cacique Caonabo, of the warrior race of the Caribs.(3) The intrepid Indian chief massacred them all, invaded Marien, and reduced Fort La Natividad to ashes.

Columbus soon returned to Hispaniola, but this time, with the necessary forces for the conquest and military occupation of the country. The invaders founded Isabella, on the northern coast and, starting from this base, invaded the interior of the island. Caonabo and Guarionex, Cacique of Magua, marched against the city but suffered setbacks. Shortly after, thanks to a ruse, Alonso de Ojeda succeeded in seizing Caonabo, still the most formidable enemy of the colonizers. The unfortunate cacique, chained, perished when the boat that was transporting him to Spain sank. The Natives, under the orders of a brother of Caonabo, Manicatex, attempted to avenge their fallen chief; armed simply with arrows, they confronted the Spanish cavalry and muskets at the battle of La Vega Real in 1495, but the outcome of the struggle could not be in doubt. The natives were cut to pieces, devoured by ferocious dogs, and massacred by the thousands. The great, very Christian admiral had no scruples about reducing the vanquished to slavery. In the name of “repartimientos”, each of Columbus's companions received allotments of slaves either to work in the gold mines, or to cultivate their new estates and other domestic labor. Thus began the enslavement of the Indigenous people of Hispaniola and the liquidation of their primitive communist society.(4)

Francisco de Bobadilla, Columbus's successor, further intensified the enslavement and repression of the Natives. But it would be up to the cynical Nicolás Ovando, who replaced Bobadilla, to completely liquidate the Native community.

Indeed, the two Caciques of Xaragua and Higüey had retained a certain autonomy since they only paid tribute. Ovando decided to push the Spanish conquest to its conclusion and did not hesitate in his choice of means. He announced a visit to Anacaona, Cacique of Xaragua since the death of her brother Bohéchio. The beautiful Native poet went ahead of her host, whom she received royally in Xaragua, about two leagues from the current city of Léogane (Charlevoix, ibid., 493-495). The Grand Commander claimed he did not want to be outdone in politeness and invited the queen to gather all her nobility for a small tournament that the Spaniards would host in honor of their hostess and the magnates of her caciquat. The queen and her nobility eagerly gathered under a kind of veranda while the people flocked in from several leagues around. When the Spanish cavalry had blocked all the exits, Ovando raised his hand to his cross of Alcántara, the agreed-upon signal. The Spaniards quickly seized the entire court, tied the people to posts and set fire to the place. Outside, the cavalry massacred men, women and children. Anacaona was reserved for a more infamous torment: she was dragged in chains to Santo Domingo where, after a mock trial, she was declared guilty of conspiracy and executed by hanging for all to see in 1503. The Cacique of Higüey, Cotubanama, was defeated a few years later and met the same fate in 1506.

On the ruins of the Native’s primitive communism, the Spaniards established the enslavement of the people, viciously exploiting this new Indigenous workforce. Endlessly the Natives poured blood and sweat into their confiscated lands for the enrichment of His and Her Catholic Majesty and a few privileged individuals of the Kingdom. Here is the formula for the distribution of human livestock by Rodrigue d'Albuquerque, to whom the King of Spain had granted in 1514 the privilege of doling out the Natives of Haiti:
>“Rodrigue d'Albuquerque, Distributor of the caciques and Indians, in the name of the King and the Queen, our Sovereign Lords, by virtue of the Royal Patents, which I hold from their Highnesses, with the advice and consent of the Lord of Passamonté, General Treasurer in these Islands and Mainland, for their said Highnesses; I entrust to you, N, such a cacique with so many Indians and my intention is that you use them for tillage, for the mines, and for the household, for the rest of your life, and that of one of your heirs, sons or daughters, if you have any; on condition that you observe the Ordinances towards them, otherwise, the Indians will be taken from you, and you will also have to answer before God for your disobedience; their Highnesses discharging their conscience onto yours: besides the penalties, which you will incur, and which are contained in the aforementioned Ordinances (Charlevoix, ibid., 330-331)”

On the basis of the repartimientos, Hispaniola became the first colony for the Spaniards in the New World, from which they swarmed towards other Islands and the Continent. Santo Domingo became the Capital of the Empire and the seat of the first University of this Hemisphere.

Thus, the primitive communism of the Indigenous peoples was liquidated by iron, fire and blood, and by darkest deceit in contempt of the most elementary rules of chivalry. There was no need for a gentle visage in order to send "savages" to their deaths, seize their land, and rob the survivors of their personhood. "Savages" who had proven themselves more honorable than the envoys of Her Majesty Isabella the Catholic. W. Howitt was right to write:
>“The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people that they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame, in any age of the earth.”

Chapter 1.1 Notes

(1) When it was found by Europeans, the Island, which its inhabitants called Quisqueya, Bohio or Haïti interchangeably, was divided into five caciquats or kingdoms: 1. Marien in the northwest, 2. Magua in the northeast, 3. Maguana in the center, 4. Xaragua in the southwest, and 5. Higüey in the southeast. The caciques were respectively Guacanagaric, Guarionex, Caonabo, Bohéchio, and Cotubanama.

The population, composed of Arawaks (Taínos) who probably came from South America, having conquered the country from the Ciboneys generally reduced to slavery but of whom some groupings perhaps remained more or less autonomous in the extreme tip of the southern peninsula (Guacavarina, that is to say the current Tiburon), was in the Neolithic era with a relatively advanced agriculture since it cultivated most of the plant species that ensure the food supply of the Haitian masses today (see Jacques Roumain, Contribution à l'étude de l'ethnobotanique précolombienne des Grandes Antilles and Michel Aubourg, Mémoire sur les cultures précolombiennes, Ciboney et Taíno. These two works are publications of the Bureau d'Ethnologie de la République d'Haïti, the first from February 1942 and the second from February 1951). This population perhaps amounted to 1 and a half million.

(2) The Niña and the Santa Maria landed at the current Bay of Môle Saint-Nicolas while the Pinta visited ports further east because its commander, Martin Alonse Pinçon, had surreptitiously separated from Columbus after their departure from Cuba on November 21, thinking of being the first to lay hands on the gold mines of Cibao, where natives of Haiti taken from Cuba were leading them (see Father Charlevoix, Histoire de l'Île Espagnole ou St-Domingue, M.D.CC,XXX edition, volume one, p. 90 and following).

(3) The Caribs populated the Lesser Antilles but had often made incursions against the Taíno of Haiti, “especially those of Higüey”: they were of warrior customs.

(4) In his letter to the lord Raphael Sanchez, treasurer of Their Catholic Majesties, Christopher Columbus writes: “As far as I have learned, every man throughout these islands is united to but one wife, with the exception of the kings and princes, who are allowed to have twenty: the women seem to work more than the men. I could not clearly understand whether the people possess any private property, for I perceived that what one of them possessed was distributed among all the others, but especially meat and provisions and the like.”. (Don M. F. de Navarette, Relations des quatre Voyages de Christophe Colomb, 1828 edition, volume II, p. 389)

Columbus repeats this passage almost word for word in his letter to Luis de Santangel, chief steward of Isabella and Ferdinand. (ibid., II, p. 356 - 357)

The existence of the Native primitive commune at the time of the discovery is beyond doubt, but its concrete forms remain to be determined. Unfortunately, the information from Columbus and the chroniclers who followed is rather poor. However, it seems that a comparative study of Indigenous societies would allow at least serious hypotheses to be formulated. We are working on a monograph on this fundamental aspect of the Indigenous society of Haiti.

(5) W. Howitt. Colonization and Christianity: A popular History of the treatment of the natives by the Europeans in all their colonies, London, 1838, p. 9.