Dangerous Neighbors: Making the Haitian Revolution in Early America

351 Pages·2016·5.87 MB·English

by  James Alexander Dun

Dangerous Neighbors
EARLY AMERICAN STUDIES
Series editors: Daniel K. Richter, Kathleen M. Brown, Max Cavitch, and David Waldstreicher
Exploring neglected aspects of our colonial, revolutionary, and early national history and
culture, Early American Studies reinterprets familiar themes and events in fresh ways. Inter-
disciplinary in character, and with a special emphasis on the period from about 1600 to
1850, the series is published in partnership with the McNeil Center for Early American
Studies.
Dangerous Neighbors
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Making the Haitian Revolution
in Early America
James Alexander Dun
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
Philadelphia
Copyright © 2016 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or
scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means
without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ACataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN 978-0-8122-4831-9
For Kelly
In memory of our daughter, Josephine Ann Dun
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Contents
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Introduction
Making Revolution in Philadelphia
1
Chapter 1
France in Miniature: Naming the Revolution
27
Chapter 2
Unthinking Revolution: French Negroes and Liberty
56
Chapter 3
The Negrophile Republic: Emancipation and Revolution
87
Chapter 4
Making Places of Liberty: Emancipation and Antislavery
121
viii Contents
Chapter 5
Black Jacobins: Saint Domingue in American Politics
143
Chapter 6
Second Revolutions: Saint Domingue and Jeffersonian America
179
Chapter 7
Naming Hayti: The End of the Revolution in Philadelphia
209
List of Abbreviations
239
Notes
241
Selected Bibliography
321
Index
331
Acknowledgments
339
Introduction
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Making Revolution in Philadelphia
Late in the morning of July 7, 1794, Friar José Vázquez arrived at the town
of Fort Dauphin. Though he could not know it at the time, he came telling
stories of the Haitian Revolution. Perched on the northern coast of French
Saint Domingue, Fort Dauphin sat close to the border with Spanish Santo Do-
mingo. Vázquez, in fact, came from the Spanish colony, from the interior town
of Dajabón where he was a priest. What made his arrival noteworthy, however,
was less his spiritual authority than his earthly influence. Insurgent ex-slaves
had controlled the area since late 1791, and Vázquez was known to be an advi-
sor to one of their leaders, Jean-François. After Spain and France declared war
in 1793, the priest had become an intermediary between the insurgents and
Spanish authorities. In spring 1793 Jean-François had been made a general and
his troops declared auxiliaries of the Spanish army. Relying on these forces,
Spain had nominally taken control of wide swaths of Saint Domingue’s North
and West provinces. In January 1794 they secured Fort Dauphin, known to the
Spanish as Bayajá, and began to mass Spanish and black troops in preparation
for an attack against the French republican forces at Cap Français.1
For the anxious inhabitants of Fort Dauphin, Friar Vázquez seemed like a
safe source of information as they tried to make sense of this shifting ground.
Many of them were planters, white French colonists of a royalist bent who
hoped the fight against the Republic would ultimately bring stability back to
the region, even if it also put the colony under foreign control. A sizable number
among them had recently returned from the United States, having fled there
during earlier moments of tumult in the colony. In American cities they had
read an invitation addressed to all who opposed the “anarchy” of the French