Free Communities of Color and the Revolutionary Caribbean by Robert D. Taber Charlton W. Yingling

Author:Robert D. Taber, Charlton W. Yingling [Robert D. Taber, Charlton W. Yingling]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781351168984
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2020-01-24T00:00:00+00:00

The defeat of the French equalled an end to colonialism and slavery and all the prejudices and divisions those institutions spawned.

Vastey’s narrative offers a triumphant ending with the erasure of all social divisions; yet, another racial label, nègre marron, illustrates how the legacy of colonialism and slavery haunt Haiti after 1804 and disavow the contributions of the black majority. Vastey contended that the French used the label fugitive slave “nègre marron” to degrade Haitians. For example, in reference to French negotiations, he declared that the French gave a free people “the epithets of evil savage and fugitive slave.”28 The label of maroon or fugitive slave belittled Haitians’ status as people free from slavery and colonial rule. The term also signified lawlessness, the absence of civilization and government. Maroons were an external insult by the French to define Haitians as inferior but also an internal threat to Christophe’s centralized state and economy. Literary scholar J. Michael Dash states, “[Vastey’s] ideal, like that of his King, was that of a scientifically advanced modern state not the creation of a maroon culture based on the African village.”29 The Code Henry, which Vastey helped write, laid out labor rules and punishment for vagrancy, marronage by another name. The vagrants for Vastey and Christophe were the black majority, former slaves who did not share in the élite’s economic vision of continuing sugar production. Thus, for Vastey the label maroon held no patriotic meaning; rather it was a term given to vagabonds who threatened the functioning of the state, and, by extension, the maintenance of independence. This rhetoric placed the black majority at best in need of “civilizing” and at worst outside of the national community conceived of by intellectuals and the state.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.