African Americans and the First Black Republic

It is difficult to talk about Haiti.

For the past two months the island nation has been mired in violence and a government upheaval the likes of a twisted Orwellian society embroiled in a tug of war between the Haitian people and the international community. Gangs in the island nation have released 4,000 inmates and have taken control of eighty percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince. The Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, has announced his resignation, contingent upon the creation of a transitional presidential council. But Jimmy Chérizier, one of three gang leaders in the country, demands that Haitians have a seat at the table and rejects any solution that is supported by the international community. Meanwhile according to the United Nations, 15,000 Haitians have been left homeless by ongoing gang violence, four million people face “acute food insecurity and one million are a step away from famine.” Despite pleas from the Haitian community, in Florida, Governor DeSantis has stepped up security in the Florida Keys to stem the tide of Haitian migrants seeking refuge in the United States.

It is difficult to talk about Haiti, the first free Black republic in the Western hemisphere. In the current American imaginary, the island nation looms large as a conflicted space, always entangled in violence and corruption, in need of aid and governance, without explicitly stating an imperialist agenda that harkens back to the early nineteenth century. For African Americans, Haiti also represents a space of conflict, one based on historical admiration and present-day reality. As one who engages in research and teaches about the Black Atlantic, Haiti, and the global reactions to the first free Black republic, a critical meditation is necessary. Here enters Leslie M. Alexander. In her book, Fear of a Black Republic: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States, Alexander meticulously details the pride and uncertainty African Americans harbored for the newly established island nation. Their thoughts and actions were fueled by the racial oppression they experienced in slavery and perilous freedom in the antebellum United States, as well as the discriminatory unyielding stance the United States, France, and other European nations on the Atlantic stage expressed against the nation governed by people of color.

There are many publications that detail the historical events leading up to the Haitian Revolution, the severing of Saint Domingue’s colonial ties to France, the complete destruction of the institution of slavery, and the aftermath of a young nation finding its footing in the global arena. C.L. R. James’ Black Jacobins: Toussaint Louverture and the Saint Domingo Revolution and Laurent Dubois’ Avengers of a New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution come to mind. Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s Silencing the Past: Power and Production of History offers readers a balance between historical engagement, understandings of power, and what African and Afro-Caribbean liberation fighters were thinking based on their cultural and traditional backgrounds. But if we are to comprehend the intellectual production of those who valiantly fought for liberation and the resulting currents sparking action among the enslaved and free(d) in the United States, Alexander’s Fear of a Black Republic fills the void by examining the response of African American activists to Haitian independence during the nineteenth century. Although they were full of pride for the men and women who fought valiantly to rid the island nation of slavery, African Americans also wrestled with their own ideas of citizenship and self-determination in a nation that upheld the institution of slavery. They wondered if Haiti could be the utopia where their dreams of full citizenship could be realized. Moreover Alexander’s work sits well with Marlene L. Daut’s Awakening the Ashes: an Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution, as well as Julius S. Scott’s The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution, a project thirty-two years in the making. Both works explore the intellectual dimensions of the Haitian Revolution juxtaposed against historical events.

Fear of a Black Republic begins months after Jean Jacques Dessalines’s declaration of Haiti as a free nation. In the US a letter appeared in the Commercial Advertiser, penned by “An Injured Man of Color,” which defended Haiti’s independence and Dessalines, its controversial leader. Alexander notes that this letter and subsequent writings “provide keen insight into the Black political consciousness in the United States in the early nineteenth century” (17). Chapters two through eight takes readers through an intellectual journey, decade by decade, fraught with pride and indecision due to events occurring in Haiti. For instance, in 1829, African American activists in the United States cautiously pulled back their support for Haiti and prospects for emigration to the island. This was due to the continuous refusal of US support for Haitian independence and Haitian President Jean-Pierre Boyer’s decision to sign an indemnity agreement with France to pay for their freedom. Nevertheless they could not completely abandon Haiti. Their hope was too strong. So, in the 1830s, they began to pivot in their support focusing on foreign policy.

Activists like Maria Stewart and Samuel Cornish spoke out about US relations with Haiti, chastising the US for not recognizing the independence of the Black republic. Cornish went even further arguing that the US’s non-recognition policy towards Haiti was against US financial interests, especially when the US supported the sovereignty and trade with smaller polities. He then turned reality on its head, noting the US’s reputation in the world and the very likely possibility of Haiti not wanting to do business with them, a detriment to their own free trade and economic growth. Southern slave owners, however, would not be deterred. They, and their northern allies, continued to rally against Haitian recognition because of their fear of uprisings and rebellion among the enslaved. But Cornish persisted, so much so that in the following decade the fight for the recognition of Haiti would be carried to Washington, DC. Congress fought back, issuing the Pickney Resolutions, thus preventing any petition regarding Haiti to be heard on the congressional floor. White and Black abolitionists double downed on their pro-Haiti petitions, especially in the North. In the spring of 1838 their efforts gained momentum when they learned that Haiti and France had reached an agreement. France agreed to recognize Haiti’s independence, but the island nation would still be responsible to pay a penalty for their freedom, a reduced financial burden to the tune of ninety million francs.

Through Alexander’s work, readers begin to comprehend that African Americans were not only unyielding in their cause for freedom and self-determination, they also actively sought ways to realize these dreams outside of the United States. Minister Charles Bennett Ray of New York was a staunch supporter for Haitian emigration during the 1830s. Ray and other Black abolitionists opposed the efforts of the American Colonization Society and their plans to resettle free Black Americans in Liberia. Black abolitionists worked hard to promote emigration to Haiti, as well as Jamaica and Trinidad, where Black people were creating their own independent nations. Alexander also touches upon the ways the enslaved responded to the idea of emigration to Haiti. Although the shackles of bondage controlled their everyday lives, it did not stop their voices from raising up in song, exclaiming their flight from “Bukra Land.”

In the years leading up to the Civil War, Black leaders continued to champion Haiti and fight for US recognition. Frederick Douglass, Martin Delaney, William Wells Brown, and John Mercer Langston actively took up the cause. Alexander cautions readers, however, since activists during the 1850s often “ignored the real problems brewing in the Black nation they desperately loved, and upon which all their hopes rested” (161).

At the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, Douglass exclaimed, “Haiti is Black, and the United States has not forgiven Haiti for being Black” (241). Douglass’ words reverberate through the ether of history as African Americans today view the events happening in the island nation through social media outlets and up to the minute news broadcasts. Fear of a Black Republic clearly demonstrates the hopes, as well as hesitancies, African Americans held for the Black Republic during the nineteenth century. As we draw upon Alexander’s work to comprehend these conflicted feelings from the antebellum era, we can understand why many African Americans are also conflicted and why it’s difficult to talk about Haiti today.