Interpreting the Haitian Revolution

Long relegated to the margins of history in the study of international relations, the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804 should be considered of paramount importance for understanding the emergence of a global racial imaginary of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The consequences of the liquidation of slavery and French colonialism on the island were felt throughout the western hemisphere and constituted a perpetual source of anxiety about the possibilities of racial rebellion. This chapter examines the intellectual effects of the Haitian Revolution in order to demonstrate the crystallization of a global racial hierarchy. This global racial hierarchy took for granted the ineluctable supremacy of “white” Western Europeans and Americans but was, nonetheless, deeply anxious about the possibilities of its future demise. A key element in this intellectual history, examined in this chapter, is the idea of racial violence or war that is used to interpret the events of the Haitian Revolution.