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Empire, Racial Capitalism and International Law: The Case of Manumitted Haiti and the Recognition Debt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

LILIANA OBREGÓN
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Abstract

Before 1492, European feudal practices racialized subjects in order to dispossess, enslave and colonize them. Enslavement of different peoples was a centuries old custom authorized by the law of nations and fundamental to the economies of empire. Manumission, though exceptional, helped to sustain slavery because it created an expectation of freedom, despite the fact that the freed received punitive consequences. In the sixteenth century, as European empires searched for cheaper and more abundant sources of labour with which to exploit their colonies, the Atlantic slave trade grew exponentially as slaves became equated with racialized subjects.

This article presents the case of Haiti as an example of continued imperial practices sustained by racial capitalism and the law of nations. In 1789, half a million slaves overthrew their French masters from the colony of Saint Domingue. After decades of defeating recolonization efforts and the loss of almost half their population and resources, Haitian leaders believed their declared independence of 1804 was insufficient, so in 1825 they reluctantly accepted recognition by France while being forced to pay an onerous indemnity debt. Though Haiti was manumitted through the promise of a debt payment, at the same time the new state was re-enslaved as France's commercial colony. The indemnity debt had consequences for Haiti well into the current century, as today Haiti is one of the poorest and most dependent nations in the world.

Keywords

empireHaitiindemnity debtrecognitionslavery
Type
INTERNATIONAL LEGAL THEORY: Symposium on ‘Imperial Locations’
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 597 - 615
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2018 

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Footnotes

*

Professor of law, University of Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia [[email protected]].

References

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6 M.-R. Trouillot called Haiti ‘the first testing ground of necocolonialism’, in Haiti, State against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism (1990), at 57. See also Haitian analyst L.J.R. Péan, Haiti, economie politique de la corruption de Saint-Domingue á Haiti 1791-1870 (2003) for a perspective on the internal governmentality based on the French culture of corruption and racism, institutionalized in independent but re-colonized Haiti.

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23 In 1550–1551, theologians Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de las Casas debated over whether the Aristotelian theory of natural slavery applied to the American Indians. De las Casas intended to save Indians from slavery by arguing their weakness, immaturity and inability to defend themselves but this allowed further Spanish dominion over the Indians, as their ‘protectors’. L. Hanke, All Mankind is One: A Study of the Disputation Between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indians (1994). A Pagden, supra note 14, at 119–22.

24 D. Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour, and National Independence in Haiti (1996), at 50.

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29 F.L. Paxson, The Independence of the South-American Republics: A Study in Recognition and Foreign Policy (1903), at 18.

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34 The Club Massiac was founded in the Hotel Massiac in Paris on 20 August 1789 by colonists opposing the French Revolution and any participation of mulattoes (free coloured) in representation of the colonies.

35 B. de Vestey, The Colonial System Unveiled (translated by C. Bongie) (2016), at 43–6.

36 P.V. baron de Vastey, ‘Instructions for MM Dauxion Lavaysse, de Medina and Draverman’, in An Essay on the Causes of the Revolution and Civil Wars of Hayti, Being a Sequel to the Public Remarks Upon Certain Publications and Journals, concerning Hayti (1823), Appendix C no.1 pg XXXIX.

37 Ibid., at 140.

38 Nicholls, supra note 24, at 48.

39 J.F. Brière, Haïti et la France, 1804-1848 : Le Rêve Brisé (2008), at 65.

40 C. Mackenzie, Notes on Haiti: Made During a Residence in that Republic (1830), 84.

41 Ibid., at 83–4.

42 Ibid.

43 J.N. Léger, Haiti: Son Histoire et Ses Détracteurs (1907), Q171.

44 Mémoire sur Haïti, 9 février 1820, aux Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, at 149.

45 Léger, supra note 43.

46 As cited in D. Nicholls, ‘Haiti: Race, Slavery and Independence’, in L.J. Archer (ed.) Slavery and other Forms of Unfree Labor (1988/2003), 230 (Esmangart to Minister Pasquier, 2 January 1821).

47 Léger, supra note 43.

48 Nicholls, supra note 24, at 65.

49 J.P. Boyer, Pièces Officielles Relatives aux Négociations du Gouvernement Français avec le Gouvernement Haïtien, pour Traiter de la Formalité de la Reconnaissance de l'Indépendance d'Haïti (1824).

50 Ibid., at 7.

51 J. Wallez, Précis Historique des Négociations entre la France et Saint-Domingue; Suivi de Piéces Justificatives, et d'une Notice Biographique sur le Général Boyer; Président de la République d'Haïti (1826), at 53–6.

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53 Boyer, supra note 49.

54 Delagrange Mm. Dalloz, Hennequin, Dupin, Consultation de Mm. Dalloz, Delagrange, Hennequin, Dupin Jeune et Autres Jurisconsultes, pour les Anciens Colons de St-Domingue (1829), at 15.

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57 Brière, supra note 39.

58 Ibid.

59 Mm. Dalloz, supra note 54.

60 A. Phillips, ‘Haiti, France and the Independence Debt of 1825’, 2008, available at canada-haiti.ca/sites/default/files/Haiti,%20France%20and%20the%20Independence%20Debt%20of%201825_0.pdf

61 F. Beauvois, ‘L'indemnité de Saint-Domingue’, (2009) 10 French Colonial History 109, at 199.

62 P.J. Hudson, Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean (2018), at 90–116.

63 C.L. Miller, ‘Forget Haiti: Baron Roger and the New Africa’, in D. Jensen (ed.), Yale French Studies Number 107, The Haiti Issue: 1804 and Nineteenth-Century French Studies (2005), 39–69, at 44.