9 - The Genesis of the French Jacobins

Summary

French Revolutionary principles and mobilization methods radicalized colonial Saint-Domingue (the future Haiti) even more profoundly than France itself. The collapse of absolutism set all factions in competition – leading to standoffs between elite planters and gens de couleur (free men of color) over voting rights, while conflicts between French abolitionists and colonial lobbyists also destabilized the social order. All sides, however, sought to mobilize social movements along recent revolutionary lines – organizing corresponding societies to make their pressure felt. The slave revolt that began the Haitian Revolution erupted amid near-civil war, as the fundamental questions of the era could not be contained by the small, repressive elite that had long controlled the colony.