Summary of Laurent Dubois's Haiti

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 I was returning to the United States, and I felt out of place in the white-dominated airplane. I thought about the political climate in America, which was also turbulent. I knew that the air in America was no less turbulent than in Ghana.

#2 I had started making plans to go back to America to work with Malcolm. My friends and colleagues began treating me as if I had suddenly become special.

#3 I had been in love many times before I met Guy, but I had never surrendered myself to anyone. I had given my word and my body, but I had never given my soul. The African had the habit of being obeyed, and he insisted on having all of me.

#4 When I returned to the United States, I was ready to work with Malcolm X on building the Organization of African-American Unity. I had discarded my vilification of the white racists on the plane, and had even begun to feel a little sorry for them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822522862

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

Book preview

Insights on Laurent Dubois's Haiti

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Haiti’s independence was won at a terrible cost. The new nation’s ports and many of its plantations were in ashes. Combat, hunger, and disease had killed vast numbers of people in 1802–03 alone.

#2

The Haitian Revolution was an act of profound transformation. It was the people of Haiti who created a new culture and way of life, driven by an unceasing emphasis on independence and personal freedom.

#3

The island of Hispaniola was the first European settlement in the Americas, and the birthplace of Haiti. It was also the starting point for European conquest of the Americas, as the Spanish eliminated the island’s indigenous population through war, forced labor, and disease.

#4

Saint-Domingue was a French colony in North America that grew to be the most profitable in the world. It was also the largest producer of sugar, and exported more of it than the colonies of Jamaica, Cuba, and Brazil combined.

#5

The largest number of slaves in Saint-Domingue came from the central African region known as the Kongo. They were captured in battle or by slave raiders, and were shipped to Africa’s Atlantic coast before being loaded onto slave ships for the journey to Saint-Domingue.

#6

The French colony of Saint-Domingue, which was home to the largest slave population, also gave birth to a new language, Kreyòl. It was the native tongue of most children in the colony, slave and free, who developed and solidified the language.

#7

The 1791 rebellion was led by a group of slaves who had been brought to Saint-Domingue from central Africa in the late eighteenth century. They were well trained in military tactics and armed with weapons, and they were ready to start a war.

#8

In the middle of 1789, news of the French Revolution began arriving in Saint-Domingue from across the Atlantic. It weakened the French empire’s central government and its system of colonial rule, and it created a new, radical language of rights that could be used to challenge the existing social order.

#9

The French Revolution in Saint-Domingue ended up bringing together the slaves and free people of color to fight against their respective masters.

#10

Toussaint Bréda, one of the most prominent leaders of the revolution, was a slave who had known life in several different strata of the colonial society. He was born a slave, but he gained his freedom and became a coachman on a large sugar plantation in the north of the colony. He helped his white former masters to safety before joining the rebels.

#11

The French Republic won the war in Saint-Domingue in 1793 and abolished slavery there. But what would the economy of Saint-Domingue look like after slavery. How would the plantation system work.

#12

Louverture was the first person to be freed from slavery and then put in charge of managing it. He ended up defending the plantation system, and the ex-slaves had to accept the restrictions that kept it going.

#13

The process of turning Saint-Domingue into a colony was extremely cynical, and it seemed to especially affect the laborers. While they were paid less than the soldiers, they were still