Peter N. Herndon
A
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Core Concepts
In addition to the abovementioned design to create interest in a topic that continues to have impact on Latin America, the students will be expected to learn certain basic concepts associated with the topic:
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assimilation
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bounty
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cartacion
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chattel
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colony
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Code Noir
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creole
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“double standard”
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Enlightenment ideas
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external causes/internal causes
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freedman
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grand maroonage/petit maroonage
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guerilla warfare
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hypothesis/theory
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immediate cause/underlying cause
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law code
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legal status
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“Maroon”/”Marroonage”
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“Maroon societies”
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mestizo
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myth/fact
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palenque
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peninsulare
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plantation
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rebellion
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resistance
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revolt
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revolution
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slave trade
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slavery
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social institutions
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social norms
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social order
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treaty
B. Learning Objectives
Students will be expected to be able to differentiate between an underlying cause and an immediate cause of slave revolts; also, to be capable of ascertaining differences and similarities between revolts and a revolution. They will come to grips with questions pertaining to the events of revolt and the theory of revolt: what made for success in one case and failure in another?
Students will be challenged to grapple with generalizations about the institution of slavery, such as the following description by a French delegate who observed slaves in the colonies in the 1790’s:
“Sheltered by all the necessities of life, surrounded with an ease unknown in the greater part of the countries of Europe, secure in the enjoyment of their property ... cared for in their illnesses ... protected, respected in the infirmities of age; ... free when they had rendered important services. ... The most sincere attachment bound the master to the slave; we slept in safety in the middle of these men who had become our children, and many among us had had neither locks nor bolts on our doors.”
A description such as this is intended to give the students clues as to the underlying assumptions about slaves and myths about their conditions. Other quotations and statistics will be examined to test whether this thesis is credible as a general statement. How docile and manageable was this human property? How content were the slaves of the Caribbean?
C. Behavioral Objectives
Over the fifteen days of study, the student will be expected to participate in: at least one class presentation (roleplay, debate, or oral report); one small group project with other class members; one interview or opinion survey on the topic of rebellion or revolution. Also, class members will be expected to maintain an orderly folder containing all assignments and hand in a booklet or report researching some aspect of colonial revolts in Caribbean America. There will be daily opportunities for students to become involved through a variety of classroom activities and assignments.
II. Unit Summary and Strategies
By reading accounts from primary sources, students will try to construct a profile of the “typical” slave in the Caribbean. In examining the narratives in small groups, they will attempt to report to their classmates what the “typical” plantation slave was like; the “typical” domestic slave was like; how “typical” slaves on a small farm were treated. What conclusions can the student draw from evidence that often conflicts? What, if any, generalizations can be made? An examination by region of statistical information regarding the widespread nature of plantation slavery in the Caribbean should help students understand that a majority of slaves lived under these conditions.
Students will also discover differences in the attitudes of many members of the “civilized” and “respectable” members of free society. A glimpse at quotations from landowners, plantation owners, plantation bookkeepers (managers), peninsulares, creoles, mestizos, Catholic priests, freed blacks, and others, including government officials, should stimulate the students. Was there an “accepted, general view” of slavery and AfroAmerican slaves? What was the prevailing attitude?
Next, students will examine the sets of codified laws governing the behavior of slaves. What can these laws tell us about the principles that regulated the lives of black slaves in the region?
The students again will be divided into groups to study and report back their findings regarding the three basic sets of rules by the Spanish, British and French:
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Spanish laws. In examining the
Siete Partidas
, the basis of slave regulations in the Spanish colonies, students will discover the legal “personhood” of the slave and his legal incorporation into the family of the master. Also, the custom of
cartacion
allowed the slaves to buy their freedom.
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2.
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English laws. The English slave laws, by way of comparison, make the slaves out to be a “special kind of property” (chattel) consistent with the United States experience in the South. The laws here give the masters virtually complete control over the slaves’ lives.
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3.
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French laws. The French
Code Noir
was the most liberal and egalitarian of all. Students will discover provisions such as fixed allowances for food and clothing, legal rights in court to sue masters for mistreatment, etc.
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Questions asked of the students will be these: What do the laws reveal about the principles of the lawmakers? the view of personhood of slaves? the rights of slaves? the privileges of slaves?
Following the study of law, records will be examined in each of the three societies regarding the enforcement of these laws. Also, what were later laws like (particularly in the Spanish and French colonies)? What reasons can be given for the harsh nature of later laws and the ignoring of earlier laws? How can law preserve stability and order without sacrificing true justice? Do the demands for social order and maintaining a class structure outweigh certain other demands? The students will observe a direct correlation between rising slave-tomaster ratios and repressive laws and practices.
Now that we have explored inequities and inequalities in legal systems and how they may have contributed to the slave discontent, we turn our attention to immediate causes of rebellion as we examine rebellions in Jamaica and Cuba, where “Maroon Societies” of runaway slaves were established.
Maroon Societies were communities formed by rebel slaves and were in existence for more than four centuries throughout the Americas. In size, they ranged from small bands to powerful states comprising hundreds of membercitizens. The very fact of their existence represented a significant threat to white power and authority, with the accompanying annoyance of encouraging slaves to run away to the Maroon communities in the woods and mountains. In Haiti, from the 17th century onward, Maroon villages kept up guerilla warfare to the extent that a permanent horse patrol was formed to hunt down runaways and resist attacks. In Guiana during the 1740’s, after one hundred years of costly wars, government treaties were drawn up with Maroon tribes as the only viable way of stopping the serious raids on local plantations.
As we examine the Maroon Societies, we will look for the conditions which existed to make slave rebellion attractive. Students will examine factors: (1) the mastertoslave ratio (it was 1:10 in Jamaica during the later part of the 18th century and into the l9th); (2) the ratio of foreignborn slaves to nativeborn slaves (did African slaves behave differently from creole chattel?); (3) geographical factors (how did the landscape lend itself to escape and guerilla warfare?); (4) the number of absentee masters (did bookkeepers do as good a job as owner-masters?); (5) was there a dominant alternative society for exslaves to integrate into with overall customs and lifestyle (was there a cohesive culture ruled over and defended by the “ruling class”?) which stabilized life and which established social norms?
In Jamaica, we will survey the revolts, try to examine the causes of revolts and form an hypothesis (above) as to their causes.
In Cuba, we will read a brief description of the
palenques
(sanctuary of huts housing runaways) and their lifestyle, as a way of illustrating the rather loose societies that developed in some of the islands.
The final few days of the unit will be spent examining the conditions that led to revolution in San Domingo (Haiti). On November 29, 1803, the Republic of Haiti was officially founded and became the first independent nation in the Western Hemisphere dedicated to the equality of the black man. The success of the revolution there proved a strong challenge to the myths of the slaveholder: that the slaves were naturally inferior, that they were unorganized and docile by nature, and incapable of competing with the white man. Students will examine the underlying causes of rebellion and will be encouraged to draw their own conclusions explaining how this movement could have had even the slightest chance of success.
As the students examine the underlying causes of revolt, they will discover a highly immobile class society controlled by a ruling class of “big whites”—the creole plantocracy, clergy and merchants. The second class of whites, the “small whites” were the shopkeepers, overseers and small planters. The bottom tier of Haitian society, the “free men of color”, who made up fortyfive percent of the free population, included Mulattoes and free blacks who had either purchased their freedom or who had been freed by their masters. Though this last group represented many who owned large landholdings, there was very little chance that they would ever gain social or political equality from the “big whites.” The slaves, who outnumbered their masters by a fifteentoone margin, were a discontented desperate lot. Mortality was high, since the prevailing slaveholder philosophy assumed that it was cheaper to work a slave to death within a few years and buy another than to allow the slave to reach old age.
Slave discontent in Haiti was evident in the large number of permanent Maroon communities in the mountains. Between 1679 and 1778, seven slave conspiracies had been organized; one of which was very well planned but failed because the leader, Mackandal, was betrayed and later executed. In 1790, a wealthy free Mulatto named Vincent Ogé led a rebellion armed with revolutionary slogans of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” and weapons from France. The rebellion was quickly put down and a wave of terror against the slaves began. In response, the slaves, many of them recent arrivals from Africa, revolted and burned most of the plantation lands to the north of the city of Le Cap. The terrified whites were forced to forget their differences for a time to face the common enemy. But the Free Blacks slowly realized that they had more to gain by joining with their darker brothers, particularly after the small whites began to massacre Mulattoes in the area around PortauPrince. Events became very confusing, with the Spanish aiding the slaves, the British aiding the white liberals, and the white Royalists fighting the white Patriots. Commissioners sent from France were powerless to settle the differences and prevent new revolts from spreading. In 1794 after Le Cap was destroyed in the fighting, and with opposing Spanish and British forces controlling much of Haiti, the French Republic was successful in persuading former slave general Toussaint L’Ouverture to join forces with them. Touissaint, active in the rebellion for two years on the side of the Spanish and French supporters of the king, decided to unite with the Republic after learning that the Jacobincontrolled French Assembly had officially emancipated the slaves early in 1794. What kind of a man was Toussaint? What were his goals? How important was he to the success of the Revolution? These and other questions students will attempt to answer as they study the events and ideas of those concerned with the Haitian revolution from 1794 through 1804.
Toussaint had been uniquely prepared for his role in history. The students will learn that, although a slave, he became educated and well-read, managed his master’s affairs with great skill and became respected by masters and slaves alike for his diplomatic abilities. As the students study quotations by Toussaint and his contemporaries (found in books by Tyson and James) they should gain insight into the nature of the man and the course of his controversial leadership of a successful revolution resulting in his being named Commander-inChief of the French armies, LieutenantGovernor of Haiti and finally Dictator for Life of the Republic of Haiti.
In closing this section of the unit, two poems by nineteenth-century contemporary poets are presented for analysis by historians and students alike. The first is by William Wordsworth; the second by John Greenleaf Whittier.
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Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men: ...
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Though fallen thyself, never to rise again,
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Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind
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Powers that work for thee: air, earth, and skies.
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There’s not a breathing of the common wind
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That will forget thee: thou hast great allies;
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Thy friends are exultations agonies,
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And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.
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He stood the aged palms beneath,
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That shadowed o’er his humble door,
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Listening, with halfsuspended breath,
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To the wild sounds of fear and death,—
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Toussaint L’Ouverture!
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What marvel that his heart beat high!
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The blow for freedom had been given;
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And blood had answered to the cry
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That earth sent up to Heaven!
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Yes, darksoured chieftan!—if the light
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Of mild Religion’s heavenly ray
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Unveiled not to thy mental sight
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The lowlier and the purer way,
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In which the Holy Sufferer trod
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Meekly amidst the sons of crime,—
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That calm reliance upon God
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For justice, in his own good time,—
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That gentleness to which belongs
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Forgiveness for its many wrongs, ...
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For other hands than mine may wreathe
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The laurel round thy brow of death,
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And speak thy praise as one whose word
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A thousand fiery spirits stirred,— ...
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Amidst whose gloomy vengeance shone
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Some milder virtues all shine own,—
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Some gleams of feelings, pure and warm,
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Like sunshine on a sky of storm,—
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Proof that the Negro’s heart retains
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Some nobleness amidst its chains,
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That kindness to the wronged is never
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Without its excellent reward,
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Holy to humankind, and ever
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Acceptable to God.
The final day of the unit of study will be spent in attempting to evaluate how life changed for those who participated in rebellion and also their posterity was affected. When and how did eventual emancipation come, and what price did individuals and groups have to pay to secure a life of “freedom?”