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| Graduate Romanic Association | Vol. 6, 2001 - 2002 | ||
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Representation and exploitation: the Haitian Revolution and Carpentier's 'The Kingdom of this World'
by Mariana Past
When many of us think of Haiti today, we imagine a country with an unstable political situation, extreme poverty, and large numbers of emigrants leaving the country. Or, perhaps, images of voodoo rituals come to mind. However, Haiti is a country with a rich and complex history that the world-and especially the media-has often overlooked. While we are all familiar with eighteenth-century events such as the American and French Revolutions, many are less familiar with the fact that within the same period of time Haiti's slave population revolted and overthrew French colonial rule. Most of us are certainly surprised to hear that nearly 1000 Haitians-free blacks in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, as it was called then-participated in the American Revolution, in the siege of Savannah of 1779.
The Haitian Revolution was the first and only successful slave revolution in the history of the Americas. The event figures significantly into the historical consciousness of Latin America: one of the immediate consequences of the revolution was to generate widespread fear on the part of colonists that slaves in other areas might take up arms as well. During the Revolution, combinations of French, Spanish, and English troops fought against ever-changing alliances of black slaves and free mulattos; bloodshed and chaos prevailed. It is noteworthy that Simón Bolívar-the renowned South American liberator-says nothing whatsoever about the Haitian Revolution in his celebrated "Carta de Jamaica" in 1815, even though he spent time in the new republic of Haiti preparing his own revolutionary attack on Venezuela. Indeed, "el terrible caso haitiano"-the terrible, "unthinkable," case of Haiti-was precisely what Latin America wanted to avoid [1].
Michel-Rolph Trouillot suggests in his 1995 book Silencing the Past [2] that the Haitian Revolution was an event so inconceivable to most that it has been "silenced" over the past two centuries. Trouillot writes, The silencing of the Haitian Revolution is only a chapter within a narrative of global domination. It is part of the history of the West and it is likely to persist, even in attenuated form, as long as the history of the West is not retold in ways that bring forward the perspective of the world. Unfortunately, we are not even close to such fundamental rewriting of world history, in spite of a few spectacular achievements. (Trouillot 107) Trouillot's situating of the Haitian Revolution and its history into a "narrative of global domination" is convincing, especially when he argues that Haitian scholars themselves have not enjoyed sufficient access to historical archives, and have thus not been able to adequately write their own history. Trouillot's use of the term "silencing," however, can lend itself easily to misinterpretation; when one consults catalogs and archives, one cannot help but notice that there does exist a significant body of literature from the Caribbean, the United States and Europe about the unprecedented rebellion and its leaders-Toussaint Louverture, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, and Henri Christophe, in particular. The argument put forth in Silencing the Past is that, although scholars have frequently addressed the Haitian Revolution-with many gaps between their varying accounts, to be sure-and total silence does not therefore exist, Haiti's subaltern history has simply not been heard, much less understood, by the rest of the world. Consequently, the extraordinary event has not been adequately inscribed into accounts of world history.
This essay seeks to explore some of the ways in which
scholars have addressed the Haitian Revolution as a particular historical
case, as well as some of the connections between their works. The Revolution
has served as a trope in literature and history precisely because it was
a traumatic event for the Caribbean region, and especially for the Western
world. It called into question many deeply held beliefs about race, freedom,
power, and legitimacy, and its legendary violence generated widespread
fear and anxiety. The meaning of the event has been extremely problematic
over the past two centuries, inspiring both historians and writers of
fiction to try to unravel its many complex strands. The silence of Simón
Bolívar notwithstanding, many later nineteenth-century writers
attempt to explain how the slave revolution happened.
The following case in North America is instructive: Wendell
Phillips, a lawyer in Boston during the Civil War, embraced Haiti's example
in an effort to further his own abolitionist goals. His 1863 history of
Toussaint Louverture is the stuff of myth-Phillips insists upon the man's
classical learning and emphasizes how just, honest, generous and dignified
he was (however exceptional as a black man). Phillips underlines the fact
that at one point Toussaint has his own nephew executed as a punishment
for unjustly killing whites; he eventually comes to be admired (and feared)
by all races. Incidentally, "Louverture" comes from the French
"celui qui ouvre," or "he who opens up." Toussaint's
original last name was Bréda. Phillips compares Toussaint's abilities
to those of Napoléon and accentuates the rivalry between the men.
In the end, Toussaint is captured by French troops and exiled to France-traveling
on a ship named "le Créole"-and he dies, a martyr, in
a cold prison surrounded by snow. This image helps to establish Toussaint's
standing in the imaginary of the world.
Continuing well into the twentieth century, the Haitian Revolution has been the focus of a substantial body of scholarship and cultural production emerging from not only the Caribbean, but also the United States and Europe. During the Harlem Renaissance, for example, in the case of the visual arts, Jacob Lawrence's "The Life of Toussaint Louverture" paintings (1939) play an essential role in his transformation into a cultural and historical authority within the Harlem community [3]. Also in 1939, C.L.R. James publishes the long-classic Black Jacobins, wherein he radically proposes that the wealth generated by the slave economy of Saint-Domingue-which was the jewel of France's colonial possessions-was the catalyst for the French Revolution. In the 1960's and 1970's, in the Caribbean space in particular, one can observe an upsurge of fictional writing about the revolution and its leaders-by writers such as Alejo Carpentier, Roger Dorsinville, Aimé Césaire, and Edouard Glissant. While all the revolutionary leaders receive some attention, Toussaint is the figure most privileged as a subject: for example, in the space of ten years, there appear no fewer than five historical novels and plays that bear his name as a title.
A cursory glance at the roles of other Haitian revolutionary leaders allows us to understand why Toussaint Louverture has remained the historical figure of choice for many writers, especially those from abroad. In the first place, Dessalines served under Toussaint as a general in the Revolution, and he carried out much of the dirty work, so to speak, brutally executing thousands of whites and mulattoes, and leaving Toussaint with a tidier image. Secondly, Dessalines becomes the leader of Haiti only after Toussaint's martyrdom in 1803, and Dessalines is assassinated two years later, so he is visible for a much shorter span of time. More importantly, Dessalines is the individual responsible for seeing the Revolution through to its bitter end-that is, for massacring French troops, terrorizing the bourgeoisie, and introducing radical economic reforms concerning land distribution. Not surprisingly, then-according to René Depestre, a contemporary Haitian writer-Dessalines has perpetually been the hero of the Haitian masses-the father figure of their country-while the élites have generally lauded Toussaint Louverture. As for the revolutionary leader Henri Christophe, he served as Dessalines' lieutenant during the Revolution; afterwards, he became a general and gained responsibility for the western half of Haiti. Following Dessalines' death, Christophe takes over the northern region of the republic as well, but his unbending regime ultimately brings nothing but more violence and a state of neo-colonization. Given these circumstances, between the three revolutionary figures I have described, it is not surprising that Toussaint appears to be the most attractive persona in the eyes of the Haitian elite and the international public.
One thing that seems fairly certain is this: what each
of the texts in this corpus says about the Haitian Revolution is as significant
as what it does not say. In Tropics of Discourse [4] Hayden White
proposes-and here he nods to Lévi-Strauss' theory about the production
of historical texts: "Our explanations of historical structures and
processes are determined more by what we leave out of our representations
than by what we put in." (White 90)
In light of this hypothesis, let us consider Alejo Carpentier's
1949 novel El reino de este mundo [5] ("The Kingdom of this
World"). The text provides a collage-like chronicle of the Haitian
Revolution: it consists of four parts containing memoirs, travel books,
and historical documents. The first section dates to the 1750's campaign
of terror led against the white colonists by the runaway slave Mackandal;
the following sections depict scenes from the Revolution itself, the downfall
of the ruthless Henri Christophe, and the ultimate rise of the mulattoes
in Haiti-which are the new rulers and oppressors of the blacks. The protagonist
is a slave by the name of Ti Noel who gives the text its only unity. At
the end of the novel he undergoes an enlightenment and metamorphosis through
voodoo: he progressively acquires an awareness that the African slaves
must act upon their magical worldview if they are to gain their freedom.
Significantly, many important historical incidents are
either omitted or never explained in El Reino de este mundo. Though
a host of "real" characters do appear-Mackandal, the Jamaican
Bouckman, Henri Christophe, the French general Leclerc, Paulina Bonaparte,
and a Cuban composer-many major figures of the Revolution are left out:
Toussaint Louverture, along with Dessalines and Alexandre Pétion.
To interpret these exclusions, it is helpful to consider that in Carpentier's
prologue to El Reino de este mundo he launches an attack on the
surrealist movement in Europe. Carpentier argues that surrealism is a
tired, pretentious movement based on artificial codes for the fantastic;
in his opinion, it is necessary to "return to the real," for
the American continent is full of marvels that need only be documented,
such as a journalist would. At the end of the prologue lies Carpentier's
famous question, "What is the history of America if not a chronicle
of the real maravilloso?" (This technique is not to be confused
with magical realism, which involves creative invention rather than the
documentation of observable phenomena.)
Because Carpentier seeks concrete evidence of the "marvelous" in America, to oppose to artistic models in Europe, he highlights in his novel the strength and importance of supernatural belief on the part of the Haitian people. The emphasis of the novel, then, seems to lie not in history itself but in the exoticism of legend, or "the selective revelation of strange and incongruous events that amaze the reader with an aura of the bizarre." (Müller-Bergh 1024) [6] It strikes me as problematic that Carpentier chooses a successful black slave revolution as the best illustration of the "marvelous," or the "unbelievable," in America. This gesture is heavy with implications, which cannot be fully explored here. However, the upshot is that Carpentier, by focusing so much on voodoo and leaving out any mention of the main revolutionary leaders, seems to reduce the import of the Haitian Revolution to mere mystery and enchantment. The "real" Haitian characters that he includes are those whose existence was most marginal, and who came least into contact with Europe. Volek underscores the problems located in Carpentier's conception of the "real": "The marvelous" can be recognized only in relation to some dominant norm of "the real;" this norm is, of course, furnished by the modern West. […] Are not all Latin Americans cast in the role of "indians," for the pleasure of Western spectators? Is not the "marvelous reality," connoting many times infrahuman conditions of life, "marvelous" only for the imaginary tourists, foreign or domestic? (Volek 172) [7] In El Reino de este mundo Carpentier relegates Haitian history to exoticism, thus underscoring its "foreign" status with respect to the Western world. His more eminent novel El Siglo de las luces [8], written in 1962 (following the events of the Cuban Revolution), manifests a sharply critical view of the French Revolution and Western rationality. In a future project I will examine this text alongside El reino de este mundo, with an eye to exposing the shift in Carpentier's ideology in terms of revolutionary theory and historical representation.
The discourse of the Haitian Revolution has been re-activated for a wide variety of purposes during the twentieth century; revolutionary leaders such as Toussaint carry symbolic weight that writers can reinvest with new meaning to correspond to new ideologies and particular social realities. After all, as White points out, "To historicize is to mythologize. History is never history of, it is always history for. It is not only history for in the sense of being written with some ideological aim in view, but also history for in the sense of being written for a specific social group or public." (White 103) Accordingly, twentieth-century Caribbean writers use the Haitian Revolution as a backdrop to both interrogate and respond to events such as the American occupation of Haiti, the rise of Duvalier, the independence movements of French colonies in Africa, and, of course, the Cuban Revolution. Aimé Césaire's Toussaint Louverture, la Révolution française et le problème colonial [9] (1961) deals with issues relating to post-independence and the negritude movement, while Edouard Glissant's Monsieur Toussaint [10], published during the same year, displays an affinity for the local, and reflects an emphasis on créolité and transculturation, both reactions against negritude.
Haiti today is, unenviably, the poorest country in theWestern hemisphere; in the words of Aravamudan in Tropicopolitans [11], Haiti "enters the twenty-first century still suffering the consequences of a long neocolonial afterlife." "Nonetheless," the writer suggests, "in the social chaos of today's Haiti, could we perhaps find Toussaint's heirs…who perform the modern tasks of regeneration and restoration?" (Aravamudan 325)
Let us consider one last curious-and perhaps even "marvelous" fact, as Carpentier himself might affirm: Toussaint Louverture, at age fifteen, voluntarily traveled to a certain former British colony in 1779 to serve as a drummer boy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the implications of this occasion have yet to be studied by scholars.
[1] Lynch writes in The Independence of Latin America (ed. Leslie Bethell; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987):
[5] Carpentier, Alejo. El Reino de este mundo. La Habana : Editorial Letras Cubanas, 1999.
[6] Muller-Burgh, Klaus. "Alejo Carpentier." Latin American Writers, ed. Solé, Abreu. New York : Scribner, 1989.
[7] Volek, Emil. " Alejo Carpentier. " Encyclopedia of Latin American Literature, ed. Verity Smith. London ; Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997, p. 172.
[8] Carpentier, Alejo. El siglo de las luces: novela. México : Cía. General de Ediciones, 1962.
[9] Césaire, Aimé. Toussaint Louverture, la Révolution française et le problème colonial. Paris: Présence africaine, 1962 (c. 1961).
[10] Glissant, Edouard. M. Toussaint. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1961.
[11] Aravamudan, Srinivas. "Tropicalizing
the Enlightenment." Tropicopolitans: Colonialism and Agency,
1688-1804. Durham: Duke University Press, 1999. |
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