Before Haiti Race and Citizenship in French Saint-Domingue

by Garrigus, John D.

• ISBN13: 9780230108370
• ISBN10: 0230108377
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-12-15
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Winner of the Society for French Historical Studies 2007 Gilbert Chinard Prize! In 1804 French Saint-Domingue became the independent nation of Haiti after the only successful slave uprising in world history. When the Haitian Revolution broke out, the colony was home to the largest and wealthiest free population of African descent in the New World. Before Haiti explains the origins of this free colored class, exposes the ways its members both supported and challenged slavery, and examines how they created their own New World identity in the years from 1760 to 1804.

Author Biography

John Garrigus is Associate Professor of History, University of Texas at Arlington.

Table of Contents

The Development of Creole Society on the Colonial Frontier * Race and Class in Creole Society: Saint-Domingue in the 1760s * Freedom, Slavery, and the French Colonial State * Reform and Revolt after the Seven Years' War * Citizenship and Racism in the New Republic Sphere * The Rising Economic Power of Free People of Color in the 1780s * Proving Free Colored Virtue * Free People of Color in the Southern Peninsula and the Origins of the Haitain Revolution * Revolution and Republicanism in Aquin Parish