Whats on my mind? The great historian David Patrick Geggus ends his chapter 11, The Great Powers and the Haitian Revolution with an important paragraph: Despite contemporary and modern claims about Haitian agents, the new Haitian state did not prove a direct threat to neighboring slave regimes, and early heads of state were at pains to allay such fears. Alexandre Pétion provided assistance to the Miranda expedition of 1806, however, and ten years later as president, he re-equipped Simón Bolivar at the nadir of his fortunes and sent him back to South America after he promised to end slavery in his homeland. Beyond this,Haiti was a symbol of black achievement in a world dominated by Europeans, where slavery and racism were gaining strength. For proslavery and antislavery forces it became a crucial test case for the next few decades regarding ideas about race, slavery, and the future of the Caribbean, a debate to which Haitian publicists and statesmen contributed. Though its revolution was never emulated, it was not easily forgotten.
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 10:52:21 +0000
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