Maroons were integral participants in the genesis of the Haitian Revolution
Evidence
The precise, that is historical, relationship of the maroons to the Haitian revolution is still a matter of debate—particularly so among Haitian historians. Some traditions hold that the maroons played no role in the revolution at all. Others declare that the maroons were “the principal origin of the rising of 1791.” If it were not Haiti about which the controversy revolved, the debate might have very well been settled by the available evidence. After all, voodoo, which James termed “the medium of the conspiracy” (of 1791), had also inspired earlier maroon revolts, the most important of which had occurred barely thirty years before under the guide of Mackandel; two of the Revolution’s first leaders were maroons: Boukman “a fugitive slave from Jamaica,” and Jean François “who had spent the last few years prior to 1791 as a maroon”; and, as well, when in late August, mulattos of the Western Province too rose up against the French, we know that they enlisted maroons whom they termed “the Swiss,” (and whom they would eventually betray). — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 733
The precise, that is historical, relationship of the maroons to the Haitian revolution is still a matter of debate—particularly so among Haitian historians. Some traditions hold that the maroons played no role in the revolution at all. Others declare that the maroons were “the principal origin of the rising of 1791.” If it were not Haiti about which the controversy revolved, the debate might have very well been settled by the available evidence. After all, voodoo, which James termed “the medium of the conspiracy” (of 1791), had also inspired earlier maroon revolts, the most important of which had occurred barely thirty years before under the guide of Mackandel; two of the Revolution’s first leaders were maroons: Boukman “a fugitive slave from Jamaica,” and Jean François “who had spent the last few years prior to 1791 as a maroon”; and, as well, when in late August, mulattos of the Western Province too rose up against the French, we know that they enlisted maroons whom they termed “the Swiss,” (and whom they would eventually betray). The maroons, it would seem, were an integral part of the disparate elements that crystallized into the Haitian Revolution. … Haiti’s maroons were part of an unacceptable entity. Their history and their historical character had become pawns; objects of contest between Haitian ideologues representing what David Nicholls calls “the black and mulatto legends of the past”; and related to the diminution of the revolution itself by European and American historians and scholars: Divisions among the whites, the population structure, the international situation: these are all factors which must be taken in account when attempting to explain the course of events leading up to Haitian independence. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 733
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to C.L.R. James’s The Black Jacobins, which Robinson engages throughout; James is the historian credited here. — connects to: The Haitian Revolution inspired slave revolts across the Americas; Maroon communities appeared wherever slavery and refuge terrain coexisted.; Maroon growth came chiefly from slave rebellions and escapes. (+2 more)
- corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 733