An Explosion of Violence: How the Haitian Revolution Rearranged the Trade Patterns of the Western Hemisphere

Abstract

Historians in recent years have finally begun to give the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804 the attention that it deserved as one of the first wars of national liberation and as a momentous blow against Atlantic slavery.¹ That struggle demonstrated that the ideals that so marked the French Revolution, ‘liberté, égalité, fraternité’, had very different meanings — and consequences — in an overseas French colony overwhelmingly inhabited by slaves, many of whom were born in Africa. This chapter will consider that world historic event from an unusual perspective by addressing its consequences for international trade in the early nineteenth century. Was the destruction of the Haitian ‘Pearl of the Antilles’ constructive and, if so, who enjoyed the benefits? It will be argued that the colonial bloodbath that severely impacted the most precious European colony in the Caribbean had the ironic effect of diffusing and expanding tropical exports in the Americas — but not in Haiti — and amplifying mass consumption in the United States and Western Europe — but not in the Caribbean. This violent transnational war and social upheaval served as a vehicle for commercial globalization.