Estimated destinations for African-American settlers in Hispaniola under Boyer's rule, 1818-1843. This is based on low estimates of a total of 6,000 free African Americans rather than the high estimate of perhaps 13,000. Many if not most of these African-Americans returned to the US due to cultural differences, religious differences, and a lack of interest in agriculture (or lack of support). Map taken from here.
I recently re-read Sara C. Fanning's thought-provoking "The Roots of Early Black Nationalism: Northern African Americans' Invocations of Haiti in the Early Nineteenth Century," which can be found here. Fanning also wrote a fascinating thesis that goes into great detail on interests of Haitians and African-Americans in supporting the emigration plan, particularly regarding Boyer's government's interest in US recognition as well as other economic and social factors that pushes as many as 13,000 African-Americans to settle in Haiti. I shall return to her thesis for a future post on the fate and experiences of African-Americans who did immigrate to Haiti during Boyer's presidency. Anywho, here are some interesting facts one can 'gleam' through Fanning's article.
1. One of the many reasons free African-Americans were interested in Haiti and emigration was due to increasing persecution and racism across the United States. States considered legislation that placed additional limits on the movement of free black people. Voting laws were established in places like New York City that disenfranchised the mjaoiry of the free black population. Southern states such as South Carolina passed laws that prevented black sailors from staying in Charleston, decreeing that they must stay overnight in the city's jails at their own expense. Since maritime labor was a large source of employment for free black males living along the eastern coast and major cities of the United States, laws such as this, with obvious discriminatory intent and impact, became another push factor for African-Americans to leave the United States.
2. Another reason African-Americans would have felt an interest in Haiti is the lack of interest and connection to Africa. The American Colonization Society, which included free blacks, white slaveholders and abolitionists, sought to convince free blacks to emigrate so as to rid the US of them, thereby removing a potential influence on other slave population. Haiti, unlike the largely unknown African ancestral homeland, possessed a republican ideology of government, presented itself as a defender of the African race, and its military success against France and other European powers in the Haitian Revolution inspired African-American resistance as well as fueling nascent black nationalism. The notion of a strong, independent black state in the Caribbean with a republican government, progress covered in American newspapers, and a militaristic, black masculinity embedded in Haitian political culture, must have appealed to free black men in the US who were victims of white attacks and racist laws. Indeed, the tale of the Haitian Revolution has a long history of praise and emulation in the US, where African-Americans, slave and free, were proud to be Haitian.
3. The free black Masonic lodges across the US were another source of Haitian interest. Like the Masonic lodges in Haiti itself, a zone of male privilege and politics, Masonic lodges for free blacks provided insurance for the community and social spaces where black men could come together on their own terms. Fanning highlights Prince Hall's A Charge to African Masons, which illustrates solidarity and African diasporic bonds with the people of Haiti. It would be interesting as a field of inquiry in itself to examine how Freemasonry in Haiti and African-American Freemasonry intersected. Indeed, the first New York African Mason Lodge opened under the name Boyer Lodge, after Jean-Pierre Boyer of Haiti.
4. The policy of Haitian states pushing for African-American immigrants goes all the way back to Dessalines. Dessalines offered American ship captains forty dollars per immigrant. Such a policy is understandable given a desire to repopulate the island after perhaps a quarter or more died in the Haitian Revolution. Petion and Christophe also saw African-Americans as a potential source of manpower, repopulation, special skills, and manning naval ships. Paul Cuffee, Jr., also traveled to Haiti in 1812 to participate in the Haitian market, another instance of prominent free blacks engaging in trade as well as serving upon Haitian ships.
5. Christophe had Prince Saunders, a prominent free black educator and son-in-law for a while to Paul Cuffee, actively working to bring African-Americans to Christophe's kingdom. Petion, on the other hand, tried to entire African-American immigrants through his constitution, which granted citizenship to any descendant of Africans or Indians after residing for one year. Under Boyer, the Haitian state made the most progress in attracting African-Americans, through Haytian Emigration Societies and propaganda in the person of Jonathas Granville, speaking to black audiences while promising land, agricultural tools, wages, freedom of religion, and paying for the passage of emigrants. As many as 13,000 African-Americans would come to Haiti in the 1820s due to Boyer's government's propaganda and the high place of Haiti in free black communities' thoughts. In fact, several prominent African-Americans supported the plan, such as Richard Allen, Peter Williams, and James Forten. Prince Saunders would stay in Haiti and serve under Boyer, too. Allen's son migrated to Haiti for a while, but returned when economic conditions were less favorable for the manufacturing industry.
Boyer's acceptance of an absurd debt to pay France for recognition, the enactment of the Code Rural, high prices of food, cultural differences, lack of government support and land distribution as well as the collapse of coffee exports in the 1820s led to many African-Americans deciding to return home. In addition, Fanning's thesis claims that perhaps as many as 4000 African-Americans concentrated in and around Port-au-Prince rather than being more evenly distributed throughout the island. Such an overconcentration given the lack of appropriate resources and government aid, as well as anger directed at Americans for a smallpox epidemic, would have made things tense for African-Americans. If only Boyer had renegotiated the treaty with France, supported education, established a shipyard in Samana (where the only recognizable community of African-American descendants survives, in today's Dominican Republic), and given more support for immigrants' control of their own mobility, then perhaps many if not most of these African-Americans with needed skills would have stayed. They could have manned Haiti's naval ships, helped establish some manufacturing and textile industries, brought Haiti into closer ties through trade with free blacks in the United States, and, presuming Boyer also did not cut off trade with neighboring Caribbean islands, aided Haitian economic expansion and trade in the Caribbean and beyond. Oh well, what I want to know at this point is the influence of African-Americans from the 1820s who stayed in Haiti and lived through Boyer's wrong-headed rule.
This post is almost excellent, to make it so, more information on the types of people who came from the U.S. is needed. Were they introduced into the country as part of an overall plan to develop the country or was it just grandstanding to make the regime look good and an attempt to get in the good graces of the ship the blacks back to Africa lobby in the U.S.? Given the disastrous result, and my reflexive distrust of the Boyer crowd, I'm leaning toward the latter alternative. " Paul Cuffee, Jr., also traveled to Haiti in 1812 to participate in the Haitian market, another instance of prominent free blacks engaging in trade as well as serving upon Haitian ships." Fascinating, which part of Haiti did he have business with? What was the nature of his business there? "They could have manned Haiti's naval ships, helped establish some manufacturing and textile industries, brought Haiti into closer ties through trade with free blacks in the United States, and, presuming Boyer also did not cut off trade with neighboring Caribbean islands, aided Haitian economic expansion and trade in the Caribbean and beyond. Oh well, what I want to know at this point is the influence of African-Americans from the 1820s who stayed in Haiti and lived through Boyer's wrong-headed rule." Given the fact that Blacks were used extensively as sailors in the U.S. an intelligent and careful harnessing of such talents could have endowed Haiti with a merchant, fishing and naval fleet that would have diversified her economy and spurred technological and economic progress. Black Americans could have benefited by making some of them the agents through which Haiti's production was introduced to the world market. Cuffee should have been encouraged to build a government sponsored shipyard to make up for Haiti's lack of a naval force. Thomas Goodall, a British sailor (http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Goodall,_Thomas_%28DNB00%29, http://www.grosvenorprints.com/stock_detail.php?ref=23529) made as much as 120,000 pound sterling ($589,974,000 in 2011) during his service as Christophe's admiral. The lure of that kind of money attracted a host of English immigrants. Haiti could have used the commercial ties with Black American businessmen to achieve a form of de facto recognition from the U.S. or at least those states where the interests of the slave owners was not paramount. Paul Cuffee's Quaker network could have been used for such endeavor. A very good post.
ReplyDeleteFanning's long disseration does a decent job giving specific examples of many of the African-Americans who left for Haiti in the 1820s. She even includes a table at the end with a list of several African-Americans who came to Haiti during this period. Fanning doesn't seem to consider your take on Boyer's reasons behind this, but she seems to have a somehow very positive view of Boyer's rule so maybe she's blinded by African-American optimism and faith in Haiti and the attraction of black nationalism from this period. I don't know, I appreciate Fanning for researching this period of African-American/Haitian interactions, but she seems too uncritical, though she does acknowledge several shortcomings of Boyer's republic in the economy. She does acknowledge how the struggle for US recognition of some sort was perhaps the main motive of Boyer in this, so she isn't overly idealizing him.
DeleteIf only Haiti had been able to procure and treat these African-Americans well for the long-term, since a strong Haitian navy and development of shipping would have remarkably changed the history of the island, as you noted.
Hey Yvie, do you think this article will improve the relationship between African Americans and Afro Haitians?
DeleteWhy have you not shared this information on Abagond's blog? They were discussing moving out of the USA in light of the Zimmerman acquittal. The pdf on the Samana Americans totally validates Vastey's skepticism toward the whole idea of sending people to a new land without vetting them. What stupidity to have offered to pay for the relocation of the Americans to the island. Why did anybody think that Philadelphians would make great Coconut farmers? I was right to distrust this scheme because the people described in that pdf sound like the kind of people that Haiti did not need. As I wrote above, what was needed at the time was a tight and profitable alliance between the educated elite of Black America and serious Haitian leaders. Unfortunately such leaders were all dead by then.
ReplyDeleteThis is quite an interesting post.
ReplyDeleteThis blog has attempted another post on the subject, looking at African American emigration to Haiti across the 1800s: https://thedreamvariation.blogspot.com/2019/09/african-american-emigration-to-haiti.html
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