Irritated Genie

Irritated Genie: An Essay on the Haitian Revolution is a popular read for many black nationalists, Afrocentrists and members of the "conscious" community. Written by Jacob H. Carruthers, an African-centered scholar with ties to other Afrocentrists interested in Kemet and Classical African Civilizations, it unsurprisingly offers an Afrocentric interpretation of the Haitian Revolution. Tariq Nasheed's documentary on the Haitian Revolution would not exist without the influence of Carruthers. Thus, even though I think little of Irritated Genie, we must engage with it since it has shaped Afrocentric and popular African American reception of the Haitian Revolution.

Marxist academic Stephen Ferguson, in a provocative essay arguing against Afrocentrism, has described it as "a form of petit-bourgeois sentimental exoticism grounded in an idealist philosophy of history." Naturally, the debate between black Marxists or socialists and black nationalists and/or Afrocentrists predates Carruthers, and the dichotomous reading of black history often obscures more than it reveals. If black Marxists and socialists were slavish devotees of Eurocentric theory and worldviews, how does one explain a CLR James, the African Blood Brotherhood, or forms of Pan-Africanist socialism claiming inspiration from African material and cultural conditions? Thus, I would be remiss to casually dismiss Carruthers as a deluded or hopeless Afrocentric mired in a reactionary worldview and idealist philosophy. 

However, after finally reading Irritated Genie, one cannot help but think of its minor utility. Carruthers did not use any new sources or advance the study of the Haitian Revolution at all. To his credit, he uses some Haitian source material and primary documents, but one cannot help but think his Afrocentric model (with its presumptions of African continental cultural unity, the primacy of race conflict) illuminates little. The emphasis on 'Voodoo' is hardly new, since Haitian nationalists were arguing similarly for the importance of the religion in the Haitian Revolution long before Carruthers. Moreover, this alleged "romance of revolutionary Vodou" often relies on unproven assumptions to fit a narrative Haitian nationalists and intellectuals associated with the ethnological movement of the early 20th century wanted. 

Furthermore, while Carruthers is perhaps correct to declare that The Black Jacobins suffers from the author's "Marxist orientation," CLR James wrote an account that not only attributed agency to the enslaved revolutionaries but engaged with the contradictions between the emerging elite and the masses. With Carruthers, we receive a vindicationist narrative that moves from Mackandal to Boukman to Dessalines, with a number of unverified assumptions about each of the three to support a larger narrative about black revolution and resistance. This framework clearly informed the weak Nasheed documentary, and reduces revolution and history merely to a question of racial consciousness. More nuanced accounts derived from Marxists or even the "cosmopolitan pluralists" of the cultural turn have at least forced us to reconsider the origins of social revolutions and the conditions of the Haitian Revolution. 

In addition, it is unclear that race vengeance per se motivated the Haitian Revolution, from 1791 to Dessalines. Racial vengeance and vindicationism certainly did shape events, but it is somewhat difficult to see on what foundations Carruthers bases his account. Boukman, for instance, is claimed to have been illustrating how black and white culture are diametrically opposed to each other at Bois Caiman (23). While the importance of religion for gaining insights into the worldview of the enslaved is undeniable, Carruthers and others downplay the religious syncretism of Saint Domingue, as well as the degree to which Enlightenment thought shaped the actions of the affranchis and some slaves. One could also say that Carruthers approximated a Barthelemy thesis of a dichotomous creole and bossale rift, since he acknowledged how mulatto elites and the enslaved elites were committed to French (also, white) ways against the interests of the black majority, who were supposedly more African. Needless to say, Carruthers doesn't provide any evidence for this assertion about the worldview of the black masses, although he likely agreed with CLR James about the economic interests driving the policies of Toussaint L'Ouverture. 

Perhaps the most absurd claim of Carruthers is the assertion of a Bookman-Dessalines position, an addition to the mulatto and black legends of the Haitian Revolution (46). Where is the proof for any continuity from Boukman to Dessalines? Nor is it very convincing to say Dessalines succeeded where Toussaint failed because the former pursued race vengeance as the emotional/rational spirit necessary for national independence. Certainly, Dessalines was more willing to shed white blood than Toussaint to achieve independence. But what does one make of Dessalines as the first head of an independent Haitian state? Carruthers claims Dessalines favored land reforms on an equitable basis, which led to his assassination, but without much of any evidence (101). He similarly argues that Dessalines's support for freedom of religion included Vodou, without presenting any evidence. Basing an assessment of Dessalines's rule on his 1805 Constitution is helpful, but doesn't necessarily mean each article was actively enforced, either. Further, referring to the rise of Papa Doc as a return to the spirit of the Haitian Revolution is not only questionable, but additionally offensive (108). 

To conclude, Carruthers wrote a book of little importance to understanding the Haitian Revolution from a historical perspective. Unless one buys into his Afrocentric worldview, it is laden with a number of problematic assumptions lacking source material. To his credit, he does celebrate the role of Dessalines in the culmination of Haitian independence, something James neglected. Carruthers also took seriously the African background of the masses, but we get nothing like a nuanced account of the slaves, their ethnic origins, religious syncretism, or a deeper perspective on the role of class and material conditions which drove competing interests. We are ultimately left with the view that racial consciousness and some alleged African culture can/will ground us and pave the way for Black vindication. We are trapped in the same rut that the noiristes of Haiti set for us.

Hans Schmidt and the US Occupation

Hans Schmidt, author of perhaps the best work on the first US Occupation of Haiti in English, discusses the Occupation. Schmidt's  The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934 is mandatory reading, although one can see the appeal of Renda's Taking Haiti and other works which explore US-Haiti relations from a variety of perspectives. Roger Gaillard's work, however, remains the best for understanding the US Occupation. 

Theodora Holly

Theodora Holly ca. 1902

Daughter of James Theodore Holly, a prominent African-American and bishop of the Episcopal Church in Haiti, Theodora Holly and her siblings played an important role in Haitian intellectual history. As a product of a family rooted in black nationalist emigrationist thought and action of the 19th century, Holly unsurprisingly inherited this tradition of solidarity between Black America and Haiti. Furthermore, as a Protestant fluent in English, French, and Creole, she was uniquely poised to connect Black America and the Anglophone West Indies with Haiti through her journalism for venues such as the UNIA's Negro World. Perhaps her greatest importance lies in her being one of the few female voices in Haitian noiriste circles, suggesting the need to explore gendered dimensions of noirisme.

Unfortunately, little appears to have been done on researching Theodora Holly's important role in Haitian education, women's history, and intellectual thought. According to David M. Dean, Grace Theodora Holly was the best scholar of James T. Holly's many children, but the family lacked the funds for her to study abroad. Her father believed African-American emigration to Haiti was necessary to ensure Haiti reached her destiny as a shining star of black civilization. However, Haitians could not do it alone since African-Americans supposedly were more civilized due to contact with Anglo-American religion and civilization. Opposed to this view, her brother, Arthur, was a pioneer in the ethnological movement, authoring texts on the question of Vodou and esoterica in Haiti. Holly also shared her brother's fascination with the occult and esoteric matters, although not, to my knowledge, openly embracing Vodou like Arthur. Most of her contributions to Les Griots were about numerology, however, and her writings about Haiti in The Negro World and other African-American journals usually stressed solidarity between Haiti and Black America or touched upon the history and conditions of women in the island.

According to Grace Sanders, Holly played an important role in the International Council of Women of the Darker Races of the World, whose members later established a vocational and domestic training schools for girls. As an educator, Holly's appreciation of the Vai writing system and its implications for creating a Haitian Creole writing system, also suggest the importance of looking back to Africa for solutions to problems facing our race today. It is hard to imagine her father would have thought of doing such a thing. She was also praised in issues of Le Nouvelliste and Le Matin for her conferences on education and moral cultivation as early as 1913, predating her involvement with the International Council of the Women of the Darker Races.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing about Holly for this blog is her somewhat singular status as a Haitian woman directly engaged in the UNIA and noiriste circles. To what extent did her connections with African-American women and the UNIA shape a nascent Haitian women's movement? Did her father's enthusiasm for Fourier and Christian Socialism shape her belief in education and black women organizations for collective uplift? She seems to be one of the interesting figures in the early development of Haitian feminism and respectability, but also a proponent for educational reforms at a time when more women would have been migrating to the cities or working in new fields, as later seen by the presence of women in the tobacco industry or factories in the subsequent decades. Moreover, as someone shaped by the ethnological movement, she appears to mark a transition from the older classic black nationalism of her father to one shaped by the interwar years, a period where Haitians were urging themselves to not slavishly emulate French or Western ways but look inward.

Suggested Reading

 

Dean, David M., and James Theodore Holly. Defender of the Race: James Theodore Holly Black Nationalist Bishop. Boston: Lambeth Press, 1979. 

Moses, Wilson Jeremiah. The Golden Age of Black Nationalism, 1820-1925. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. 

Sanders, Grace Louise, La Voix des Femmes: Haitian Women's Rights, National Politics, and Black Activism in Port-au-Prince and Montreal, 1934-1986. 



Cyril Briggs and the African Blood Brotherhood

Ted Vincent on the African Blood Brotherhood. Essential history from the Pacifica Radio Archives on a key organization grappling with issues of race and class. Issues of the Crusader paper can be found online, too, for additional information Briggs and the ABB. Indeed, one satirical cartoon from their paper hints directly at conflicts with Garvey and the UNIA, bringing to mind similar debates between Marxists and noirists in a Haitian context during the 1930s and 1940s. Other episodes of the series includes a segment on Hubert Harrison and Harry Haywood.

Henry Rosemond and the New York-Caribbean Nexus

Henry Rosemond in the Daily Worker 

Although the number of Haitians in New York City was very small in comparison to other Caribbean groups during the early decades of the 20th century, the Caribbean-New York nexus for black radicalism also existed for Haitians. The arrival of Haitians coincided with the US Occupation of the island. Some of the Haitians in New York at this time were involved with nationalist, anti-Occupation movements, such as the Union Patriotique (UP). Joseph Mirault, a journalist and member of the UP, for example, worked as a Pullman porter. Others, such as Henry Rosemond, was involved in the garment worker union, the Needle Trade Industrial Union, as well as anti-imperialist, black labor leftist circles (principally, the American Negro Labor Congress).

Margaret Stevens, in her excellent Red International and Black Caribbean: Communists in New York City, Mexico and the West Indies, 1919-1939, convincingly demonstrates how important this New York City-Caribbean connection was for Haiti. Rosemond, according to Stevens, returned to Haiti at some point in 1929, after the student strike, and was known to have disseminated anti-imperialist and radical literature. She demonstrates how Rosemond's involvement with the American Negro Labor Congress and Communists in the States shaped his belief in class struggle, radical rejections of US imperialism, and interracial struggle. 

The preponderance of West Indians among black radicals in New York likely also shaped Rosemond, since Richard B. Moore, George Padmore, and others, coming out of the African Blood Brotherhood and similar organizations, would have found commonality with him as  fellow immigrants from colonized Caribbean islands. Black nationalists, black socialists, and radical labor organizers of Harlem must have left an impact on Rosemond, and he appears to have had some sort of impact on Roumain and the first Communist party in Haiti. Thus, one must not only situate Roumain and the origins of Haitian Marxism within a Latin American context, but a wider African-American and Caribbean world in which debates on race, class, and nationalism were ongoing. 

Unfortunately, references to Rosemond do not, to my knowledge, appear in any of Roumain's writings, but Rosemond referenced Roumain in articles for the African-American press (Pittsburgh Courrier, for instance). Moreover, Stevens asserts that Rosemond played a role in establishing an Anti-Imperialist League cell in Haiti, which would have certainly attracted attention from Roumain, Petit, Beaulieu and others. It's not difficult to imagine that when Beaulieu and Roumain traveled to New York in 1932, they likely profited from contacts given by Rosemond. Rosemond's experience with labor organizing, strikes, and Communist party structures would have made him an ideal source of contacts for Roumain, Beaulieu, and Charlier.

In addition to the New York connection with left-wing Caribbean activism and ideologies, a Paris nexus would also appear to exist, particularly through Le cri des negres and the African, Antillean, and European leftist organizations in France. Michel Hector's work uses these Francophone sources, which may explain why Rosemond is not referenced in his work. However, the Paris-Caribbean nexus was likely just as important in terms of building upon earlier Pan-African congresses in Europe as well as directly putting into conversation Haitians, Antilleans, and Africans, such as Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté. Haitian contributors to these France-based Pan-African left journals included Ludovic Lacombe and Jean Barau, who contributed articles on events in their homeland from perspectives of labor, religion, race, and anti-imperialism. 

In summation, Henry Rosemond's experiences, writings, and activism require those interested in tracking the development of the Haitian labor movement and Marxism to consider the significance of New York as an epicenter of black radicalism. Paris, like New York, was also important, but New York was closer while producing Haitians directly engaged in labor struggles. Indeed, Rosemond was nearly beaten to death by police during a strike in 1929, the same strike in which he believed black and white workers could come together over to advance working-class interests. Yet, Rosemond and the ANLC were not class reductionists either, suggesting a possible nuanced interpretation of the interplay of class and race in Caribbean and US settings. What is needed is a more detailed overview of Rosemond's life and work in Haiti, and the extent to which the New York and Paris links were followed by similar developments in the island. 

Witchcraft

Bill with the magic fingers playing "Witchcraft." Scott LaFaro's lyrical bass solo is always a welcome addition to Bill.

HASCO

A clip from a video about Hasco, the Haitian American Sugar Company. By this time, it must have been owned by Fritz Mevs, and the video looks like it was filmed in the 1980s. Clearly, it was produced by the company itself or paid for by HASCO, since it is nothing but positive. If anyone has the complete video, it should be shared online.

Railroads of Puerto Rico

This brief documentary examines the history of railroads in Puerto Rico. Although every documentary has its own set of problems, this one features charming local music about the trains of the island. It also includes some historic video footage and photographs of railroads on the island up until the last train for public use, in the 1950s. Georges Michel briefly mentions the railroads of Puerto Rico, too, although certainly not anywhere near the same level of detail as this video. Sadly, there doesn't appear to be a single book solely on the railroads of the island, although articles can be found. 

Qui était Christian Beaulieu?

Beaulieu from Antonin's Jacques Roumain, la passion d'un pays

Who was Christian Beaulieu? Although an important figure in the history of radicalism in Haiti, as well as education and Creole literacy, finding information about Beaulieu is far more difficult than it should be. A friend collaborator of Jacques Roumain, co-founder of the first Haitian Communist Party, and contributor to journals and newspapers such as Les Griots and Le Nouvelliste, as well as a pedagogical review, his paper trail appears far less copious than that of the more famous figures in the annals of the Haitian Left. Understanding who and what Beaulieu represented in the history of education in Haiti, in addition to the development of the Left, provides key insights into the role of language, discourse, and social structure which framed debates among various sects of the Haitian left and labor movement for the next several decades. 

As to the specific details of his life, Leslie Péan appears to be the main source relied on by others. From an article he authored in Le Petit Samedi Soir, Michel Hector and Matthew J. Smith draw their data. Beaulieu was, according to Hector, a "travailleur immigré" in the Dominican Republic before ending up at Columbia University, studying teaching. Unfortunately, without access to the source material used by Hector, one cannot but remain somewhat confused or mesmerized by the fact of a Haitian migrant worker in the Dominican Republic, presumably in the 1920s, eventually ending up in an elite US university. If Beaulieu was a migrant worker in the DR, presumably his roots were in the Haitian working-class or peasantry, yet his education suggests otherwise. Furthermore, without access to Beaulieu's writings on education, it is difficult to even begin to guess what his education at Columbia's Teacher College entailed, although presumably it shaped his desire to reform Haitian education with Creole instruction, thereby increasing the literacy rate and, in his view, pave the way for Haitians to learn to read French through an etymological orthography. 

By 1932, we learn that Bealieu traveled to New York with Jacques Roumain, seeking aid from the Communist Party to form the first Haitian party. The two must have crossed paths based on opposition to the US Occupation among Haitian youth and organized circles. By the early 1930s, Beaulieu, Roumain, and Louis Diaquoi (who, it must be said, flirted with Marxism) were discussing Marxism, radicalism, etc, and on the cusp of forming the Haitian Communist Party. After experiencing repression from Vincent and expulsion from the city of Port-au-Prince, Beaulieu appears again in the late 1930s, part of a United Front of opposition parties to stop Vincent from seeking another term in 1940. 

By the time of his death in 1943, due to a wartime shortage of penicillin (according to Max D. Sam), Beaulieu's work had appeared in La Nation, Le Nouvelliste and Les Griots, presumably still a Marxist but clearly someone of some degree of status or standing among intellectual circles. Unlike Roumain, who spent his final years with the Bureau d'Ethnologie and serving the Lescot government, Beaulieu appears to not have gone down the path of ethnology or the cultural politics of indigénisme, but was clearly familiar with the aforementioned Diaquoi and others affiliated with Griots. Beaulieu, like Roumain, demonstrate the degree of overlapping affiliations and intellectual journals that combined aspects of radical left-wing politics with noirist intellectuals and nationalists during and after the Occupation.

In terms of developing an orthography for Haitian Creole to promote education, Beaulieu was one of the first. According to Péan, Beaulieu and Faublas jeune were inspired by their socialist politics to develop a standardized orthography for the language. This is a fascinating idea, on the importance of literacy, education in the vernacular, and radical politics, which may explain why the Parti Socialiste Populaire's paper included a Creole section. It speaks to the socialist view of Haiti under US Occupation and after, a period of urbanization, proletarianization, and the need to bring to the masses new ideas and inclusion. Surely, Roumain and Beaulieu confronted the problem of literacy whilst attempting to form cells of their party in working-class quarters of Port-au-Prince, which necessitated an attempt to democratize language in Haiti. 

However, Beaulieu's "Pour Ecrire le Créole" advocates an etymological spelling for the language, which, though more difficult to learn, would facilitate later mastering of French. Phonetic spelling, which ultimately won out in the long run for a standardized Creole, would make it harder for monolingual speakers to learn to read French, which Beaulieu clearly saw as relevant part of Haiti. Access to French literacy would form a breach that opened a wider world to Haitians, which may suggest to some that Beaulieu was a Francophile. Although, in consideration of the fact that the vast majority of words in the tongue are of French origin, perhaps Beaulieu's middle position of mostly using etymological orthography with some concessions to phonetic spelling was an equitable system that would resist the phonetic spellings developed by Protestant missionaries and US linguists. Moreover, as explained by some Creole speakers themselves, the phonetic spelling privileges the Creole of Port-au-Prince and the dominant regions of Haiti, thus still an imperfect system for writing the vernacular language of the nation. 

Beaulieu's "Caste et Classe" in Le Nouvelliste

Ultimately, a phonetic spelling did succeed, but Beaulieu's socialist politics and attempt to call for education in the vernacular sheds light on the role of language among the Haitian Left. Jacques Roumain, for example, wrote Gouverneurs de la Rosée with a fluid language reflecting Creole and French, directly addressing the complex interplay of Haitian society through both languages. Totongi, who has criticized Francophilia in Haiti, has went as far as to suggest that the next literary move for Roumain would have been to embrace the vernacular in toto, which may be a stretch. Nonetheless, it exemplifies the extent to which the Left in Haiti was shaped by the popular vernacular, a need to find a uniquely Haitian voice, and create a proletarian literature. It is difficult to imagine any of this without the impact of Beaulieu on Roumain and other contemporaries. How could a Left make its literary and political aspirations relevant to the working-classes and peasantry without embracing Creole?

Beaulieu's other significant role in the history of the Haitian Left is surely his views on the Leyburn thesis and social relations in the "Black Republic," which can be traced back as far as the founding of the first Communist party. Although Analyse schématique, the first Marxist analysis of the country (excepting references to Marxism by Louis-Joseph Janvier), is usually credited to Roumain, the Haitian Communist Party's publication was a group effort to some extent. Articulating the party's views on the class struggle, the heterogeneous nature of the Haitian proletariat, the suffocating role of imperialism, and the confused manifesto of Réaction Démocratique, it likely represents the confluence of Roumain, Beaulieu, and Étienne Charlier's views. 

Beaulieu, who was a migrant worker in the Dominican Republic, surely knew first hand the proletarianization of the Haitian peasantry, providing much-needed lived experience and contact with the worsening conditions for the proletariat and petite bourgeoisie. Thus, Beaulieu's lived experience was directly tied to the party's formulations of class, color, and imperialism. In short, they argued that color is a mask used by bourgeois politicians to mask class struggle, but the process of proletarianization supposedly connected the class struggle with anti-imperialism. The Party's views on the color question are, therefore, what one would expect from a Communist party of the era, albeit cognizant of the ways in which color did indeed have psychological significance for social relations. Color was, in other words, nothing, but class was everything.

By 1942, Beaulieu further developed a unique perspective on Haitian society in a response to the Leyburn thesis, entitled Caste et Classe. Leyburn, author of what is one of the classic studies of the nation written by an American social scientist, argued Haiti was a caste society in which color was particularly salient. The elite caste were (mostly) mulatto, urban, Catholic, and French-speaking. The masses were rural, spoke Creole, practiced Vodou, etc. Unlike Price-Mars, who also responded to Leyburn's thesis to deny a caste interpretation of Haiti, Beaulieu forged a middle path that, with nuance, captured the degree to which caste and class are interrelated forms of social stratification. Furthermore, certainly the US had features of a caste and class society, particularly with regards to the question of race (the differing interpretations of Oliver C. Cox would be interesting to study in light of Haiti), so Beaulieu's argument for a caste society in transition to class provokes larger questions on the nature of stratification across the Americas. 

Roumain's tribute to Beaulieu, from Oeuvres Complètes

If the color question in Haiti did indeed resemble, to a certain extent, a closed caste-like system, it was in a state of transition as a result of democratization, the development of capitalism (accelerated by the US Occupation), and Haitian social mobility. An incipient class society was in formation, with social mobility disproving any kind of strict caste interpretation based on skin color. According to Beaulieu, this tension between caste and class were the motors of Haitian history, partly shaped by ruling elites at the time who may emphasize one or the other. Thus, the dialectic of class and caste were the engine of change in Haitian society, varying based on the political, economic, and social aims of the dominant party at the time. 

For example, Beaulieu saw the fall of the Liberals in the late 19th century until 1915 as a period emphasizing class, suggesting that the Liberals were, to at least a certain extent, tied to a caste rule, presumably a reference to the stereotype of the political party as one of upper-class mulattoes. US Occupation, from 1915 through 1934, brought back, in spite of the new economic and social forces, a return of caste's predominance through the installation of mostly mulatto presidents, such as Dartiguenave and Borno. Of course, there are a number of problematic assumptions or issues with Beaulieu's approach to the social history of Haiti based on class and caste, but it offers some advantages for thinking about the notorious "color question" in a different manner.

Beaulieu's interpretation also brings to mind the argument of Haitian leftists of later decades, obsessed with proving the Haitian economy to be feudal or semi-feudal. However, a caste society would be one that overlaps with a feudal or semi-feudal economic order, with the class society's full development limited by weak democratization and feudal-like economic conditions. The Parti Socialiste Populaire and subsequent Left organizations would take up similar arguments, which, while possibly clarifying, may introduce other problems inherent in any deterministic Marxism. Beaulieu, however, appears more nuanced in his response to Leyburn than the co-written Analyse schématique of the 1930s.

Beaulieu's view of a caste system en route to class suggests a more contextualized view that captures the perseverance of the old into new forms of social relations, with this tension being more believable than Herskovits's socialized ambivalence or Price-Mars bovarysme. The culturalist framework, which while certainly convincing to a certain degree, could be oriented towards any political agenda, thereby continuing an unequal class system while supposedly uniting all social classes in Haiti through nationalism. Furthermore, he removes any potential trouble of fixating on economic systems, since the caste-like aspects of the US social hierararchy persist in the center of international capitalism. This does suggest, to a certain extent, the independence of the race (color) question within class societies, which cannot be reduced entirely to class. Nevertheless, the color (race) question is still in some shape determined by the class question, since the Beaulieu of the 1940s likely still believed the PCH's argument that color prejudice in Haiti won't cease until the disappearance of the exploitation of the masses by the (mostly mulatto) oppressive bourgeoisie. 

Christian Beaulieu's College of Petion-Ville also involved Etienne Charlier and Max D. Sam, familiar names with the Haitian Left. 

In retrospect, Beaulieu's lived experience, practical Marxism, and educational reforms suggest his importance for the development of the Left may be underappreciated. Additional research must be done to understand precisely the scope of his Creole literacy project, but his influence on Roumain and the subsequent generations cannot be refuted. His views on education and the nature of Haitian social stratification were shaped by his Marxism, but not limited by it. By 1941, he saw to some extent the issue of the "color question" (or, race) as independent of class, but the combination of the two (with their internal contradictions) as the motor in the nation's history. One cannot but think of the famous stipulation on the nature of racial and class oppression in The Black Jacobins when considering Beaulieu's nuanced perspective. Undoubtedly, Beaulieu's lived experience in New York and the Dominican Republic suggest the larger regional implications of his ideas. There is something particularly ironic about US or European observers describing Haiti as a caste society in consideration of extreme racial inequality in the US at the time.

Edit (7-17-2019)

Leslie Péan's 1979 article on Christian Beaulieu fills in several gaps in the easily attainable knowledge on his life and work. From Péan, the Jacmel origins of Beaulieu are clarified, as well as his experience as a migrant worker in the Dominican Republic. Going there to work on railway construction, presumably Beaulieu continued to work for railroads or was employed by sugar plantations. Then, ending up at Columbia University to study teaching, Beaulieu returned to Haiti. According to Péan, he played a role in the 1929 strike at Damien and was involved in various schools and educational reform movements in the 1930s and 1940s. Indeed, Beaulieu was a pivotal figure in the early promotion of Haitian Creole for education of the masses, and was involved in launching different schools in Port-au-Prince and teaching in Jacmel.

Unfortunately, Péan does not go into the specifics of Beaulieu's published writing on Haitian Creole education or reforms in L'école réelle. However, one can infer it was likely informed by his left-wing politics, training at Columbia University, and his experiences with teaching  in Port-au-Prince. Beaulieu's importance in terms of the legacy of the PSP and its newspaper, La Nation, cannot be denied, either. Thus, Beaulieu's significance in terms of the Haitian Left's interest in the uplift or education of the masses shaped the PSP militants and their successors for the next several decades.

 Bibliography

Beaulieu, Christian. "Caste et Classe." Le Nouvelliste (Port-au-Prince), July 28-29, 1942.

Hector, Michel. 1989. Syndicalisme et socialisme en Haïti: 1932-1970. Port-au-Prince, Haïti: Impr. H. Deschamps.

 Leslie Péan, « Du côté de la liberté – Christian Beaulieu », Le Petit Samedi Soir, no. 320, 12-18 janvier 1980.

Roumain, Jacques. Analyse schématique (1932-1934) et autres textes scientifiques. 2016. <http://classiques.uqac.ca/classiques/roumain_jacques/analyse_schematique/analyse_schematique.html>.

Smith, Matthew J. Red & Black in Haiti: Radicalism, Conflict, and Political Change, 1934-1957. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009.

Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)

Christmas Blues from Miles Davis and Bob Dorough. 

Moulin Price

A short but informative piece on a steam engine brought to Haiti in 1818. Although it was meant to be used to power a sugar mill, it apparently was never utilized by Hannibal Price, an Englishman who brought it to the island. Charles Dupuy's "Les Malheurs de la Bourgeoisie Nationale" lists it as an example of the visionary Haitian bourgeoisie, even though sugar production never really took off in this case. Despite never being put to use, it does show how the so-called 'national bourgeoisie' in the Haitian case did indeed invest in new technology and, at least, try to develop agriculture and industry. It's a shame the steam engine is not preserved in a museum. 

Dark Matter

It's always particularly wounding when a great science fiction show on the cusp of greatness is canceled too soon. Unfortunately, such was the fate for Dark Matter, a quirky show about the infamous crew of the Raza. Set in our galaxy but 600 years in the future, the show uses just about every science fiction trope, with cyberpunk's powerful corporations, an oppressive Galactic Authority government, and space western's outlaw feel. The show's special effects were far from the best, and writers did at times drop plotlines immediately without ever returning to it, but the show's creator had sketched it out to only last 5 seasons, which would have brought closure and ended the show on an even more interesting note. The third season cliffhanger just leaves us wanting more. The good things about this show far outweighed the bad and ugly.

The negative features of the show are most likely the budget for special effects, poor acting from a handful of actors, an eager desire to slap together too many science fiction tropes and perhaps, the pacing of the episodes. The special effects are usually okay, but there are moments when it looks particularly hokey and cheap. But that's okay, not every science fiction show will or can have a big budget. It didn't especially detract from the visual sense of wonder and darker palette of the show. Lamentably, the poor acting from a few characters did weaken the series, especially in the case of Ryo and a few recurring guests. Lines were not believable, and it became a bit of a chore to sit through episodes centered on Ryo Ishida. Fortunately, Ishida's character was usually silent, but a few episodes centered on the space-age feudal Japanese-inspired Zairon Empire were a little much. 

One cannot help but think trying to throw samurai swords and civilizations inspired by Japan may have been an unnecessary move, although physical combat and martial arts are prevalent for the crew of the Raza. Moreover, can one really have anything cyberpunk without some absurd references to Japan (thanks, Gibson)? But what truly strikes the viewer is the strange way certain episodes were plotted. A beginning, middle, climax, and conclusion would often be followed by some immediately outrageous or hastened threat, giving the show a feel of constant instability without any lapse or moment for reprieve. When one recalls shows like Firefly, which clearly influenced Dark Matter, a similar episode structure does not ring a bell. Indeed, perhaps the pacing of the show played a role in the dropping of plotlines, including some that would have brought closure to departed members of the crew. 

Despite the aforementioned problems with the show, it's still a tremendously entertaining thrill. Thirteen episodes per season makes it easier to binge or revisit, unlike some of the better but infinitely longer science fiction series. The world-building of the show works very well, showing various colonies, the negative impact of the unrestrained corporations, and the satellites and planets of the galaxy. Having the memories of the ship's diverse crew erased was a useful plot device for getting viewers to identify with the characters since we were learning about the ship and its crew just as the characters were. In addition, some of the crew are clearly based on well-known series, like Three being a Jayne-like character. Fans of science fiction can appreciate these character archetypes and genre references.

The character development of the crew as they come to regain their memories brings to the table a number of moral quandaries, the meaning of friendship, and ethical decisions when there are no good choices. Backstabbing, trust, relationships, and the common glue of the crew, 5 and the Android, provide the requisite amount of emotional content to match the show's addiction to action sequences. The Android, who has an emotional chip, really starts to shine as a sentient being. Her existence forces the viewer to confront "anthropoarchy," and the moral dilemmas of the virtual enslavement of robots. Clearly, the show had a story arc prepared to explore that in subsequent seasons, but now we will never know. The anti-corporate and anti-centralized authority of the show, however, also lend credence to the influence of Firefly and cyberpunk, although Dark Matter, in my opinion, brilliantly did not take itself too seriously. The time travel episode in the final season is an amazing example of that.

That's the magical formula for the show across all three seasons. While certainly addressing important themes of technology, capitalism, ramifications of time travel, precog cults, corporate heists, parallel dimensions, and alien beings, the show's quirky sense of humor often prevailed. Even when there were moments that didn't make sense, that quirkiness saved the show. A quirky, unique sense of humor is what retained my attention. Perhaps the Canadian actors and approach to science fiction, assuming such a thing exists, also works to its advantage when winning over American viewers. Canadians are not in the center of Empire, but close enough, giving them a unique perspective on the problems of the present (and the future). With just one additional season, the show could have wrapped things up seamlessly with its quirky humor. 

The Formation of the Parti National Travailliste

Although there remains a lot more digging in archives and newspapers to be done, Antoine Pierre-Paul and the formation of the Parti National Travailliste is deserving of some attention. As the first official labor party in Haitian history, it's formation is intimately linked with the US Occupation of Haiti and the rising numbers of the working-class. It's formation symbolizes the convergence of an incipient working-class and the middle-class and elites also opposed to the US Marines. And while it may not have been a Communist party, to the chagrin of the US Daily Worker, the Parti National Travailliste did possess a larger political platform than simple opposition to US imperialism. The party very well might indicate a greater degree of inter-class solidarity during the US Occupation, in addition to providing background to the later growth of labor, Marxism, and noirisme in Haiti during the 1940s.

Combing through articles from Le Matin and Le Nouvelliste in the 1920s and early 1930s reveals the appearance of a number of labor organizations or associations. However, as correctly noted by Hector, many of these organizations were not unions, and it's questionable to what extent the typographers and chauffeurs really did have a syndicat in the 1920s, but the growing number of worker associations fueled the eventual rise of a political party geared towards labor. The Union Patriotique and Joseph Jolibois fils certainly sensed the importance of cross-class collaboration against imperialism, and we already know Jolibois fils had a following among workers in Port-au-Prince. Jolibois fils launched his own labor confederations, represented Haiti at a labor congress in Santo Domingo, and traveled across Latin America, thereby engaging with anti-imperialist, socialist, and nationalists across the hemisphere. Others, such as Perceval Thoby, sought to resist dispossession of peasants in their Union Nationaliste. Opposition to the US Occupation might not have been an effective inter-class collaborative effort, but there were attempts to bridge the gap, labor and peasant interests being one.

The youth, coming of age under the US Occupation, turned to new notions of Haitian identity, culture, and racism, especially through Haitian indigenist thought. Students, particularly those who launched a strike at Damien in 1929, later sparked a series of protests and solidarity strikes that eventually brought an end to the presidency of Louis Borno. These students, in addition to others who experienced the Occupation for the entirety of their youth, launched their own patriotic associations, journals, and, in some cases, embraced radical politics. Jacques Roumain and Georges Petit, for instance, rose to prominence for their journalism, activism, and experience of imprisonment at the behest of the US-controlled Haitian government. As one can see, the students were poised to play a major role as a spark in some type of social conflagration. 

Let's look at Antoine Pierre-Paul. Born in Les Cayes in 1880, he was a lawyer, businessman, and associate of former president Antoine Simon. He was also part of an attempted coup against Dartiguenave in 1916, which establishes his nationalist credentials against the US-appointed government. Moreover, Pierre-Paul participated in the Union Patriotique in the 1920s, after the armed insurrections of the cacos failed. Another organization he appears to have been a member of or affiliated with, the Association Fraternelle des Travailleurs, appears to be the link between his later involvement in labor politics and Haitian labor organizations prior to the 1929 demonstrations. According to Le Matin, this association was already calling for strikes against the US Occupation in 1921. This aforementioned article indicates the group consisted of some 100 or so members, including patrons and workers. Significantly, Ernest Gauchier, a member of the Association Fraternelle, later appeared as a member of the Parti National Travailliste. Thus, Pierre-Paul and the Parti National Travailliste inherited a history of cross-class collaboration, labor solidarity, and anti-Occupation tactics.

The party officially formed in November 1929, in the midst of the student strike at Damien and the later massacre of peasant protesters at Marchaterre. Its early membership likely consisted of artisans, such as Charles Mervilus, a carpenter, and other urban laborers. According to documents written by Pierre-Paul himself, published in Le Nouvelliste in October, the political party saw itself as representing the majority of the nation. The working-class, Pierre-Paul argued, experienced worsening conditions under US Occupation. Furthermore, the party sought to identify the cause of workers with peasants because of the close familial bonds between the two and, presumably, rural to urban migration. Clearly, Pierre-Paul was linking the cause of peasants and workers, not just urban workers and artisans. Whether or not the party was ever successful at organizing rural residents, it did develop a following in Port-au-Prince and near Les Cayes, where the Marchaterre massacre occurred.

The party's political platform, at least in November 1929, consisted of a series of administrative, economic, and legislative reforms. Protections for national industry, the creation of an industrial and agricultural credit and banking institutions, restrictions on foreign ownership of land, labor legislation on the length of the working day and minimum wages, savings funds for workers, and reorganization of night schools. While certainly not a socialist party calling for class war, it pursued a series of pro-labor reforms and economic agendas that would have improved conditions for the working-class, peasants feeling a crunch from US agro-industrial companies, and promote the national bourgeoisie instead of foreign capitalists. These reformist views bring to mind 19th century Haitian reformers and intellectuals like Edmond Paul and Louis-Joseph Janvier, not to mention subsequent Marxists who also sought to develop the local bourgeoisie and protect national industry. 

In terms of the party's impact on the anti-Occupation movement, it developed a following in Les Cayes (possibly due to Pierre-Paul's family ties and political connections there) and entered a pact of organizations also opposed to the occupiers. Gesner Guillou, the head of the regional committee of the Parti National Travailliste in Les Cayes, participated during the December 1929 demonstrations in the same city, when US Marines fired upon protesters. Pierre-Paul later claimed it was Marchaterre that finished Borno and brought the Forbes Commission to Haiti. To what extent the Parti National Travailliste can claim credit for organizing peasant and urban protests in 1929 is unclear at the moment, but the party did play a major role in consolidating a mass movement opposed to Borno's new taxes and the Occupation. 

As for the longevity of the party and its larger social significance after 1929, it appears throughout the 1930s and again, in 1946. Pierre-Paul was a presidential candidate on his party's ticket. He represented Haiti at the 1933 Montevideo Conference, challenging the Occupation. It's unclear to what degree the party actually existed independently of Pierre-Paul, who would later serve as a minister of labor under Francois Duvalier, but one article suggests the party possessed thousands of adherents by January 1930. Nonetheless, it seems like the party was probably limited to Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes, and it lacked the characteristic traits of a large political party like Fignole's Mouvement Paysan Ouvrier, which published its own journal, established locals, and appears to have developed from greater leadership of working-class members than the Parti National Travailliste. Nor did the Parti National Travailliste connect with Jolibois fils's labor ephemeral labor confederation, which did endeavor to build a labor movement connecting rural and urban Haiti.

It would take another democratic movement in 1946 to cement the conditions more favorable for legally recognized labor rights, middle-class political power, and the development of radicalism in Haitian politics. However, the Parti National Travailliste serves an as early precursor to these later developments, indicating the extent to which a labor party was both strengthened yet limited by the socio-economic and political conditions of Occupation. More work must be done to assess critically the political party's daily operations, its relationship with members inside and outside the capital, as well as its transformations in the 1930s and 1940s. But hopefully it serves to indicate the importance of a nascent working-class on the movement against the Occupation.

Works Consulted

Haiti; 1919-1920. Blue Book of Haiti. A Pictorial Review of the Republic of Hayti. New York: Klebold Press, 1920.

Hector, Michel. Crises et mouvements populaires en Haïti. Port-au-Prince, Haïti: Presses Nationales d'Haïti, 2006.

McPherson, Alan L. The Invaded: How Latin Americans and Their Allies Fought and Ended U.S. Occupations. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Millet, Kethly. Les paysans haïtiens et l'occupation américaine d'Haïti, 1915-1930. La Salle, Québec: Collectif Paroles, 1978.

Schmidt, Hans. The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1995.

Some Thoughts on Railroads in the Dominican Republic

Railroads and projected lines in the DR, 1925

Since the Dominican Republic shares an island with Haiti, a quick overview into the history of trains in the eastern portion of the island may be useful to shed light on some commonalities and possibly important deviations in the development of both nations. Unfortunately, with only the use of two books, it is difficult to tell the story in great detail or perhaps address larger themes, but the main purpose of the post is really a comparative look at Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Georges Michel's text includes a useful chapter on the Dominican Republic's railroads, suggesting such a framework may be useful to see the interconnected underdevelopment of the island. Michiel Baud's focuses on the railroads of the Cibao, offering context on their construction and their relation to social and economic change in the region.

The story of the railroads of the Dominican Republic is intimately linked with views of modernization, expansion of the export economy, and the Cibao's agricultural potention and expansion. According to Baud, the population of the province was only 90,000 in 1875, but a few decades later it was over 200,000. The Dominican Republic of the 19th century, much like Haiti, lacked reliable and comprehensive roads. In order to reduce costs of transport of tobacco and, later on, cacao and coffee, local elites and the Dominican state endeavored to construct railroads through concessions to European and North American capitalists (they lacked sufficient capital to launch these projects on their own).

These concessions had dangerous consequences, particularly with regards to the role of the San Domingo Improvement Co. and the completion of the line connecting Santiago, Moca, and Puerto Plata. Much like the MacDonald Contract in Haiti, the railway ensured growing dependence on the US. The railways of both nations also share a parallel in their lack of a line connecting their capitals with the major cities in their northern provinces, Cap-Haitien and Santiago. The further centralization in Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo, plus the concentration of US capital in the sugar industries in the DR and the Cul-de-Sac and Leogane plains in the West province of Haiti, weakened the regional economy and autonomy of the Cibao and the Nord of Haiti.

Much like the case of Haiti, the Cibao did eventually develop railroads in the late 19th century and early 20th century, connecting Santiago to Puerto Plata (Ferrocarril Central Dominicana) and La Vega to Sanchez, in the Samana peninsula. Despite numerous financial and construction problems along the way, the trains did have an impact on the burgeoning economy of the Cibao and the movement of people and goods. Like Haiti, the railroads of the Cibao played a role in the expansion of tropical commodities for the global market, although the case of northern Haiti was a less extensive railroad network servicing banana, sisal, bois de campêche, and coffee transport. Haiti was less impacted by immigration and the penetration of foreign capital, thus by the 1940s, only having 297 kilometers of railroads versus 1,247 kilometers of common-carrier and industrial use tracks in the Dominican Republic. Haiti had more kilometers of common-carrier lines, however, but it was less extensive across the country.

According to P.E. Bloom, the DR's industrial lines were mainly servicing the sugar industry in the south and east of the nation, but these were nearly all privately operated before nationalization of the sugar industry. About 815 km of the industrial railroads were owned by American capital, which speaks to the degree of American penetration of the Dominican sugar industry in the early decades of the 20th century. Bloom, like Georges Michel, also indicated the decline of passenger service in the Cibao's two railroads by the 1930s, with the Cibao lines eventually being dismantled by Trujillo and transferred to the sugar plantations in the south and the east. In the Haitian case, we have common-carrier lines like the PCS purchased by HASCO and used solely for the transfer of cane in 1932, plus a series of problems for the national train company after nationalization and a decline in services, quality, and investment.

By the 1930s and 1940s, the railways of Haiti and DR were definitely not the most commonly used form of transit, and mostly served to illustrate the dependent nature of the island on US capital with a bleak future. However, today the DR still retains some of the industrial lines, plus a Metro system in Santo Domingo. Haiti, needless to say, still lacks adequate roads and there are no functioning railroads in the country. Perhaps building one to connect Santiago to Santo Domingo would be useful for congested roads, or, if there was political will, connecting Port-au-Prince and Santo Domingo, but the latter seems particularly unlikely.

Michel's work indicates that the 1874 treaty between Haiti and the Dominican Republic included a planned railroad between the two capitals, but neither country's railways ever properly reached the border. The PCS line ended at Manneville, by Lake Azuey, but the Dominican Republic's concession in 1913 for a line to the Haitian border connecting Neiba, Barahona, and the Haitian frontier (going around Lake Enriquillo) never materialized. Thus, the main connection between Haitian and Dominican railroads was probably the significant numbers of Haitian laborers working on the the Dominican sugar plantations whose labor cut the cane transported by 1032 kilometers of private railroads. However, the number of parallels between the two nations and their incorporation into the American-dominated Caribbean of the 20th century, in addition to their impact on labor, migration, and economic relations reveal a mutual dependence if the island is viewed through the lens of a single, fragmented economic system.

Works Consulted

Baud, Michiel. Historia De Un Sueño: Los Ferrocarriles Públicos En La República Dominicana, 1880-1930. Santo Domingo, República Dominicana: Fundación Cultural Dominicana, 1993.

Hoetink, H. The Dominican People, 1850-1900: Notes for a Historical Sociology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.

Long, W. Rodney. Railways of Central America and the West Indies. Washington: Government printing Office, 1925.

Michel, Georges. Les chemins de fer de l'île d'Haïti. Jamaica, N.Y.: Haitiana Publications, 1989.

Syndicat des Ouvriers Cordonniers (1903)

Attempting to track down information on the alleged first Haitian labor union is a trying enterprise. Unfortunately, the Syndicat des Ouvriers Cordonniers Haïtiens, which was founded on the 24th of March in 1903, does not appear in Le Nouvelliste. The main source used by Georges Fortuné, Michel Hector, and Edner Brutus for the union's existence is a report from Lamartine Cayemitte, at the first national congress of labor in Haiti in 1949. Cayemitte, a member of the organized shoemaker association, presumably described this early labor union from oral tradition, as passed down by the members of the union or the next generations of shoemakers. Based on Cayemitte, we know the union was founded at the shoe manufacturing workshop of a Dessources Poveda, and likely included 46 workers at the atelier. Discussing the union in the context of free syndicalism, Cayemitte appears to have blamed the government for interfering and putting an end to this first labor union plus subsequent attempts to organize shoemakers under Ernest Camille. Of course, it is not exactly a surprise shoemakers emerged as the first organized labor group in Haiti, since they had a penchant for being artisan intellectuals tied to radicalism in Europe and Latin America.

Unfortunately, a complete identification of Dessources Poveda has not been successful, although one source does mention a cordonnerie established by a Poveda of Cuban origins. Another Poveda of Cuban origins, Simon Poveda Ferrer, also appears in Port-au-Prince as part of a local affiliate of the Cuerpo de Consejo in the 1890s. Thus, it does appear that a cordonnerie owned by someone with the name Poveda did indeed exist in Port-au-Prince, and by 1903, it was large enough to employ at least 46 shoemakers. As indicated by Gaillard and others, the impact of Cuban immigrants on local industry and professions was significant, especially since they took on local apprentices and brought with them ideas associated with the Cuban labor movement of the era, as the appearance of worker associations in the late 19th century likely reflects. The further expansion of cordonneries like Tannerie Continentale, which employed even more shoemakers (plus tanners), were usually owned by foreigners and likely created the conditions where shoemakers were able to find solidarity through their loss of autonomy as the large-scale enterprises limited their opportunities to establish themselves as independent workers. Perhaps this is why, like cigarmakers in Cuba, shoemakers took early on to labor unions, as they saw their independent status as producers increasingly usurped by large workshops. And like the workers at Tannerie Continentale, the dissolution of the union occurred as the shoemakers walked out of the enterprise over an issue of salaries for a member of the union. 

Cayemitte also identified the members of the first committee of the union. Unfortunately, their names have not yet been found in my digging through some of the newspapers of the era, but their functions as presidents, treasurers, and secretaries suggests some members were literate and the union had a degree of organization or bureaucracy.  Perhaps this reflects the impact of mutual aid society structures and associations of the 1890s, or even the structure of labor unions and artisan associations as they appeared in the Dominican Republic or Jamaica at this time. Unfortunately, the union does not appear to have left any records, and their two deeds which should have garnered attention from the local press, a strike in 1905 and the sending of 500 dollars to the victims of an epidemic or catastrophe in Jamaica, do not appear in the pages of Le Nouvelliste (although it is possible other Port-au-Prince newspapers mentioned it). Indeed, the only mention of a Haitian labor organization and Jamaica in the pages of the newspaper refer to 10 gourdes sent by a worker association after the 1907 earthquake in Kingston. However, 500 dollars versus 10 gourdes clearly indicates a sizable difference in the revenue-raising capacities of the former syndicat and the latter association ouvrière. That the union could raise such a sum indicates it must have had some degree of organization and size.

It is probable that this short-lived experiment in Haitian syndicalism was not quite a labor union as we know it. Perhaps it was akin to the early artisan unions in Jamaica, which, according to Richard Hart, had members who emigrated to Haiti and elsewhere. Perhaps these Jamaican carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, etc. also brought some of their own interests to Haiti, hoping to protect the reputation of their skilled profession and regulate pay and apprenticeship. It may also be useful to look at the development of gremios and early labor organizations in the Dominican Republic, which included a Liga de Artesanos y Obreros that appeared in 1899. The organization conducted meetings in Santo Domingo and issued a challenge to capitalist classes that suggests a more heightened degree of class consciousness than perhaps anything in Jamaica or Haiti at the time.

According to Roberto Cassá, the Liga's manifesto was signed by workers from Spain and Puerto Rico, which might explain why the ephemeral league denounced capitalism and embraced a libertarian socialist view. Although there is no evidence that the Liga or Jose Dolores Alfonseca, the thinker who was associated with it, had any contact with Haiti, it may be possible that the Syndicat of shoemakers heard of or encountered news of the Dominican organization. Indeed, as urban workers with some degree of literacy, plus probably contact with foreign workers from Jamaica and Cuba, it is possible to speculate a possible degree of transnational flows of information. Indeed, during the US Occupation of the island, workers in Haiti and the DR apparently expressed an interest in the affairs of the other, looking to their mutual best interest, so perhaps there were ties before 1915/1916? This could of course be a function of the physical movement of workers themselves, but it is within the realm of possibility that news involving unions and mutual aid organizations in the Dominican part of the island reached Haiti.

If any of the above is useful at all, perhaps one can surmise that the first labor union in Haiti probably combined elements of a mutual aid organization with a labor union. It successfully organized shoemakers at the enterprise (although its unclear if every cordonnier was part of the union or only 46 out of an unknown number were unionized), survived for a number of years, and presumably brought some degree of security to the affiliated shoemakers. It was probably too ephemeral to have developed its own center and maybe lacked the patronage or association with a prominent middle-class professional or member of the elite to protect from the political pressures of Nord Alexis's presidency. If the voices of the workers at Tannerie Continentale provide any indication, the workers presumably saw themselves as the creators of wealth whose labor was necessary for the function of the workshop. Of course, one cannot say these workers were advancing any sort of socialist perspective, like the aforementioned Liga in the Dominican Republic, perhaps the syndicat was part of a larger wave of mutualist organizations, a wave of further associations of various sorts across different social classes, and changes in Port-au-Prince's urban landscape. Unfortunately, without any written sources from the union or about it, it's difficult to say to say much, but it probably reflects the convergence of mutualist and syndicalist organization in the Caribbean at the time. The context of Haitian nationalism would also be significant in terms of the Centennial of Haitian independence, in addition to the reformism of Firmin's supporters and possible ideological overlap with the Coeurs-Unis in Cap-Haiti.

Bibliography

Cassá, Roberto. 1990. Movimiento obrero y lucha socialista en la República Dominicana : (desde los orígenes hasta 1960). Santo Domingo: Fundación Cultural Dominicana.

Congrès national du travail. 1958. Actes du premier Congrès national du travail, 1er mai 1949. [Port-au-Prince?]: Impr. de l'état.

Cross, Malcolm, and Gad J. Heuman (editors). 1992. Labour in the Caribbean: from emancipation to independence. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

Fèquiére, Fleury. 1906. L'éducation haitienne. Port-au-Prince: Impr. de l'Abeille. 

Gaillard, Roger. 1984. La république exterminatrice ; P. 1. Une modernisatiion manquée: (1880-1896). Port-au-Prince: Autor.

Hector, Michel. 1989. Syndicalisme et socialisme en Haïti: 1932-1970. Port-au-Prince, Haïti: Impr. H. Deschamps.

Hobsbawm, E. J., and Joan Wallach Scott. "Political Shoemakers." Past & Present, no. 89 (1980): 86-114. 

La Solidarité

A prominent political figure of Port-au-Prince in the early decades of the 20th century, Constantin Mayard was also a founding member of a long-lasting mutual aid society, La Solidarité. Formed sometime after his pronouncement at a Masonic lodge, De la solidarité; conférence prononcée à la Loge [de] la Vérité, le 9 juin 1918, this organizations appears to have outlasted other mutual aid societies in Port-au-Prince. For example, Georges Jacob's mutualist organization created in 1917, which presumably drew from artisans and laborers associated with the Maison Centrale, does not appear to have lasted very long. Mayard's project, however, was drawn on the principles of social solidarity he promoted in the 1918 brochure. According to Le Matin, Mayard disseminated the following opinions: solidarity as the essence of any organization, it was formed through worker associations, a nation, or humanity as a whole, Haitians were a race within themselves, neither Africa or France, and blaming the failure of Haiti on the entirety of the population, not the elites. 

The mutualist ideology promoted here sounds something like the promotion of the "spirit of association" spoken of by Justin Bouzon in 1892, as well as the inter-class collaboration of Odette Roy Fombrun's konbitisme. Needless to say, the US Occupation of Haiti at the time likely created some degree of solidarity or camaraderie between urban artisans and workers and the upper classes, although historians such as Michel Hector point out the limited nature of Occupation-era labor parties, unions, or confederations as actual labor power. From what can be gleamed from newspapers such as Le Matin and Le Nouvelliste, Solidarité was eventually presided over by a president, Bosq, and Lelio Joseph, who were probably lawyers or similar like-minded reformist professionals eager to bridge the social divide in Haiti and strengthen social solidarity at a time when US Marines ruled Haiti. Their meetings were held at the lodge of the Grand Orient d'Haiti in the 1920s, suggesting some base in Freemasonry or at least overlapping members, like the Coeurs-Unis des Artisans of Cap-Haitien. Notices for their meetings in the major Port-au-Prince papers indicate the general topics of of conversation revolved around general savings fund, interests, and correspondence, at least according to one 1930 notice. Presumably, funds used by the organization went to pay for illness, funerals, healthcare, and other predicaments. 

By the 1920s, Solidarité was involved in celebrating the growth of Haitian national industry, and promoting labor interests. One article from 1924 contains the words of a meeting in honor of Pantaleon Guilbaud, who launched a major cigarette company which employed over 100 workers. Celebrated as an example of a Haitian who, through industriousness, skill, and intelligence, launched a major Haitian-owned enterprise, he was seen as a role model for artisans and workers since he started his career as a mechanic. Other notices for meetings of Solidarité also indicate topics such as the experience of bakers as well as urging members to attend Mass on the feast of St. Joseph, since the special mass was said in honor of workers. So, presumably the organization brought together various types of artisans and laborers, while also uniting some lawyers, middle-class professionals, and politicians together in an inter-class organization that lasted for most of the US Occupation (if not longer). 

Although politically not an ostensibly radical organization like the Communist party which emerged in the 1930s, or even anti-imperialist like Jolibois fils and his circle, the longevity of La Solidarité, the fact that it was recognized as a public utility in 1925, and its success in bringing together various strata of Port-au-Prince society suggest an importance for mutual aid societies and urbanization. Of course, various forms of mutual aid existed in the countryside, but their evolution in Haitian towns captures elements of social formation quite well. Perhaps a further exploration into the lives, activities, and social impact of these mutual aid societies on Port-au-Prince and other towns during the US Occupation could shed light on the anti-Occupation forces and the eventual rupture in the nationalist movement?

Puerto Rican Migration and the Dominican Republic

A short video on the history of Puerto Rican migration to the Dominican Republic that is worth watching. Although certainly not on the scale of Puerto Rican emigration to New York or the continental US, the history of Puerto Rican migration to the Dominican Republic is an interesting example of intra-Caribbean movement shaped by imperialism. Certainly, the movement has reversed significantly, with Dominicans going to Puerto Rico, and facing racialized stigma in Puerto Rico. 

Katherine Dunham's Stormy Weather

Beautiful. Although this dance sequence from the same film is also spectacular. 

La patrie et les conspirations

Roger Gaillard's La république exterminatrice, première partie: une modernisation manqué (1880–1896) references a pamphlet from 1890 written by a Haitian artisan or worker criticizing the political and economic conditions of the country. Suggesting that the appearance of such a document during a rise in the number of Cuban artisans and laborers in Haiti likely represents an influence of labor ideology from Cuba's incipient labor movement, Gaillard characterizes the author, J.B.H. Alexandre, as a kind of presocialist Saint-Simonian (Gaillard, 193) analyst of Haiti. This fascinating document, La patrie et les conspirations, however, is more ostensibly about the problematic political coups and political instability in Haiti, although it does embrace a class-based analysis of Haitian society. This post shall briefly sketch a possible alternative reading to Alexandre's essay, and its importance in suggesting an early working-class culture and consciousness. 

Unfortunately, neither Gaillard or any consulted sources identify the author beyond his initials and surname, but it is possible J.B.H. Alexandre was a skilled Haitian shoemaker identified as Joseph Alexandre in an issue of Les Bigailles from November 1876. One can speculate that Alexandre was indeed this shoemaker or another artisan due to his self-professed lack of superior education and the numerous Creole expressions peppered throughout La patrie. In consideration of the prominence of shoemakers among the Haitian artisan class and early labor movements, perhaps shoemaker is the best educated guess one can make for Alexandre's background. Clearly, he was urban-based, and directed the pamphlet to the Haitian political class as well as artisans, youths, and cultivators. It may also be possible that he was the same Joseph Alexandre, presumably of Cap-Haitien, whose name appears in L'Avant-garde for an article he wrote in praise of Justine Victor, the head of a school for girls in the city. Intriguingly, cultivators would have been the least likely to receive (and, most importantly, read) the text, but it's suggestive of a wider class-based discourse which embraced rural and urban workers and craftsmen. Moreover, the author references his father's past military service, illustrating the importance of the military as an institution and within Haitian nationalism linking labor and service together to further justify the worthiness of his cause (Alexandre, 7). 

In terms of the document itself, which is written in what Gaillard already references as plebeian language, it articulates a common reformist line about the importance of Haitian political stability and support for national industry, laborers, and protectionist measures to develop the economy. Indeed, at times the author sounds like an Edmond Paul, urging for state intervention in the economy to lower the price of imports consumed by the lower classes (15). Alexandre also rhetorically mocks and ridicules the Haitian civilizers, progressives, and other elite and intellectual classes without remorse. The following, from page 8, for example, brilliantly derides them for slavishly imitating France like macaques:

Already, members of the Haitian working-class, were mocking the educated classes for their pretensions to rule Haiti. Like the old proverb, pale franse pa di lespri pou sa, which Alexandre's insult echoes, artisans and working-classes saw through the words and actions of the so-called intellectual elite who emulated France to no end. Nonetheless, Alexandre clearly respected education and knowledge, calling for the government to support vocational schools to ensure youths found a productive and useful avenue to support their families and the nation (24). But Alexandre's text also, like reformist articles and texts from members of the intellectual class, promotes labor and vocational education as a solution to the political turmoil, hoping that supporting youth and struggling artisans and workers will discourage political intrigue and violence. Instead of urging artisans, cultivators and the youth to seize control of the state or organize their own party, Alexandre calls for them to focus on their labor, particularly in a powerful passage from page 17:

There are no calls for labor unions, mutual aid societies, or cooperatives among the artisans and workers from Alexandre. Instead, he supports measures such as Minister Beliard's push for the Haitian military equipping soldiers with clothing and boots made by Haitian shoemakers and tailors (21). Like Edmond Paul and broader currents in Haitian economic thought of the era, the desire is to create work, protect local industry, and develop the Haitian economy, which suggests artisans in Haiti were using nationalism to expand the parameters of those who matter by emphasizing their labor's significance for production and consumption. But in terms of the artisans and incipient working-class, to the extent that it did exist in the 1890s, Alexandre's text is slight on tangible steps forward for them. Perhaps this is why the 1890s saw the rise of a mutual aid society in 1894, a nightschool for workers associated with an organization founded to prepare for the centennial of Haitian independence, and an increasingly important fraternal and mutual aid society in Cap-Haitien originally founded in 1870. If Alexandre had no additional ideas, perhaps the next step for workers themselves had to be the formation of mutual aid societies, nightschools, and their own institutions, since he himself wrote "Les chiens grang-gouts ne jouent pas avec les chiens ventre-pleins" (8). 

After thoroughly mocking the elites, providing a few examples of the impact of Haiti's political and economic turmoil on workers, outlining the disconnect between producers of the country and the parasitic elite, one can see the limitations artisans and workers faced at the time. As perhaps only a few thousand people spread across the coastal towns and perhaps nearby rural hinterlands associated with the major coastal towns, the idea of coordinating a nation-wide labor movement at the time were likely impossible. Low literacy rates, a persistent rural and urban divide (despite Alexandre alluding to cultivators, they are more of an afterthought) and the Haitian political system's reliance on clientelistic patterns and despotic military regimes limited any reformist aims of artisans. However, some did indeed engage national politics through support for reformist politicians, such as Firmin.

They also clearly shaped the actions of presidents such as Salomon and Hyppolite, whose tenures saw a small but significant rise in the number of urban infrastructure, small-scale industries and schools. Likewise, an opening of the country to foreign capital, especially through the National Bank, created under Salomon, paved the way for an increase in the number of wage owners and independent craftsmen to sell their services. In addition, the appearance in 1886 of an industrial news journal, Le Messager Industriel, which also proclaimed itself as an organ of the working-class, promoted the development of national industry, practical education, and reforms to provide jobs and secure living conditions. Perhaps Alexandre was in part responding to these developments, but from the perspective of artisans themselves rather than elite or middle-class intellectuals like Miguel Boom or Louis-Joseph Janvier, who minimized the exploitation of labor by capital while acknowledging the inequality of capitalist societies.

As Gaillard indicated, this document definitely appears to suggest that workers and artisans of the era were not successfully wooed by either the Liberal or National parties, nor by regional and color distinctions. However, as only one document, it is unclear to what extent this was true, especially considering the importance of Coeurs-Unis des Artisans in Cap-Haitien and their support for fellow northerner Firmin. However, his reference to Alexandre's disavowal of revolutionary politics as a form of marronage is rather interesting, since it would suggest that the artisans and workers refusal to engage the system on elite terms is an act of resistance in accordance with peasant practices of marronage, running away to the hills or mountains to form their own communities outside of state authority (Gaillard, 194). Such an analogy may be inaccurate, but perhaps it does explain why Alexandre included cultivateurs in the address, as well as the degree to which urban artisans and workers invoked the legacy of slavery.

Regardless of the extent to which Alexandre represented the opinions or thoughts of artisans and the embryonic working-class, clearly an urban working-class culture was taking shape, and it mocked the pretentious upper-class, used a class-based language which included, to a certain extent, the rural population, and reappropriated nationalism for its own purposes. This clearly shaped subsequent developments in the following decades, which witnessed the rise of artisan associations, mutual aid societies, a nightschool, libraries, vocational schooling, and a new spirit of association. Although certainly not calling for class war or appropriating the means of production to fulfill a socialist or anarchist vision, a working-class culture was in formation, both threatening the established powers through their autonomy and ridiculing of their social superiors. By 1897, Pethion Errie, one of the founders of the Association Ouvriere in 1894, was calling himself a socialist in an address to residents of Bel-Air, noting the importance of the proletarian question and the need for state initiative to improve the lives of workers. Clearly, Alexandre's text spoke to some degree of burgeoning class consciousness and socialist thought.