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.