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.