Unveiling the Colonial System

Although it took us several years, we have finally completed Baron de Vastey's The Colonial System Unveiled. Translated into English by Chris Bongie, whose useful endnotes and supplementary essays are a rich source of information on the author and his time, the short text is a disturbing read. Largely consisting of a catalogue of various colonists who tortured black slaves and free people of color in the colonial period, the colonial system here is one defined by slavery, exploitation, terror, and racialized hierarchy. Thus, the infamous Caradeux and Desdunes families, for instance, are listed among the colonist perpetrators of unspeakable violence and horror. The first part of the short work outlines the history of European colonialism in Hispaniola, beginning with the exploitation and destruction of the indigenous population. This, followed by the colonial system defined by chattel slavery, contain the annals of colonialism's destructive impact. Throughout the text, the Baron de Vastey drew from the colonial archive, writings by French colonists, and testimony from Haitians to illustrate the true nature of colonial rule. Unsurprisingly, Haitian independence was just, necessary, and Henri Christophe himself is praised for being the required father of the Haitian "family" to guide us toward liberty and the rule of law. 

Indeed, much of the work emphasizes how colonial laws and regulations were either ignored or used in discriminatory fashions. For example, laws and regulations limiting the dress of free people of color or laws requiring them to adopt African surnames are part of the panoply of oppressive, racist laws that are unquestionably unjust. Other laws, such as those enshrined in the Code Noir for protecting enslaved people from extreme abuse or torture, were routinely ignored. Baron de Vastey even cited the case of a free "mulatto" who was reenslaved unjustly on the instigation of a cruel planter who may have been his father! Everything this colonial system stood for and represented, therefore, required full repudiation and justified Haitian independence. Under the protective leadership of a strong monarch, Henri Christophe, Haiti could withstand the calumny and threat of the colonists. Indeed, Christophe is even compared to the famous cacique, Enriquillo, suggestive of Christophe's stature as a leader on the path to reconstituting the Haitian people. 

Nevertheless, one cannot help but notice some of the ambivalence of the Haitian intellectual of the 19th century. While condemning colonialism in Haiti and the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, our author wanted European colonialism in Africa. With Sierra Leone as perhaps the best example, Baron de Vastey appears to condone the "civilizing mission" of European colonialism as necessary in Africa. Yet, whilst drawing on the travels of Mungo Park and other sources, he acknowledged that sub-Saharan Africans were not as "barbaric" as our enemies made them out to be. Unfortunately, Baron de Vastey never drew from the testimony of the sizable African-born population in Haiti itself to counter racist narratives of Africa. It is a shame, since he even included "Bembara" as one of the African surnames free people of color were forced to adopt under racist colonial legislation. We suspect the ambivalence of the 19th century Haitian intellectual on Africa, plus the need for a nationalist, palingenesis of a new Haitian people, precluded Baron de Vastey from seriously interrogating European colonialism in Africa or the question of black African civilizations.