Beyond Noirisme: Class, Land, and the Peasant Question in the Political Thought of Louis-Joseph Janvier

In spite of the resurgence of Haitian Studies since the “moment” of the Haitian Revolution in US academia, a number of Haitian intellectual luminaries remain understudied today.[1] One such intellectual, Louis-Joseph Janvier, left behind a vast legacy in writings encompassing history, constitutional law, diplomatic relations, novels, journalism, and political commentary. His works provide an excellent opportunity to explore some of the persistent thorns in the history of the Black Republic: the peasant question, the color question, development, and forging a strong nation-state. Although Janvier's views of development and his vision for Haiti are more applicable to the time of bayonets rather than today, one cannot help but sense a parallel between the Haiti of today and the Haiti in the turbulent years leading to the first US Occupation. Thus, Janvier remains relevant in the 21st century. And far more than a noirist, as he is often depicted, Janvier’s nuanced approach to race, class, and development deserves further scrutiny. This article will argue that Janvier’s complex views on Haiti cannot be reduced to noirisme. Instead, Janvier presented a class-conscious perspective on Haitian social and political problems of his day, thereby challenging the prominence of the “color question” as a useful heuristic in Haitian matters of the 19^th century.

Janvier's Views on the Fundamental Question of Land

First, Janvier is important among 19th century Haitian writers for his explanation of Haiti's problems through a class lens. Identified by Jean-Jacques Cadet as a Haitian intellectual influenced by socialism and Marxism, Janvier attributes the problems of Haiti to class war, a rural proletariat versus the owners of large estates, grand proprietors. According to Janvier's view of Haitian history, the assassination of Dessalines in 1806 prevented a veritable land distribution, leading to Goman's revolt for land reform in the Sud. Furthermore, Boyer's Code Rural was a subsequent attempt to prevent the formation of a class of peasant proprietors, causing a class war.[2] Indeed, Janvier compared Boyer's Code Rural to slavery because of its restrictions on the movements of paysans. This unpardonable error of Boyer ensured peasant uprisings of rural populations against the bourgeoisie.[3]

However, Armand Thoby argued against Janvier's presentation of the history of land reform in Haiti. For Thoby, a member of the Liberal party, it was under Pétion that smallholder agriculture was constituted.[4] Subsequent scholarship on land reform in Haiti tends to support Thoby's assertion, although Janvier did recognize Pétion's land distribution policies as limited to a few carreaux for veterans.[5] Nevertheless, Janvier's identification of class and access to land as key factors for understanding Haitian peasant unrest was accurate. It was also in the recognition of the class character of this struggle that one can see Janvier’s writings as innovative. As Alex Dupuy explains, rural Haiti in the 19th century was divided into sharecroppers who did not own land, peasants with land titles, “middle-class peasants" with titles, and a "landed oligarchy" that rented out land or hired those less fortunate as sharecroppers and day laborers.[6]

For Dupuy, Haitian peasants had mostly controlled the means of production by the second half of the 19th century, even though perhaps only one out of three had legal titles. This gave peasants some degree of autonomy, and in areas where the landed oligarchy had more control over sharecroppers or workers, the profits accorded to the landed elites were still meager. In this regard, Dupuy's observation on the limited surplus raised by bourgeois landholders in their exploitation of the peasant echoes Janvier's comment on the limited accumulation of capital in this dynamic of class relations.[7] Nonetheless, an unequal relationship persisted and the question of access to land, as well as access to education and other economic reforms, ensured struggle over these questions in the future. The specter of Acaau and peasant uprisings haunted Haiti throughout the period of 1843-1915 and the caco uprisings during the US Occupation. This recurring agrarian unrest underscores that for Janvier, Haiti's deepest fissure ran along lines of land and class rather than color—a continuity that sits uneasily with later attempts to read him chiefly as a noirist.

The Haitian Peasant and the Haitian Worker

Janvier's views of the laboring classes were a combination of paternalism, nationalist pride, and positivist notions of progress. For Janvier, as for many other Haitian writers of his time, such as Beauvais Lespinasse, Firmin, Price, and Delorme, Haiti represented both Africa and la race noire as a civilized polity. Haiti represented black self-capacity to govern. Haiti was, for these writers, a 'Black France' in which Africa and her children were to be regenerated, rehabilitated. This would prove to Europe the notion of racial equality. Indeed, Janvier identified Haiti as an argument, and Haiti's success was linked to this larger consistent theme of Haitian nationalism's universalist implications for people of African origins.[8] Thus, the Haitian worker and peasant, as the majority of the population, became a necessary focus to defend Haitian autonomy, vindicate the black race, and overcome Haiti's political and economic discord.

Furthermore, without the Haitian working classes, there would be no Haiti. The peasantry made Haiti possible in the first place. As Janvier wrote, "En Haiti c'est le paysan qui fait vivre tout le monde. Quand il ne travaille pas, quand il ne vend pas, quand il n'a pas d'argent, personne ne travaille, ne vend, n'achète, ne consomme, n'a d'argent." Everything in Haiti depended on the masses, making Janvier's favorable views of the Haitian peasant and worker a rational focus. The Haitian peasant, in his response to Cochinat's “bad press” coverage of Haiti, possessed admirable qualities: disciplined, obedient, fraternal, and happy.[9] In addition, Janvier predicted the future superiority of the Haitian worker to that of Anglo-Americans because of the former's “Latin” blood, which supposedly imbued them with artistic, original, and charming features. The Haitian worker was also generous, proud, sweet, likable, and patriotic. He even claimed that the Haitian worker and peasant mostly abstained from alcohol. Drawing from Montesquieu, Janvier also argued that peasants work harder on their own land, pointing to successful examples in France and Romania.[10] All these aforementioned traits, albeit exaggerated in some cases, suggest the degree to which Janvier identified peasants, workers, and artisans as key to refutation of racist discourses of the Black Republic.

As a disciple of Pierre Lafitte immersed in Parisian intellectual circles, Janvier's Francophile orientation and positivist influences nonetheless shaped his views of the Haitian peasant. For instance, in Le vieux Piquet, a short work of prose fiction of the lodyans genre, Janvier defended piquet uprisings as just, legitimate, and sane struggles.[11] Piquet uprisings, beginning with Goman, were a response to the defeat of Dessalines's promise of land for the majority. In this sense, the piquets were the true heirs of the Haitian Revolution. There is some moralizing of a paternalist nature in the novel, too. The narrator of the tale, the head of a lakou and former piquet, directs a message on morality to his grandchildren, urging them to spend less time dancing or avoid frivolous spending.[12] The Protestant work ethic of Janvier's background was likely influencing this passage of the story, which defends piquet struggles for land. At the same time, Janvier likely expected peasant behavior to conform to certain standards that he perceived as necessary for social progress. In this sense, engaging in piquet activities was one of the steps in which the peasant passed through before land reform. This, in turn, would lead to the freeing of Haiti of superstition and enrich the country.[13] They would, after obtaining control of their lands, enrich the state through their labor and dedication. Even this moralizing impulse served Janvier's broader class project: piquet discipline and secure land tenure together transformed the peasant from a liability into an economically productive citizen.

Religion also played a pivotal role. For Janvier, Roman Catholicism was an obstacle to Haitian autonomy and tied to fetishism and fatalism among peasants. Protestant conversion, on the other hand, was associated with moral reform of the popular classes. Protestantism would, he believed, foster private initiative, another step forward in Haitian civilization.[14] As one might suspect of an intellectual calling for Protestantism or free-thinking in Haiti, Vodou is another problem for the Haitian lower classes. As a positivist, he linked Vodou to fetishism and polytheism in the first stage in Comte's idea of 3 stages, comparing Vodou to the ancient beliefs of Greece and Rome. Using Ancient Egypt as an example, Janvier argued against fetishism as an impediment to advanced civilizations.[15] Moreover, the Catholic Church was hardly less superstitious than Vodou in Janvier's eyes. Like Comte, Janvier saw in fetishism a viable way in which the fetishist could be more amenable to the positive stage. Firmin was likely thinking along similar lines in his description of African religions as practical rationalism.[16] Within their own internal logic, African 'fetishism' observes the world and responds to the results, within the dictates of its internal logic and observation of phenomena. For Comte, fetishism led to the subjective method of thought. Comte later argued polytheism may be easier to adapt for positivism because of the unity or synthesis of various deities into the shared Destiny, combining the former deities with natural laws.[17] Protestantism, perceived as subjective, intuitive, scientific, and full of initiative, would facilitate Haiti in reaching the positive stage.[18] Even better, the Protestant wouldn't waste time on parties and Carnival.[19]

Unsurprisingly, Janvier worried about foreign perceptions of Haiti. Especially relevant here were the narratives of Haiti as sunk in African primitivism, meaning the island nation was incapable of self-rule. So, he pushed for Protestantism and general education as remedies to perceptions of Haiti as uncivilized. Like Firmin, he utilized a quasi-Lamarckian explanation of Haiti's progress on the path of civilization to prove the physical perfectibility of the noir. The mission civilisatrice of Haiti thus improved the Haitian noir physically, culturally, and mentally. Haitian 'racial' mixture was also a part of this to Janvier, who claimed the Haitian black is almost always a sacatra.[20] The Haitian, in Janvier's mind, was thus Afro-Latin, on the march toward progress. And with land for every peasant, this Afro-Latin landowner was assured to aid the nation on the path to political, economic, and social liberty. In the meantime, he denied the ongoing practice of Vodou, going as far as denying the old African dances were still practiced in Haiti.[21] Ultimately, race functions here less as an end in itself than as a vehicle for Janvier's deeper preoccupation with producing a disciplined, landed peasantry capable of refuting Haiti's detractors through economic self-sufficiency rather than rhetoric alone. This did not rely on a noirist conception of the state, Haitian history, or its best paths toward economic development.

A Vision for Haitian Land Reform

After establishing Janvier's class-conscious explanation of Haiti's woes, virtues, and shortcomings of the Haitian peasantry, Janvier's plan for Haitian development requires attention. As mentioned previously, Protestantism, education, and land reform were key to his vision. Protestantism was central as part of the moral reform while education served in the cultivation of the social body. To further aid the progress of the nation, land reform was the first step to ensuring this future. Land reform for Janvier often fixated on the 1883 law passed under Salomon. The 1883 decree gave state lands to those willing to cultivate crops for export, such as coffee, cacao, or cotton. As noted by David Nicholls, this law also contained a clause which potentially opened Haitian land to foreign ownership.[22] Janvier did not address this, possibly because of his political support for Salomon, who he depicted as a populist and friend of the peasant cause. In fact, in Le vieux piquet, a member of the narrator's family is named after Salomon, presumably because he championed the peasant cause.[23] Janvier elsewhere defends Salomon as a true democrat.[24]

Contradictions of Salomon's presidency notwithstanding, Janvier's economic model argued for local accumulation of capital through small proprietorship or peasant collectives.[25] Obligatory education would accompany land reform.[26] Popular banks and access to credit would help smallholders develop their farms and improve profits.[27] New taxes would make possible mandatory general education and access to banks and credit for Haiti, including taxes on foreigners and land.[28] The aforementioned agricultural collectives would consist of state concessions to peasant associations where the members could meet their needs and grow crops for export.[29] This form of collectivism drew on the 1801 Constitution of Toussaint Louverture.[30] Yet, it also hinted at a more sympathetic program for the peasantry's cooperative labor practices, like the coumbite.

Despite Salomon opening land to foreigners, Janvier defended Article 7 of the Constitution, which prohibited land ownership by non-Haitians. It was upheld by Janvier as necessary to securing Haitian independence. He quoted from Pierre Lafitte as proof of the wisdom of the article for preventing powerful nations from taking over Haiti.[31] Janvier even criticized sugar production as "aristocratic" and "esclavagiste."[32] His critique of attempts to return to refined sugar as a primary export was based on economic and social grounds, since he questioned how wise it would be to pursue an export already sufficiently produced on the international market. It was also against the interests of smallholder producers who lacked access to capital and labor to compete in the sugar industry. Clearly, Janvier's populist economic vision, prioritizing smallholder production and Haitian capital, represented an alternative path to development rather than subservience to foreign capital or a planter class. Articulated in the vocabulary of class and political economy rather than race, this program offers further evidence that Janvier's central preoccupation lay with the structural reform of Haiti's economy, not with race as an end in itself. It was never intended as solely beneficial for the noir elites or with an attempt at exclusionary politics based on color.

On the Color Question 

The identification of Janvier as a noirist by David Nicholls warrants commentary.[33] Although Janvier’s accusations of color prejudice against Boyer, or Liberals, demonstrate a clear awareness of color as a factor in Haitian social stratification, his views on the topic were complex. For example, he also denied that blacks can be racist, claiming they are the first to suffer from racism. Moving beyond Janvier’s illogical conclusion on the question of blacks possessing color prejudice, he noted the presence of blacks and "mulattoes" in each of the two political parties.[34] Like other Haitians writing with an eye to foreign readers, Janvier argued that colonial-era caste divisions had almost completely disappeared.[35] Nonetheless, in Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 1801-1885, Janvier accused Boyer of fomenting color prejudice, especially in his infamous Code Rural. Furthermore, "mulattoes" who refused to recognize black authority were victims of atavism, a retrograde movement to the beliefs of their white ancestors. Importantly, on the question of the leadership of political leaders, color does not matter if the politician is responsible and competent.[36]

Considering Janvier’s class-based understanding of Haitian society, referring to him as a noirist may misdirect one from the question of class. Granted, he did accuse members of the Liberal opposition and past regimes led by “mulattoes” of racial prejudice, but he also recognized “light-skinned” Salnave as a true democrat. The political vision of Janvier, which he identified as a democratic one, consisted of land for peasants, uprooting superstition (of the European and African variety) and color prejudice and promoting progress.[37] Any Haitian leader, regardless of color, who pursued these aforementioned goals, was considered a democrat in Janvier’s conception of a democracy. Since he defined the popular classes as the base of the nation, and Haiti was and remains a “black” nation, the government should represent and act in the best interests of this majority. While Janvier’s narrative of Haitian land and class struggle employed terms like “paysan noir” frequently, his work refers to Haiti as an Afro-Latin society in which nearly everyone is racially and/or culturally mixed. This complicates simple or quick generalizations. “Noir,” in this context, was tied to Haiti’s larger mission or vocation for black civilization.

In short, the insidious color question, a legacy of colonialism, was, to Janvier, in decline by the late 19th century and the political discord in Haiti was a result of class conflict and divergence on the question of foreign capital. Color may influence how historical actors perceived social, economic, and political conflict, but did not define or drive it. And Janvier, though not immune to attributing color prejudice to Boyer’s Code Rural, identified the struggles in Haiti as rooted in class, in terms of political economy. Moreover, part of his writings on the color question were undoubtedly aimed at Gobineau, Bonneau, Saint-Remy and Benjamin Hunt, authors who believed only “mulattoes” were fit to rule Haiti. Refuting racist and colorist tracts on Haiti were a routine part of Haitian intellectual production that shaped Janvier’s political vision.

A similarly-minded Haitian intellectual with an opposing view on the question of color, Emmanuel Édouard, who located class and economic causes for piquet uprisings, commented on the color question. Édouard, who identified the color question, labor, and public instruction as the three problems of Haiti, also noted that in so-called color struggles, "mulattoes" always had black allies and vice versa.[38] He also claimed the “color question” was both a cause and effect of Haitian civil wars. For him, the future of Haiti lay with a democratic and progressive party that would bring together the best of “mulattoes” and blacks.[39] What explains the diverging views of Janvier and Édouard? Perhaps the different audiences of their writings may play a role, but even Édouard, who names color as one of the pressing dilemmas, approaches it with nuance while calling for a new political party to improve education, agriculture, and end civil wars. One detects the idea, later adopted by Nicholls and Dupuy, for example, that the black and "mulatto" wings of the Haitian elite, who overlapped significantly on ideology, exploited color to suit their own interests and split the spoils with their partisans and foreign backers. In the case of Janvier, one could argue that his vision of progress, which claimed that a Haitian leader did not have to be a noir in color (as long as they are competent and share his political vision), embraced this notion of partnership between the best of both "colors." But he was not the only writer of his time to critique the exploitation of the “color question” by some cynical Haitians eager to further their own goals.

Conclusion 

The relevance of Janvier's ideas should be clear for those in Haiti today. He identified class as key to comprehension of Haiti's problems, anticipating socialist and Marxist analyses of Haitian society. He elevated the importance of the worker in building a stronger nation, advocating a set of policies to realize that goal. Certain contradictions, such as his lack of comment on Salomon's opening of the National Bank with French capital, or his distorted view of the history of land redistribution to favor Dessalines and Salomon rather than Pétion, call into question some of his political alignments and choices. His economic vision even overlapped with Edmond Paul, a member of the opposing Liberal Party. But one can surely read Janvier's work as falling somewhere along the continuum of what Jean Casimir identified as a counter-plantation system. As such, Janvier could be read as an intellectual for the masses. His benevolent paternalism and Francophile orientation predisposed him to an occasionally condescending stance on class, and in some cases, even to minimizing the distance between the workers and the bourgeoisie. Yet, in spite of these contradictions, Janvier identified the legacy of 1804 in the piquets struggling for land and meaning. He foresaw the disconnect between rural Haiti and the urban elites, so painfully evident in Le vieux piquet, where the cries of peasants of the Sud are never heard by the elites of Jérémie.

His economic nationalism, defense of piquet rebels, and familiarity with early sociology and socialism enriched his analysis of Haiti's woes in abundantly surprising ways. Although Jean-Jacques Cadet identifies within him a strain of socialism, Janvier is better seen as a positivist and liberal whose financial nationalism and populism incorporated socialist elements. His conception of the democratic state guiding the untutored masses demonstrated a connection with Delorme's notion of democracy as best functioning in view of the people rather than by the people, even going so far as defending Soulouque's empire, preferring despotism over anarchy.[40] He elaborated his belief in a strong, centralized state for encouraging labor, promoting security and avoiding anarchy, quoting Schopenhauer on the need for constitutions to contain a possibility of despotism to prevent lawlessness.[41]

Positivism's alleged benefits for women and the working class, mainly the latter in this case, were self-evident in Janvier's writings on Haitian society, as was Comte's belief in the need to control property because of its social nature.[42] For Janvier, private property in the hands of peasants or peasant cooperatives needed to be taxed, but also provided with access to credit, banking, state-funded mandatory education, and social control under a benevolent state. The ability of the estate proprietor to exploit sharecroppers or landless workers would have been quite limited if Janvier's vision had been implemented, placing even more control on large estates by limiting their ability to find labor. In that regard, Janvier's views surpass those of Delorme, a fellow member of the National political party and keen supporter of state intervention in promoting agriculture. Further study of his two full-length novels may also shed light on Janvier's place in Haitian literature, which could enrich our understanding of his political writings. Overall, Janvier’s ideas were an expression of a class-conscious political vision that did not center upon color or the “color question” in its analysis of Haitian social structure or the remedy for its failure to develop. Unfortunately, many of the aforementioned ideas of Janvier were never implemented in his time or were attempted too late. Nevertheless, they remain relevant to the 21st century as questions of sovereignty, social justice, and political reform continue to shape Haitian discourse on the multifaceted crises facing the nation today.

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[1] A notable exception is Haiti for the Haitians, which included a number of critical essays and an English translation of one of Janvier’s texts.

[2] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 483, 488, 493. Essentially a work reproducing various 19^th century constitutions in Haiti and commenting on them, this is one of Janvier’s most important works. His views on the state are best expounded here. For a more modern study of Haitian constitutions to the late 1900s, see Claude Moïse, Constitutions et luttes de pouvoir en Haïti: 1804-1987.

[3] Ibid., 149, 152. Of course, Boyer’s Code Rural was like other post-emancipation codes designed to protect or restore plantation agriculture.

[4] Armand Thoby, La Question agraire en Haiti, 18.

[5] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 145.

[6] Alex Dupuy,”Class Formation and Underdevelopment in Nineteenth-Century Haiti,” 22.

[7] Louis-Joseph Janvier, La République d’Haiti et ses visiteurs, 106.

[8] Ibid., 123.

[9] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Affaires d’Haiti, 257, 263.

[10] Louis Joseph Janvier, La République d’Haiti et ses visiteurs, 93, 96, 138, 587. This discourse of Haiti as “Latin” or “Afro-Latin” was not unique to Janvier. Its usage by Haitian intellectuals also calls into question the Anglo-Saxon discourse of some African American proponents of immigration to Haiti and the dichotomy of Latin and Anglo-Saxon “civilizations” in the 19^th century.

[11] That he wrote a work in this genre is also meaningful. Drawn from the oral literatures of the Haitian countryside, it exemplifies how some Haitian writers of this period began to apply it to written, French prose. For example, see Oswald Durand’s “Choucoune,” a poem using the Haitian vernacular. Or Antoine Innocent’s Mimola, a novel directly engaging with Vodou.

[12] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Le vieux piquet, 4, 9, 32.

[13] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Antinationaux, 97. The allusion to superstition should not be read solely as an oblique reference to Vodou. Catholicism, to the Protestant Janvier, was likely included in this category.

[14] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Affaires d’Haiti, 297, 307.

[15] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 281-282.

[16] Anténor Firmin, The Equality of the Human Races, 342. One is reminded of Blyden’s views on Islam and Christianity in West Africa, with the former preparing the way for the final triumph of the latter.

[17] Auguste Comte, System of Positive Policy, Vol. 2, 73, 89. The possible appeal of such a notion to Janvier and Firmin is likely and may have shaped their views on Vodou.

[18] Louis-Joseph Janvier, La République d’Haiti et ses visiteurs, 372. Echoes of a Weberian perspective on Protestantism and capitalism come to mind.

[19] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Haiti aux haitiens, 36.

[20] Jules Auguste et al., Les Détracteurs de la race noire et de la république d'Haiti, 34, 47. A sacatra was 1/8 white in Saint Domingue. As in the child of a griffe and a noir.

[21] Louis-Joseph Janvier, La République d’Haiti et ses visiteurs, 94. Intriguingly, Duverneau Trouillot, a contemporary of Janvier who wrote the first ethnographic study of Vodou, also believed the religion was in decline in Haiti. While this may have been partly motivated by a desire to present Haiti as more “civilized” to foreign readers or observers, it may also have been due to a shared influence from positivist notions of fetishism and practical rationalism evident in Firmin’s anti-racist anthropology.

[22] David Nicholls, Haiti in Caribbean Context, 45. Salomon was also praised by some Haitian historians and intellectuals of the noirist persuasion as a promoter of the middle class through expansion of schools and cultural nationalism through poets like Oswald Durand.

[23] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Le vieux piquet, 34.

[24] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 495.

[25] Ibid., 482.

[26] Louis-Joseph Janvier, L'Egalite des races, 8.

[27] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Haiti aux haitiens, 14.

[28] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Affaires d’Haiti, 310, 316.

[29] Louis-Joseph Janvier, La République d’Haiti et ses visiteurs, 588.

[30] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 482.

[31] Louis-Joseph Janvier, La République d’Haiti et ses visiteurs, 364.

[32] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 465. Consequently, Janvier’s views here may be an early expression of a challenge to the plantation model of development. To some extent, he may be seen as a defender of the “counter-plantation” system as defined by scholars such as Jean Casimir.

[33] David Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier, 113.

[34] Louis-Joseph Janvier, La République d’Haiti et ses visiteurs, 156, 284. For a detailed discussion of the infamous “color question” in Haiti during this period, see David Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier. More recent studies have further challenged the model of the “color question” as a useful framework for understanding Haitian history. Nonetheless, it retained its salience despite the limitations of the approach of Nicholls.

[35] Jules Auguste et al., Les Détracteurs de la race noire et de la république d'Haiti, 49.

[36] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 151, 292, 294.

[37] Ibid., 295, 346. Janvier’s democratic vision did not necessarily entail complete political rights for the majority of the population. Instead, like Delorme, Janvier likely believed democracy in this context meant a government of enlightened or intelligent political leaders acting in the best interests of the majority of its population. Anything else would lead to demagoguery or anarchy.

[38] Emmanuel Édouard, Essai sur la politique interieure d’Haiti: proposition d’une politique nouvelle, 40, 46, 64.

[39] Ibid., 103, 113.

[40] Louis-Joseph Janvier, Les Constitutions d’Haiti, 265.

[41] Louis-Joseph Janvier, La République d’Haiti et ses visiteurs, 492. Anarchy in this context may also have been racialized, with foreign writers using Haitian political instability as evidence of Haitian incapacity for self-rule. Thus, a strong, stable state with order was paramount for countering the racist stereotypes of Haitians as lacking the capacity for self-government.

[42] Auguste Comte, General View of Positivism, 113.