One of the more rewarding readings of the end of 2024 has been Le Culte de l'égalité: une exploration du processus de formation de l'État et de la politique populaire en Haïti au cours de la première moitié du dix-neuvième siècle (1804-1846) by Jean Alix René. René's study really challenges us to rethink the relationship between the early state in postcolonial Haiti and its relationship with the rural majority. Instead of, say, adopting the theory of postcolonial Haiti as a maroon state, a more accurate way of looking at it may have been one in which cultivateurs and peasants viewed the state as a legitimate source of protection and an aid in their search for justice. If, as René suggests, the early Haitian state and early constitutions were based on the idea of protection of the governed and a fraternity of suffering based on the racial discrimination, slavery and colonialism in which all Haitians were at least partly affected by, then the state could occasionally be seen as a force in which subaltern groups sought redress, respect, honor, and dignity. We, unfortunately, are not doing justice to all the nuances of this important study, but its implications are quite suggestive. Drawing on various archival sources, including petitions from subaltern groups, governments acts and proclamations, Haitian constitutions, and the press, this other dimension of the state's relations with the nation are more nuanced.
Of course, as various scholars have argued (Trouillot, Gonzalez, Barthelemy, etc.), the state during the Haitian Revolution and after 1804 sought to limit the extension of smallholder property, the partition of estates, and, at times, even the movement of cultivateurs. According to the author, Dessalines tried to build a Haitian economy based on state control of production through the leasing of habitations for 5 year terms and usage of the military to police or control cultivateurs and limit squatting. However, he faced the problem of both soldiers and cultivateurs resisting his state plans. The emergence of the de moitié system itself was at least partly motivated by the cultivators themselves, who chose to either sharecrop, engage in logging, squat on lands, or, later on, purchase small parcels from the recipients of land under Petion. On the other hand, practices that dated from marronage in the colonial period and forms of resistance among cultivateurs during the Revolution, some Haitians (soldiers and cultivateurs) formed runaway communities that Christophe and others endeavored to crush during the early years of Haitian independence.
Under Petion, however, relations between state and nation took a different path. Petion's agrarian policy of land concessions or grants and preference for la douceur to gradually change or influence Haitians of the lower classes, appears to have strengthened bonds between the state and its rural majority. While still basing itself on protection, Petion also sought to use land grants and more subtle methods to encourage the cultivation of export crops while also rejecting measures like forced placements of cultivateurs. Moreover, it would appear that Manigat was incorrect when he posited the importance of the commercial oligarchy in Petion's decision to concede small properties in 1809. That Petion's change in policy was at least somewhat effective and supported by the rural majority, one notes how it roused desertions from Goman's rebel state in the South. Although not stated in the study of René, one imagines that Petion's agrarian policies were also contributing factors for the flight of Haitians from Christophe's kingdom to the Republic. But for deeper, specific case studies, René cites the case of Cupidon Guillotte, an African-born former slave whose 1828 petition may represent how peasants viewed or conceived of the state. The petition emphasizes the role of the government as a protector and one in which the peasants saw state power as a source for legitimacy of smallholders. Naturally, this process during the tenure of Petion was not the benevolence of a magnanimous president, but a result of years of peasant and cultivateur resistance and the conflicts with Christophe in the North.
Unfortunately, the more positive aspects of Petion's policies, which still sought to exclude the masses, were magnified by President Boyer. Jean-Pierre Boyer would, as early as 1818, restore corvee labor. He also agreed to the horrible conditions of the 1825 indemnity to France, despite vociferously opposing it in 1814. Boyer similarly excluded cultivateurs from juries, national guard gatherings, and, most infamously, promulgated the Code Rural. Seen by René as the most systematic attempt to control the labor of the rural population of Haiti, through domination, coercion and force, Boyer still failed due to resistance from the peasantry and some of the local and provincial government officials or military officers. Yet even as Boyer sought to exclude the rural majority and control their labor, Haitians continued to petition the state for justice. This identification with the state emerges more clearly with the peasant revolt in the South in the 1840s. Led by peasant smallholders rather than the landless, this middling group, influenced by the liberals who held banquets with peasants in 1842 and overthrew Boyer in 1843, went even further by demanding education for their children, an end to exclusionary practices, and participation in the formal political process.
Although the peasant revolution only lasted a short time, the proclamations of Acaau and other sources fascinatingly point to the ways in which the peasantry drew on the legacy of the Haitian Revolution and relations with the state, demanding participation rather than isolation. Alas, the resistance of the elites prevented this from fully occurring, while occasional peasant rebellions and use of violence did open some positions in government to some peasants. The tragedy seen in the failure of the Piquets nonetheless lingered, as the "nation" was still largely excluded by the state. Hopefully, future scholarship revisits the themes raised by René for the second half of Haiti, in the 19th century.
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