Mimi Sheller's Democracy After Slavery: Black Publics and Peasant Radicalism in Haiti and Jamaica

Sheller's suggestive critical look at the political sociology of the post-emancipation periods of 19th century Jamaica and Haiti reveal the political activism and radicalism of black former slaves. Though the book is equally divided in looking at the Haitian political crisis of the 1840s against Boyer's autocratic presidency and the Morant Bay Rebellion in 1865 in Jamaica, the most interesting and compelling section of the book focused on Haiti. Instead of being politically apathetic, ignorant peasants who accepted their exclusion from formal political institutions and educational networks, black peasants, as well as some radical elites, collaborated to unseat Jean-Pierre Boyer and create a democratic constitution inclusive of all Haitians with electoral democracy. Unfortunately, movement in the early 1840s, while succeeding to force Boyer into exile in a bloodless revolution, the tensions between elites, often of mixed heritage, and the black illiterate majority maintained the socio-racial hierarchy through which the educated elite continued to justify their rule as necessary until the black majority gradually attains the ability to share governance. This eventually led to the Piquet Rebellion, led by a black peasant, Jean-Jacques Acaau, who also possessed some religious prestige among  southern Haitian peasants who fought government troops with pikes.

Sheller's text also disproves the widely spread beliefs by those with a perpetually negative view of Haiti throughout its history regarding peasants and institutions. Black peasants possessed cooperative social organizations that collaborated on agriculture, home-building, and other aspects of rural life, as well as cultural and religious activities that celebrated the African heritage of Haiti. In fact, some of these societes were rooted in slave organizations based on African ethnic or regional identities and practiced African-derived Vodou rites or public parades and spectacles, such as Carnival, but all based on democratic systems within these organizations. Surprisingly, some of these mutual aid societies and cultural institutions and traditions were also permanent, tying Haitian peasants together against the exploitative Haitian state that provided little to no public services or education. In addition, black farm workers on plantations often elected cooperative work leaders in their workers associations. However, Sheller's text reveals the full form of an old Haitian expression regarding mixed, mulatre and noirs, essentially stating that Haitians fully understood the dynamics of race, class, and education and that formal education in French was essential for gaining entry into the Haitian political system. However, since public education was never provided by the state on a massive scale and the Vatican refused to recognize and work in Haiti until the 1860s, Haiti lagged far behind other Caribbean and Latin American states which had the fortune of Catholic education in many instances since these states rarely supported large-scale public education.

The central thesis regarding Haiti in the text is that civil society could never subordinate the military structure, created during the Haitian Revolution, to a democratic political system. She proves this by looking at how the military and government were inseparable, with the military elites of the Haitian Revolution maintaining regional power and the attempt by Boyer under the 1826 Code Rural to implement militarized plantation agriculture, which outlawed collective ownership of farms and worker self-management. The army during this period functioned as the local government, since each commune was under the authority of a commandant de place and troops who enforced the law, checked passes, and punished offenders. The military remained central to the Haitian state since it's inception was due to a military apparatus whose continued prominence and excessive role in civil society was justified by fears of a possible French invasion well into the 19th century. However, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, democratic practices were embedded in other aspects of Haitian life and resistance to the exclusionary political practices of the elite and the military in the form of peasant uprisings such as the Piquet movement in southern Haiti was a resurgent political crisis. Thus, Haitian opposition to the various dictatorships and shams of republican government was a constant factor in Haitian history, and Haitian political culture cannot be deemed dismissively as incapable of democracy or self-improvement by Haitians themselves.

Furthermore, Sheller's use of Haitian newspapers, mostly read by the French-speaking elite, reveals deeply radical ideology on the part of some. For instance, some newspaper articles espoused socialism and the trade-union movement which were gaining ground in Europe at the time while others, such as Felix Darfour, praised an African identity that sounds like something from the 20th century rather than the 19th. However, since most people were illiterate, elites mostly wrote in the formal public discourse for themselves, offering competing views on democratization, or relations with former colonial power France. Nonetheless, these important views are important for understanding Haitian political thought and how the newspaper functioned in creating a discourse of opposition to Boyer's rule and faced government censure.

This is a great text that simply requires more critical commentary, especially regarding historical agents whose voices are not represented in the newspapers, archives, or any other form of text. For example, how could one gain more insight on the cooperative organizations of rural Haiti in this epoch? Are her suggestions and interpretation of the data that does exist accurate? Moreover, does her thesis truly disprove the theory of caudillismo suggested by Stincombe, which would identify Haitian politics as another form of a Latin American undemocratic system, since the military's regional leaders essentially ruled the state, even if they lacked the personality cult and charisma often associated with caudillos? The inevitable class distinctions among Haitian farmers of the countryside also adds some nuance, since some independent black landholders distanced themselves from the democratic movements for inclusion represented by peasant uprisings. This illustrates the class prejudice among Haitians of predominantly African heritage against each other and competing views on how to attain black power, with some preferring the statist military and others republican institutions. Overall, Sheller's text offers exciting new interpretations of 19th century Caribbean political thought and how former slaves conceived of freedom beyond land use or freedom from coercive labor. She also includes gender in her analysis, since a slight majority of Haitians were women who were denied all political rights and subjected to a masculinist narrative of Haitian identity yet consistenly present in public protest and action as well as in the public sphere in local markets, which allowed for mobility. Thus, women, who by sheer numbers and mobility entered the public sphere, participated in protests as well as the Piquet Rebellion as well as challenging sexism by thrusting themselves into political debate and movements.