Content area
Full Text
Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. By Laurent Dubois. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. Pp. xiv, 357. Illustrations. Notes. Index. $29.95 cloth; $17.95 paper.
A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787-1804. By Laurent Dubois. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004. Pp. xiii, 452. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Chronology. Glossary. Index. $55.00 cloth; $22.50 paper.
In these two books, published almost simultaneously in 2004, Laurent Dubois tells the story of the French Atlantic world in the Age of Revolution. Moving adroitly between metropolitan France and the colonies of Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe, Dubois recounts with exceptional power the story of the encounter between republican ideals and the institutions of slavery and colonialism. This is an inherently fascinating tale, and one rich in significance for our understanding of the history and legacies of slavery and racism, revolution and enlightenment, and democracy and human rights.
Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution is a masterful retelling of upheavals that transformed Saint-Domingue, the most prosperous colony of its time, into Haiti, an independent nation ruled by men of color, many of them formerly enslaved. Though this is a story that has been told before, Dubois's new synthesis has unusual depth and originality. He leads the reader into Saint-Domingue with fresh eyes, walking us through local cemeteries or helping us see the world's first large balloon fly over the densest and richest sugar cane in the world. In the process, he paints a vivid picture of the fissures in colonial society that would deepen and ultimately erupt after the start of revolution in France in 1789. When he moves to his discussion of the revolution itself, he lightly and expertly engages important historiographical questions, such as the place of voudou, maronnage, and transculturation in the slave revolution. But these interventions, while thoughtful and persuasive, are brief; throughout, the emphasis is clearly on the gripping narrative of revolution.
Dubois recounts the manner in which enslaved men and women of the colony rose up in August of 1791, and over the next three years did effective battle against their masters and the French colonial state. By October 1793, their successes, and the context of imperial...