#julia gaffield

Gaffield, Julia, ed. The Haitian Declaration of Independence: Creation, Context, and Legacy. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, 296pp.

Liberté ou la mort: Placing the Haitian Revolution in the Age of Revolution and Atlantic History

In the words of the publisher: “While the Age of Revolution has long been associated with the French and American Revolutions, increasing attention is being paid to the Haitian Revolution as the third great event in the making of the modern world. A product of the only successful slave revolution in history, Haiti’s Declaration of Independence in 1804 stands at a major turning point in the trajectory of social, economic, and political relations in the modern world. This declaration created the second independent country in the Americas and certified a new genre of political writing. Despite Haiti’s global significance, however, scholars are only now beginning to understand the context, content, and implications of the Haitian Declaration of Independence.”

“This collection represents the first in-depth, interdisciplinary, and integrated analysis by American, British, and Haitian scholars of the creation and dissemination of the document, its content and reception, and its legacy. Throughout, the contributors use newly discovered archival materials and innovative research methods to reframe the importance of Haiti within the Age of Revolution and to reinterpret the declaration as a founding document of the nineteenth-century Atlantic World.”

“The authors offer new research about the key figures involved in the writing and styling of the document, its publication and dissemination, the significance of the declaration in the creation of a new nation-state, and its implications for neighboring islands. The contributors also use diverse sources to understand the lasting impact of the declaration on the country more broadly, its annual celebration and importance in the formation of a national identity, and its memory and celebration in Haitian Vodou song and ceremony. Taken together, these essays offer a clearer and more thorough understanding of the intricacies and complexities of the world’s second declaration of independence to create a lasting nation-state.”

Gaffield is an Assistant Professor of History at Georgia State University. Her faculty page notes that she is “a historian of the early-modern Atlantic World. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of History at Duke University in 2012. Her research focuses on the early independence period in Haiti and seeks to understand the connections between Haiti and other Atlantic colonies, countries, and empires in the early 19th century.”

Dessalines was an Enlightenment thinker who espoused life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And he was willing to use strategic, bloody violence to free his people from colonial rule.

But in his commitment to black equality he was far more radical than America’s founding fathers, who freed the U.S. from England but let black Americans stay in chains for another nine decades.

In June 1803, when Dessalines began planning for independence, he wrote to President Thomas Jefferson.

Like Americans, he reported, Haitians were “tired of paying with our blood the price of our blind allegiance to a mother country that cuts her children’s throats,” he said. They would fight for their freedom.

For those interested in the Haitian Revolution (as I know many of you at the blog are), some weeks ago, Julia Gaffield, who is is an historian of the early-modern Atlantic World at Georgia State University and author of Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World: Recognition after Revolution in the Atlantic World (2015) shared this video on Youtube. While it was designed for students being introduced to the Haitian Revolution in the context of survey courses, I think it offers a great starting point to anyone less familiar with the topic. As I mentioned many times at the blog and more recently in this post, the Haitian Revolution was not an isolated event simply concerning the slave population of Saint-Domingue. It involved at least 3 major European superpowers and unlike other revolutions in the Atlantic which often referred to slavery metaphorically, it placed this question at its very centre. 

Conversation with Ada Ferrer & Julia Gaffield

New book -- The Haitian Declaration of Independence Creation, Context, and Legacy edited by Julia Gaffield

As described by the University of Virginia Press:

“A product of the only successful slave revolution in history, Haiti’s Declaration of Independence in 1804 stands at a major turning point in the trajectory of social, economic, and political relations in the modern world. This declaration created the second independent country in the Americas and certified a new genre of political writing. Despite Haiti’s global significance, however, scholars are only now beginning to understand the context, content, and implications of the Haitian Declaration of Independence.

This collection represents the first in-depth, interdisciplinary, and integrated analysis by American, British, and Haitian scholars of the creation and dissemination of the document, its content and reception, and its legacy. Throughout, the contributors use newly discovered archival materials and innovative research methods to reframe the importance of Haiti within the Age of Revolution and to reinterpret the declaration as a founding document of the nineteenth-century Atlantic World.

The authors offer new research about the key figures involved in the writing and styling of the document, its publication and dissemination, the significance of the declaration in the creation of a new nation-state, and its implications for neighboring islands. The contributors also use diverse sources to understand the lasting impact of the declaration on the country more broadly, its annual celebration and importance in the formation of a national identity, and its memory and celebration in Haitian Vodou song and ceremony. Taken together, these essays offer a clearer and more thorough understanding of the intricacies and complexities of the world’s second declaration of independence to create a lasting nation-state.”

The historian who discovered the original printing of Haiti's Declaration of Independence after it had disappeared for nearly 200 years reflects on her find and its implications.