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11 “there is no Doubt that we Are under threat by the negroes of santo Domingo” The Specter of Haiti in the Spanish Caribbean in the 1820s carrie gibson in discussing events in the caribbean during the era of Atlantic revolutions, it is only relatively recently, in historiographical terms, that the slave uprising of saint-Domingue has taken its rightful place, sandwiched between north America’s war for independence in 1775 and the emergence of latin American republics from 1810 to 1825. indeed, the growing body of scholarship that has resulted has enhanced the understanding of the events in haiti and its hitherto overlooked impact around the world.1 less well known is haiti’s influence on the emerging republics of latin America some twenty years later.2 haitian leaders failed to convince the creole revolutionaries they aided—most notably simón Bolívar (see part 3)—to carry out a true abolition of slavery, and throughout the independence period the island loomed ominously in the creole imagination. As Kenneth Maxwell has pointed out, “in the 1780s would-be latin American revolutionaries had found inspiration in george washington; after the 1790s, they would recoil in fear before the example of toussaint l’ouverture.”3 indeed, amid the upheaval of the independence struggles in spanish America and the political unrest in spain during the 1820s slavery remained a constant factor and would, for the most part, continue to be so for decades after the fighting had stopped.4 chile was the first latin American republic to declare the outright abolition of its four thousand slaves in 1823. the other emerging states opted for laws of gradual emancipation . Many children of slaves were born free in the 1820s, but their parents and extended family members were often tied into apprenticeship contracts , which kept them in bondage. it was as late as the 1850s before slavery 224 / gibson was finally abolished from latin American republics.5 And, as the work of Aline helg and Marixa lasso makes clear in their studies of pardocracia in colombia, the idea of haiti played a very important role in sustaining racial hierarchies.6 what haiti had come to represent was a connection between free people of color and the possibility of race war. new imaginings of haiti began to emerge by the 1820s, and coupled with political and social uncertainties that surrounded latin America, these visions took on extra potency. however, where most of haiti’s influence lay was with its more immediate neighbors, especially cuba, Puerto rico, and santo Domingo.7 what makes the 1820s particularly important for the caribbean is how the possibility of independence brought back those visceral fears of 1791. if creoles in cuba or Puerto rico agreed to press forward with independence from spanish rule, then would they, like the french republicans before them, suffer the same fate? would they too experience the complete destruction of their world? this was an important question at a time when sugar wealth was beginning to soar, and it weighed very heavily on the minds of cuban and Puerto rican planters. of course, haiti symbolized something very different for the slaves on those islands, as well as for the free people of color, who, despite having their liberty, still lived under a repressive system. one area ripe for further research is the question of the importance of haiti for these groups. haiti’s reputation took on an even more menacing dimension in the eyes of latin America when it assumed control of its spanish-speaking neighbor, santo Domingo, in 1822. the period around these events—and the permeation of fear and anxiety in cuban and Puerto rican creole society—is crucial for understanding the trajectory of the caribbean islands, especially the continued loyalty of cuba and Puerto rico, which remained in a “pacto colonial ” with spain.8 Although it was clear that the fear of a slave uprising on the scale of what happened in saint-Domingue stifled the development of nascent republicanism in cuba and Puerto rico, this accepted observation deserves some further examination. Ada ferrer has pointed out, with regard to this issue, that “although the fear of haiti is used to explain, it is not itself explained .”9 the remainder of this chapter will examine three aspects of this problem. the first is the issue of fear itself and its many-hued existence in the spanish caribbean. the threat of republicanism coupled with that of slave rebellion changed the contours of the ongoing...

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