Haitian Connections in the Atlantic World: Recognition after Revolution by Julia Gaffield (review)

On January 1, 1804, after 13 years of revolution to rid itself of French rule, the colony of Saint-Domingue proclaimed its independence and became the free Republic of Haiti. This independence was not recognized by the nations of the Atlantic world until much later in the century, the first recognition coming, quite unexpectedly, from the former colonizer, France, in 1825. Historiography has maintained that, throughout the long period of diplomatic refusal to recognize Haiti as independent, the young Caribbean nation was kept in total isolation within the Atlantic world. Julia Gaffield’s aim in writing Haitian Connections is to debunk this myth of Haiti’s isolation in the first decades after the end of colonial rule. And she has beautifully accomplished the mission with this groundbreaking book, showing the complex web of Atlantic relationships, and eventually accounting for how Haiti managed to remain independent despite its precarious situation. Although the self-proclaimed Republic of Haiti was not diplomatically recognized by the nations of the Atlantic world until decades after its birth, it was not as isolated in the Atlantic world as was long thought.

In a very powerful introduction, Gaffield lays out the basis of what Theodore Burham refers to as the “isolation thesis,” explaining the origins of the thesis and examining the historiography behind it. She argues that the archives give proof that Haiti had both official and private contacts in France, Britain, Denmark, the Batavian Republic (the Netherlands), and the United States. Across five chapters, she manages to show how the main nations of the Atlantic world very often developed paradoxical relationships with the young nation. They were caught, on the one hand, between their refusal to acknowledge France’s loss of its colony, fear that the Haitian revolutionary ferment might expand to their own territories, and a strongly racialized perception of the world, and, on the other hand, the wish to use Haiti, in particular economically, in their struggle for the domination of the Atlantic.

The merits of this extremely well-researched, well-organized, and well-written book are many. Although it is often assumed that archival material on the first decades of Haitian history is lacking, Gaffield has consulted a tremendous number of sources in 11 archives located in seven countries (Denmark, the Netherlands, Jamaica, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and the United States). The variety of the sources she uses as documentary evidence and combines to prove her thesis is impressive: minutes of parliamentary and congressional debates, diplomatic correspondence, official statements by governments, merchant correspondence, and court records, as well as communications between local agents and governments.

Gaffield has a perfect mastery of the secondary literature, and her historiographical discussions are always accurate and extremely powerful analytically. Her book constantly establishes fruitful parallels between Atlantic events and those internal to the Haitian nation in construction. Constantly interweaving the internal context of the Haitian nation with the broader context of the Atlantic world, she shows how the development of the nation was strengthened by its international policies and by the international policies of the various European nations and their Caribbean colonies. The chapters open and close on extremely powerful introductions and conclusions and contain minute analyses of successful and unsuccessful negotiations, treaties unsigned, laws voted by the various nations, secret relationships between the European and American nations, and official discourses contradicted by the actions of government representatives.

The book shows the complexity of relationships in the Atlantic world and the powerful myths spread by historiography over the centuries. It concludes with the importance of pursuing the same kind of documentary reconstruction of the decades following the first moments of the Haitian nation. This study is undoubtedly necessary to better understand the shaping of Haitian national identity, and we can hope that future research into Haitian national identity may be conducted by Julia Gaffield in the same way that...