Scholars, novelists, and playwrights have examined the slave revolt that violently and abruptly ousted the French plantation system on the Caribbean island of Saint-Domingue during the 1790s from the viewpoint of the slaves, in the context of the French Revolution, through the eyes of the charismatic leader Toussaint Louverture, and from other perspectives. Treatment of U.S. foreign policy toward the embattled colony has received chapters and articles within larger studies. Gordon S. Brown, however, commits a full-length study of American policy toward Saint-Domingue in his accessible work, Toussaint's Clause: The Founding Fathers and the Haitian Revolution (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005).
Brown's thesis is straightforward: competing U.S. economic interests between northern merchants and shippers and southern slaveholders "determined the main lines of America's Haitian policy" (6). He sustains this economic view throughout the work while introducing the reader to the myriad of American, Dominguan, French, and British voices that influenced the resulting and fluctuating policies. Brown handles the complexities of U.S-Dominguan diplomacy while never losing focus on the overriding economic determinants. Toussaint's Clause follows the chronology of events and provides the reader a firm overview of the revolution, which lasted from 1791 to 1804.
Internal American policy debates are the stars of this work. Brown's use of primary source correspondence and extended quotes reveals how early American power players like Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Timothy Pickering confront the issues of domestic politics, southern slavery, and the French Revolution. He highlights the influence of French ministers and touchy relations with Great Britain on American thinking toward the island. Brown concludes that U.S.-Dominguan trade played an important role in almost every policy discussion of what to do about the rebel slaves.
Though three presidential administrations enacted different policies toward Saint-Domingue, one thing is clear from Brown's work: at least one administration maintained a full-fledged foreign policy with an island of black ex-slaves some 65 years before the end of slavery in America. John Adams and his cabinet maintained diplomatic correspondence with Louverture, provided the black regime financial assistance, and the nascent U.S. navy engaged the forces of Louverture's Dominguan rival Andre Rigaud during a hostile struggle for Saint-Dominguan leadership. Brown explains eighteenth-century American diplomatic involvement with a black colony in terms of international politics and trade economics. A primary force behind the policy was careful consideration of its implications for northern merchants and its impact for southern slaveholders. The work helps us better understand the importance of trade and slaves (as commodities and laborers) in the early republican economy.
Only one other author has written a monograph that primarily examines U.S. foreign policy toward the French slave colony Saint-Domingue. Tim Matthewson's A Proslavery Foreign Policy: Haitian-American Relations during the Early Republic highlights the role of slavery in the political thinking of American policymakers. Brown's Toussaint's Clause addresses the discussion of economic interests in America's Dominguan diplomacy. Economics and slavery are important policy factors in U.S.-Dominguan relations. They are not, however, the only ones. More remains to be written on American diplomatic relations with the black regime of Saint-Domingue.
Brown's book does not do a lot of things, such as delve into the intricacies of the French Revolution, provide an in-depth understanding of Louverture's valor, or examine slave life on Saint-Domingue. Other works, however, speak to those subjects. The contribution that Brown makes is crafting a readable historical narrative which illuminates the role of the United States, not as only player in the revolution of black Dominguans, but as part of a cast of more powerful global actors. Toussaint's Clause is not heavily sourced and would be a useful tool for undergraduate students and general readers. Anyone who reads the book will be a step closer to understanding why a nation whose governmental leadership included white slaveholders would finance and assist a regime of black ex-slaves in their quest for independence. For one book, that is no small feat.
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
About the author
