Slavery In Haiti

The hard work all paid off when it was established that not only slavery but the French rule on Saint Domingue formally ended due to the rebellion (Dubois p. 190). However, while slavery was abolished, the gender gap and racial divisions between colored people and whites remained for centuries to come. Slavery was completely abolished with the Civil War, however, its effects still lingered on and influenced racial divisions within the Caribbean. Slavery resulted in a destructive and enduring form of racism. In Avengers of the New World, Dubois uses Saint Domingue, present-day Haiti, to highlight the impact of slavery on race and its role on the colonial era. He frequently uses racial terminology such as “gens de couleur” and “petits blancs”, but he makes it clear that people should take discretion towards using race when making generalizations about the
6). Race played a crucial part in constructing social norms, to the point where many barbaric and inhumane actions were based purely on skin color. In multiple aspects of the novel, Dubois reiterates the true significance of race, and he strives to complicate the role that race still played in post-slavery culture in ways that most colonial researchers would otherwise attempt to simplify. In the novel, Dubois describes an instance where General Galbaud complained to Sonthonax, a French abolitionist, about the way whites were treated. It was through this dialogue, that word spread that Sonthonax had a “black soul” and should therefore be seen as “both evil and a friend of the slaves and enemy of the whites” (Dubois p. 156). Although Sonthonax was white, the whites still called him evil for befriending the slaves, which clearly illustrates the division between the whites and blacks, even after the multiple restrictions that were placed on slavery.