Facing Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Insurrection

by Jeremy D. Popkin

The only truly successful slave uprising in the Atlantic world, the Haitian Revolution gave birth to the first independent black republic of the modern era. Inspired by the revolution that had recently roiled their French rulers, black slaves and people of mixed race alike rose up against their oppressors in a bloody insurrection that led to the burning of the colony’s largest city, a bitter struggle against Napoleon’s troops, and in 1804, the founding of a free nation.

Numerous firsthand narratives of these events survived, but their invaluable insights into the period have long languished in obscurity—until now. In Facing Racial Revolution, Jeremy D. Popkin unearths these documents and presents excerpts from more than a dozen accounts written by white colonists trying to come to grips with a world that had suddenly disintegrated. These dramatic writings give us our most direct portrayal of the actions of the revolutionaries, vividly depicting encounters with the uprising’s leaders—Toussaint Louverture, Boukman, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines—as well as putting faces on many of the anonymous participants in this epochal moment. Popkin’s expert commentary on each selection provides the necessary background about the authors and the incidents they describe, while also addressing the complex question of the witnesses’ reliability and urging the reader to consider the implications of the narrators’ perspectives.

Along with the American and French revolutions, the birth of Haiti helped shape the modern world. The powerful, moving, and sometimes troubling testimonies collected in Facing Racial Revolution significantly expand our understanding of this momentous event.

Genres: History, World History, Anthropology

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Jeremy D. Popkin received his B.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley and holds an A.M. degree from Harvard University. When he was hired on a one-year contract at the University of Kentucky in 1978, the History Department secretary put him in what was then the department's conference room, saying, "Since you won't be staying long, it won't matter." Popkin is still occupying the same office.
Popkin's scholarly interests include the history of the French and Haitian revolutions, autobiographical literature and American Jewish history.

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the book I expected. It doesn't work well as an introduction to the Haitian revolution. Popkin spends far too much time contextualising the wrong thing. Important characters from the time are referenced but you're left to look them up on Wikipedia as if you've already read several books on the subject.

There is a lot of over contextualising before the eyewitness accounts. How these are all white authors and white perspectives and Popkin loves to tell you what grim tragedies these perspectives miss out, and then repeats the same over contextualising and the same lecture before the next eyewitness account.

I felt like he'd done some great research, but only left in the first hand accounts that he could easiest bend to fit his own political narrative (sympathetic to the revolutionaries as he admits in the introduction).

I only finished the first 170 pages before giving up (approx 100 pages of first hand accounts so far the rest was contextualising).

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bits of it, I could have done without - but it was the kind of book you don't see very often, so it was a worthwhile read for all that...