Week 5: Tuesday's Posts

Observations on the Origin and Progression

Julien Raimond was a free colored people and he was an advocate of granting political rights to free coloreds. He explains the history of free colored people. I think this article portrays a different side from The Code Noir. In this article, he says that a free colored child was not treated as slave and received love from the father while in the code, the child from a woman slave should follow the mother's lineage. They even received inheritance and formal education. I was surprised that the white men in the island preferred marrying women of color over white women. These sparked jealousy of the whites woman and whites man which leads them to introduce ill-advised laws. Free colored were forbade to get education in France and live there; they had to drop their European name; they were forbade to dress like whites. Everything was to restrain free colored people from progressing and to imply that they were different from the whites (French). They were just a low slaves. Throughout the article, we probably can sense that the writer is hinting that free colored was different from the slaves. He refuses to acknowledge he is part of the slaves' lineage. He is different. He belongs to the whites.

History of the Revolution of Saint-Domingue

The description of the revolt was very detailed. Indeed, it conforms the short biography of Dalmas; his work provides one of the most detailed descriptions of the meetings. The revolt must be due to the ill treatments the slaves received from the colonists and their masters. He describes that before the revolt, the slaves were carrying a ritual ceremony. He appears to have prejudices upon the slaves by making fun of the ritual and calling them ignorant and stupid. It also appears that the slaves treasured their own cultures and faiths. In a way, they were reasserting their own identity.

Reports from the Insurrection

The reports were from the Philadelphia General Advertiser. I think it was a complicated situation since some of the whites and mulattos joined the slaves and the others supported the colonist. Besides, some of the slaves were helping their masters. Perhaps some of them who allied with the slaves espescially the mulattos, received the same ill-treaments like the slaves; and the slaves who helped the masters were treated well. It might also suggests that the slaves (helping the masters) felt some sense of belongings being with the masters. At first, the revolts was unorganized and they didn't have supplies of weapons. Over time, it became more organized and they had supplies of weapons from the Spain.