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Comment by maceo | Hacker News Reader

No, that was their final destination. Brazil had by far the largest slave population in the world. Haiti was the crown jewel of the French empire and the envy of all nations. The caribbean slave trade began to decline when Toussaint L'Ouverture rose to power in Haiti (The Haitian and French revolution were very closely intertwined) and slavery was abolished.

The seminal book on this period of Haitian history is "The Black Jacobins" by CLR James.

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Also, so many of the ships landed in the Caribbean because the death rate of the slaves on many of the Caribbean plantations were high enough that the populations could not replace losses through natural growth, requiring constant new shipments.

Sadly, the plantations were profitable enough that constantly bringing in new slaves to die in hellish conditions was just a cost of doing business.

For those interested in the history of Haiti and learning how, as the parent indicated, slavery and the Haitian and French revolutions were intertwined, I highly recommend:

Written in Blood: The Story of the Haitian People 1492-1995

by Robert and Nancy Heinl

http://www.amazon.com/Written-Blood-Haitian-People-1492-1995...

It's a chilling read, in many parts, and some of the material may disturb readers who do not care for written depictions of violence – atrocious acts were committed by both slaves and slave owners during the revolutionary period. Having lived in Haiti (Cap-Haïtien) for a year (2007-08), the Heinls' book gave me a much broader perspective on how things got to be the way they are on that beautiful but desperately poor island, so very close to the shores of the wealthiest country on earth.

/adds to reading list

A very short introduction to the Haitian revolution can be found on CrashCourse World History https://youtube.com/watch?v=5A_o-nU5s2U

Haitian revolutionaries murdered virtually all white men, and spared only the women willing to marry black men. [1] "Black Jacobins" is indeed an apt term for such barbarism.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haiti_massacre

Perhaps enslaving, torturing, murdering, and raping people might one day result in a negative outcome for the slavemasters? Fancy that. My heart bleeds for them.

Even whites who had been friendly and sympathetic to the black population were imprisoned and later killed.[3] A second wave of massacres targeted white women and children.[3]

Assigning blame for individual actions to members of an amorphous group may feel wonderful vengeful, but it's ethically shitty.

If you live entirely on the proceeds of slavery, you are likely to be killed if the slaves revolt. This is not a matter of ethics. If you live on a boat that sinks, you are likely to drown.

So, basically, they deserved it. How nice. This is how good people can support mind-boggling evil.

The British Empire managed to abolish slavery without anything remotely so horrific as the Haitian Revolution. As a result, former British colonies are what, hellholes? And Haiti is a paradise on Earth?

You are likely inheritor to the American Abolitionist tradition, which managed to abolish slavery by fomenting a Civil War that, in its wake, claimed the lives of a quarter of the newly freed slaves—approximately a million people. Does your heart bleed for them? Or to the dead do you say, at least you aren't slaves?

Wow, a downvote already? Under 5 minutes—that's impressive. Who is still even reading this thread? Bloodthirsty assholes, I guess, or maybe neo-Abolitionists. (But I repeat myself.)

The barbarism began 200 years prior when Africans were stolen from their homeland. Slavery in Haiti stood out as particularly brutal, even by Caribbean standards. The white landowners in Haiti were greatly outnumbered so they had to resort to unrestrained barbarism to keep the slave population in order.

L'Overture was admired by many in revolutionary France because of his compassion towards the former slave-owning whites and mulattos. He was incredibly forgiving and humane given the circumstances. Even the former slave-owners couldn't hate him because he consistently stuck his neck out to protect the lives of whites and mulattos.

What you reference happened in 1804. In 1803, L'Overture was arrested and exiled to France where he died later that yet. Also in 1803, Napoleon announced that he would re-introduce slavery in Haiti. The whole episode would have been avoided if Napoleon had a conscience.

"The barbarism that began 200 years prior when Africans were stolen from their homeland"

Yep, their a lot of guilty folks in this violation, but someone also was selling on the Africa side. I often wonder if the bad shape and tragedy that has visited Africa is the result.

Sadly, this is still current events and not history.

Generally the way slaves were captured was that the Europeans would approach a west African tribal chief and give him an ultimatum. Either you bring us a boatload of slaves from the interior or we'll just take you and your people. The Africans weren't making a profit either way.

The Europeans deserve 100% of the blame for the slave trade.

How would the Europeans have been able to do this? They couldn't field armies in the African interior due to disease and African military resistance. Recall that the "scramble for Africa" happened after the discovery of Quinine and the invention of the Maxim gun.

I grew up learning that they traded manufactured goods (and, according to Roots and 1776, rum) to certain kings who were now able to gain more power by using European-made weapons to expand their territory and capture more prisoners. This led to a sharp increase in warfare as militaries could plunder not just wealth found in cities but bodies of civilians in villages.

Can you link to a source on your account?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade

Bullshit. The Trans-Saharan and East African/Indian Ocean slave trade pre-dated and post dated the Atlantic one. Slaves, gold and ivory were the only trade goods Africa had that were worth trading across those distances and the slave trade was an African invention. Slavery has been completely normal for the vast majority of human history.

This is not to say that the Atlantic slave trade wasn't incredibly destructive, unusually pervasive and far reaching, but the idea that the fault was entirely with the West is a ridiculous denial of the agency of every African individual and political unit that took part in it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Saharan_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_slave_trade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Africa

> Slaves, gold and ivory were the only trade goods Africa had

Is this bit true? I thought they also traded wood to the Arabian peninsula for instance. Granted, my knowledge here is coming from an episode of CrashCourse[1] and my knowledge of pre-colonial Africa is woeful.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6XtBLDmPA0

I was wrong. I was only familiar with West Africa. I stand by the statement in that context. That's why there was a Gold, Slave and Ivory Coast, all exonyms obviously.

> The barbarism began 200 years prior when Africans were stolen from their homeland

Sure is a lot of presentism and tu-quoque-ing going on here.

I would say the situation there was beyond the realm of moral judgment. When you have a society like that you're in law of nature territory.

Whit if it was really necessary to do these acts in order to prevent worse atrocities (e.g. what would occur if the White people were permitted to leave Haiti, but then garnered support while abroad and returned with armed forces)?

Certainly many civilians were killed in WW2, ostensibly to further the war effort and thus prevent a worse outcome of the Axis winning.

At the very least, we should judge this in the context of the terrible barbarism committed against Black slaves.

And by the same token let's judge trans-atlantic slave trade in the context of the terrible barbarism of human trafficking. Given how ancient and modern history is littered with instances of racially motivated massacres, one might think you could find a more accurate example from WW2 to illustrate the idea of a larger population destroying a smaller one on the basis of 'what if this is really necessary for the X people'. I understand that your point is a small expense today avoids a greater expense tomorrow. It's just that reasoning isn't normally extended to wide-scale murder/rape; though when it is it's usually mitigated with sentences that often begin, 'At the very least...'.

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