purposeful neglect of the world’s only successful slave revolution sparked a small insurgency in
the field. Scholars such as Carolyn Fick, Jacques de Cauna, Mats Lundahl, Gérard Barthélémy,
David Geggus, Vertus Saint-Louis, John Garrigus, and Laurent Dubois built on the work of
James and other 19
th
- and 20
th
-century Haitian historians such as Thomas Madiou, Beaubrun
Ardouin, Claude and Marcel Auguste, Auguste Nemours, Gérard Mentor Laurent, and others to
re-evaluate the historical neglect of this momentous event.
16
Because of their groundbreaking
work, the Haitian Revolution is no longer at the margins of the Age of Revolutions or of Atlantic
World history. There is still much work to be done, of course, but this volume is part of a broader
movement to research, understand, and explain the Haitian Revolution in Atlantic and global
contexts.
Recent developments in the historiography of the Haitian Revolution and the early
independence period reveal the challenges in undertaking archival research on the period but also
the many opportunities available because of new archival strategies and methodological
innovations. “Many of the original archives of the Haitian state were destroyed over the years,”
sociologist Mimi Sheller argues, “thus there is great dependence on the writings of a few Haitian
Thomas Ott, The Haitian Revolution, 1789-1804 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973); Yves Bénot, La Démence
Coloniale sous Napoléon (Paris: Editions La Découverte, 1992); Pierre Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, fils noir de la revolution
française (Paris: Ecole des loisirs, 1980); Jean Fouchard, The Haitian Maroons: Liberty or Death (1972; reprint, New York:
Edward Blyden Press, 1981); Robert K. Lacerte, “The Evolution of Land and Labor in the Haitian Revolution, 1791-1820,” The
Americas, 34, 4 (1978): 449-459.
16
For example see: David Geggus, Haitian Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002); Geggus,
Slavery, War, and Revolution: The British Occupation of Saint Domingue, 1793-1798 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982); David
Barry Gaspar and David Patrick Geggus, editors, A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); Carolyn Fick, The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990); Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian
Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004); Jacques de Cauna, Haïti, l'éternelle révolution:
Histoire d'une décolonisation: 1789-1804 (Monein: PRNG, 2009); Vertus Saint-Louis, Aux Origines du Drame d’Haïti: Droit et
Commerce Maritime, 1794-1806 (Port-au-Prince: Bibliothèque Nationale d’Haïti, 2006); John Garrigus, Before Haiti; Mats
Lundahl, “Toussaint L’ouverture and the War Economy of Saint-Domingue, 1796-1802,” Slavery and Abolition, 6, 2 (1985):
122-138; Gérard Barthélémy, Créoles, Bossales: Conflict en Haïti (Petit-Bourg, Guadeloupe: Ibis Rouge, 2000); Beaubrun
Ardouin, Etudes sur l’Histoire d’Haïti Suivies de la Vie du Général J.-M. Borgella (Port-au-Prince: F. Dalencour, 1958); Thomas
Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie de J. Courtois, 1847-1848); Claude B. Auguste and Marcel B. Auguste,
L’Expédition Leclerc 1801-1803 (Port-au-Prince: Henri Deschamps, 1985); Auguste Nemours, Histoire Militaire de la Guerre
d’Indépendance de Saint-Domingue, 2 vols. (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1925-1928); Gérard Mentor Laurent, Le Commissaire
Sonthonax à Saint-Domingue (Port-au-Prince: La Phalange, 1965-74); For a recent account of the historiography see: Philippe
Girard, “The Haitian Revolution, History’s New Frontier: State of the Scholarship and Archival Sources,” Slavery and Abolition,
34, 3 (2012): 485-507.