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A review by ethanhedman
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution by C.L.R. James
5.0
James details the history of the slave revolt-turned-war of independence in San Domingo primarily through Toussaint L'Overture. L'Overture was a slave until his mid-40s when the revolution came, then lead the revolt against the French as Bonaparte was trying to re-introduce slavery to the French Colonies. C.L.R. James (an historian from Trinidad) wrote this in the 1930s, then wrote an afterward in the early 1960s bringing up parallels between L'Overture and Fidel Castro, which are compelling. Two quotes stood out to me in my first read-through.
"The race question is subsidiary to the class question in politics, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental as an error only less grave than to make it fundamental. There were Jacobin workmen in Paris who would have fought for the blacks against Bonaparte's troops. But the international movement was not then what is it to-day, and there were none in San Domingo. The black labourers saw only the old slave-owning whites."
Then the most famous passage, which ties together the revolution in the times of Toussaint L'Overture to the revolution in the times of C.L.R. James.
"When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity."
"The race question is subsidiary to the class question in politics, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental as an error only less grave than to make it fundamental. There were Jacobin workmen in Paris who would have fought for the blacks against Bonaparte's troops. But the international movement was not then what is it to-day, and there were none in San Domingo. The black labourers saw only the old slave-owning whites."
Then the most famous passage, which ties together the revolution in the times of Toussaint L'Overture to the revolution in the times of C.L.R. James.
"When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity."