C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 12, "The Bourgeoisie Prepares to Restore Slavery"

Napoleon was determined to subdue San Domingo and restore slavery. His motive was not prejudice (although he had plenty of that) or an eagerness for colonies but profit for his bourgeois supporters. Once his plans to use Russia to strike at British India were foiled, he had no reason to hesitate any longer. Fully aware of the formidable foe he faced, he launched the largest French overseas expedition in history -- 20,000 men -- on 21 November, 1801.

Toussaint continued his policy of appeasing whites, hoping this would convince Napoleon not to invade. He was not able to come to terms with the fact that the die had been cast, that the decision to attack had already been made. Revolutionary blacks became increasingly discontented with Toussaint's policy, and they revolted in the North province in late September. Toussaint harshly suppressed the revolt, and had Moise, whom he suspected of anti-white revolutionary tendencies, executed as well. Toussaint's approach disoriented the black masses who were essential to defending the island while also failing to overawe the white who could disable the island's defense from within.

James contends that if if Toussaint had communicated the prospect of an invasion and the aim of his policies in forestalling it more openly, he could have retained the support of the black laborers. He draws a parallel to Robespierre, who also crushed his left-wing supporters and destroyed his own defense in doing so. But, according to James, Robespierre could only be expected to do this because he was, after all, bourgeois, while there was no difference in political outlook between Toussaint and the masses. Their difference, he contends, was only in the view of how to manage the issue of race in order to secure the interests of the laborers. Accommodation had to be made to the understandable anti-white feelings of the black masses, according to James, in order to sustain their support for revolution -- and there was little to be lost, since the whites within and without could not be won over by further accommodation, anyway.

This seems right as a prescription for policy, but I have to think that James has misapprehended his man here. It strikes me that there was an ideological gap between Toussaint and the masses. In the end, it was not just a vain hope for appeasement that drove Toussaint's policy, but his essentially bourgeois inclinations. He saw promoting and protecting of the rights of property -- albeit without slavery -- as a positive good. And in the end, the black masses were not going to be content as mere laborers.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 11, "The Black Consul"

Can we just sum this up by stating that Toussaint was bourgeois in both policy and mores?

Toussaint put great stock in the bourgeois virtues of work, education, and sociability. He strove to make the colony productive and to develop the human capital of its people. His methods were authoritarian rather than liberal: for instance, he compelled the black laborers to stay on the estates, while guaranteeing them a share of the produce.

Besides serving the end of economic development, his protection of propertied interests was also designed to forestall conflict with metropolitan France. This was also true of the favor he showed to whites. The black masses remained suspicious of the whites, however, and James argues that Toussaint's signal failure was neglecting to explain his approach to them. I will allow myself to doubt that the masses would have been swayed. In any case, this division between Toussaint's policy and popular attitudes became his key political vulnerability.

Toussaint's ruled as a dictator. He took advice from many people, but made all decisions himself. This arrangement was codified in the constitution he promulgated for the colony. This constitution opened up a new breach with France, since it gave no place to metropolitan France in the rule of the colony at all. Napoleon, meanwhile, refused to acknowledge Toussaint's position as ruler of San Domingo at all -- avoiding an open beach as yet, but refusing to grant legitimacy as well.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 10, "Toussaint Seizes the Power"

This is a disappointing chapter. James fails to satisfy me on a significant point, the nature of the conflict between the the mulatto-ruled South and the the North ruled by Toussaint. James makes this out to hang upon the personal conflict between Rigaud, who was unfailingly loyal to France, and Toussaint, who was sought to unify the island under his own control in preparation for independence. James even suggests that if Beauvais had been allowed to succeed Rigaud -- a succession which was stymied by the new French governor, Roume, in order to sow division -- unification could have taken place without conflict. But the vigor of the Southern defence belies any such expectation. I think we must understand this level of commitment as rooted in social and economic differences which could hardly have failed to produce an insurrection, no matter how peaceful the initial unification had been.

In any case, here are the main narrative points. (1) Toussaint cut a trade deal with the British. Given the British control of the seas, he could hardly have done otherwise, whatever his intentions towards France. (2) Toussaint conquered the South and dealt unusually harshly with the defeated mulattoes. (3) Toussaint then Spanish San Domingo to bring the entire island under his rule. (4) Toussaint kept the purpose of these actions largely to himself and failed to engage the people on the conflict with France for which he was preparing them.

My ten most influential books

I saw that Matt Yglesias had listed the ten books that had influenced his thinking the most, and I wanted to try the same thing.

This leaves out something that was really important for me in my youth: the political and cultural periodicals such as the Washington Monthly, the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, and the Atlantic Monthly. I started reading most of these in high school, some thirty years ago, and that reading was the key influence in shaping many of my concrete political views.

Most of these books are important because they became a constant touchpoint of reflection. In general, they changed and challenged the frame through which I looked at things more than they changed my mind on any specific thing.

1. Alisdair Macintyre, After Virtue. Macintyre was such a revelation for me because he demonstrated the necessity of thinking about the social and institutional contexts of ethics, but in the long run the work was most influential for the way I think about art and aesthetics.
2. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish. Granted that the the historical divisions Foucault draws are a little too neat and crisp (an issue I was aware of even when I first read the book in college), the pointed questions he raises about knowledge, power, and institutions still shape the way that I think about policy questions.
   
3. Nicholas Lemann, The Promised Land. This is really cheating, since I had long before read the original articles in the Atlantic which grew into this book. In any case, it really did drive home to me the significance for social policy of the stickiness of social and cultural influences across generations.
   
4. Josiah Royce, The Problem of Christianity. Despite the title, it is not religion which made this book important to me, but it's explanation of the ways that community matters for ethics.
   
5. Johns Lachs, Intermediate Man. This short, overlooked work has kept me thinking about the costs of mediated action in modern society ever since I read it in college.
   
6. Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters. In addition to how it helped to form my appreciation of the central place of race and civil rights in recent American history, this book also gave me plenty else to chew on. Branch's mordant illustrations of journalists' captivity to conservative spin on civil rights informed my understanding of media long before there were blogs.
7. Christoper Alexander, et al, The Oregon Experiment. This fortuitously discovered book first introduced me to Alexander's work, which has been the key influence in my thinking about architecture and urban design. The key insights for me are an anthropological approach to assessing the success of buildings and an incrementalist approach to design.
   
8. Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. I only read this in the last year, but it has been a huge influence in how I think about the how to deal with imperfect progressive party and interest group institutions over the last year.
   
9. Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age. Although I never read the whole book until a year ago, I had read bits and pieces of it for two decades before that. The answers Blumenberg gives about the nature of modernity actually matter less for my development than his explicit methodological reliance on philosophical anthropology. This work was the entry way for me to learning something about the German tradition in this field, and if anything the introduction by Robert Wallace was nearly as influential as Blumenberg's text.
   
10. V.S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River. I read this for the first time when I was just fifteen, after seeing a review in Time, and something of its vision and its anger has haunted me since.
    
11. Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America. Sowell's well-supported argument for the persistence of social and cultural disparities across generation has shaped my support for social policies to reduce inequality (although Sowell inexplicably fails to draw this natural conclusion to his argument).

All right, so my list goes to eleven. Cue the Spinal tap jokes.

Hans Blumenberg, Shipwreck with Spectator: Chapter 1, "Seafaring as a Transgression of Boundaries", and 2, "What the Shipwrecked Person is Left with"

Two presuppositions of the ancient use of seafaring as a metaphor for life (8)


1. The seashore is a natural boundary of man's activity.


2. The sea lacks order; it is arbitrary and (in Christian terms) even evil.


Hesiod sees commerce and a desire for gain behind the crossing of this seemingly natural boundary, which opens such voyages to a critique based on alleged immoderation . (9)

Horace portrays shipwreck as a restoration of a natural order where the elements are separated, and man belongs only to the element of earth -- an order that has been upended by man's seafaring. (11-12)


The philosopher Aristippus is shipwrecked on Rhodes. He sees geometrical figures drawn in the sand, and realizes that he is close to civilization -- and he proceeds to go into town and earn his return cost by teaching. He proclaims the lesson of this is to possess no more than what can be saved from a shipwreck, because that cannot be touched by war or turmoil. (12)


Montaigne takes up this theme of what can be salvaged from shipwreck with his dictum "Certainly a man of understanding has lost nothing, if he has himself." According to Blumenberg, this is to be understood not as a refuge into interiority from external pressure, but as self-possession gained through self-examination. (14)

Montaigne's ethics through nautical metaphors: caution (don't stray far from port), awareness of bias towards subjectivity (like the optical illusion of the receding shore from a ship going to sea), steadiness (hold a steady course). (15)

Montaigne as spectator of political tumult. Avoids commitment to a cause as far as possible, because that would put him in danger. "One can almost feel how the skeptic approaches the the secure position of spectator, by raising higher and higher the conditions under which he would still be prepared to allow himself to go down, in what was then a thirty-year-old political situation." Takes pleasure in being a spectator to turmoil, although he feels compassion for those who suffer - compares it to watching a play. (16) (is it relief at being spared or the cathartic emotions of internalizing others suffering that create the pleasure?)


Montaigne does not use Lucretius' description of the shipwreck with a spectator to define his political situation. Blumenberg notes that he has already used it to support his thesis that nothing in nature is useless -- not even uselessness. Here being a spectator -- which amounts to a capacity to keep one's distance -- stands for uselessness, but this distance keeps the spectator alive. In particular, the ability to take malicious pleasure in being able to survive while others perish fosters the ability to stand apart -- and survive. This example is also part of a more general thesis argued by Montaigne: that human institutions require vices in order to work. (17)


Goethe's describes his predicament -- both generally and with regard to the reception of his theory of colors -- as the survivor -- in the latter case the sole survivor -- of a shipwreck. (18) For now this goes nowhere and we take up ...


Pascal's innovative twist on the seafaring as a metaphor for life -- "you are embarked." This dictum, which sets a condition for his wager about belief, excludes the cautious, skeptical path of staying in port recommended by Montaigne. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche follows this up with a further condition -- we have destroyed the land behind us as well, so there is nothing to be done but sail. Yet further, in Zarathustra, Nietzsche adopts the metaphor that not only are we already embarked, but already shipwrecked as well. (19)

Prince de Ligne -- an 18th century precursor to seeing metaphorical shipwreck as a primordial condition, at least of his experience. He claims to have always sought out the reefs, but always to have been saved by hanging on to a plank. (20)

Nietzsche on freely rearranging the debris of the shipwreck as a metaphor for intellectual liberation. (20)

Franz Overbeck on Nietzsche's endeavor as an existentially unavoidable sea voyage (21)

Nietzsche's metaphor for science -- the shipwrecked person finding dry land. Notable that the metaphor is not the spectator's relationship to land. The point is that science, like solid land to the shipwrecked, is a change, and even an unexpected one. Science provides a secure ground for further research -- something that had not been provided by man's thought throughout history. (21-22)

Nietzsche's use of voyages of Columbus and his discovery of a new world as an analogy with his philosophizing. (22)

Nietzsche on understanding Epicurus -- takes Epicurus' happiness to be that of the sufferer who has found serenity, like the seafarer who has come through the storm to find calm seas. Relationship of subject rather than (as with Lucretius) spectator to the storm-tossed ship. Nietzsche regarded the image of shipwreck with spectator as alien to Greek thinking, which Blumenberg calls a "profound insight." (22-23)

But is Nietzsche's insight true? Blumenberg brings up the anonymous Greek distich: "I have found the port. Farewell, Hope and Fortune!/ You have played enough with me. Now play with other men!" (Inveni portum. Spes et fourtuna valete!/ Sat me lusistis. Ludite nunc alios!) He considers its reception in both Casanova and in Alain Lesage's character Gil Blas di Santillana.
In both cases, he finds that the distich lends itself to leaving contemplation of the struggles of other with the game of fate-- the role of spectator -- out of the picture. (23-26)

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 9, "The Expulsion of the British"

The British wanted out of their costly war in San Domingo, but they were still eager to cause France trouble and deny them the colony if possible. Maitland, their local commander, tried to entice Toussaint into declaring independence, promising that the British Navy would protect San Domingo from any French expeditionary force.

The Directory wanted to keep San Domingo for France, but with Sonthonax's deportation they suspected Toussaint of angling for independence. They sent Hedouville as the new governor to wrest control from Toussaint, and gave him a free hand to intrigue with the mulattoes under the unreliable Rigaud if necessary.

James portrays Toussaint's response as that of a well-informed and cautious statesman. He shows that Toussaint saw through the British offer, realizing that protection would last only as long as England's war with France. He negotiated the British departure from the West Province on favorable terms, and, fully understanding his position of strength, went on to extract full evacuation. James argues, moreover, that Toussaint understood the threat of intrigue with the mulattoes, and had done his best to forestall this by meeting and working with Rigaud. In the end, Hedouville won over Rigaud despite these efforts.

Hedouville forced a break with Toussaint over the latter's pardon of white planters who had fought for the British (and, not insignificantly, the black soldiers who had fought for them). Toussaint resigned rather than bringing on civil war. Hedouville moved aggressively to consolidate his power. He tried to impose limits on the liberty of black laborers and he began to replace black troops with white ones. Hedouville finally came to grief over dismissing one of Toussaint's old subordinates, Moise, from his command. Toussaint came out against Hedouville, and sent the troops under Dessalines to Le Cap to drive him out. Hedouville fled, but on his way out urged Rigaud to defy Toussaint's authority.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 8, "The White Slave-Owners Again"

Toussaint wanted Laveaux out, though not out of hostility. Toussaint wanted to take over as commander-in-chief. He encouraged Laveaux to return to France as a representative of the colony in the Convention.


Laveaux was needed there anyway as a reliable voice against slavery. With the demise of Robespierre and the Jacobins in 1795, France got a new government more strictly responsive to propertied interests. The merchants and expatriate planters resumed agitation for bringing blacks back under subjection in the name of imposing order.


Sonthonax, who had returned as governor, was both a loyal republican and an ardent supporter of the blacks in San Domingo. His attempt to assert his prerogatives as governor put him into conflict with the mulatto oligarchy led by Rigaud in the South. Toussaint, appreciating that Rigaud remained faithful to the Republic, had advised Sonthonax to leave the situation alone while the colony was at war. But Sonthonax sent a commission anyway to put Rigaud's troops under central control and arrest suspected anti-republican plotters. The two whites among the commissioners sent by Sonthonax handled the situation badly, and ended up provoking a revolt and massacre. Sonthonax's subsequent attempts to reduce the territory under Rigaud's authority yielded only more resistance and led Rigaud to seek support from Toussaint.

The San Domingo colony prospered under Sonthonax's governorship. He was hostile to any reconciliation with the former slave owners - far more so than was Toussaint, who he made commander-in-chief.

17 August 1797 -- Toussaint forces Sonthonax out. This was a sudden turn, which puts in some doubt Toussaint's explanation that he had to move to forestall a longstanding Sonthonax project to massacre the whites of the colony and gain independence. James argues that both Sonthonax and Toussaint would have been well aware of the growing strength of the reactionary allies of the exiled planters in France, and would have come to see that securing the liberty for blacks depended on independence. For Toussaint, however, the safest route to independence was to temporize by making a sacrificial lamb of Sonthonax.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 7, "The Mulattoes Try and Fail"

The mulatto minority resented the prominence of ex-slaves in republican San Domingo. The mulattoes sought leadership for themselves, and saw independence from France and its revolutionary government as a way to bring about their end. They would have been just as happy to see the return of slavery, as well.

The republican government of the island under Laveaux perceived that the ex-slaves were their most trustworthy allies, and Laveaux especially favored Toussaint. The ex-slaves generally reciprocated this faith in Laveaux and the republican government, and this was particularly true of the astute and well-informed Toussaint.

On March 20, 1796, the mulattoes under Valette staged a coup d'etat in Le Cap; Laveaux and other republican leaders were arrested. Toussaint was ready for the blow. He quickly had his agents raise the black laborers of the district against the coup, and sent a strong detachment from his army to back this up. The coup collapsed in short order, and Laveaux officially raised Toussaint to his second-in-command.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 6, "The Rise of Toussaint"

The British invaders had ample supplies and cash. The republican forces lacked both, but they prevailed because they made up for this with motivation. The black ex-slaves who comprised the core of their army were fighting to preserve their freedom.

Character and approach of Toussaint -- personally reserved and taciturn, authoritative if not authoritarian, emphasis on direct personal intervention in battles and resolution of disputes and rebellions, merciful to defeated enemies. Became the de facto leader of San Domingo.

Toussaint's political priority was economic recovery. This required reconciliation with white planters and restoration of their estates when possible -- the planters had needed experience and expertise. It also required keeping laborers on the plantations -- the government restricted their movement, although it also imposed regulations on planters to ensure that they were paid.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 5, "And the Paris Masses Complete"

The Legislative Assembly sent a combined army and National Guard expedition to San Domingo, along with right-wing Jacobin commissioners Sonthanax and Polverel, to enforce mulatto rights and suppress the slave revolt. But the army commander Desparbes conspired with local royalists instead of leading the army against the slaves, thus sparing the revolt while it was still weak.

In the meantime, the Girondin-led government in France went to war against Austria. The royalists conspired for a defeat by foreign monarchies, and the Girondins lacked the nerve to crack down on them, so a new popular revolution in August, 1792 deposed the monarchy, overthrew the Girondins, and created a new parliament, the National Convention. This body was far more representative of popular opinion that its predecessors, and thus more supportive of a thoroughgoing assault on privilege and slavery.

Sonthanax found the whites had already agreed to mulatto rights, and he aggressively brought mulattoes into the government. When news of the August revolution reached San Domingo, Sonthonax backed the local revolutionaries in suppressing the royalists and deporting Desparbes. After this respite, the troops under their new commander Laveaux set about subduing the slaves. War with Spain and England, however, meant he had to be called back on the verge of success to defend the coast.

Galbaud, a new governor sent from France, conspired with the whites who were unhappy with mulatto influence to attempt an overthrow of the revolutionary government. Sonthanax called in and armed the slaves around Le Cap for support, and suppressed the rebellion. Thousands of whites fled, and white domination in San Domingo was broken for good.

Sonthanax was unable to retain the liberated slaves to protect Le Cap, however -- they joined the rebel slaves in the hills. Meanwhile, many of the remaining slaves in the north abandoned their plantations, while the remaining white royalists went over to the Spanish. Lacking any other source of support, Sonthanax declared abolition on August 29, 1793.

The rebel slave leaders all allied themselves with the Spanish and monarchical counter-revolution. James argues, not altogether convincingly, that for Toussaint alone this was a tactical expedient, and his strategic aim of completely liberating the slaves remained unchanged. Toussaint's 1792 offer to Laveaux to come over to the French side in exchange for declaring the slaves free is supposed to be evidence for this tactical flexibility (125). But when Sonthonax did declare emancipation on August 29, 1793, Toussaint still did not switch sides (128-129). James makes out that he failed to do so because Sonthonax lacked the legal authority to emancipate the slaves (137), and shows that Toussaint did finally rally to the French cause when word of the National Convention's emancipation of the slaves reached the island. But this authority had been just as lacking in 1792 as it was in 1793, and in the meantime the British forces with whom Toussaint was allied were sweeping all before them and promising to reimpose slavery. The indifference of the other rebel leaders to liberation is also contradicted by Jean Francois's threat to use the promise of freedom to bolster his forces -- a threat which actually helped provoke Sonthanax's decree in the first place.

From 1793 into early 1794, Toussaint captured most of the northern part of the colony on behalf of the Spanish. A British expedition landed in the West province in September 1793. By the year's end, they had taken hold of all of the west and most of the south. In June, 1794, they captured Le Cap.

February 4th, 1794 -- Convention abolishes slavery in the colonies.

When the news of abolition reached San Domingo in June, 1794, Toussaint switched sides, routed the Spanish (and their rebel slaves allies), and pushed the British back to the West province.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 4, "The San Domingo Masses Begin"

The slaves revolt, and for James the story is a didactic opportunity; again and again the events are made to illustrate sweeping statements about revolutions and mass movements.

The first sentence of the chapter, for instance, 85-86: "The slaves worked the land, and, like revolutionary peasants everywhere, they aimed at the extermination of their oppressors. But working and living together in gangs of hundreds on the huge sugar-factories which covered the North Plain, they were closer to a modern proletariat than any group of workers in existence at the time, and the rising was, therefore, a thoroughly prepared and organized mass movement." I suspect there was some intra-leftist dispute about the value of the Haitian revolution which James is scoring points on with this.

87: "The slaves on the Gallifet plantation were so well treated that 'happy as the Negroes of Gallifet' was a slave proverb. Yet by a phenomenon noticed in all revolutions it was they who led the way."

88, on the violence of the revolting slaves being ultimately more restrained than the violence of their masters: "And yet they were surprisingly moderate, then and afterwards, far more humane than their masters had been or would ever be to them. They did not maintain this vengeful spirit for long. The cruelties of property and privilege are always more ferocious than the revenges of poverty and oppression. For the one aims at perpetuating resented injustice, the other is merely a momentary passion soon appeased." (As far as immediately revolutionary violence is concerned, I think he has a sound point. But then the revolution becomes institutionalized and has its own prerogatives to defend ...)

89: "As usual the strength of the mass movement dragged in its wake the revolutionary sections of those classes nearest to it. Free blacks joined them... The Mulattoes hated the black slaves because they were slaves and because they were black. But when they actually saw the slaves taking action on such a grand scale, numbers of young Mulattoes from Le Cap and round about rushed to join the hitherto despised blacks and fight against the common enemy."

106, on the willingness of the leaders of the revolt to betray their followers back into slavery: "Political treachery is not a monopoly of the white race, and this abominable betrayal so soon after the insurrections shows that political leadership is a matter of program, strategy and tactics, and not the colour of those who lead it, their oneness of origin with their people, nor the services they have rendered."

22 August, 1791: the revolt begins. Organized under the leadership of the voodoo priest Boukman, slaves set fire to plantations throughout the North Cape and killed their masters. Le Cap remained in the colonists' control, but they made no sustained attempt to use their troops to regain control in the countryside.

Toussaint Breda joins the revolution about a month on, with the two sides at an impasse. James sketches his character and attributes, particularly his broad acquaintance with the world and its political and economic forces.

Main leaders: Jean Francois and Biassou. Both imposed tight discipline on their troops. Biassou was more impulsive and hotheaded, Jean Francois cool and deliberate. Toussaint joined Biassou's band as a doctor and close advisor.

Colonists' reaction was to kill slaves indiscriminately, whether involved with the revolt or not. This consolidated the allegiance of slaves to the revolt -- some 100,000 had joined the movement within a few weeks.

In early August, the mulattoes in the West province had also revolted. They were let militarily by Rigaud and Beauvais, both veterans of the American War of independence, and politically by Pinchinat.

Royalists and large whites joined forces with the mulattoes against the Patriots (white revolutionaries) of Port-au-Prince and defeated them in battle. Both the royalist leader de Jumecourt and the Patriot Caradeau offered full rights for mulatto support, but were refused. The mulattoes had the upper hand, and were able to secure an agreement for equal rights with the only major concession being the deportation of their maroons who had joined them.


Rioting in Port-au-Prince instigated by the small white leader Pralotto upended the ratification vote on November 21st. The mulattoes retreated from the city and again joined forces with their rich white and royalist allies, but now the mulatto leaders also brought in the slaves of the West Province on their side. After a sharp battle, with particularly heavy losses among the slaves, the small whites were beaten back into Port-au-Prince and besieged there. In the aftermath, the big whites in the west were eager to cement their alliance with the mulattoes, hoping to put an end to a revolution that they had tired of. But the mulattoes never shared this strategic objective, and still saw prospects for securing their position from the revolution. 110: "The royalists had hoped to use the Mulattos. Now they found that they had been used instead."

Alliances varied from region to region. In the south, after an agreement fell apart (thanks in part to the scheming of Caradeau), mulattoes gained the upper hand against whites, so the whites incited a slave revolt against mulatto rule. In the north, mulattoes were also stymied in their attempts to secure a concordat of rights, so many joined the slave revolt.


The Commisioners sent by the National Assembly arrived in late November and attempted to make peace. The slave leaders were willing to end the revolt and help subdue their followers back into slavery in exchange for the freedom and political rights for 400 leaders -- later reduced even to 60 by Toussaint -- but the colonists refused. This decided for Toussaint that compromise was impossible, that the only way forward was to fight for freedom for the entire slave population.

Late in 1791, the Legislative Assembly (note: elected later than the Constituent Assembly and more left in orientation) in France revived the debate over granting the Rights of Man to mulattoes. Two key factors: (1) increasing suspicion of the Patriot faction, which it had become clear was angling for independence in order to shed themselves of debts (this was especially significant for the maritime bourgeoisie) -- the mulattoes were seen as a loyal counterweight against them; (2) the already agreed pacts between whites and mulattoes in San Domingo.

Decree of April 4th granted full political rights to mulattoes, but changed nothing about the status of slaves. Heeding this, Toussaint starting training the core of a rebel slave army.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 3, " Parliament and Property"

The big whites were initially the main supporters of the revolution, with the most intransigent leaders coming from the indebted planters, but small whites joined them as news of the events in France reached San Domingo. With white creoles unified in support of revolution, the colonial administration began cultivating ties to mulattoes, who were already facing attacks from the revolutionaries. In response, the small whites redoubled their repression based on a frankly eliminationist ideology. The large whites, alarmed by the the growing political dominance of of the small whites, began to edge away from the revolution and towards closer ties with mulattoes and the administration.

Three provincial assemblies in North, West, and South Provinces; Colonial assembly in St. Marc. Small whites dominated the St. Marc assembly; large planters from the densely populated north plain and Le Cap merchants increasingly withdrew from it and consolidated their power in the assembly of the North Province.

Meanwhile, in France, the Constituent Assembly stalled the issue of mulatto rights throughout 1789 and into 1790. Planters, the maritime bourgeoisie , and conservatives under their influence led by Barnave, resisted action. Even when the assembly issued a decree on the colonies on March 8th, they temporized on the issue of mulatto rights, declining to specify whether mulattoes otherwise qualified by age and property were to be included in the franchise. Abolition of slavery itself was not even on the table, although the fear of it was at the core of the tenacious resistance of the colonists and their advocates to the slightest concession on mulatto rights.

Events in San Domingo: suppression of St. Marc Assembly by royalist colonial administration, abortive mulatto revolt led by Oge, a mulatto who had risen to political prominence in France.

In the midst of growing popular agitation about the king and queen's attempts to flee Paris and the news of Oge's death, the assembly took up the debate on mulatto rights again. After several days' debate, a compromise resolution was agreed on May 15th to grant the franchise to those whose parents were both free and who were otherwise qualified. The appointed colonial commission and the bureaucrats refused to implement the decree, however. In July, the conservatives under Barnave used the flight of the king and queen to seize executive power. They suppressed a subsequent popular revolt in the streets (the massacre of the Champ de Mars) and successfully pushed a cowed assembly to rescind the decree on September 24th.

Amid the to-and-fro of the struggle in France, the struggle between the big and small whites intensified in San Domingo. Moreover, whether inspired by the fighting between the whites or the news about mulatto rights, the black slaves themselves were ready to revolt.

Although James constantly refers conflicts and programs back to class interests, he insists on the capacity of individual actors to shape political outcomes. See, for example, 75: "If the king and queen had been political abstractions and not flesh and blood, they would have lived and died as constitutional monarchs with immense power. But they looked upon all their concessions as merely temporary, and plotted ceaselessly with foreign powers for armed intervention."

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 2: "The Owners"

Class analysis of the free population

big whites -- planters, merchants, and shipping agents

small whites -- overseers in the countryside; tradesmen, clerks, and the white rabble in the towns -- racial distinction was key to their status

bureaucrats -- representatives of the French crown and, effectively, the interests of the mainland bourgeoisie -- their arbitrary power was resented by the big whites, and so the bureaucrats increasingly aligned themselves with the small whites for support

mulattoes -- increasing prosperous and resented -- many were significant landowners -- the local government steadily increased restrictions on them in the years up to the revolution -- even extermination was mooted, but the mulatto population was too large and potentially powerful for that risk to be taken.

The French government imposed a mercantilist policy -- the Exclusive -- which compelled the San Domingo colony to carry out its trade through France. This provided an immensely lucrative stream of business for metropolitan French manufacturers and merchants, accounting for 11 million pounds out of France's total export trade of 17 million by 1789. (By comparison, Britain's total colonial exports were just 5 million pounds.) It was not just the bourgeoisie that benefited: employment from the trade also supported as many as 6 million Frenchmen. It limited the profits of the islanders, however, and this, together with their debts with French lenders, put them at odds with the mainland bourgeoisie.

British leaders feared the power that France stood to gain from all this wealth, particularly since the island's production was expanding so rapidly (nearly doubling in the six years up to 1789). The British policy for abolition of the slave trade gained its initial impetus from a desire to choke off further expansion of San Domingo's economy. British action included covert support for French abolition activists -- many of whom later became prominent in the revolutionary government.

The rapid growth of San Domingo's output also destabilized the colony, particularly because it required the integration of large numbers of newly imported native African slaves.

Only the big whites initially took part in the political events leading up to the revolution, with a segment seeking representation in the estates. James contends this was a minority, and that many planters (including the expatriates of the Club Massiac) preferred to avoid drawing attention to the colony. In any case, representation was secured when this faction of San Domingo nobility threw their support behind the third estate at the tennis court oath.

C.L.R. James, The Black Jacobins: Chapter 1, "The Property"

The focus here is on the qualitative aspects of slavery in Domingo, and especially the exceptionally brutal treatment of slaves in the colony. The point of this brutality was not just to maximize the output of labor, but even more to forestall revolt by keeping the slaves in a state of terror.

Some notable divisions within slave society:

• servant caste and laborers -- the servant caste had a greater tendency to identify with their masters, but it was also members of this group who had the experience and even education that would enable them to provide leadership
  
• creole and African -- native African slaves were a greater threat to revolt
  
• maroons -- slaves who ran away to the hills and lived by banditry

James frequently draws comparisons to or refers to more recent colonial enterprises (especially in the British Empire), either in the text or notes. At times this is confusing, as it's not clear if the reference is intended to fill in gaps in the sources by reference to an analogous situation, or is there simply to provide contemporary relevance. See the footnote on page 16, for example.

The usage of the term creole is somewhat obscure. It is used to refer to both blacks and whites(see pages 17 and 57, respectively, for examples). I gather that it is used to distinguish members of both groups who were natives of the San Domingo colony from newcomers or outsiders (Africans or metropolitan French).

Le Jeune case in 1788 -- a planter killed four of his slaves and tortured two others in pursuit of an imagined poisoning conspiracy. His other slaves brought charges, but these were ultimately dismissed. Demonstrated that, despite the restrictions on the treatment of slaves that existed in law, the slaveowners in fact had total impunity.

Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Chapter 9, "The Elusive Optimal Mix of Exit and Voice"

In general, organizations do not respond equally well to voice and exit. This is not a problem, as long as an organization is responsive to some form of pressure to which it likely to be subjected. The pathological cases -- where exit is available but not responded to, or when voice is exercised but still nugatory -- call for reform, both by introducing institutional changes to make organizations more responsive to existing forms of pressure, and by persuading members and customers to try the alternative form of pressure.

Hirschman demurs from offering an optimal mix of exit and voice. He thinks that a stable, optimal mix is impossible. The effectiveness of any given recuperative mechanism can decay (just as organizations themselves do). Moreover, recuperation methods suffer from a feedback loop that makes whichever method is primary in a given context more dominant over time and makes the other increasingly neglected and even underestimated.

Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Chapter 8, "Exit and Voice in American Ideology and Practice"

Central place of exit in American history and self-conception: immigration (exit from former land), the frontier (exit from settled part of America), individual social mobility (exit from lower status groups, even in location).

Emerging black political movements have departed from individual mobility as the ideal -- seen as weakening the ability of the group to advance by depriving it of talented advocates.

Short discussion about why option of exit from the country or from its government seems so stunted despite its otherwise central role. At first cut this boils down to positing high entry costs of immigration. Not very compelling -- most Americans are not immigrants, even if their ancestors were. Then more discussion of peculiar factors that may suppress exit from government positions. the key suggestion is that one's role in government could be seen as especially important and consequential because the country is so powerful, and the consequences of it going astray absent one's influence could be so dire.

Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Chapter 7, "A Theory of Loyalty"

Question: under what conditions can exit and voice coexist? That is, when will voice still be used even when exit is available?

Answer: when individuals are (1) willing to trade off the certainty of exit for an uncertain prospect of recuperation of the product and (2) confident of their ability to influence the defective firm or institution.

Loyalty -- the attachment to the institution -- comes into play in the first case, but in fact both factors reinforce one another. People who care about an institution will tend to put themselves into a position where they can influence it, and people with influence will feel like they have more at stake.


Loyalty isn't an absolute barrier to exit. It is similar in its effect to a significant transaction cost.


Loyalty is most useful when (1) the use of voice is not straightforward but will require ingenuity and creativity (2) when the deteriorating product has close substitutes. The second case is paradoxical -- it seems irrational not exit when close substitutes are available -- but firms in this condition would have no chance to recuperate were it not for loyalty. Since products, institutions, and social groups are typically unevenly distributed on a scale of quality and prestige, with greater density on the lower end, the second case also means that loyalty is more useful at the lower end of the scale.


In using voice, the loyalist's most effective tool is the threat of exit. So we have the following seeming paradox: ease of exit makes voice less likely, but possibility of exit makes voice more effective. The conclusion which can be drawn from this is that voice will be most likely to be both used and effective when exit is possible but not too easy.

Notes on model of loyalist behavior:

• voice increases with deterioration of quality, and curve bends up at points where there would be exit without loyalty and where there is threat of exit with loyalty
• once loyal customers exit, they will not return until at least the quality associated with exit without loyalty is restored; the demand curve for exit is separate from the demand curve for return

Leaders of organizations and firms want to reduce both exit and voice. Will use high entry fees and high penalties for exit to make exit more difficult and to promote unconscious loyalist behavior. However, high entry cost induced loyalist behavior will ten to suppress the initial use of exit, but to make it more vigorous once it has started. If the cost of exit is high as well, however, the loss of threat of exit will make voice less effective. On the other hand, organizations where exit is difficult or impossible but entry cost is automatic (e.g., family, country) may actually sustain the most vigorous use of voice because members will see it as their due.

A special case of loyalty among influential members of organizations is brought into play under the conditions that (1) their departure would result in a further decline in quality and (2) they would continue to care about the quality even after exit. The first condition presumes that the departure of influential members has the opposite effect of the exit of market makers in monopoly or monopolistic competition; this is possible because the members play a part in the production of the good as well as its consumption. The second condition is rational under the assumption that full exit is impossible, which is the case for public goods. (Examples: Public schools, political parties, government administrations)

In such cases, members may be even less likely to depart as an organization gets worse, because they feel more strongly that is their responsibility to stick around to prevent things from getting yet worse. (With tongue only halfway in cheek, Hirschman uses the term spinelessness for this behavior). On the other hand, a member who does decide to exit under these conditions is more likely to use their exit as a tool of protest that will initiate continued use of voice from outside of the organization. Hirschman laments, however, that this use of exit by disgruntled public officials has fallen into disuse, replaced by officials treating their exit as a private matter -- one thinks of the stock "spending more time with my family" excuse.

Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: Chapter 10, "The Fall of Rome"

Heather begins by distinguishing local from central Romanness. Central Romanness -- a central court, bureaucracy, and system of law that responded to the interests of the landowning class, and a professional army to protect this order -- died in the 470s. With its demise the great centripetal force drawing the peoples of the west to Roman cultural identity disappeared. But local Romanness -- the cultural and ideological attachment to being Roman -- was slow a-dying. For more than a century after the end of the empire in the West, there was a significant section of elite population who were culturally and even legally Roman.

Heather takes a synoptic view of the three stages of the fall of central Romanness -- 1) the invasions of the late 4th and early 5th centuries; (2) progressively more debilitating carving out of domains within the empire by barbarian groups in the first three-quarters of the 5th century; (3) the final seizure of fully independent kingdoms by the barbarians when the empire was no longer able to stand up to them. He argues that the Huns drove the initial invasions, that their presence helped prevent further invasions in the 5th century and helped the Romans to control the previous invaders, and that the Hunnic collapse threw the balance of power decisively in favor of the barbarians.

The end of the Roman state did take away the incentive for local elites to maintain classical literary education, local civic life, and the other aspects of local Romanness. Military service rather than Romanness became the path to getting ahead.

Although Heather's rejects Gibbons' thesis that internal factors alone were the cause of Rome's fall -- pointing to the survival of the Eastern Empire as a decisive refutation -- he does acknowledge that the military, economic, and political limits of The Roman Empire interacted in decisive ways with the external invaders who brought down the Empire. Militarily, the Romans ability to contain the barbarians was limited because the Sasanian front required a quarter of the Empire's armed force. This military force could not simply be further expanded because there was no way to generate more revenue -- agricultural production was already at its maximum. Politically, the empire was brittle in the face of barbarian invasion because local landowning elites -- the bulwark of imperial support -- had to swing their support behind any new power in their region to retain their property. Moreover, the Empire was beset by demands from a vast breadth of local elites, and to satisfy these demands it had to resort divided imperial rule. It was never possible to really settle the division of power or the management of succession, however, so this dual system was subject to prolonged bouts of instability during which the barbarians were able to press their advantage.

The external factor in the fall of Rome -- the powerful groups of invading barbarians -- depended on integration of Germanic tribes into larger coalitions. This process was driven by fear and opportunity: fear of the power of the Roman state against isolated opponents and the opportunity to seize enormous wealth if sufficient force could be mustered. These factors had actually been at play (along with the increasing wealth of Germania itself) in consolidating Germanic political units for centuries before the invasions.

A couple of notes on the text: (1) There is a fair bit of repetition of ideas and even phrases in the last three chapters -- it could have done with more editing polish. (2) Throughout the work, the maps fail to provide enough detail. There are many significant features referred to in the text (example: the passes over the Haemus mountains) which cannot be identified in the maps.

Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: Chapter 9, "End of Empire"

Heather starts by batting down suggestions of neglect by the Eastern Empire. He argues -- look at those Sasanians over there! and those Huns! -- that Constantinople had a full ledger already, and did well to spare what they could when they could for the West.

That done, Heather recounts the East's final attempt to shore up the West, starting with the installation of a new emperor on the Western throne. (Sidonius is still the main source for events in the West in this period.) The Western general Ricimer had fallen out with his original partner Majorian and then found no support forthcoming for his hand-picked replacement, Severus, so he had to settle with the the Eastern emperor Leo. As a result, the well-connected Eastern general Anthemius was promoted to the purple.

The first order of business was taking out the Vandals in North Africa. Majorian had already given this a go in 461, but the Vandal king Geiseric had destroyed his fleet in Spain. In 468, the combined Empire put together another army and fleet for a landing near Carthage, but the Vandals caught the fleet in an unfavorable wind and defeated it with the use of fire ships.

With the failure of the expedition, the Western Empire had run out of options. There weren't enough resources left to contain the barbarians in Western Europe. The Visigoths seized most of Spain and Southern Gaul, the Franks occupied northern Gaul, and the Burgundians and other tribes picked up smaller slices.

Heather examines the process of collapse though two examples -- one, Noricum, at the periphery, and the other, Gaul, in the core of the empire. In Noricum, the archaeological and literary evidence (the latter coming from the Life of Saint Severinus) shows that for several decades before the final collapse there had been a withering away of the army garrisons, and the abandonment of scattered estates for walled Roman refuge towns. Over time, the refuge towns consolidated and moved further away from the river frontier as security deteriorated.

In Gaul, literary evidence (from the letters of Sidonius, in particular) shows that the conquering Visigothic and Burgundian kings sought and often got support from the Roman landowning elites. The new barbarian rulers needed the Roman landowners to maintain the estates (and possibly provide taxes) and they needed skilled bureaucrats from the landowning class to administer their states. In return, the kings were willing to let cooperative Romans keep at least some of their land.

In Italy, Ricimer fell out with and deposed Anthemius, setting off a further round of musical chairs with the imperial throne. In the meantime, the mostly barbarian Roman army of Italy was getting restive over not getting paid; Odovacar, a general of Sciri birth, took matters into his own hands by deposing the last emperor and distributing land to the soldiers in lieu of pay. (I gather from the notes that Heather's main source on these events is Procopius.)

Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: Chapter 8: "The Fall of the Hunnic Empire"

The main source describing the demise of the Hunnic Empire is (the freagmentary remainder of) Jordanes' Getica. Jordanes, a Byzantine writing in the mid 6th century, claimed to have drawn his narrative from the Goth Cassiodorus' history from earlier in the century. This is likely true, but it is the source of a main concern in using evidence from the Getica: it is too centered on the Amal-led Goths (who were later Ostrogoths) and biased in favor of the ruling dynasty of those Goths. Heather concludes from reading between the lines of the Getica and pulling in other fragmentary evidence that the Huns suffered a slow bleed of subject peoples from the time of Attila's death, with peoples asserting their independence as they settled on internal leadership. The Gepids seem to have been the earliest to break away (and they confirmed their independence with victory at the battle of Nedao); the Amal-led Goths apparently didn't secede until Valamer had attained internal supremacy in a series of battles. As the Huns lost tribute and military manpower from more and more subject peoples, their position deteriorated to the point where they fled the Hungarian plain altogether for refuge in the Eastern Empire south of the Danube.

Heather argues that the Hunnic coalition was unstable from the beginning. The subject peoples were enrolled in the Hunnic Empire against their will and often treated harshly, but administered largely though their own native leadership. The Huns depended on intimidation and the distribution of the tribute from predation on the Roman Empire to keep the subject rulers in line. The Huns seem to have run into the limit of their ability to extract money from the Romans, however, and the defeat of successive invasions diminished perception of their power and probably reduced their revenue as well. This left the Attila's sons without the wherewithal to keep their vast empire intact.

Heather points out three significant consequences of the Hunnic collapse for the Roman Empire. First, it complicated the situation on the Danube frontier. The Romans now had to manage many frequently conflicting German tribes. Both the victors, who could be strong enough to exact tribute, and the losers, who often invaded or sought refuge in the Roman Empire, created challenges for Roman policy.

Second, the end of the Hunnic threat put Aetius in a precarious position. Power brokers in Roman politics judged that they could now do without his generalship. In fact, the emperor Valentinian assassinated Aetius in 454, only to be struck down in turn by co-conspirator Petronius Maximus the next year. (Petronius lasted for even less time.)

Third, the Huns could no longer be used as a mercenary counterweight to the barbarian groups already established within the Empire. Since the Western Empire itself no longer had the resources to contain them, either, barbarian groups had to be bargained with. From now on, they would play a leading role in the politics of the empire and the imperial succession. Thus Avitus, with the backing of the Visigoths, succeeded Petronius.

Here Heather has some fun taking apart the propaganda of Avitus' son-in-law Sidonius. Sidonius did his best to convince the Romans in Italy that Avitus was in control of the Visigoths rather than the other way around, and that the Visigoths were fine fellows anyway. The senators weren't buying, however, and Avitus was soon deposed by the Italian generals Majorian and Ricimer. From this, Heather draws the further conclusion that there were now too many factions to satisfy in the Western Empire: with the barbarians directly involved, no stable regime could be established