Slavery on Coffee Plantations in Saint-Domingue
Originally Published: 21 June 2020
Some stories have a happy ending, where justice prevails. This is not one of those.
Justice did happen- momentarily- then, the rest is history…
"Damn sugar, damn coffee, damn colonies!" a vanity shattered Napoleon wailed in anguish. It was January 1803 and he had lost more than 24,000 troops to the Haitian revolution. How tragic it must be for a coloniser to see a colony free. Losing Haiti rendered the newly acquired colony of Louisiana futile; it was purchased by the USA for $15 million.
Why was Napoleon whining about a crop you drink as your morning beverage? The horrors of slavery in sugar plantations are well documented but not as many works analyse slavery on coffee plantations. Often, this is because colonies that used slave labour had flourishing sugar plantations but Saint-Domingue had a booming coffee-trade as well, unmatched by any colony at the time.
THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION
According to 'Coffee: A Comprehensive Guide to the Bean, the Beverage, and the Industry', in 1767, the revenue generated from coffee was only a quarter to that of sugar yet by the years 1787-89, coffee equalised sugar revenues, making Saint-Domingue the world's largest export market for coffee. The book also mentions how this caffeinated contribution allowed "French colonies as a whole" to generate "over two-thirds of the world coffee supply."
Yet, "The height of coffee production in Haiti was also its demise" as historian Augustine Sedgewick writes in 'Coffeeland: A History', adding that "A creation of empire and slavery, coffee became a casualty of the Haitian Revolution."
A casualty but also an eyewitness.
The Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 was the only successful slave rebellion in history. Before gaining independence, Haiti was the French colony known as Saint-Domingue. Low costs of production achieved by importing African slave labour, helped make Saint-Domingue one of the wealthiest- if not the wealthiest-colony in the world. Being the world's leading producer of coffee and sugar, it produced "40 percent of the sugar and 60 percent of the coffee imported to Europe." These plantations were the cash-cow of colonial France.
If plantations could speak, they would re-count with trembling voices, the sound of the whips, the cries, the scars which turned to ashes but left a permanent mark. Slavery may have been abolished but its past could not.
SLAVERY ON THE COFFEE PLANTATIONS
To protect its monopoly on the more valuable 'Mocha' bean, the French East India Company did not allow "coffee grown in either Bourbon or the Caribbean to be sold in France" until the 1730s, writes Jonathan Morris in 'Coffee: A Global History.' Increasing demand for coffee in France came at the expense of freedom for African slaves. Shackled and dragged over the shore, they were forced to work in dire conditions and degraded all the same. Almost double the amount of African slaves were imported into Saint-Domingue than those taken to North America. It was no secret that Saint-Domingue's economy literally relied on slaves. In 1971, a colonist wrote: "There can be no agriculture in Saint Domingue without slavery; we did not go to fetch half a million savage slaves off the coast of Africa to bring them to the colony as French citizens." For the colonists and most plantation owners- slaves were not people.
Saint-Domingue was based on a four-tier caste system. At the top where the white, wealthy plantation owners, known as 'the grand blancs'. These were followed by 'the petits blancs', the lower-class white population. Then came the 'gens de couleur', who were of mixed ancestry as some were offspring produced by white French settlers and black slaves, and the remaining being freed ex-slaves. This group, though racially discriminated against, was still wealthy and some members even owned plantations themselves. At the bottom of the racial hierarchy were the African slaves, who were imported in the masses as the labour force for the sugar and coffee plantations.
P.J. Labourie- a white coffee planter working in Saint Domingue- provided a written description of the slave labour used to produce coffee. From his writing, it's clear that he held unfavourable views about the slaves and viewed them almost as a separate species.
In his plantation guide, he advises purchasing "only boys and girls of fourteen and fifteen" as they can be "disciplined according to the master's own ideas." He then goes on to describe the ideal physical characteristics a slave should have including:
"youth, an open cheerful countenance, a clean and lively eye, fresh lips, sound teeth, a strong neck, a broad and open chest, sinewy arms, dry and large hands, a flat belly, strong loins and haunches, round thighs, dry knees, muscular calves, lean ankles, high feet and lean; an easy and free movement of the limbs; and a middling stature, or rather small."
The inhumane manner in which the slaves were treated is also mentioned: "I cannot omit the unpleasing but necessary practice of stamping them."
Possibly, the most grim sentence from his guide is when he describes "the need to clean whips between floggings to avoid spreading infection" as mentioned by Morris in his book.
Even as over a thousand coffee plantations were destroyed after Haiti gained independence, including P.J. Labourie's- also stated by Morris- nothing can erase the painful past of a wicked man-made institution; one coffee plantations played host to.
THE COFFEE TRADE LOST
Paradoxically, while coffee is viewed as a liberating beverage in US history- a symbol of American patriotism in defiance of British colonialism after the Boston Tea party- America was complicit in colonialism and contributed to slavery through the coffee trade. Sedgewick mentions in his book: "As historian Steven Topik has pointed out, to highlight the roles of revolution, independence, and freedom in the history of U.S. coffee drinking is to overlook the much greater importance of slavery."
After gaining independence, Haiti lost its coffee trade for two reasons. Firstly, as Sedgewick points out "in deference to Napoleon, the U.S. cut commercial ties" with Haiti. Secondly, the USA and European states "shunned Haiti for fear of legitimizing black rule" writes Morris in his book. Thomas Jefferson- who so loved the fight for independence- did not feel the same revolutionary spirit when it resulted in black victory. Hearing about Haiti, he was afraid of similar revolutions taking place elsewhere and in 1797, wrote:
"if something is not done, and soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children."
This 'fear' of black rule, which would lead to the 'expulsion' of whites, lead Haiti to become a pariah nation- albeit a symbolic reminder that slaves could defeat their masters.
It took a long time for Haiti to reconstruct its coffee trade. As James Hoffmann writes in 'The World Atlas of Coffee', 'The industry would slowly rebuild and see another peak in 1850 before receding again. Coffee production once again boomed in 1940s and in 1949, Haiti produced one-third of the world's coffee." Today, the coffee trade in Haiti suffers from a series of natural disasters such as earthquakes, making the market unstable.
END OF SLAVERY LEADS TO MORE SLAVERY
The Haitian revolution may have abolished slavery in Haiti but it ironically led to increased slavery in Brazil. Cutting of commercial ties with Haiti, eyes turned to Brazil as the coffee growing empire. Once again, increased coffee production meant increased slavery. Many of these slaves were supplied by American slave traders, who could no longer trade slaves in the US, which abolished slavery in 1865. Brazil has its own tragic story of slavery on the coffee plantations. As the world became more and more obsessed with coffee, it turned a blind eye to how it was produced.
In 1988, Brazil became the last American nation to abolish slavery.
The Saint-Domingue story is a reminder that social justice may remain an abstract ideal unless we recognise our privilege as the people who consume and fight for those who produce. Lest we become complicit in crimes that echo voices of the plantations from Saint-Domingue.