A Longing for Saint-Domingue/A Longing for Haiti:Haiti and the Rise and Fall of French Africa

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorLovejoy, Paul
dc.contributor.authorRobertshaw, Matthew James
dc.date.accessioned2025-04-10T10:56:29Z
dc.date.available2025-04-10T10:56:29Z
dc.date.copyright2025-01-20
dc.date.issued2025-04-10
dc.date.updated2025-04-10T10:56:28Z
dc.degree.disciplineHistory
dc.degree.levelDoctoral
dc.degree.namePhD - Doctor of Philosophy
dc.description.abstractIn 1804, the French Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue—erstwhile the most lucrative plantation colony in the world—declared its independence as Haiti. The new country, with its population overwhelmingly made up of formerly enslaved people, became the first Black Republic in the modern world. This was a turning point in world history. It was so unprecedented that its effects are still not fully appreciated over two hundred years later. To expand our understanding of the significance of the event, this dissertation examines the interplay between the legacy of the Haitian Revolution and later French colonialism in Africa. Despite its pathbreaking defiance of the colonial system, Haiti played an ambivalent role in the rise and fall of the second French colonial empire. Beginning in 1830, nostalgia for their most lucrative colony pushed France to pursue new colonies partly to compensate for the loss of Saint-Domingue. At the same time, however, the spectre of the violent revolution that produced Haiti constrained French efforts in Africa. But it was not just the idea of Haiti that affected French colonialism. Haitian people also brought their perspective to bear on this second era of French overseas ambitions. Over the course of the nineteenth century, as a Haitian community emerged in Paris, these migrants found themselves placed to comment on French activities in Africa. While they rejected any notion of racial inequality, some truly believed in French cultural superiority and actually spoke in favour of French attempts to bring “civilization” to Africa. A few even travelled to the continent as agents of French imperialism. Into the twentieth century, however, most Haitians came to oppose European imperialism in all forms. As members of militant groups in Paris, as delegates at international gatherings, and even as teachers, specialists and civil servants in the emerging African countries, numerous Haitians played significant roles in the destabilization of the French empire and in the nation- and state-building projects that followed. In so doing, they carried Haiti’s revolutionary, anti-racist and anti-colonialist heritage into the twentieth century and—for the second time in history—helped precipitate the end of the French colonial empire.
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/42864
dc.languageen
dc.rightsAuthor owns copyright, except where explicitly noted. Please contact the author directly with licensing requests.
dc.subject.keywordsHaiti
dc.subject.keywordsFrance
dc.subject.keywordsEmpire
dc.subject.keywordsColonialism
dc.subject.keywordsImperialism
dc.subject.keywordsHistory
dc.subject.keywordsDecolonization
dc.subject.keywordsAnti-colonialism
dc.subject.keywordsMemory
dc.subject.keywordsFrench colonial empire
dc.subject.keywordsHaitian Revolution
dc.subject.keywordsLatin America
dc.subject.keywordsUnited Nations
dc.subject.keywordsLeague of Nations
dc.subject.keywordsParis. transnational history
dc.subject.keywordsMigrations
dc.subject.keywordsExile
dc.subject.keywordsTransnational history
dc.subject.keywordsParis
dc.titleA Longing for Saint-Domingue/A Longing for Haiti:Haiti and the Rise and Fall of French Africa
dc.typeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Robertshaw_Matthew_James_2025_PhD.pdf
Size:
38.26 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.87 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
YorkU_ETDlicense.txt
Size:
3.39 KB
Format:
Plain Text
Description:
Download

Collections

History

All items in the YorkSpace institutional repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved except where explicitly noted.