This is a short post to link to an article on the ‘We’re History’ site. The article is by Calvin Schermerhorn, an associate professor of history at Arizona State University, and traces the history of the role slavery has played in the production of sugar. The story begins in the Caribbean, and explores the way that the Haitian Revolution precipitated the production of sugar in North America. Follow this link to the article: ‘Sugar’s Bitter History’
The Newberry Library in Chicago has just uploaded most of its French Revolutionary pamphlet collection on Internet Archive. The collection consists of more than 30,000 French-language pamphlets and more than 23,000 issues of 180 periodicals published between 1780 and 1810. The collection represents the diversity of contemporary opinion – the voices of those opposed to and those defending the French monarchy during the Revolution are represented, together with a broad array of ephemeral publications of the early Republic. Most items in the collection were published in Paris, but there are also some publications from regional France.
For the Caribbeanist, the collection represents a free, online resource for studying reporting/opinions/perceptions of Saint Domingue (Haiti) as published in France. For example, a quick search of “Saint Domingue” returns 7 results, including this 1790 8-page news pamphlet.
This is a link to the French Revolutionary pamphlet collection on Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/newberryfrenchpamphlets&tab=collection
Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, music, websites and more. The site is brilliant for anyone researching the past – millions of old books and other media are freely available.
Mike Duncan is an historian, author, and podcaster. Since 2013 he has produced a number of podcast series, each focusing in depth on a different revolution in the past. Series 4 of Revolutions Podcast (which spanned 19 episodes) covered the Haitian revolution in all its confusing glory. Duncan takes the listener through the background in Saint Domingue pre-revolution, explains who was who, and traces the twists and turns of the revolution. The detail can get confusing at times, but this podcast is well worth investing time in. If, like me, you really want to understand how the history of Haiti unfolded, then I highly recommend this series.
Click here to see Revolutions Podcast on iTunes, and here for Duncan’s website, which includes some images, maps and further commentary.
Duncan’s current series is equally fascinating—he’s covering Simón Bolívar and Gran Colombia.