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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MARRONAGE AND SLAVEREVOLTS AND REVOLUTION IN ST. DOMINGUE-HAITI
Leslie
F.
Manigat
Institute
of
International RelationsThe University
of
he West IndiesSt. Augustine, Trinidad, West Indies
Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti constitutes one
of
the most popular chap-ters
of
the history of the colonial period, particularly because of the subsequentand successful slave revolution of 1791-1793.1 It has recently become a fashion-able subject for scholarly research, essays, novels, and even poetry and politico-journalistic panegyrics. Actually, the study of marronage dates as far back asthe period
of
colonial slavery when, during the eighteenth century, many“memoirs,” “surveys” and “papers” on the maroons2 were prepared, whichattests that the phenomenon was a matter of interest and concern to the colonistsand the French colonial administration.3 Marronage-or at least some portion ofit-is still to be scientifically researched, since the primary archival sources (publicand private) have not yet been combed
of
all the substantial and relevant data,and many questions about its interpretation still remain subjects for seriousdebate. Nevertheless the subject
of
marronage also seems to be part of the new“vogue” that regularly seizes upon a historical topic of current interest andcombines it with a genuine interest in social conflict, romantic curiosity aboutthe life of “primitive rebels,” the ideological quest for the relevance
of
guerillawarfare, and even a Freudian attraction for all forms
of
“deviance” susceptibleto psychoanalytic explanation.Moreover, as already mentioned, St. Domingue-Haiti has been the theatrenot only
of
slave resistance, contests and revolts, as elsewhere, but also of anauthentic revolution that achieved
(1)
personal freedom for all the slaves bymeans
of
mass
violence;
(2)
expropriation
of
the colonists’ land; and finally,
(3)
political independence by means
of
an armed struggle for national liberation.Therefore, this revolutionary background serves as the actual context
of
mar-ronage in Haiti, places it in its true historical perspective, and consequentlychanges the position
of
the problem itself when compared with marronageelsewhere. It raises the question
of
the
connection-if
any-between marronage,and (1) the revolution
for
liberation from slavery,
(2)
the revolution for theaccess to land from the broken plantation system, and (3) the revolution fornational liberation from checkmated metropolitan France. Thus the unique-ness of the Haitian case creates a particular “problematic” in the study
of
marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti: the search for the existence
of
the link andthe nature of the
relationship
between marronage and these three basic achieve-ments of the Haitian revolution.This theoretical perspective unavoidably affects the choice
of
elements for adefinition, the rating of variables for an explanation, and the classification
of
criteria
for
a typology of marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti.This perspective serves also as a framework to assess critically the two schoolsof interpretation
of
marronage, the first represented by scholars like GabrielDebien and Yvan Debbash,’-6 who tend
to
“banalize” it by denying it any
420
 
Manigat: Marronage in St. Domingue-Haiti
42
1
revolutionary content
or
potential, and second, exemplified by men of letterslike Jean Fouchard and Edner Brutus,7-9 who tend to ennoble it by directlyattributing to it the emergence, the dynamism and the successful outcomeof the Haitian revolution and by classifying the insurgent slaves of 1791 asmaroons as if this last assertion was
so
obvious that it needs no evidence.This perspective necessitates combining micro-level analysis of the maroonsas a contingent band of discontented individuals and macro-level analysis of mar-ronage as a cumulative total social phenomenon. It dominates the way in whichthe evolution of marronage is studied dynamically, raising the question of apossible “direction,” “significance” and “finality” of this evolution, which canhelp
us
to discover whether marronage has been “the andante of the revolution-ary allegro.”Finally, the perspective elicits the question of whether
the
events of 1789-179
1,
in their local as well as international contexts, have not combined conditionsto produce a critical threshold beyond which was engineered a kind of
mutation
of
marronage, when the following factors became operationally productive: (1) theexistence
of
a network of more intensive communications between slaves of dif-ferent plantations and ethnic origins through “creolization” and easier physicalmobility,
(2)
the creation of a revolutionary consciousness of the slaves throughvoodoo and political propaganda, and (3) the “contagiousness”
of
the maroons’guerilla activities.If, after testing
as
an hypothesis, thisinterpretationis to be correct, then mar-ronage would have caused its own dissolution
in
the successive waves of the risingtide of the black revolution. This “death,resurrection and victory”,process in
the
evolution of the struggle would have,
in
this way, put an end to the marginal roleof the maroons, endowing marronage with a fundamental and even axial role, ex-tending from the general uprisings of the slaves led by Boukman
(
1791) throughthe era of Toussaint L’Ouverture (1 793-1 802)
to
the achievement
of
full inde-pendence under Dessalines (1803), when the praxis of the revolution recuperates,reactivates and incorporates the maroons’ tradition, reaching the triple objective ofemancipating all the slaves, shifting land ownership, and fathering a new nation.It would appear then that marronage trudged along through the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries until it realized, at the critical stage from 1789-1791,a chrysalid type of metamorphosis and took off, like a butterfly from its pupa,as the new ascending reality of the Haitian revolution.MARRONAGE IN COLONIAL ST. DOMINGUE
AS
LIVED AND PERCEIVEDThe starting point for this study must be an attempt to define marronage inSt. Domingue and to review the perceptions of marronage held by observers andstudents who have tried to assess it.DEFINITION OF THE MAROONAs portrayed in the official documents of the colonial administration, theprivate papers of the planters of St. Domingue, and
in
the works of variousauthors, the maroon may be defined as the fugitive slave who has broken withthe social order of the plantation to live, actually free, but as an outlaw, inareas (generally in the woods
or
in the mountains) where he could escape thecontrol of the colonial power and the plantocratic establishment.The first element in this definition
is
the existence of a social organization
 
422
Annals New York Academy
of
Sciences(the plantation system) with a structure and laws, within which the
servile condi-tion
is set down, and with which the maroon
breaks by fleeing.
This means thatthe threshold
of
acceptability has been crossed. It is the logical sequence: mis-fortune-threshold of tolerance-unhappiness-rupture. It is the rejection (momen-ary, lasting, or even final) of the institutional orthodoxy and
of
the culturalnorms
of
the existing social order, which reflects the etymology of the Spanishword
cimarron,
which means “savage.” The maroon has taken it upon himselfto run away from the “order” of the civilized world which for him is “disorder,”contrary to nature.I0 To the master, he is an
absconder.
The maroon, as a fugi-tive, is a
vagrant.
He has achieved the mobility that was forbidden him under thecondition of slavery.The second element is the possibility of taking refuge in a space
not actuallycontrolled
by the ruling authorities and their repressive forces,
so
that he canescape from the hold of the center by putting himself on the periphery, in amarginal but
independent
situation. This means that as an unsubmissive personhe has put physical distance between the system and where he chooses
to
live secretly. He locates himself “out
of
reach” beyond the moving “frontier”
of
the plantation system, but his condition as a fugitive prevents the “frontierman” that he is from becoming a pioneer. He finds a space of refuge, a hidingplace”
;
he goes
underground.
The third element is the
insecurity
of
his new life. He must accept and facethe risks of his condition: pursuit by the specialized repressive forces
of
the“mardchauss&” (the “rangers” of that time), primitive life in the woods, inclem-encies of weather, uncertainty of finding food, hazards of health. It is amaterial, psychological and political insecurity.
To
resist and survive means apsychology of risk-taking and a determination to brave adversity and facedanger. After a certain time, many fugitives gave up and returned to servileconditions that were inhuman but secure. But the one who does not give upbecomes hardened. Here lies the passage from insubordination to rebellion. He isa “primitive rebel.”The fourth element comes from the necessity to survive by his own means.The three main problems of survival are food, shelter and defense. For all thesethree needs, the maroon has to encounter the hostility of the plantocratic estab-lishment, against which he therefore must act. First, his flight alone is already anact against this master, willing or not, since he deprives the latter of his chattel,the slave being only property. Therefore the mere act of escape injures the mat-erial interest of the colonist, not to mention the bad example that underminesthe discipline of the plantation. The maroon is an anomaly. To survive, themaroon is often compelled
to
steal food and clothes before fleeing, and to raidthe plantations (of foodstuffs, poultry and even cattle) after fleeing. Then,by finding a shelter that allows him to free himself from possessive domina-tion, he becomes
ips0
fucto
a challenge to the propertied class. Finally, sincethe “police” of the plantation
or
of
the local administration will hem himin, he has to defend himself, to hit and run. He is engaged in hostile actionagainst his enemy-the planter. What was a flight becomes a fight. And if, beforefleeing, he has stolen a gun or kept his cutlass, and if, after fleeing, he hasfashioned his own defense, he becomes an armed freedom fighter and thereforea threat. This evolution makes him a bandit.“PETIT” AND “GRAND” MARRONAGEThese foregoing elements of the definition of the maroon are
not
necessarilyfound at all times. The strict definition of marronage becomes a problem, for
of 00

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