Never have we had a more livid moment in the history of global race relations than in the former French colony of San Domingo. Today it is known as Haiti, an impoverished and volatile basket case of a nation, which is not coincidentally run by sub-Saharan blacks. How it got this way after being “gem of the West Indies” over two centuries ago is the topic of Lothrop Stoddard’s gripping 1914 history The French Revolution in San Domingo (available for free download here). If there ever was a history tailored specifically for white people, this is it. It’s not merely a cautionary tale demonstrating the perils of ignoring racial differences. It also recounts a painfully teachable moment from history in which white Europeans flew too close to the Sun in their arrogance and paid for it dearly. Although Stoddard never relinquishes a historian’s objectivity, he paints this history as a series of missed opportunities for whites to make up for their sins and mistakes which ultimately ended in the most abhorrent tragedy. Between the lines he implies that whites are on a special path, that we could have done better. It didn’t have to end this way.
In his preface, Stoddard describes the events in San Domingo in the 1790s as “the first great shock between the ideals of white supremacy and race equality.” But trouble truly began years earlier when the white colonists bristled at the French Crown’s control over their affairs. As part of that age’s zeitgeist, they called for lower taxes, fewer trade restrictions, and “a republican liberty.” Ironically, they would get just that with the French Revolution, which also issued their death warrant. After all, the Crown’s insistence upon the color line and slavery had been the one thing keeping them alive. Once Robespierre and his ilk abolished both in the name of freedom and equality, life for whites in San Domingo became dangerous to say the least......
