Cécile Fatiman's Deep Freedom
Dark ocean waters washed ashore under the moonlight as a tropical storm approached a small island in the Caribbean during the middle of August in 1791. Just a few miles inland, a collection of root workers and revolutionary strategists, led by Vodou priestess Cécile Fatiman, danced, shouted, strategized, and organized, preparing for a slave revolt that would launch a world-shaking revolutionary storm. This was Bois Caïman, in Saint Domingue–what we know today as Haiti. A revolution of dignified Africans would create the first independent Black republic in the western hemisphere and would be the largest uprising of enslaved people since the defeat of Spartacus by the Roman Empire 1,900 years earlier. The Haitian Revolution would inspire anti-colonial struggles and revolutionary advances across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as among progressive forces in the Global North, for centuries after its victory. Fatiman stands tall in the midst of this legendary history. Her visions called on the enslaved to cast down their false images of God in order to unleash their deep freedom. One of the great historical lessons from her vision is that our freedom movements must be both militant and massive.
The Haitian revolutionary freedom movement was militant. By militant I mean nourished by a profound vision for freedom and committed to ironclad discipline and a long-term struggle. According to Haitian oral history, Fatiman and priest Dutty Boukman roused the revolutionaries at Bois Caïman with a passionate sermon meant to instill discipline and long-term commitment:
“This God who made the sun, who brings us light from above, who raises the sea, and who makes the storm rumble. That God is there, do you understand? Hiding in a cloud, He watches us, he sees all that the whites do! The God of the whites pushes them to crime, but he wants us to do good deeds. But the God who is so good orders us to vengeance. He will direct our hands, and give us help. Throw away the image of the God of the whites who thirsts for our tears. Listen to the liberty that speaks in all our hearts.”
Fatiman and Boukman spoke not just to the future founders of a free nation, but to the spirit of a people enslaved yet dignified. This kind of militant hope, discipline, and commitment are deeply needed in our freedom movements today.
The Haitian revolutionary freedom movement was also massive. By massive I mean they struggled for the hearts, minds, and actions of large numbers of people. Had the Haitian revolutionaries remained a militant few, they would have stayed enslaved. To turn hope into a political force, militants must lead and move large numbers of people to their side.
The Haitian uprising swelled its ranks from just a few thousand in August 1791 to over 100,000 by the autumn of that year. France, the empire that had colonized Saint Domingue, was in the midst of its own revolution, and the forces for abolition, in both the colony and the empire, struggled with entrenched proslavery forces; the results were uneven advances towards radical change, mainly originating in the colony but also taking place in the metropole. For example, the French National Assembly granted full political rights to people of color born of two free parents. At the same time, they let each colony decide the question of slavery. Revolutionary advances in Haiti ultimately forced the hand of the National Assembly, which then moved to grant rights to all free people of color by March 1792.
Meanwhile, competition among the British, Spanish, and French empires forced unexpected tactical alliances. The British arrived on the island to support the slaver loyalists and undercut the French. The Spanish arrived to support the insurgent abolitionists and to gain the upper hand in the Caribbean. The French National Assembly, shaken by the audacity of the enslaved, overtaken by the ascent of the radical left Jacobins, and worried about the other imperial powers, passed the law of 4 February 1794, formally abolishing slavery in all of its colonies. While Haitian revolutionaries had reason to doubt the sincerity of the French, the law did create room for them to maneuver. Over the following decade, Haitian revolutionaries would turn against the Spanish and kick out the British as Toussaint Louverture consolidated leadership of the revolutionary struggle. The ultimate defeat of the French would lead to the declaration of the independent Black republic under the leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines. By rewriting the boundaries of political struggle and by uniting their masses into a militant force for governing, the Haitian people finally won their fight for national liberation in 1804.
Today we face a storm of our own. The three heads of the Hydra —economic destruction, environmental collapse, and imperial warfare—spring from the body of a capitalist domination and colonial oppression. Yet final defeat of our people is not inevitable. History is made not by monstrous situations, but by the courage of everyday people organizing to do something about it. Humanity's cataclysmic sprint can only be halted and reversed when freedom movements take on the historic responsibility of being both militant and massive. Let the sermon of Cécile Fatiman awaken what resides in you!
Let the Haitian Revolution encourage us to foment a storm of our own making!