https://mavspace.uta.edu/jtd6675/HIS6337/HIS6337%20Final%20Paper.pdf

            With the introduction of Avengers of the New World, Dubois contributes his narrative to the increasingly popular realm of interest for Western historians: the Haitian Revolution.  As traces of the white-man’s burden continue to melt away, the impact of the Haitian Revolution comes more and more into focus.  Once a taboo subject, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century revolution on Saint-Domingue contributes to the history and historiography of transatlantic thought in numerous ways.  Dubois argues that the Haitian Revolution is essential in understanding the role of republicanism, natural rights, and social equality in the New World and its impact on European colonial powers, and that the revolution was not simply a racial battle, rather an ideological shift born out of the Enlightenment.  Dubois’ main purpose for writing this narrative is to provide an updated history of Haiti without any of the presuppositions of the known violence that has stigmatized the Haitian Revolution for two hundred years.

            The main method that Dubois uses to convey his history is the use of a narrative.  This narrative flows well, is comprehensible, and effectively incorporates many broad themes into a smaller work.  Throughout his work, Dubois tackles historiographical errors such as the meeting place Boukman uses near Bois-Caiman or the relationship between “marronage” and revolution in Saint-Domingue, but does so without drawing the reader into a large-scale historiographical debate.  This helps Dubois convey his message to the lay reader and budding historians as a great, multipurpose source since the work addresses imperialism, slavery, the Enlightenment, colonial revolution, and transatlantic movement, among other discourses.

            Dubois focuses on a number of leaders in the multifaceted and extensive revolution, but emphasizes the life of Toussaint-Louveture, a Creole native to Saint-Domingue who was a slave, then a free laborer at the initial outbreak of revolution.  While the early parts of Louveture’s past are fuzzy, his impact on the revolution is more in focus.  Louveture takes over the rebel army after the aforementioned Boukman dies and proceeds to rise to a dictatorial status.  While seen as a power-hungry autocrat, Louveture tackles numerous problems presented in the wake of dramatic social, economic and political change.  He wisely implemented order to assist the former most profitable sugar producer in becoming a dominant, relevant, and economically prosperous republic.  Unfortunately, this constituted a seemingly socialist redistribution of lands and wealth, and retained the plantation system as the primary economic structure.  While the revolution was born out of the Enlightenment, Louveture found that it wasn’t feasible to influence other Caribbean nations through military means, rather only by ideology.  This help extend the reign of slavery in the Caribbean for a while longer, maintaining the institution in islands like Jamaica, and reinstituting it in places like Guadeloupe.  While Louveture has been criticized for this, it doesn’t seem that it was possible for the nascent republic to move beyond its aquatic borders except through trade and the sharing of ideology.

            While the Haitian Revolution began as white aristocrats seeking individual gain, the conflict increasingly shifts across the color spectrum.  To his credit, Dubois refrains from using certain terms, such as mulatto, to minimize categorization and preconceived stereotypes.  Free men of color and slaves often work with whites against the powers they are wishing to change, whether it is the institution of slavery or centralized European rule.  While downplayed by many historians, the Haitian Revolution did impact both the free and bonded in a rapidly changing West.  Early liberalism and natural rights were difficult to protect in Saint-Domingue following the initial battles, but it was the intention of the revolutionaries that carry weight with Dubois.

            Avengers of the New World offers a new narrative into transatlantic history in numerous ways.  First, the spread of ideology was apparent as thoughts springing from the Enlightenment permeated the Caribbean from the level of slaves up through leadership positions.  Inspired by the successful American Revolution, the inhabitants of Saint-Domingue were able to achieve the first successful slave rebellion.  Second, there is a cross-cultural exchange between France and Saint-Domingue, but connections are made with the United States, Africa, as well as mention of other imperial countries with holdings throughout the Caribbean.  Third, the ideology behind the Haitian Revolution did influence change throughout the New World and Africa, though its impact in US abolition movements and African/Caribbean decolonization has many varying degrees.  Finally, the Haitian Revolution impacted the role that France played in the New World by significantly weakening French holdings, forcing Napoleon to turn his focus to Europe.

In his cutting edge book, Jon Sensbach opens the reader’s eyes to a world often overlooked in historical writing.  Drawing from numerous sources, Rebecca’s Revival reconstructs and tells the exceptional life of Rebecca Protten.  Rebecca faces many challenges in her eighteenth-century world since she is mulatto, a woman, and a former slave.  Rebecca traverses cultural, societal, religious, racial, and geographic boundaries using her mulatto status privileges to evangelize in three separate continents.  Sensbach’s work is not a travel narrative, rather a biographical, religious, women’s, and transatlantic history constructed from primary source material from the archives of the United States, Germany, and Denmark.  The result is a brilliant, though contested, examination of the origins of the black church and the role of Rebecca Protten in its creation.  Ultimately, the main argument that Sensbach makes is that while Rebecca Protten is a single and exceptional example of New World Protestantism, her story is unequivocally tied to the nascent black church and its future development and impact in the Western Hemisphere.

Sensbach starts his work with a prologue that resembles a Hollywood introduction for a movie.  The reader is introduced to a vivid description of Fort Christiansborg, along the Gold Coast of Africa, with Rebecca near the end of her life.  Sensbach uses the rest of the prologue to summarize Rebecca’s life while boldly making claims of her impact on the Western world.  In this prologue is where Sensbach first likens Rebecca’s tenacity to that of the rest of the horridly abused people to whom she ministered.  Unfortunately, Rebecca is also portrayed as “never fitting in” (pg. 6) with the people she taught.  An extraordinary person in an ordinary black and white world, Rebecca was an exception to the rule that had almost been lost to oblivion save some archival material.  Rebecca’s greatest attribute was her mobility while still having a connection to the evangelized.  She was free and unbounded, though had the experience of being a slave.  She was Christian and rose to be ordained as a deaconess, though had the experience of no being Christian.  She was neither completely of white nor black ethnicity, though lived in worlds where people were.

In chapter one, Sensbach sets the table of the life and times of being a Dutch slave.  The cruelty of the Dutch is seemingly unmatched and there were two main slave revolts that Sensbach catalogues on the island of St. John.  The initial success of these rebellions has tie-ins to democratic ideals.  Women took part in the uprising as soldiers, which is something that did not happen in Africa at that time.  After the initial revolt, the land was divided up among the former slaves who did not destroy previous capital or institutions, except for slavery.  The second revolt was much more radical and less democratic in nature, and showed the desperation of the slaves of St. John to have freedom.  At the end of the chapter, Sensbach alludes to Rebecca, who is on the nearby island of St. Thomas, as a future instigator of a new type of freedom that slaves will embrace: spiritual freedom. 

The rest of the book chronicles Rebecca Protten and her life in the Moravian Brethren.  In St. Thomas, Rebecca preached in a very direct manner with the sole purpose of evangelizing.  Here, Sensbach describes Rebecca as revolutionary, but only in the sense that she is exceptional.  It was unknown if Rebecca was against slavery as “she knew quite well what it was to be a slave… but [never] spoke against slavery in public or private” (pg. 108), and therefore is not revolutionary in the traditional sense.  Rebecca marries two times and moves to both Europe and Africa, facing two distinct cultures, and learns to speak four languages and to write in two.  At the end of the work, Sensbach details how Rebecca dies in obscurity in Africa after turning down the opportunity to travel back to St. Thomas.  There, Rebecca’s memory remains relatively hidden until the recent research done by Sensbach in this work.

This work, while reconstructed well, is not without its limitations.  Throughout the work, Rebecca seems to disappear into her surroundings as she progresses through the course of her life.  Rebecca left very little primary source material, as only a few of her letters have survived.  Even those can be called into question whether or not they were revised, or whether or not she had to conform to conventional standards of that time.  Since so much of Rebecca’s life is hidden, the reconstruction of her life by archival data calls into question Sensbach’s interpretations of what Rebecca felt, where exactly she traveled, how she ministered, what she believed, and how she was accepted by others.  Sensbach also claims that the St. Thomas model serves as the basis for other evangelistic groups in their approach to slaves and the successful growth of the North American black church, but undermines his argument by stating that it “could have happened anyway” (pg. 240).  The work successfully conveys the interconnectedness and transatlantic nature of that time, with her traveling to all three continents and interacting with those cultures.  It also serves as a story of the growing role of women in Protestant churches and the community at large.  Rebecca’s Revival provides a good basis of knowledge for the scholarly and lay reader in studying women’s history and the African Diaspora.

With Rebecca’s Revival, Sensbach contributes to transatlantic thought in substantially different and unprescribed ways.  Rebecca’s travels between continents convey to the reader that the flow of people, ideas, and goods was multidirectional, helping to steer away from antiquated one-dimension thinking.  The role of religion in transatlantic thought has normally been prescribed as European missionaries, mainly those from the Catholic Church, branching out to the New World.  This book effectively conveys that Protestants played a large role in Christianizing the Caribbean and North America, and that missionaries traveled back to Europe, as well as to Africa from the New World.  Sensbach labels this as the “spiritual triangle of trade” (pg. 242).

Any historian who takes on the endeavor of writing a comparative history faces an extremely complicated task, regardless of the field of study. Many problems arise in the comparison of inherently different entities and there are numerous advantages and disadvantages to the implementation of this strategy. J.H. Elliot tackles this undertaking head-on, using the introduction to admit the numerous problems presented to him. Elliot uses this work to spark debate on well-researched, familiar topics and to call for changes to contemporary approaches to comparative history. Elliot’s thesis is ultimately contained in the idea that the British and Spanish empires were not two-self contained cultural worlds, rather two empires that were aware of each other while operating in the same transatlantic sphere, and that their histories are truly intertwined.

Before comparing Spanish American to British America and vice versa, Elliot uses the introduction to establish his framework and rationale for the work. Elliot points out the numerous technical problems of imperial historians, such as division and lack of collaboration between scholars, examining differences more than similarities, and falling into established stereotypes and patterns by using a teleological view. To remedy these problems, Elliot calls on imperial historians to equally evaluate points of similarity and difference, as well as incorporating a narrow focus in a transatlantic construction. A narrow focus is needed due to the seemingly infinite variables presented during the colonial period. Some examples are varying geographies, climates, native policies, imperial priorities, religions, and dates of colonization. For this work, Elliot focuses on the development of settlements and their relationship to the appropriate crown. By centering on New England and Virginia in British America, Spanish possessions in Iberian America, European ancestries, and the continental mainland, it becomes easier to intertwine the fabric of each empire. Here in lies the inherent problem with comparative history.

Omission of other influences can truly discredit any comparative imperial history. It is impossible to view truly pure connections between two empires because of the immense amount of variables presented. If one looks at the development of towns in New Spain and New England, one cannot simply pick five similar influences as a basis for comparison. While British America benefitted from the older institutions of Spanish America, it could not have influenced it in any pure form. The Portuguese, French, and Dutch influenced the British as much as they did the Spanish, and also influenced each in their own, unique ways. It is therefore folly to simply reduce the realm of the New World to the strongest and most influential powers. However, to include each of these empires would be a seemingly impossible undertaking as well, as the complexity of each layer being added would damage the validity of the content as well. Comparative history is useful in fleshing out certain aspects between groups, but is incapable of doing justice to something as large as an empire.

Empires of the Atlantic World is a large book, but Elliot is able to narrow his focus into three parts: occupation, consolidation, and emancipation. In each part, Elliot uses thematic chapters. Comparisons of British America and Spanish America are made throughout each chapter and are juggled back and forth moving to a new thought, much like a baton passed between runners. At the end of work, Elliot concludes his history with an epilogue which adequately summarizes the main themes of the book. The true masterpiece of the volume may be seen in the bibliography which encompasses twenty-percent of the total page count. As large as the book is, it is a fairly quick read that can be understood by lay and scholarly readers alike with its ability to simplify a very complex subject.

In regard to the concept of transatlantic history, Elliot strengthens the argument of connectivity across the Atlantic Ocean. In regard to the development of settlements, Elliot argues that European heritage is as important as any environmental factor. The westward influences of new technology, movements such as the Enlightenment, religious reform, and imperial policy play a substantial role in growth of New World settlements. Elliot also pushes the importance of eastward Atlantic trade in shaping imperial policy and the people who emigrated across the ocean. Unfortunately, this interconnectivity discounts Africa, which seems to be a stepchild of transatlantic thought. Empires of the Atlantic World‘s biggest contribution to transatlantic history may be through the compilation of sources in the one-hundred page bibliography, which can serve as a starting place for imperial comparative historians.

• **Comparisons between Puritans and Anglicans and the supposed separation between the two as antagonists in class structure and matters of work and wealth**

Nicholas Canny, Writing Atlantic History; or, Reconfiguring the History of Colonial British America, The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No. 3, The Nation and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History: A Special Issue (Dec., 1999), pp. 1093-1114 – Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2568607

• **Belief that colonial history is transatlantic; identified broadening of geographic focus, narrowing of chronology; redefining American colonial history as history of British America; positive status of Atlantic field**

Jack P. Greene, The American Revolution, The American Historical Review, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Feb., 2000), pp. 93-102 – Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2652437

• **Examines conditions of transatlantic polity of British Empire as authority from the peripheries moving outwards as opposed to imperial center outwards; identifies revolution as a British revolution; and examines how loose early-modern imperial polity vs. radical political actually led to a conservative revolution**

John M. Murrin, In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Slave, Maybe There was Room Even for Deference, The Journal of American History, Vol. 85, No. 1 (Jun., 1998), pp. 86-91 – Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2568433

• **Comparing and contrasting ideas of Aaron Fogleman and Michael Zuckerman on questions of dependency and deference in colonial America and whether or not the revolution made a difference in both cases; free labor vs. slave labor before and after war; elites and everyone else**

Mary Beth Norton, The Loyalists’ Image of England. Ideal and Reality, Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer, 1971), pp. 62-71 – Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4048414

• **Focus on cultural relationship between colonies and mother country and comparison of the two cultures by way of narratives**

Anthony Pagden, The Empire’s New Clothes: From Empire to Federation, Yesterday to Today, Common Knowledge,12.1 (2006) pp. 36-46 – Stable URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/common_knowledge/v012/12.1pagden.html#authbio

• **Comparing of empires and the shrinking of the Atlantic Ocean, and the shift from a Western world empire to a Western federation**

Michael Zuckerman, The Fabrication of Identity in Early America, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 34, No. 2 (Apr., 1977), pp. 183-214 – Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1925313

• **Reevaluation of traditional social/communal norms and models and their destruction once they reached the New World; polarization of English with natives/Africans as opposed to interracial breeding; Old World vs. New World Protestantism**

Edmund S. Morgan, The American Revolution: Revisions in Need of Revising, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Jan., 1957), pp. 3-15 – Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1917368

• **Redefining roles for imperial historians, such as the explanation of key revolutionaries, roles, and fixing problems of people like Charles Beard**

David J. Weber, The Spanish Legacy in North America and the Historical Imagination, The Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Feb., 1992), pp. 5-24 – Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/970249

• **Writing about Hispanophobia by Anglo Americans and fear of mixed races; contestation of Spanish frontier history in North America**

Philip D. Morgan, Work and Culture: The Task System and the World of Lowcountry Blacks, 1700 to 1880, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Oct., 1982), pp. 564-599 – Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1919004

• **Focus on experience of slave workers without a top-down managerial approach; how system arose and the structures that were in place, as well as ramifications for model; comparison to other Caribbean systems**

Matthew Restall. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press. 2003.

Over the past two decades, Matthew Restall has written numerous articles, essays, and books about the history of Latin America.  As evidenced in his other work, Restall seeks to change the oft held preconceived notions of the Spanish conquest of the New World and everything that this conquest entails.  While other works focus narrowly on places such as Guatemala or groups such as Africans, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest utilizes a broader approach to debunking established “myths”.  Restall defines myth as something that is fictitious and taken as true, as opposed to something that is folklore.  By the removal of the cultural aspect, Restall seeks to compare both sides of an event, subject, or concept as objectively as possible utilizing prior notions and primary sources from archives.  Restall argues that the Spanish framed New World concepts and language into their culture, and since they were the dominating force, their theories have prevailed by virtue of their success.  Afraid of creating his own truths, Restall admits that he is unavoidably influenced by the culture that he has grown up in, which is an unfortunate danger of revisionist history.  Ultimately, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest is written to provide Restall’s new theories of seven particular established myths by the utilization of new or previously unavailable sources, as well as total reexamination of prior sources.  Restall hopes that debunking these myths will change historical thought by allowing alternative arguments to enter the field.

Restall sets up his book with a clear introduction, and then examines each myth in the context of its own chapter.  While some arguments are stronger than others, Restall effectively disputes the previous belief with new research.  At the end of his book, Restall presents an epilogue that is a case study to further his take on the conquest. The epilogue was also more opinionated than the rest of the book.  Chapter one examines the theory that a handful of men conquered two large empires in the context of three themes: the story of the men, the two empires that were conquered, and how the empires fell.  Chapter two examines the myth of the king’s soldier and how most “soldiers” were entrepreneurs in search of opportunity.  The next chapter addresses how important natives and blacks were to the conquest of the Aztec, Maya and Inca, and how they are often omitted from history.  Chapter four examines the true incompleteness of the Spanish conquest, where land claims and complete subjugation in the Indio-Spaniard relationship were vital in ensuring Spanish dominance in the New World.  Chapter five further delves into relationship between natives and Spaniards in debunking the myth that natives were able to understand their conqueror’s language and the context of their suppression.  The sixth chapter scrutinizes the hopelessness of the indigenous people, instead hypothesizing that the natives resisted and were resilient in the dynamic conditions of the Spanish conquest.  The final myth is definitely the weakest of the bunch and doesn’t have as much validity as the others.  This myth is the idea of European supremacy through superior military technology and techniques, a noble cause, and being divinely blessed.

As with all revisionist history, there are often critiques of the approaches that these historians take, as well as the credibility of their arguments.  In the context of the late twentieth century and early twenty-first century, revisionist history points of view are often seen as too politically correct or too polarizing and it can be difficult to convey these points of view effectively.  Also, revisionist history is often in a state of warfare with the traditional folklore of a community, region, or nation.  An example of this is the “destruction” of the character of great men of American history, such as Thomas Jefferson.  Restall straddles the fence in this area, as his attack plan seems to be rooted somewhere between totally debunking each of the seven myths and providing alternative interpretations of the Spanish conquest.  Another critique is why Restall chooses seven myths to write about and how he chose these particular seven.  Could Restall have chosen other myths to write about?  Most likely, yes, but Restall appears to have felt that these myths were adequate enough to prove his point.  Next, the use of the number seven and its importance to the Spanish and indigenous peoples is really not important in context of Restall’s theories, rather a neat construct for the book.  The number seven is repeated throughout the book, except for the end with the presentation of Restall’s five factors of conquest.  Finally, a number of Restall’s myths also correlate to each other, and this correlation is articulated numerous times throughout the text.  This may help tie together Restall’s thesis more effectively, but also proves to be redundant as well.

In regard to the concept of transatlantic history, the reader may question the relevancy of a book that describes events that solely take place in the New World.  However, this book is not a completely New World notion.  The three main aspects of the flow from east to west and from west to east that cannot be ignored are the dynamic roles of Africans and the indigenous natives, the location of Spanish imperial holdings, and implementation of the Iberian model for conquest.  In the book, Africans and natives are not seen as innocent victims of slavery and genocide in the Atlantic islands and the New World, rather are active agents in the conquest and construction of Spanish power.  The utilization of Africans and natives, such as the Tlaxcalteca, is as instrumental to imperial Spain’s military and economic capability as the vigor of the German factory workers is to the Nazi regime’s strength from 1933-1945.  Africans serve a large role not only as soldiers, but often times as overseers and politicians.  To an undereducated reader, the Spanish empire may also be thought of as a New World concept.   At its height, however, the Spanish empire spans across both major oceans and occupies a large part of Europe, some small island chains, and parts of Africa, as well as their New World assets.  The ties to Africa and these islands allow the Spanish to develop a strategy for dealing with indigenous populations, for transplanting European culture, plants, and animals, and also provide the ability for the rest of Europe to see the successes and failures of the Iberian model in their future expansion to the New World.  These reasons further legitimize the claim that the transatlantic model is not purely accidental.

Link including all of Matthew Restall’s work (current): http://www.history.psu.edu/faculty/curriculaVitae/Restall%20CV.doc

Matthew Restall’s School Website: http://www.history.psu.edu/faculty/restallMatthew.php

Here is an account from the vessel demonstrating the resistance of the enslaved:
From There is a River by Vincent Harding

I found some discrepancies with the information on the account of Le Rodeur:
- This account comes from a primary source speech by M. Benjamin Constant, in the French Chamber of Deputies, on June 17th, 1820
- This account comes from A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye by William Mackenzie, 1830