AFTERMATH AND WIDER IMPLICATIONS
Haiti became independent in 1804, but no nation recognized it until the 1820s. Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) took refuge in Haiti during his struggle against Spain, but even the newly independent nations of the Americas did not want to have anything to do with a nation of freed slaves. Haiti was too potent an example to the blacks in the rest of the hemisphere. Haiti’s leaders were demonized in French and American propaganda of the time and since, and Haiti was and to some extent still is held up as an example of how black people cannot rule themselves and need supervision. But black people were not so easily fooled. Haiti became a rallying cry for black liberation movements from Denmark Vesey’s (c. 1767–1822) planned uprising in South Carolina in 1822 to Ahmed Sékou Touré’s (1922–1984) call for the independence of the Republic of Guinea in Africa in 1957.
Haiti ceased to be a major producer of sugar or coffee after 1804, as most Haitians left the plantations and became peasants. Isolated from the world, Haiti preserved many elements of African culture, including a vibrant spiritual and artistic tradition. The pre-revolutionary free coloreds, many of them of mixed race, and the leaders of the military struggle became an urban commercial ruling class who lorded it over the mostly black peasants and affected a very European culture.