Thread by @davidfrum

Devoted my reading time over past two days to "Silencing the Past," challenging collection of essays by Michel-Rolph Trouillot, a historian of Haiti who died in 2012. 1/x beacon.org/Silencing-the-…

Early in the book, Trouillot declares:

"First, facts are never meaningless; indeed they become facts only because they matter in some sense, however minimal. Second, facts are not created equal: the production of traces is always also the creation of silences." (p. 29) 2/x

The silence that most concerns Trouillot is the silencing of the history of the Haitian revolution, 1791-1804: the only successful slave revolt in human history. How have these events receded from the shared memory of non-Haitian humanity?

He offers a telling example: 3/x

One of the early powerholders in post-colonial Haiti built an imposing palace he named "Sans Souci." That's of course also the name of the palace Frederick of Prussia built in Potsdam. Most non-Haitian historians interpret the name as a tribute to Frederick. 4/x

But instead, Trouillot points out the builder of Sans Souci had first to eliminate rivals who condemned his sometime collaboration with the French. One of those rivals went by the name of Sans Souci. The palace was built yards from the site of the killing. 5/x

When Europeans interpreted the name of Haitian palace as a tribute to Frederick of Prussia, Trouillot argues, they were asserting something about Haiti's rightful place in the scheme of things - and dismissing as unworthy of attention early Haitian politics. 6/x

As I recapitulate this line of argument, I flatten it. Trouillot is a very artful writer. He suggests ideas rather than asserting them. The book's relative brevity opens a lot of silences of its own, into which the reader can insert his/her own thoughts and reactions. 7/x

Yet he is also a master of the unexpected puncturing fact to up-end your received expectations: more French soldiers died fighting against Haitian independence than died at Waterloo, including 19 generals - one of them a brother-in-law of Napoleon. 8/x

The sugar exports of colonial Haiti had enriched 18th c. France. More enslaved Africans were trafficked into this small half-island than all of mainland British America. Once Haiti was lost, Napoleon sold the vast Louisiana territory to the USA as unimportant by comparison 9/x

The Haitian war pulled in the British too - who also suffered severe losses there. The episode haunted the imaginations of slaveholding America for half a century. The US did not recognize Haiti until 1862, when the Southern states could no longer object. Yet all this ... 10/x

... would go poof from the US, French, and British memory. The revolution was reduced to a minor episode, of interest only to a few specialists among non-Haitians.

That is the silence into which Trouillot forces his voice. He claimed my attention, he might interested you. END

PS This has been a fairly DC-centric feed over the past 4 years. For 2021, I'm going to try to open it more to other things on my mind, including reading notes. I hope this is of service/interest.