Diplomacy in Black and White

John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Their Atlantic World Alliance

Ronald Johnson, Manisha Sinha, Patrick Rael, Richard Newman

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780820346328
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

From 1798 to 1801, during the Haitian Revolution, President John Adams and Toussaint Louverture forged diplomatic relations that empowered white Americans to embrace freedom and independence for people of color in Saint-Domingue. The United States supported the Dominguan revolutionaries with economic assistance and arms and munitions; the conflict was also the U.S. Navy's first military action on behalf of a foreign ally. This cross-cultural cooperation was of immense and strategic importance as it helped to bring forth a new nation: Haiti.

Diplomacy in Black and White is the first book on the Adams-Louverture alliance. Historian and former diplomat Ronald Angelo Johnson details the aspirations of the Americans and Dominguans—two revolutionary peoples—and how they played significant roles in a hostile Atlantic world. Remarkably, leaders of both governments established multiracial relationships amid environments dominated by slavery and racial hierarchy. And though U.S.-Dominguan diplomacy did not end slavery in the United States, it altered Atlantic world discussions of slavery and race well into the twentieth century.

Diplomacy in Black and White reflects the capacity of leaders from disparate backgrounds to negotiate political and societal constraints to make lives better for the groups they represent. Adams and Louverture brought their peoples to the threshold of a lasting transracial relationship. And their shared history reveals the impact of decisions made by powerful people at pivotal moments. But in the end, a permanent alliance failed to emerge, and instead, the two republics born of revolution took divergent paths.

NOTES

Abbreviations
AA	Abigail Adams
Adams Works	John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis
	Adams, 10 vols. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1851–65)
AH	Alexander Hamilton
AHR	J. Franklin Jameson, ed., “Letters of Toussaint Louverture and of Edward Stevens, 1798–1800,” American Historical Review 16 (1910): 64–101
BS	Benjamin Stoddert
CT	Charles Talleyrand
DCH	Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, 1791–1906, National Archives, College Park, Md.
ES	Edward Stevens
Hamilton Papers	Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed.
	Harold Syrett, 27 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961–87)
HMC	Haiti Miscellaneous Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, New York
Debates	Debates and Proceedings of the Congress of the United States
	(Washington, D.C.: Gales and Seaton, 1851)
HSP	Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
JA	John Adams
JM	James Madison
LCRK	Rufus King, The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed.
	Charles R. King, 6 vols. (New York: Putnam’s, 1894–1900)
Madison Papers	James Madison, The Papers of James Madison: Secretary of State Series, ed. Robert Brugger, 9 vols. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986–2011)
MAE Records	Records of the Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, France, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Memoirs	George Gibbs, ed., Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams, 2 vols. (New York: Van Norden, 1846)
Naval Documents	U.S. Department of the Navy, Naval Documents Related to the Quasi-War between the United States and France, 7 vols. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1934–37)
OW	Oliver Wolcott
Pickering Papers	Timothy Pickering Papers, Humanities, Social Science, and Education Library, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.
PL	Philippe Letombe
RK	Rufus King
ST	Silas Talbot
TJ	Thomas Jefferson
TL	Toussaint Louverture
TP	Timothy Pickering

INTRODUCTION. The Atlantic World

1. JA to AA, 5 March 1797, in Adams Family Papers; McCullough, John Adams, 467–71; Page Smith, John Adams, 2:917–20.

2. AA to JA, 12 March 1797, in Adams Family Papers; John Adams, “Inaugural Speech,” 4 March 1797, in Adams Works, 9:105–10.

3. Korngold, Citizen Toussaint, 131; Beard, Toussaint L’Ouverture, 86.

4. Works on the Saint-Dominguan Revolution and the Haitian Revolution include Dubois, Avengers of the New World; Fick, Making of Haiti; Geggus, Impact of the Haitian Revolution; C. L. R. James, Black Jacobins; Popkin, You Are All Free. On debates over Louverture’s involvement in the initial uprising, see Popkin, You Are All Free, 8.

5. Precisely when Louverture joined the march for freedom remains a mystery. His name does not appear on Yves Benot’s list of leaders who emerged during the insurrection’s first weeks after 22–23 August 1791—Boukman, Paul, Jeannot, Jean-François, and Georges Biassou (Geggus and Fiering, World of the Haitian Revolution, 99–110; Bell, Toussaint Louverture, 22–26; Nemours, Toussaint Louverture, 22–54; Pluchon, Toussaint Louverture, 22–28).

6. For the impact of the Saint-Dominguan Revolution on U.S. discussions of race and slavery, see Clavin, Toussaint Louverture; Hunt, Haiti’s Influence on Antebellum America.

7. DeConde, Quasi-War; Ott, Haitian Revolution; Logan, Diplomatic Relations, 89; Kagan, Dangerous Nation, 46. For additional scholarship on U.S. relations with Saint-Domingue, see Egerton, “Empire of Liberty Reconsidered”; Wills, “Negro President”; Matthewson, “Jefferson and Haiti”; Hickey, “America’s Response”; Matthewson, “George Washington’s Policy”; Montague, Haiti and the United States; Tansill, United States and Santo Domingo; Lecorps, Politique Extérieure de Toussaint-Louverture; Treudley, “United States and Santo Domingo.”

8. For the three historiographical pillars, see DeConde, Quasi-War; Gordon Brown, Toussaint’s Clause; Matthewson, Proslavery Foreign Policy; Wills, “Negro President”; Egerton, “Empire of Liberty Reconsidered.”

9. Geggus and Fiering, World of the Haitian Revolution; Gaspar and Geggus, Turbulent Time.

10. Melish, Disowning Slavery; Richard S. Newman, Transformation of American Abolitionism; Rael, Black Identity and Black Protest. For other instructive works on U.S. race and slavery that use comparative, transregional methods, see David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage; Finkelman, Slavery and the Founders; Furstenberg, ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• One Saint-Dominguan Revolution: “We Can and Must Do Something There”
• Two U.S. Involvement: “Even South Carolinians Voted for It”
• Three Edward Stevens: “Our Minister to Toussaint”
• Four Dominguan-American Diplomacy: “So Natural”
• Five Allied Command: “Willing to Serve General Toussaint”
• Six The United States and Hispaniola: “On a Permanent and Advantageous Footing”
• Seven After Adams and Louverture: “Great Changes Likely to Take Place”
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index