African Americans and the Haitian Revolution: Selected Essays and Historical Documents

The importance of the Haitian Revolution as a defining event for African Americans has long been recognized by scholars. In particular, the Haitian Revolution has been for African Americans of different eras a vehicle through which collective memory and identity are created and transformed – an event that has inspired and influenced black nationalism, abolitionism, black socialist and revolutionary thought, and Pan Africanism.

Bringing together scholarly essays and helpfully annotated primary documents, African Americans and the Haitian Revolution collects not only the best recent scholarship on the subject, but also showcases the primary texts written by African Americans about the Haitian Revolution. Rather than being about the revolution itself, this collection attempts to show how the events in Haiti served to galvanize African Americans to think about themselves and to act in accordance with their beliefs, and contributes to the study of African Americans in the wider Atlantic World.