4.11- To Attempt the Impossible

In 1797, Touissant used the conservative victory in the elections of Year V to solidify his own position in Saint-Domingue.

Direct Link: 4.11- To Attempt the Impossible

Comments

[Devon Delgado]

So by Touissant's saying that the French Government that they couldn't use his children as hostages against him, is it fair to say that he didn't care about them or that cared more about keeping slavery out of Saint Domingue?
Also do we have any idea how Touissant reacted to Sonthonax getting off easy or did just not care.

[Devon Delgado]

Also I am now embarrassed to see the grammar mistakes I made in my first post that I can't change.

[Eric]

Considering Touissant's position and the nature of slavery in general I would say his sons' status either way was about the same. The Big Whites were gentlemen of their day: honorable enough when dealing with those they considered to be social equals. Vicious bastards when dealing with their perceived social inferiors and mortal enemies.

[Peter]

The Haitian Revolution reminds me more of the struggles post colonial African nations than of the other revolutions covered so far. Perhaps that is appropriate because so much of the population were native Africans.

[Alex]

Touissant reminds me of no one so much as Constantine the Great, he seems to be leaps and bounds more prepared for the multi faceted fight for control and seems to easily out manourver his enemies and control his allies like Con did during his civil wars. Hopefully he want go on to slaughter great swathes of his family.

[Alpheus]

I had a quick question: I recall from the podcast that you said you were going to have a link to an interview by a Byzantine history podcast. Where's the link? I'm looking forward to it.

(I'm fairly new here; I just started the Roman podcast a few weeks ago, after I caught up to all the Revolution podcasts...and listening to the Roman one *has* stirred an interest in listening about other major empires...

That, and as a mathematician, I have a certain as-yet unpursued professional interest in Babylon, due to a talk I attended a couple of years ago, that discussed how both mathematics and writing were started by shepherds who kept track of the number of sheep they had with stones put into baskets...which gradually became clay pots...and then clay tablets...)

[Alex]

Alpheus, if you go to thehistoryofbyzantium.com, it is episode 100 'An interview with Mike Duncan'

[Alpheus]

I appreciate the link. Now that I've followed it, though, I'm scratching my head: why did I think that "Byzantine" was an alternative description of the Babylonian empire? (To further add to the irony, I remember at the time thinking that the name was something vaguely similar to some sort of post-Roman empire...)

[Noah Wiener]

One question that it just occurred to me to ask: was there any consensus between the Brits and the Spanish as to what would happen if they won? The British goal of the reestablishment of the old order and the Spanish goal of partial emancipation seem contradictory to me.