James Franklin - The Present State of Haiti (Saint Domingo), 1828: With Remarks on its Agriculture, Commerce, Laws Religion etc.

SOURCE BOOKS ON HAITI

No. 4

Editorial Adviser: Professor ROBERT I. ROTBERG

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

THE PRESENT STATE OF HAYTI

THE PRESENT STATE OF HAYTI

(SAINT DOMINGO)

With Remarks on its Agriculture, Commerce, Laws, Religion, Finances and Population, etc. etc.

BY
JAMES FRANKLIN

With a new preface by
PROFESSOR ROBERT I. ROTBERG
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Published by
Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Distributed in the United States by
International Scholarly Book Services, Inc.
Beaverton, Oregon 97005

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 73-171803

ISBN 0 7146 2707 0

New preface Copyright 1971 Professor Robert I. Rotberg

First edition 1828

Reprint of First edition
with a new preface 1971

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

GENERAL EDITORS PREFACE

President Jean-Pierre Boyer had ruled a united Haiti for only a few years when James Franklin, a British man of commerce, made the first of several lengthy visits. A friend of the expatriate planting community in the West Indies, Franklin sought to understand the Haitian experience of independence in order to assess the probable impact of emancipationwhich was then expectedon slaves and merchants in the Anglophone Caribbean. Franklin was not, therefore, thoroughly dispassionate, but his account of Haiti, which is here reprinted for the first time, is an eyewitness version of the young republics painful emergence into nationhood after two trying decades of revolution and consolidation. It is an account, moreover, which, if pungent, is in accord with other contemporary reports and thus merits trust.

Franklin is especially critical of the governing class of Haiti during the early 1820s, but his remarks are based on perceptive observation and evidence, not hearsay. That the government of Hayti, he writes (below, 11), is the most inefficient and enervated of any of the modern republics cannot be denied, and I cannot see the least hope of improvement, unless there be a complete revision of its constitution, and a new one framed, better suited to the tastes of the people, and more adapted to their present very rude state of knowledge. From the present rulers it would be vain to expect any effort which might prove beneficial to the country [since] the present government seem to consider the poverty and ignorance of the people as the best safeguards of the security and permanence of their own property and power. His concluding remarks, and the central chapters of the book, are equally diagnostic of Haitis central problem. He is sensitive, too, when discussing the nature of Haitis agriculturally-based economy and the long-term implications of Alexandre Ptions and Boyers willingness to distribute land cheaply to peasants.

Franklin had an eye for detail and a keen awareness of the needs of a developing society. Along with the other reprints in this series, his Present State of Hayti provides essential and enduring documentation.

1971 R.I.R.

PREFACE.

THE Author has prepared this work for the press somewhat hastily, and under many circumstances which heavily oppressed him; he hopes therefore that the want of arrangement, and the dearth of matter which may be observed in his narrative, will not subject it to a severe condemnation. In presenting it to the public, he is not actuated by any personal considerations, his object being to convey some information respecting the resources of a country, and the character of a people, which have been so variously represented. The short delineation here attempted will, in all probability, suffice to shew that the accounts which have been given at different times of Hayti and its inhabitants have been much too highly coloured by the zealous advocates of negro independence; and he is ready to confess that at one time he was somewhat dazzled by the description, and was almost made a convert to their opinions. It having been his lot however, at a subsequent period, to hold considerable intercourse with the country, he has been enabled to form what he considers a more correct estimate of its present condition. Experience has convinced him that the representations so generally received of the improvement which it has made are greatly exaggerated, and he is not without the hope that the following sheets will convey more correct information on the subject, and thus prove useful to the merchant, if not interesting to the general reader.

He readily admits that in the historical part he has touched upon matters which have been already handled by other and much abler writers; this could not be very well avoided, the annals of Hayti affording but few events, and those having been often detailed. He conceived that such a summary of the history of the country would be necessary to illustrate the cause of the revolution, to shew the decline which ensued in agriculture and commerce, the decay of knowledge, and the progress of vice and immorality among the inhabitants.

Actuated therefore by the desire of throwing some light on the state of Hayti, and giving a faithful representation of the condition of its population, he ventures to solicit the attention of the public to the facts which have fallen under his own personal observation.