Slavery ended because it had ceased to be profitable. In American, 'free' northern labour competed with that of enslaved southern labour for jobs such a carpentry, bricklaying, and agricultural work. Thus it became a strong economic incentive to end slavery and therefore deny blacks from real work- which they could support themselves. At the same time this action, gave whites a monolopy on the job market and protected the labour market for them.
Another factor was that the profits of slavery had propelled the industrial revolution and capitalism in countries such as the UK. Machinery and the banking system was firmly established, having being built on the profits of slavery. With the evolution, of the industrial revolution, it was only a matter of time before manual labour in the form of slaves became unprofitable to continue.

Although the abolition of slavery was fought on humanitarian grounds by various individals and societies the real reason it was abolished was because slavery was no longer profitable to the various politicians and those in power, who themselves had made fortunes from the enslavement of Africans.

Sargaco wrote:

Slavery ended because it had ceased to be profitable. In American, 'free' northern labour competed with that of enslaved southern labour for jobs such a carpentry, bricklaying, and agricultural work. Thus it became a strong economic incentive to end slavery and therefore deny blacks from real work- which they could support themselves.

_______________________

That may of been the case in America but in the Caribbean rebellions and the threat of rebellion played a major part in slavery being abolished. The mode of production wasnt viable anymore. Hence in 1832 the general feeling in Jamaica at least is summed up by a white man Thamas Stewart after the major island wide rebeliion of 1832 by Daddy Sharpe:

This and the assurance of the prisoners under sentence of death that they had all been sworn to do their best to driv ethe white people off the island convince me that the feeling of insurecction was general, at least on that part of the island. I think morever that rebellion will break out again.

The British realised it was impossible to delay the emancipation of Africans in their domain. The slaves reset the timetable. And it is beyond dispute that Haiti ( free 30 odd years before) was in the European and African conciousness and was a powerful symbol of the alternatives.

Slavery and its "profits" built the modern European. Slavery (the murder of African people) was not an institution that was not making huge fortunes for white men in the last quarter of the 18th century!! It was probably the European’s greatest external concern.

So, the taking of a Caribbean colony, the greatest of them all in terms of this evil we spring from, should be seen from this historical context.

Africans actually crushing Europeans and taking full control of a colony shook the white man. What if something like this happened on the mainland (United States), they asked?? America refused to recognise that nation; it couldn't now could it??

Throughout the African world, a world that the European thought was his to do whatever he wanted to do with, they were knocked back in touch with reality.

Africans everywhere knew what had happened Haiti, and would not allow the slave society to continue in the same way, anymore. There was no intention to ever free us; Africans forced the hand holding the whip.

Haiti has never ever been forgiven, by the west for it’s revolutionary past, hence the "debt "thrust on them in 1825 ($21 Billions) , payment for their "Freedom". A debt not paid until the 1940's, if such a debt could really ever be paid.

African people are not supposed to be free, according to the colonial powers that governed the Americas. Hence once again, why our soo called independence in the 1960's, 1970's, came when?? 130 odd years after Slavery ended.

Free to wave colourful flags.

So in response to the topic, Haiti's revolution sped up our emancipation but did not stop the continued creation and exploitation of european colonies. We can see this through our global African/Black nationalist struggles of the 1960's through to nations like South Africa which have only recently allowed Africans, "lawful" access to national resources.

Black August—2004
By Mumia Abu Jamal, 26 July 2004



Among these large bodies, the little community of Haiti, anchored in the Caribbean Sea, has had her mission in the world, and a mission which the world had much need to learn. She has taught the world the danger of slavery and the value of liberty. In this respect she has been the greatest of all our modern teachers.

Hon. Frederick Douglass, former US Minister to Haiti
Lecture on Haiti (Jan. 2, 1893) (Quinn Chapel, Chi.)


It was a sweaty, steaming night in August, when a group of African captives gathered in the forests of Marne Rouge, in Le Cap, San Domingue. It was August, 1791.

Among these men was a Voodoo priest, Papaloi Boukman, who preached to his brethren about the need for revolution against the cruel slavedrivers and torturers who made the lives of the African captives a living hell. His words, spoken in the common tongue of Creole, would echo down the annals of history, and cannot fail but move us today, 213 years later:

The god who created the sun which gives us light, who rouses the waves and rules the storm, though hidden in the clouds, he watches us. He sees all that the white man does. The god of the white man inspires him with crime, but our god calls upon us to do good works. Our god who is good to us orders us to revenge our wrongs. He will direct our arms and aid us. Throw away the symbol of the god of the whites who has so often caused us to weep, and listen to the voice of liberty, which speaks in the hearts of us all.

The Rebellion of August 1791 would eventually ripen into the full-fledged Haitian Revolution, lead to the liberation of the African Haitian people, to the establishment of the Haiti Republic, and the end of the dreams of Napoleon for a French- American Empire in the West.

Two centuries before the Revolution, when the island was called Santo Domingo by the Spanish Empire, historian Antonio de Herrera would say of the place, There is so many Negroes in this island, as a result of the sugar factories, that the land seems an effigy or an image of Ethiopia itself. [From Paul Farmer, *The Uses of Haiti* (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 1994), p. 61]. Haiti was the principal source of wealth for the French bourgeoisie. In the decade before the Boukman Rebellion, an estimated 29,000 African captives were imported to the island annually.

Conditions were so brutal, and the work was so back-breaking, that the average African survived only 7 years in the horrific sugar factories.

In 1804, Haiti declared Independence, after defeating what was the most powerful army of the day: the Grand Army of France.

Haiti's Founding Father, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, at the Haitian Declaration of Independence, proclaimed, I have given the French cannibals blood for blood. I have avenged America.

With their liberation, Haitians changed history, for among their accomplishments:

a) It was the first independent nation in Latin America;

b) It became the second independent nation in the Western hemisphere;

c) It was the first Black republic in the modern world;

d) It was the *only*incidence in world history of an enslaved people breaking their chains and defeating a powerful colonial force using military might.

What did 'Independence' bring? It brought the enmity, and anger of the Americans, who refused to recognize their southern neighbor for 58 years. In the words of South Carolina Senator Robert Hayne, the reasons for US non-recognition were clear: Our policy with regard to Hayti is plain. We never can acknowledge her independence... The peace and safety of a large portion of our Union forbids us *even to discuss* [it]. [Farmer, p. 79].

In many ways, Black August (at least in the West) begins in Haiti. It is the blackest August possible—Revolution, and resultant Liberation from bondage. For many years, Haiti tried to pass the torch of liberty to all of her neighbors, providing support for Simon Bolivar in his nationalist movements against Spain. Indeed, from its earliest days, Haiti was declared an asylum for escaped slaves, and a place of refuge for any person of African or American Indian descent.

On January 1st, 1804, President Dessalines would proclaim: Never again shall colonist or European set foot on this soil as master or landowner. This shall henceforward be the foundation of our Constitution.

It would be US, not European, imperialism that would consign the Haitian people to the cruel reign of dictators. The US, would occupy Haiti, and impose their own rules and dictates. After their long and hated occupation, Haitian anthropologist Ralph Trouillot would say, [it] improved nothing and complicated almost everything.

Yet, that imperial occupation does not wipe out the historical accomplishments of Haiti.

During the darkest nights of American bondage, millions of Africans, in America, in Brazil, in Cuba, and beyond, could look to Haiti, and dream.


Mumia Abu Jamal, Black August—2004








.

"When we tell the story of the Haitian Revolution, we should not end with the glorious victory of 1804. We should also speak about what happened afterwards, about what has happened since the African Diaspora gave all Africans everywhere the great gift of the first Black Republic of Haiti.

In this regard, we have to contend with the fact that whereas the American and French Revolutions succeeded to create the conditions for the development of the American and French people, Haiti has not experienced similar development. Indeed, she has been subject to the very opposite of development.

As Africans, in Africa and the African Diaspora, we have to answer the question as to why there has been this divergence of experience in the aftermath of revolutions as interconnected as were the American, French and Haitian Revolutions. In answering this question, we may also be able to answer the question as to why, in many respects, the African condition, certainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, has been worsening over a number of years, despite the fact that we now exist as Black Republics, as Haiti has done for two hundred years."


"I further believe that we must also arrive at a common conclusion with regard to the critically important matter of determining who or what our enemy is. I am convinced that the conclusion cannot be avoided that the deepest structural fault in global society and the global economy is the poverty in which millions of Africans in Africa and the Diaspora are immersed."


"Entangled within the story of Haiti are many matters relevant to the challenges we have to meet. These include issues of race, class, gender, culture and social consciousness, governance, globalisation and global imbalances in economic and other matters, and the effect of the preponderance of the major powers, possibilities for South-South cooperation and so on."

Thabo Mbeki
University of West Indies
Jamaica,
30 June 2003