The Colonial Vendée
From TLP
Citation
Ghachem, Malick, Stanford University. "The Colonial Vendée." The Haitian Revolution: Viewed 200 Years After, an International Scholarly Conference. John Carter Brown Library, Providence, RI. June 18, 2004.
Notes
Following are rough notes of Ghachem's presentation, taken by Stuart Maxwell on June 18, 2004.
- Title of the speech comes from the Wars of the Vendée, the counter-revolutionary peasant rebellion, the pacification of which resulted in 20 - 50,000 casualties.
- The memory of this had much to do with the French response to the Haitian Revolution.
- There was, in pre-revolutionary debate, a comparison of the slaves with the peasants. Slaves were believed to be more susceptible to control from "above."
In response to questions:
- Toussaint compared the whites in France to the pacifiers of the Vendee.
- The view of Vendée at the time was like our view of Vietnam - it shaped the military response and political justifications to the insurrection.
