Clinton Hutton autographs a copy of his book 'The Logic and Historical Significance of the Haitian Revolution and The Cosmological Roots of Haitian Freedom for Lonie Mears at the launch held at the Philip Sherlock Centre, UWI. - CARLINGTON WILMOT/FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHER
WHEN DR. Clinton Hutton closed the public presentation of his first book on Friday evening, he noted the significance of the date.
"Today is exactly 202 years since the enslaved of that French colony destroyed Napoleon's army at Vertieres. Very important place in the history of the African Diaspora. But we don't know about it. Very important, because it led to the independence of Haiti. It destroyed all the superstructure created by white supremacy and their relationship to not only Africans, but non-Europeans," he said.
Hutton spoke of the creation of a world order based on, among other things, "stealing other people's land", terming it "a world order upon which the present world order is based."
APPLAUSE
There was applause from the full house which turned out at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Creative Arts, UWI, Mona, for the launch of The Logic and Historical Significance of the Haitian Revolution and The Cosmological Roots of Haitian Freedom. It was an evening when performances preceded the main address of Professor Kamau Brathwaite, who preceded Hutton.
Hutton gave some telling statistics on the Haitian Revolution, including the Polis losing 5,000 troops and the British 60,000. "The three most powerful armies in the world (British, Spanish, French) were defeated by the Haitians," he said. "What is important is to understand how the people created meaning. What was the essence of their social psychology?" he asked.
Referring to Garveyism and Rastafari, Hutton said, "We have to understand how the ordinary people, who involve themselves in stick fights, in mas, we have to understand how they create meanings, so we can better understand what they have done so we can be here today."
Paying his respects to CLR James' The Black Jacobins which Hutton says changed his life forever, he said that in all the material he had read on the Haitian Revolution the motive for their actions was said to be 'rooted in French enlightenment thought'.
"I could not accept that. Not from what I know of gerreh, the Morant Bay Rebellion."
He then gave the central aim of the book as countering that view, that French ideas spurred the Haitian Revolution, saying the ideas "existed long before the French Revolution in many things, especially in funeral rituals."
Hutton noted that the songs at wakes were "explicitly songs of freedom. And they were being sung long before the French Revolution. The ideals of the enslaved were rooted in their own psyche in the cosmology they took with them and reorganised in the Americas. That is the central argument of the book."
HOW TO KNOW
About Brathwaite, Hutton said "He teaches me how to know." And on Friday Brathwaite covered topics as diverse as Roman Catholicism being declared the national religion of Haiti, the development of UWI and the Reagan-Thatcher combination that was "the beginning of a long chain saw of conservative reaction that brings us to here."
"But when we begin to lose hope we celebrate the launch of six books," Brathwaite said, giving an overview of the texts that he was referring to and putting Hutton's new publication into the chain.
"It has given us a great printout from the negatives. This book is a printout of the negatives we have been suffering from," he said.
- M.C.
