Burying the Body before it Cools

Trouillot in Silencing the Past sets up a masterful argument regarding what he calls the “silences” that are invariably present in any historical narrative.  His second chapter, regarding the three silencing’s of Colonel Jean-Baptiste San Souci, and how his example demonstrates how easily and how thoroughly history can bury those that make it.  In this chapter, personally, I found Trouillot’s discussion of the Colonel’s lack of presence in archival and narrative locations particularly compelling as someone who has cut his teeth in archives.  The “silencing” of the Colonel, something that I have seen numerous times as an archivist and someone who has worked in locations devoted to interpreting history (Gettysburg NMP), the concept that lack of coverage of certain individuals and events as neither “neutral or natural” speaks to me (Trouillot, 48). 

San Souci was the victim of first being silenced physically by his superior officer (Christophe) at bayonet point, then his name as his own silenced when Christophe used is as his palace’s moniker, then further that palace lost its name to Frederick the Great of Prussia’s like-named palace.  The truly tragic aspect of this silencing of San Souci, a great military as well as political leader during the Haitian Revolution, is that it is perpetuated by Haitians themselves.  In conforming to what Trouillot calls the Western “guild practice” of history, the Haitian amateur historians leading tours around San Souci, as well as those who write history, tend to overlook the contributions of the Congo (rather than Creole) San Souci during the war against the French.  More interesting is that San Souci’s story was actively attacked and silenced immediately following his death.  Politics and jealousy resulted in his disappearance from the public record and mind almost before his body was cold.  Trouillot argues that this is a result of an effort by Christophe to bury his memory present and future.  Christophe erased San Souci’s story even before it was written.  Ostensibly, the same occurred with the Haitian Revolution itself.  

The Haitian Revolution is arguably one of the most important revolts in Western civilization, yet receives little recognition nor coverage from scholars.  Why?  For one, Trouillot argues, the Revolution was buried by seemingly “more important” revolutions in the United States and France during the same period.  This deliberate silencing can be chalked up to the Western centric study of history and also due to the actions of those two nations (along with other Western countries) during the immediate aftermath of the Revolution.  At its heart, the Haitian Revolution was a slave revolt.  At that, it was the first successful, nation-wide, revolt of African slaves in the New World.  The West looked to the newly independent nation with much fear and trepidation and thus sought to bury it under trade embargoes and ignominy for the next century.  The Revolution was silenced by fearful nations for racial (and in the case of France) and prideful reasons.  The Haitian Revolution, like Colonel San Souci, was buried by history before its body had cooled.