Detractors & Defenders
On 21 January 1882, the French literary critic Léo Quesnel published an article in La Revue politique et littéraire, which was ostensibly a review of La Selve’s book, but was in fact a damning portrait of Haiti and of Black people in general. The book, Quesnel says, confirmed his suspicions about Haiti and the Black race. He begins: “If the theory of the inequality of the races needed confirmation, it would be found in the inanity of the efforts, over the last century, of the nègres of Haiti to constitute a society.” He proclaims that Haiti’s only hope is to abandon its protectionism and its bias against white foreigners, saying, “Nothing can be done with a society entirely composed of Black men… When there is no racial mixing there will be no progress,” and finally, “the Haitians (the only nègres in the world who did not maintain an affectionate memory of French domination) will learn whether they did well not to seek, from the beginning of their independence, a point of reference and a source of strength from their friends, their former masters!”.
This article caused a stir in Paris's Haitian community. Over the next two weeks, at least five young Haitians in Paris—Louis-Joseph Janvier, Clément Denis, Justin Dévost, Arthur Bowler and Jules Auguste—penned responses to Quesnel, pointing out errors in his article and defending Haiti against his caustic diatribe. By 1 February, four of them had had their rebuttals printed in various Paris newspapers. On 4 February, Quesnel responded with a brief, dismissive article. “We like this noble anger,” he said, “still we believe it is hardly justified.” He went on to restate his point in blunt terms, saying “that the African race, left to itself, will fall into a vicious circle and that it will only pick itself up through contact and fusion with the white race: fusion of ideas, fusion of heart and fusion of blood,” and suggested that his Haitian critics themselves probably have “some drops of European blood.”
This blithe response must have steeled the Haitians’ resolve. The five men decided to give a definite, lasting shape to their rebuttals. They formed a committee, compiled their original articles and open letters, wrote new material and began to prepare a published volume. They solicited and received introductory remarks from Victor Schœlcher, now a senator, as well as the Puerto Rican abolitionist and diplomat Ramón Betances. The up-and-coming publishing house Marpon & Flammarion agreed to print the work, and, by April, Les Détracteurs de la race noire et de république d’Haïti was on the shelves of Parisian bookstores.
The authors of Détracteurs made a groundbreaking contribution to dialogues about race in Paris and to the role that Haiti could play in those dialogues. They passionately defended their country using moral, philosophical and (as two of them were medical doctors) physiological arguments. At the same time, they also demonstrated a cultural bias in favour of France. In attempting to defend their country, they minimized the fact that African cultural practices were widespread in Haiti. Denis, for example, states that Vodou had been stamped out in Haiti, saying “those African superstitions” had vanished and been “replaced by those of Catholicism.” Although Kreyòl was spoken universally in Haiti, and only a tiny fraction of the population also spoke French, Janvier claimed erroneously that “the French language is the common language, the only in use, and all the peasants understand it.” The book’s title claims that it was in defence of the Black race and of Haiti, but it does not pay much attention to Africa. Haitians in Paris in the early 1880s still had very little direct knowledge of Africa, and they had not yet begun to weigh in actively on impending French conquests on the continent. Only once in Détracteurs does one of its authors approach the topic. In his second contribution, Janvier states “the interior of Africa is opening up and we hope that it continues opening up, but to Livingstones, to philanthropists and not to the exploiters of man.” Thus, he expressed what was becoming a typical line of thought for Haitian commentators, not opposing colonialism outright, but calling for Europeans to play a benevolent, “civilizing” role in Africa.
Whatever its shortcomings, Détracteurs was a hit. It sold out in a month and was given a second run that same year. It was reviewed in the French and Haitian press and prompted much discussion in Paris. Its success contributed to the explosion of a more dynamic and confident Haitian publishing scene in Paris in the 1880s, aided by liberalizing publishing laws. The authors (apart from Clément Denis who died shortly thereafter) went on to new ambitious projects for the defence of Haiti. Janvier and Bowler published other book-length rebuttals of Haiti’s critics. In 1884, Janvier published a work devoted to the question of the equality of the races, which set the stage for Anténor Firmin’s more famous work on the same topic, which appeared the next year. The firm that published Détracteurs, Marpon & Flammarion, noticed the value of titles about Haiti (or, more likely, the lucrative market for such explosive public debates) and went on to publish eight additional works by Haitians in the next seven years. Other Parisian publishers followed suit (notably Kugelmann, Jouve, Pichon and Girard & Brière). By 1900, a Haitian press, Ateliers haïtiens, had been founded in Paris, publishing literature by the eminent writers Georges Sylvain and Massillon Coicou and others. But it was perhaps in the periodical press that Haitians really made their mark. It is evident that Détracteurs, and this blossoming of Haitian publishing in Paris in the 1880s, paved the way for La Fraternité to begin its run in August 1890.