Henri Christophe Quotes
Except in Haiti, nowhere in the world have we resisted you. We have suffered, we have grown dull and like cattle under a whip, obeyed. Why? Because, m'sieu, we have no pride! And we have no pride because we have nothing to remember.... While I live I shall try to build that pride we need, and build it in terms white men as well as black can understand. I am thinking of the future, m'sieu, not of now. I will teach pride if my teaching breaks every back in my kingdom.
Henri Christophe, 1767-1820, President & King of Haiti, Quoted in John W. Vandercook, Black Majesty, 1928
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Executed by the English for his part in the Easter Uprising.
This was one of the first calls for a slave strike in America.
Tension was high between England and America and war was rumored. The question of whether Blacks would fight for America as they had in the Revolution and the War of 1812 arose.
1st Baron Macaulay
The slogan was made famous by James Larkin, 1875–1947, Irish trade union leader who used it frequently and whose memorial statue in Dublin contains the quotation in French, English and Irish.
Darwin was then a very young man, who had personal witnessed the slavery in South America and the Caribbean when he was on his famous expedition on HMS Beagle. See {630961} & {630962}. He was so disgusted with slavery that he hoped there would be armed slave revolutions and takeovers as had occurred in Haiti. Many of the English upper classes were radical when it came to slavery.
This fear was great among many who were abolitionists as potentially there might be mass slaughter of all Southern whites.
Christian had just briefed the President about the riots in many cities after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Christian had expressed surprise that the Blacks were so violent.
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. The “colonies” to which we was referring were the French Colonies in the Caribbean—particularly Haiti. The Black slaves had revolted against the slave-owners and had taken over all positions of authority and wore the uniforms and symbols of power including the epaulettes—the gold braid shoulder pieces that were symbols of high rank in military and diplomatic uniforms which were worn on all official occasions. Napoleon never did make good on his vow. He had many more problems with his own wars and governance in Europe. This quote does demonstrate the racism that existed in supposedly tolerant France.
Henry Christophe was a key leader in the Haitian Revolution and the only monarch of the Kingdom of Haiti.
