INTL 190 - Haiti in a Transnational Context

Connection Between Chinese Slavery System and Haitian Slavery System

In comparison with the slavery in China, it is obvious that the slavery in Haiti is different. The difference mainly lies in the scale or utilizing slavery because of different nature of economy. The development of slavery in China is not mature and slavery is not widely used in batches because it is feudal landlord economy not related with capitalism in China. Rather than having mass production for agriculture and handicrafts, ancient China mainly concentrates on household management of production undertaken by homesteaders and handicraftsmen, which targets at self-sufficiency. This restricts the large scale of using slaves in economic life and weakens the advantages of slavery. In Haiti, things are different. The products in plantations are originally made for sale in the world market. Thus, the slavery in Haiti is built on the basis of an economy with a capitalist characteristic, making profit maximization an ultimate goal. Driven by this, the development of slavery is relatively mature and slaves are in wider use in the agriculture, handicraft industry.

Haiti’s slavery, as an ugly product of capitalism, shows an ignorance of the right of black people as human beings and the arrogance of plantation owners to black people who are the victims of slavery trade. The ultimate goal of the slavery is to exploit others as property without any recognition of equality and humanity. Unlike China’s slavery which is short and immature in small scale, the capitalism and the thirst to maximize large scale of plantation profits foments the large scale of Haiti’s slavery to remain for a long period. All the helllike life of black people caused by slavery carries the foreshadowing of the revolt as the time goes and the hostility grows and finally leads to the Haiti Revolution.

From the perspective of economic development, it refers to the process of transition from one social system to another. Whether it is a historical advance or a historical retreat, the primary criterion for judging is whether the development of productive forces in the new society met the development of productive forces at that time. In fact, the formation of slavery has basically met the requirements of the further development of production relations of human society at that time, and also greatly contributed to the further development of production relations at that time. Therefore, the replacement of primitive society by slave society was an important progress in the development of human society, but it was also a very inhumane development.



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