INTL 190 - Haiti in a Transnational Context

Stigmatization

According to Ashli White in The Politics of "French Negroes” in the United States, in August 1791, news about enslaved people on Saint Domingue setting fire to their masters' plantations circulated in the United States (103). This "event" developed into a revolution. However, American newspapers described the enslaved people as agents of death and destruction (104). The enslaved people were seen as agents of the corrupt whites rather than creators of their revolution (104). In the 1790s, a label was created, "French Negroes”. According to Ashli White, Americans applied this label to the Saint Dominguans, meaning the spirit of rebellion (105). This stereotype lasted for decades with both fear and admiration. People thought the French Negroes from Haiti were bad enslaved people who would pollute the enslaved people in America (108). This stigma turned Haiti's enslaved people's uprising image into a riot.

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The painting, A cudgeling match between English and French negroes in the island of Dominica, on the left is coming from ARTNET and created by Agostino Brunias in 1778. 
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After the epidemic of opium, China was rendered as the Sick Man of East Asia by the media. Unlike Haiti, French Negroes, sick Man of East Asia means weak and incompetent. According to Elaine Yau's idea on South China Morning Post, this phrase was coined by North China Daily News to describe the corruption and incompetence of China (Qing) officials. However, Jui-sung Yang, a professor at National Chengchi University, pointed out on DW that the term is still used in the Western media to make fun of Chinese people's health problems. China's stigma is more about mocking China when Haiti's stigma is more about the riot.

The picture on the left is coming from NetEase News. "东亚病夫" is the Chinese in "Sick Man of East Asia."

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