Boyer’s Recognition Project
Boyer’s Recognition Project
This chapter discusses the issues that Jean-Pierre Boyer and his supporters grappled with as they pushed for American acknowledgement of Haiti's independence. Boyer understood that recognizing his state would put the U.S. on the record as accepting a black people as equals—unacceptable for southern politicians. Indeed, to recognize Haiti as a nation would be to recognize at least some people of African descent as equals and would be proclaiming as much to the world. This is precisely why the plantation class in the South objected so strongly. As Boyer made traction toward support for opening up diplomatic ties, Haiti experienced unprecedented negative publicity, including rumors of its involvement in the infamous Vesey Conspiracy Trials in South Carolina and two other slave-revolt scandals in the West Indies.
Keywords: Jean-Pierre Boyer, Haiti's independence, black people, plantation class, Vesey Conspiracy Trials, slave-revolt scandals
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.