The Present State of Hayti (Saint Domingo) with Remarks on its Agriculture, Commerce, Laws, Religion, Finances, and Population

In Short

This book is a mid-1820s assessment of Haiti following its hard-won independence from France. It traces the island's journey from a highly productive colonial plantation economy to a sovereign state grappling with internal political volatility, agricultural decline, and international isolation. By detailing the shifts in power between various military leaders and the persistent economic stagnation of the era, the text preserves a unique snapshot of the period’s geopolitical anxieties. It remains a valuable historical artifact for understanding the skeptical view that many contemporary European observers held regarding Haiti’s survival as a post-colonial republic.

The Story

The narrative begins by establishing the pre-revolutionary wealth of Saint Domingo, detailing an era when the colony operated as a colossal engine of agricultural production. It catalogues the vast quantities of sugar, coffee, cotton, and indigo that once flowed to France, grounding this prosperity in a system of intensive, slave-based labor. The narrative then shifts to the eruption of the revolution, portraying the social and political upheaval as a series of cascading crises. It documents the initial slave revolts of 1791, the intervention of French commissioners, and the brief, complex presence of British forces attempting to capitalize on French internal discord.

Central to the arc is the rise and fall of Toussaint Louverture. The text describes his efforts to restore order and religious worship while maintaining a militarized society to protect against external threats. His eventual seizure and removal to France pave the way for Jean-Jacques Dessalines, whose rule is characterized by the author as one of extreme brutality and strategic violence. The narrative recounts how Dessalines’s massacres and his attempt to solidify power through an imperial title ultimately failed to secure long-term stability, leading to his eventual demise and the further fragmentation of the nation.

Following these events, the story follows the rise of Henri Christophe in the north and the eventual consolidation of power by Jean-Pierre Boyer. The narrative spends significant time examining the administrative shortcomings of the republic. It details the decline of major port cities, the decay of once-formidable fortifications, and the failure of various legislative reforms, such as the introduction of jury trials, which the author views as premature for the current state of the populace.

The concluding chapters focus on the economic and social malaise of the 1820s. The author observes that while the government often spoke of progress and order, the reality on the ground was a near-total abandonment of the large-scale agriculture that once defined the island. The text concludes with a pessimistic forecast. It argues that the government under Boyer was weak, the population was ill-prepared for democratic institutions, and that without a massive shift toward coercive labor enforcement or a radical change in leadership, the nation would continue to drift into stagnation. The author explicitly rejects the "philanthropy" of his day, suggesting that the sudden shift from slavery to liberty, while morally significant, had left the country’s infrastructure and economy in a state of ruin that could only be reversed by a return to rigid, state-mandated work regimes.

How It Unfolds

The colonial foundation The book opens with a statistical survey of the French colony’s immense agricultural output prior to 1791. It provides a detailed accounting of thousands of estates and the specific quantities of commodities exported, establishing a baseline of prosperity that the author claims was lost.

The revolutionary collapse The narrative moves into the chaotic period of the 1790s, detailing the arrival of ineffective French commissioners and the subsequent British military intervention. It emphasizes the disconnect between the proclamations of the National Assembly and the volatile realities of the colony.

The military era The focus shifts to the consolidation of power by Toussaint Louverture and later Henri Christophe. The text highlights the military discipline required to defend the island, yet notes the irony that this very militarization stifled civil liberty.

The republican struggles The final sections examine the administration of Jean-Pierre Boyer and the daily reality of a crumbling economy. The author provides vivid, albeit harsh, descriptions of forced labor, prison conditions, and the failure of legal reforms to gain traction among the citizenry.

The People

The book is dominated by the figures who shaped Haiti’s path to independence and its early governance. Toussaint Louverture is presented as a capable commander whose military innovations were well-suited to the island’s rugged terrain, though his life ends in betrayal by the French. Jean-Jacques Dessalines appears as a "merciless" and "crafty" figure whose use of deception and mass execution left a legacy of fear. Henri Christophe is portrayed with a mix of begrudging respect and condemnation; the author sees his transition to a monarch as a pragmatic attempt at international legitimacy, yet notes his despotic tendencies were eventually his undoing. Finally, Jean-Pierre Boyer is depicted as an "imbecile" and "weak" leader who failed to secure the nation’s prosperity, and whose government, in the author's view, survived only through a combination of empty promises and the continued use of the bayonet to enforce labor on his own estates.

In Its Own Voice

The quantity of land actually in cultivation was about two million two hundred and eighty-nine thousand four hundred and eighty acres.

(The author provides this figure to illustrate the sheer scale of the plantation system before the revolution.)

I have seen it also on those of Secretary-General Inginac, Colonel Lerebour, General Jeddion, and General Mazuy, and several others.

(The author lists high-ranking government officials who, despite their republican rhetoric, relied on armed police to force laborers to work.)

The court of cassation, which is the court of appeal from the courts civil and criminal, exceeds, in the tardiness of its proceedings, all the other legal institutions of the country.

(This observation highlights the author's skepticism toward the functionality of Haiti's judicial system.)

What It's Really About

The book is an extended argument against the rapid, unmanaged transition from a plantation-based economy to a sovereign republic. It posits that the "philanthropy" of the era—which favored the immediate abolition of slavery—failed to account for the practical necessities of maintaining a functioning state. The author’s central anxiety is the perceived "indolence" of the population, which he believes was the direct consequence of removing the coercive systems of the colonial era. The text asks whether a society built on the ruins of a revolution can ever return to prosperity without re-implementing the rigid social and labor hierarchies of its past, ultimately suggesting that the post-revolutionary state was fundamentally incapable of self-governance.

Why Read It Today

Readers who are interested in the history of the Atlantic world and the immediate post-colonial reactions of European observers will find this an essential, if challenging, text. It is a dense work, filled with meticulous economic reporting and a distinctively nineteenth-century, colonial-era worldview that does not shy away from expressing overt contempt for the political agency of the Haitian people. The prose is precise and observational, but the reader must be prepared for the author’s blunt, unapologetic bias regarding race and the "necessity" of forced labor.

It is worth reading as a primary source for the mindset of contemporary merchants and colonial apologists who watched the Haitian experiment from afar. The book’s value lies not in its objective truth—as its predictions of Haiti’s total collapse were ultimately proven wrong—but in the window it opens into the intense geopolitical friction of the time. You will walk away with a vivid, if troubling, sense of how the global power structures of 1828 viewed the reality of Black independence. It is an honest, unvarnished look at a specific, often forgotten, conservative critique of the age of revolutions.