IMPORTED ENGLISHNESS: HENRY CHRISTOPHER

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME IN HAITI, 1806-1820

Karen Racine

Haitis King Henry Christophe may never have heard of the

Enlightenment, but he understood its message just the same. His proud
country was bom from a revolution that embodied the French ideals of
liberty, equality, and fraternity. Back in France Abb Grgoire and his
associates in the abolitionist group Les amis des noirs had pointed out
that Africans were indeed humans who were endowed with the same
reason and faculties as Europeans. Members of the politically-moderate
Gironde faction had made tentative steps toward extending the franchise
to propertied mulattos in their overseas colonies. Philosopher JeanJacques Rousseau had ridiculed stodgy education that took the form of
religious indoctrination, and instead advocated practical secular training
that was designed to enhance a citizens usefulness to the national well
being. The Haitian King did not need to read pamphlets or broadsides to
arrive at these same conclusions; however, he only had to observe condi
tions around him. His people were poor. They had recently emerged from
captivity, slavery and oppression, yet their example would become the
redemption of the African race. Haiti would be the laboratory of the
Enlightenment and its people would prove that all mankind was, indeed,
one.
In the so-called Age of Improvement, no arena of the human activ
ity was more frequently held up as a measure of progress than public
education. British abolitionists and educational reformers looked to Haiti
as a perfect testing ground for their new pedagogical theories. In their
view, if formerly-enslaved Africans who had laboured for centuries under

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the control of superstitious Catholic priests and venal French overseers

could be resurrected into industrious, obedient, model citizens, then their
pro-abolition arguments would be proven. Success in Haiti also would
have the additional benefits of lending weight to reformists domestic
prescriptions for the British working class, and elevating Britain morally
in comparison to its national rival France. At the same time, both Chris
tophe and the British elite viewed education as a way to depoliticize and
direct their citizemy toward their rightful place in a paternalistic, hier
archical social order. If everyone played their assigned roles, harmony
would prevail and eveiyone would reap the benefits. Knowledge was in
no way intended to be democratic.
King Henry Christophe understood that a post-colonial society like
Haiti could not embrace the culture of its hated former French masters;
justice demanded a complete cultural renovation. Just as British re
formers used Haiti to advance their ends and to feel good about them
selves, so too did Henry Christophe accept foreign sponsorship in order
to advance his own domestic agenda. He asked William Wilberforce,
Thomas Clarkson, and other members of Englands African Institution to
send teachers, professors, doctors, textbooks, scientific equipment, and
agricultural machinery. Together they would prove to a disbelieving
world that, given the proper social environment and economic opportun
ities, Africans could govern themselves just as effectively as Europeans
could. In a conscious effort to distance Haiti from its former French colo
nial heritage, Christophe wished to turn his citizenry into an outpost of
Englishness, an unprecedented cultural experiment which included the
introduction of the English language and the Anglican religion along with
the Lancasterian school system. During Christophes short reign, British
teachers, pedagogical methods, and classroom materials were imported to
support the Kings social agenda. Imported Englishness characterized the
complicated cultural agenda of the first post-colonial French Caribbean
nation.
Throughout the colonial period, formal education in Haiti was practic
ally non-existent.1 The very nature of an island economy based upon ex1 Edner Brutus, Instruction publique en Hati 492-1945 (Port-au-Prince: Editions
Panorama, 1979); Maurice Dartigue, L'enseignment en Hati (1804-1938) (Port-au-

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port agriculture and enslaved labour meant that little attention was paid to
the development of local cultural infrastructure. To be sure, there were
various private efforts to instill religious beliefs and to train youths in
practical skills needed to keep plantations functioning, but those types of
lessons could never have been mistaken for a traditional comprehensive
education. Most instruction was left in the hands of local religious offi
cials and lay preachers, a practice which was expedient but also poten
tially subversive. There is some evidence, for example, that from the
earliest days enslaved Muslim Africans operated clandestine madrassas
[Islamic schools] in their own languages as they toiled in the fields.2
Overseers clearly were aware of the dual role that religious training
played both as a site for resistance among slaves, but also as a method to
tame and domesticate them. For this reason, French colonial policy
toward religious education was conflicted and inconsistent. Overseers
wanted to acculturate their black slaves, but also viewed them as little
more than animals, unfit for the sublimities of the Christian faith. At the
same time, colonial officials were aware that access to the French lan
guage would mean power for the enslaved people, and attempted to keep
them as isolated as possible. As an example of this conflicted attitude
toward slave education, Article 2 of the Code Noir (1685) specifically
stated that [a]ll the slaves in our islands will be baptized and instructed
in the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman religion.3 In 1717 a local ordin
ance of the Cap-Franais Administrative Council affirmed the primacy of
officially-sanctioned religious education by banning private tutors who
had not received the written approval of the parish priest.*4 In practice,
however, when priests were discovered to have taught slaves how to read

Prince: Imprimerie de PEtat, 1939); George P. Clark & Donald Purcell, The
Dynamic Conservatism of Haitian Education, in Phylon 36 (1975), 1, pp. 46-54.
2 Max H. Dorsinville, Haiti and its Institutions from Colonial Times to 1957, in The
Haitian Potential: Research and Resources of Haiti, ed. by Vera Rubin & Richard
Schaedel (New York: Teachers College Press, 1975), pp. 183-220, p. 196; Job B.
Clment, History of Education in Haiti, 1804-1915, in Revista de la Historia de
Amrica, 86 (1979), pp. 141-181, p. 153; Jean Fouchard, Les marrons du syllabaire
(Port-au-Prince: Editions Henri Deschamps, 1988), pp. 13-24.
3 Clment, History of Education, p. 154.
4 Mayor Robineau, Ordinance dated 4 October 1717. Reprinted in Ibid., p. 155.

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the Bible, they would be arrested and the slave group broken up and sold
to different plantation owners.
Where it did exist, formal education was most common among the
upper classes. For most of the colonial era, male children of the grandblanc elite families were tutored at home until they reached an age where
they could be sent to France.5 Occasionally European missionaries would
arrive and attempt to create schools for the islands children who typ
ically were segregated by racial category. In the eighteenth centuiy, both
the Dominican and Jesuit orders expanded their missions from other
French territories to Saint-Domingue and opened small schools in CapFranais. The Reverend Father Boutin operated a boarding school that
was ambitious and relatively successful, housing 145 regular students
organized into seven different grade levels. In 1780, the nuns of the
Sisters of Notre Dame de la Rochelle assumed control of his operation
and expanded its educational mission. Race and ethnicity always re
mained an issue for educators, however. When the nuns began to offer
classes three times per week to 300-400 young free black girls as day
students, however, white parents withdrew their daughters from the in
stitution amid storms of protest.6 According to Moreau de St.Mry, the
only other option for white girls at the end of the eighteenth century, was
another small school in Cap-Franais run by Monsieur Dorseuil. When
the island descended into civil war and revolution during the 1790s,
educational institutions ceased to function and vyere not reopened until
Toussaint Louverture and his forces defeated the French troops in 1800.
From the earliest days, the leaders of the future Haitian nation recognized
the subversive nature of knowledge, and attempted to link the education
project to the states goals. Education was used to depoliticize the
citizenry, not to train them in the free exercise of their own ideas. This
trend is linked to the general militarization of Haitian society in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.7
5 Klber Vilot, Primary Education in Haiti, in Rubin & Schaedel, Haitian Potential,
p. 115.
6 Gabriel Debien, Une maison dducation Saint-Domingue Les religieuses du
Cap, in Revue dHistoire de lAmrique franaise 2 (1949), 4, pp. 564-565.
7 See the link between the military and the state, developed in Michel-Rolph Trouillot,
Nation, State, and Society in Haiti 1804-1984 (Washington: The Wilson Center,

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Toussaints moderate and conciliatory Haitian Constitution of 1801

greatly expanded the scope of permissible educational activity, while still
attempting to guarantee some sort of state-directed control. One Haitian
historian describes Toussaints approach to government and society as a
return to the previous paternalistic and authoritarian system.8 Just like his
predecessors, Toussaint feared the anarchy that would result from freethinking citizenry and intended to direct their intellectual efforts to statesanctioned purposes. Article 68 declared that
[all] persons have the right to open establishments for the education and
instruction of youth, under the authorization and general supervision of the
municipal administration.9

Toussaints constitution collapsed when he was arrested and sent to

France in 1803, but expanded education remained a clear goal for all
Haitian leaders in the post-colonial nation-state. In 1804, Article 19 of the
first constitution of independent Haiti mandated that [for] each military
district, there shall be a public school for the youth.10 Dessalines and his
advisers thereby fused education with the military organization of the
country, drawing an overt link between the expansion of knowledge and
defence of the state. After Dessalines was assassinated in 1806, his suc
cessor Henry Christophe assumed control and rewrote the educational
provisions of the constitution to permit space for more private entrepre
neurship. Christophes first constitution aimed to expand access to educa
tion throughout the country, this time administered through civilian ar
rondissements, and making it permissible for any citizen to establish a
private school.11 To a very great degree, however, all constitutional ar
rangements for education, then and now, have been rendered meaningless
by the lack of financial resources and skilled personnel.

8
9
10
11

1985) and David Nicholls, From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Color and National
Independence in Haiti (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
Luc-Joseph Pierre, duquer contra la barbarie: Construire la cit ducative et
dmocratique (Port-au-Prince: Imprimerie Henri Deschamps, 1996), p. 89.
[Toussaint LOuverture], La Constitution de 1801 (Port-au-Prince: Bibliothque
Nationale dHati, Edition des Presses Nationales dHati, 2001), p. 25.
Clment, History of Education, p. 163 (note 2); Rayford Logan, Education in
Haiti, in Journal of Negro History (1930), pp. 401-460, pp. 410-412.
Article 34 of the 1807 Constitution, reprinted in Clment, History of Education, p.
163.

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Henry Christophe assumed power in 1806 and subsequently raised

himself to Emperor in a lavish coronation ceremony held in June 1811.
From the earliest days, he made consistent and strenuous efforts to cultiv
ate good relations with English reformers. He had always idealized Great
Britain as the home of constitutional monarchy, an active abolitionist
movement, and the avowed enemy of France. It was also not unimportant
that Great Britain had the worlds strongest navy and was the country
from which the greatest practical technological innovations were emerg
ing (particularly in naval and agricultural matters). On a more personal
level, Christophe himself had a moralistic, domesticated disposition that
responded to overtures from the growing Christian evangelical movement
in England.12 For all these reasons and more. King Hemy Christophe and
his advisors very quickly fixated on the hope that an alliance with Britain
would afford some protection from a French invasion; he further anticip
ated that British commercial and cultural investment might help raise up
his own Haitian people to their rightful place in the community of
nations. In this grand project, education was one of Christophes most
cherished goals. Although the Teacher-King would be the one to bestow
knowledge and virtue upon his own people, he was also willing to cast
himself as a student. He knew that a privileged position brought with it
the responsibility to behave well and set an example for the rest of soci
ety. Christophe once chastised his young son Jacques Victor Henri for
mistreating servants and disrespecting his tutors; he reminded the boy to
be docile to the counsel and advice of those who have a right to offer
them to you.13 In the Kings case, those who had a right to offer him
advice were Englands great abolitionists William Wilberforce and Tho
mas Clarkson.
Henry Christophe sent his first letter to Wilberforce unsolicited in
1814. It weighed an astonishing eighty-five ounces and cost the recipient

12 See Karen Racine, "Britannias Bold Brother: British Cultural Influence in Haiti
during the Reign of Henry Christophe (1811-1820), in Journal of Caribbean History
30 (1999), pp. 125-145.
13 Henry to his son, the Prince Royal Jacques Victor Henri (Palace of San Souci, 17
October 1813), British Library, Add. Mss. 41266, ff. 1-9.

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37.10.14 The Haitian King chose his audience well. Wilberforce had
been the driving force behind British abolitionism for over twenty years,
and had taken a particularly intense interest in Haiti. In 1803, he had de
manded that then Prime Minister William Pitt decry the French
atrocities in St. Domingo and stop the tacit support Bonapartes forces
received from commercial intercourse with British merchants.15
Wilberforce lavishly praised James Stephens brief biography of Tous
saint Louverture which was intended to shame the Pitt administration for
its toleration of the horrible cruelties, and detestable perfidy of
Buonaparte and his agents toward the St. Domingo blacks and wrote to
the author [l]et it be to both of us a comfort that we have laboured to
resist the wicked and cruel system of the slave trade.16 When
Christophes letter reached him, Wilberforce was overjoyed and more
than ready to take on the role of benefactor, tutor, and publicist for the
Black King. Together, they would engage in an experiment that would
prove once and for all that humans were endowed with equal capacity; it
had only been the degrading condition of enslavement that had reduced
Africans to a brutal life.
Wilberforce immediately set out to publicize the goals of the wise new
Haitian monarch who wanted to recreate his people in the English mold.
Wilberforce feverishly wrote to his friend Zachary Macaulay that not a
day has passed that I have not prayed for Christophe and even wished
that he was a younger man so that he could go to Haiti and open a school
there himself. It would be, in his estimation, a noble undertaking to be
sowing in such a soil the seeds of a Christian and moral improvement and
to be laying also the foundation of all kinds of social and domestic insti-

14 Introduction to Henry Christophe and Thomas Clarkson: A Correspondence, ed. by

Earl Leslie Griggs & Clifford Prator (Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1952), p. 62.
15 Wilberforce to Pitt (Broomfield, 4 February 1803), Cambridge University Library,
Department of Manuscripts, Pitt Papers, Add. 6958/15/2924.
16 Wilberforce to Stephen (Lyme, 20 December 1804), in Correspondence of William
Wilberforce, ed. by Robert Isaac Wilberforce & Samuel Wilberforce (Philadelphia:
Henry Perkins, 1841), vol. 1, pp. 257-258.

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tutions, habits and manners.17 Christophe and his English patrons both
likened young minds to fertile but uncultivated soil; indeed, educational
pamphlets on both sides of ftie Atlantic abound with agricultural meta
phors. For example, in 1810, representative of the British and Foreign
Bible Society left some New Testaments in Haiti to be used as part of the
Kings generalized programme of education and moral uplift. The happy
agent reported that
[t]hrough the exertions of the Bible Society, the seed is now sown in this
benighted land; its success must be committed to Him, without whose gracious
assistance a Paul and an Apollos may plans and water in vain. That the Lord of
the harvest may be pleased to give an abundant increase, is the [my] earnest
desire.18

Two years later, another correspondent implicitly compared the gener

ally low level of moral education in Haiti to a famine when he stated that
there is at present a real hunger and thirst after the Word of God... [your
efforts] will doubtless be crowned with success, and bring forth fruit to
his glory.19 Education and agriculture were Christophes two great
visions, and for advancements in both, he looked to England, where Tory
reformers hoped to recapture a pastoral ideal, dutiful workers obediently
going about their business and respecting their social betters. Internalized
discipline is more effective than externally imposed control.20
At the same time as he was exchanging lofty sentiments about moral
ity and education with William Wilberforce, Christophe also approached
Thomas Clarkson for more explicitly political advice. Clarkson too seems
to have relished the opportunity to bestow his wisdom on the Haitian
King; from 1815 onward, he acted as a sort of unofficial agent for the
Haitian government, providing useful information, acting as a liaison
with sympathetic members of the press, and recruiting teachers and
17 Wilberforce to Zachary Macaulay (c. 1814), quoted in Griggs & Prator,
Introduction, in Christophe and Clarkson, p. 62.
18 From a Correspondent in St. Domingo, November 1810, in British and Foreign
Bible Society Annual Report 7 (1811), p. 103.
19 From the Island of St.Thomas, dated November 14, 1812, in British and Foreign
Bible Society Annual Report 9 (1813), p. 459.
20 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage,
1995), discusses the militaristic nature of the Lancasterian monitorial method in a
chapter called The Means of Correct Training.

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skilled emigrants for the island.21 Christophe told Clarkson that education
was
the first duty of sovereigns. I am completely devoted to this project. The edifices
necessary for the institutions of public instruction in the city and in the country are
under construction... I hope the inhabitants of Haiti, overcoming the shameful
prejudice which has too long weighed upon them will soon astonish the world by
their knowledge. It is this I should like to refute the calumny of our detractors, and
justify the high opinion our friends, the philanthropists, have conceived of us.

Sincerely flattering his teacher-benefactor, Christophe went on to

recognize
[t]he British Nation has long since earned a right to the gratitude of all Haitians...
the gratitude which I feel toward you, and toward our good and virtuous
defenders, will never be effaced from my heart, and I shall ever seize all occasions
to give you proof of it.22

Around the same time. Prince Sanders, a black teacher from Boston
visited Wilberforce in London hoping to secure his sponsorship for a
school for returned African Americans in Sierra Leone. Obsessed with his
Caribbean experiment, Wilberforce instead engaged Sanders to travel to
Haiti to deliver some supplies and conduct a survey of schools and the
general moral condition there. The Bostonian accepted the mission and
undertook some preparatoiy visits before leaving London. Prince
Sanders from America appears in the Register of Student Teachers and
Joseph Lancasters Borough Road school in September 1815, with the
notation that he had been trained and sent to Santo Domingo [Hayti].23
Interestingly, although Sanders himself was black, his race was never
held up as a reason for his suitability for the job.
Sanders returned to London early in 1816 as an enthusiastic
propagandist for Christophes wise and benevolent rule. Christophe wrote
in a letter to Clarkson that he had,
deemed it necessary to re-send Mr Prince Sanders to England to bring back with
him the Institutions that I have beseeched Mr. Wilberforce to procure for me with
the goal of education our Youth under the approved system of English Edu21 Betty Fladeland, Men and Brothers: Anglo-American Anti-Slavery Co-operation,
(Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972), p. 98.
22 Christophe to Clarkson (Sans Souci, 5 February 1816, in the 13th year of our
Independence), printed in Christophe and Clarkson, pp. 91-93 (note 14).
23 Brunei University, British and Foreign School Society Archives, Borough Road
Training College Register of Male Students, 10 September 1815.

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Karen Racine

cation... Mr Sanders is also charged with giving you my sincere thanks for your
efforts on behalf of Africans and their descendants.24

The tone of prostrated dignity was perfectly calculated to appeal to

Clarksons national pride and activist inclinations. Wilberforce and
Clarkson helped Prince Sanders secure a publisher for his memoir, a best
selling book called Hayticm Papers, which they used to recruit teachers
who would be willing to go to Haiti to superintend the implantation of
English values.
In his account of Christophes Haiti, Sanders opened by appealing to
the best impulses of his English readers:
But to the immortal honour of noble and generous Englishmen be it said, their
hearts are in general attuned to the exercise of more humane, and more rationally
illumined views and experiments. O happy England! to thee most appropriately
belong the exalted appellations of protectress of the Christian world; the strong
hold of rational freedom; the liberatress as well as the genuine asylum for
oppressed humanity, and the promulgatress of civilization, knowledge, and piety
to every region of the globe.25

The narrative includes many documents from Christophes long

career, which were intended to prove his legitimacy as a ruler and his
credentials as a humanitarian worthy of patronage by the English nation.
Christophes proclamation, dated 18 September 1814, specifically ap
pealed for help from the brave and loyal British nation which was the
first to take action against the odious slave trade.26 Lauding Christophes
achievements, Sanders reported that the King h^d kept a watch out for the
plots of jealous Frenchmen and their partisans, while introducing into
the kingdom the lights of learning, [and] by affording his protection to the
arts and sciences.27 Education would be the peoples defence against
French counterrevolution, arid the leaders defence against a democratic,
participatory citizenry.

24 Christophe to Clarkson (5 fvrier 1816, lanne 13 du lindpendance), British

Library, Add. Mss. 41266, ff. 12-13.
25 Prince Sanders, Haytian Papers, A Collection of the Very Interesting Proclamations
and Other Official Documents; Together with Some Account of the Rise, Progress,
and Present State of the Kingdom of Hayti (London: W. Reed, 1816), p. iv.
26 Ibid., pp. 177-78.
27 Ibid., p. 193.

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215

Wilberforce and Clarkson were well pleased with Sanders published

report, which combined the credibility of an eyewitness account with the
weight of an objective documentary collection. Making the nineteenthcentury equivalent of a promotional book tour, Sanders appeared as the
guest of honour at several high-profile dinners throughout London in the
summer of 1816. John Quincy Adams, then U.S Ambassador to Great
Britain, recorded at least three personal encounters with the curious
African-American, including a dinner at the Freemasons Hall on Great
Queen Street held by the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manu
factures, and Commerce.28
Christophes state of the union address of 1 January 1816 specifically
had identified public instruction as the states prime duty and declared
that his administration was seeking learned professors from abroad to
undertake the education of youth. Haitian society under Christophe
became mobilized against potential counterrevolution, and its most
powerful weapon, education, was restricted in content and audience to
those who could be trusted. In the Kings view, [t]he places of educa
tion, the colleges, the royal and military school, will become the nursery
from whence are to issue our statesmen, magistrates of enlightened char
acter, and military men instructed in the art of war.29 To help Christophe
fuse Christian morality, national unity and public education, Clarkson
recommended a Quaker named Stephen Grellet. Clarkson told Christophe
that Quakers have long ago conceived it to be their duty to consider all
children of Africa as their brethren... whenever you see a Quaker, you see
a friend to the distressed, but more especially to those of the African
race. Furthermore, he believed the Quakers would make excellent tutors
for the Haitian people because they consider it their duty to obey the
civil magistrate, as the ruler under God for good .. [and]... their duty
never to go to war... Hence there is no rebellion, no insurrection, no plot28 Dated 27 May 1816. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Comprising Portions of his
Diary from 1795 to 1848, ed. by Charles Francis Adams (Philadelphia: J. B.
Lippincott & Co., 1874), vol. Ill, pp. 369-70. In July, Adams attended a large dinner
party for Sanders along with William Hickling Prescott, General Burgoyne and the
novelist Amelia Opie. Memoirs, III, 385.
29 Christophe, Proclamation. The King to Haytians (Sans Souci, 1 January 1816).
Reprinted in Sanders, Haytian Papers, p. 206-207.

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ting against governments wherever the Quakers are.30 The King received
the new personnel with pleasure and even adopted their humble, egalit
arian language and started referring to his correspondents as Friend.
Christophe told Clarkson that he considered the sending of these masters
as the greatest favour my friends have done me.31
Clarkson wasted no time in seeking out teachers, artists and
agriculturists for his distant Haitian friends. Taking a personal interest in
the Haitians success, Wilberforce, Clarkson and Zachary Macaulay
interviewed the tutors who would be sent out to supervise the education
of the Kings own children. In May 1816, the British and Foreign School
Society signed on to the Haitian cause, reprinting one of Christophes
proclamations at length for their subscribers. The philanthropists were
thrilled to read that
the chief of that nation seems to be convinced, that the surest means of healing the
wounds of long-protracted warfare and sanguinary conflicts, of establishing and
strengthening social ties, of introducing happiness, are to be found in the general
diffusion of knowledge, and the dissemination of the Scriptures.

What was more, the Black King promised that professors and artists
who ventured to Haiti would be officially protected, and that no differ
ences of religion or nation would hinder the rise of people of merit and
talent. In glorious terms, Christophe, praised the British people, (Ye
virtuous philanthropists, friends of humanity!) and asked them to
Aid then, ye friends of religion, of virtue, and of social order, -aid the great cause
in which we are engaged; rest not, while thousands and tens of thousands of
children are growing up unprovided with education, while ignorance continues to
spread its gloom and wretchedness over regions which the bounty of the Creator
has richly endowed with means which, if blessed with religious instruction, might
soon become the scenes of real happiness. Thus may ye become the guides and
instructors of the young.32

The King intended to replace the hated French colonial values and co
opt the potential for egalitarian French revolutionary doctrines by im-

30 Clarkson to Christophe (Playford Hall, Suffolk, 4 May 1816), in Griggs & Prator,
Christophe and Clarkson, p. 95 (note 14).
31 Christophe to Clarkson (Palais du Sans Souci, 18 novembre 1816), British Library,
Add. Mss 41266, ff. 31-32. Christophe to Clarkson (Palace of Sans Souci, 18
November 1816), in Griggs & Prator, Christophe and Clarkson, p. 98
32 Hayti, British and Foreign School Society Annual Report (May 1816), pp. 21-25.

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porting a domesticated version of British hierarchy, tradition, and social

order. His citizenry would be free, and they would be trained to be happy
and obedient.
Wilberforce was not only a respected parliamentarian and abolitionist;
he was also an Evangelical Christian who was a Director of both the
British and Foreign School Society [BFSS] and the British and Foreign
Bible Society [BFBS]. He looked to both benevolent organizations to
help export English institutions and values to Haiti. Sanders had intro
duced King Henry Christophe to Joseph Lancasters monitorial method of
education which promised to educate large numbers of children quickly
and inexpensively through the use of instruction by their peers. Older
pupils who had mastered a certain amount of basic literacy would be
designated as monitors and employed to train younger children. Lancas
ters method aimed, as he said, to cultivate reverence to God and Scrip
ture, to train students to detest vice and love veracity, to accustom them
to respect their parents and other authorities, and to exude a peaceable
demeanour.33 The Lancasterian system placed as much emphasis on
behavioural training as it did on the subject material. Monitors used re
wards to reinforce desirable actions, and punishments to discourage
transgressions. In this way, unruly children from the street were habitu
ated to new norms of cleanliness, order, diligence, and respect. Lancaster
wrote that [i]t is inconceivable what a nation this might become, if a
proper system of education was universally adopted; combining moral
and religious instruction with habits of subordination.34 King Henry
Christophe could not have expressed the sentiment better himself. No
wonder he was so receptive to Prince Sanders suggestion that Haiti
might want to adopt the Lancasterian system for its new national schools.
Christophe wrote excitedly to Wilberforce that he considered the new
method to be the most sublime ever, and requested that his benefactor
undertake its export to Haiti as quickly as possible. The King was sens33 Joseph Lancaster, Improvements in Education, as it Respects the Industrious Classes
of the Community; Containing, Among Other Important Particulars, an Account of
the Institution for the Education of One Thousand Poor Children... and of the New
System of Education on which it is Conducted, 4th ed. (London: 1806), pp. viii-ix.
34 Ibid., p. 172.

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itive to the necessity of changing the manners and habits of my fellow

citizens... and to remodel them on the manners and habits of the English:
the culture of English literature in our schools, in our colleges, and even
tually, I hope, the English language will prevail over the French.35 His
approach to the formation of his citizenry was a curious mix of conser
vatism and idealism, nationalism and universalism, hierarchy and social
uplift.
One of the most important and effective experiments in which the
Haitian and British reformers collaborated was the creation of a new
public education system. Both Henry Christophe in the northern prov
inces of Haiti and his rival mulatto General-President Alexandre Ption in
the southern regions expressed intense interest in the Lancasterian
method. Ption opened a Lancasterian school for younger children, cre
ated the first high school on the island in 1817 (proudly named the Lyce
Alexandre Ption), and founded Haitis first professional school of health
and hygiene. Christophes educational policies were more ambitious and
more fully-realized, in part because he was a more energetic leader, and
in part because he was more adept at seeking allies for his endeavours
both at home and abroad. Christophe imported several British teachers to
staff the many Lancasterian schools he sponsored, and created the Royal
College which was designed to train bureaucrats, doctors, lawyers and
philosophers. Their work would be harnessed the Royal Courts goal of
creating a happy, healthy, productive, obedient citizenry.
Thomas Gulliver was an idealistic young mah who graduated from
Lancasters Borough Road school in 1816, and accepted a contract to
oversee the creation of Lancasterian schools in King Hemys Haitian
realm. Once on the island, Gulliver devised a curriculum that included
instruction in the English language, hygiene, morality, ancient and
modem history, practical sciences, physical fitness and Anglican theo
logical principles. Gulliver and the others wanted to transplant English
values to a foreign environment to prove their universal applicability. He
had an important patron in the Anglophile King who told his nations
tutor that he was astonished at the effect of this new system, and at the
35 Henry I to William Wilberforce (Au Palais du Sans Soucy, 18 novembre 1816) in
Correspondence of William Wilberforce, vol. 1, pp; 262-266 (note 16).

Imported Englishness

219

premature intelligence which it develops in the pupils. In fact, I consider

the sending of these masters as the greatest benefit my friends could have
conferred upon me.36 This educational strategy had no race or colour,
but it did have a language, a religion, and supported a distinct social hier
archy.
In an ostentatious proclamation to the Haitian people, dated New
Years Day 1817, the King established a Royal Chamber of Instruction, a
Royal College, and National Schools according to the Lancasterian sys
tem. In these national schools, the English language and the elements of
[English] knowledge shall be taught. Hinting at his inspiration, the King
intoned
Our attention is particularly fixed on public instruction- the most powerful means
of improving the morals of a nation, and forming the national
character...Stimulated by just ideas of liberality, we have favoured and protected
foreign artists and professors, who came to engage in the instruction of youth....It
is from these foundations that light will be diffused among the whole mass of the
population, and they will learn how to appreciate their duty and love their country.
The moral virtues which distinguish man in a civilized state, will take the place of
the ignorance and depraved manners which are the unhappy result of barbarity
and slavery.37

The British and Foreign School Society regularly reported on Gul

livers success. Already, by May 1817, they advertised that Gulliver was
using a temporary space to instruct young children in the Scriptures while
King Henry Christophe undertook the construction of a large building
that would be sufficient to hold 400 students. Convinced that English
education was superior to every other method in use, the King wished
to promote the knowledge of the English language among his people,
being persuaded that he will thereby secure their prosperity and hap
piness.38 He favoured British artists and professors, he implied, because
centuries of French exploitation had left Haitians in a state of moral
decay. He aspired to nothing less than a complete renovation of the
36 Christophe to Clarkson (Palais du San Souci, 9 septembre 1816), British Library Add
Mss 41266, ff. 16-26.
37 Henry Christophe, Royal Proclamation of King Henry to the Haytian People, in
British and Foreign School Society Annual Report (May 1817), pp. 55-56.
38 British and Foreign School Society Annual Report (May 1817), pp. 32-33. The figure
of 400 was inflated; Gullivers letter, dated Cape Henry, 22 April 1817, reported that
the Kings school would hold 300 young pupils.

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Karen Racine

Haitian character, beginning with its children, believing that if there are
laws for the age of maturity, there should be rules for infancy. From the
first moment of life, we should learn to deserve life ... It is not therefore
sufficient to direct men to be good, they should be instructed how to
become so; and to form good citizens, we must instruct children. This
speech held out the promise of a hard-working, self-help, gradualist ap
proach that the English abolitionists idealized in a recently emancipated
population and in all his public addresses, Christophe showed that he had
mastered their strategy.
Along with Gulliver, the Quaker Grellet, and the American Sanders,
several other English men and women travelled to Haiti at that time to
devote themselves to the national educational mission. By 1818, a draw
ing and painting master named Evans had opened an art school for the
new Haitian aristocracy, Mr. Daniel had taken charge of the Kings chil
dren at San Souci, and there were at least five other English schools oper
ating in Gonaives, Port-au-Paix, St. Marcs, and Fort Royal (the latter
operated by a young man of colour trained at the Borough Road).39
London daily newspaper Morning Chronicle printed regular updates on
Haitian schools, including glowing reports of W. who confirmed that
the Kings enlightened and liberal policy in disseminating education,
morality and religion ... will secure him the eternal gratitude of his
people.40
Gulliver and the English teachers in Haiti shared the goal of spreading
morality through personal study of the Scriptures. Haitis Minister for
Foreign Affairs, the Comte du Limonade wrote to the President of the
British and Foreign Bible Society to thank his organization for its noble
and generous conduct in preparing a bilingual French-English edition of
the New Testament for use in the nations Lancasterian schools. As soon
as the much-wanted books arrived, the King would distribute them in the
schools and to private families with a view to the promotion of morality,

39 British and Foreign School Society, Hayti, in British and Foreign School Society
Annual Report {July 1818), p. 34.
40 W., Letter to the Editor, in Morning Chronicle (24 May 1818).

Imported Englishness

221

and the knowledge of the English language among his people.41 The
Testaments arrived in Haiti in March 1817, and a politely irritated
Limonade wrote back to enquire why the Kings explicit request for a
side-by-side bilingual edition, with a view to facilitate the knowledge of
the English language in the kingdom, was not fulfiled.42 43 Nevertheless,
King Henry and his local British aides made the best of the resources they
had been sent. The incorrect editions were distributed throughout the
country, to schoolchildren, to aristocratic and merchant families, and to
members of the military.
Not content to wait for another shipment from the Bible Society, the
Haitians set about printing their own textbook gospel, a handsome edition
printed in the desired side-by-side bilingual columns which was called
The Liturgy, or Form of Common Prayer, for the Use of the Royal Col
leges and National Schools of Haytif Part catechism, part nation-build
ing project, the book was aimed at a new generation of young Haitians
who could be inspired to dedicate themselves to the betterment of them
selves and their fellow citizens through Christian morality and loyalty to
their King. The Liturgy set out a schedule and descriptions of options for
ceremonies to be performed at certain hours and on certain days. As it
was presented here, the Christian message seemed to be affirming the
righteousness of the Haitian Revolution, and its message was both reas
suring and empowering for its audience:
He hath put down the mighty from their seats: and hath exalted the humble and
the meek./ He hath filled the hungry with good things: and the rich he hath sent
empty away.44

The Haitians, delivered from slavery like their Biblical counterparts,

were the true Children of God, and were all the more noble for their
humility, passivity, and willingness to receive tutelage of their British
41 Limonade to Teignmouth (Palace of San Souci, 18 November 1816), in British and
Foreign Bible Society Annual Report 13 (1817), p. 303.
42 Limonade to [Lord Teignmouth] (2 April 1817), reprinted in British and Foreign
Bible Society Annual Report 14 (1818), pp. 124-125. The unacceptable Testaments
had arrived in an edition that had sections in French, followed by sections in English.
43 Church of England, The Liturgy, or Form of Common Prayer, for the Use of the Royal
Colleges and National Schools of Hayti (Sans-Souci: At the Kings Printing Office,
[1817?]).
44 Ibid., p. 24.

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Karen Racine

abolitionist benefactors. It was a curious relationship, but one that worked

well for leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sponsored by the Church of England, this same liturgical text also set
out several pages of prayers for various components of the new state: the
King, his family, the Haitian council and ministers, magistrates, the
clergy and the common folkM^Iotions of servitude ran throughout the
prayers, but they are resurrected and presented as the free actions of a
patriot. The King, for example, despite his lofty position, was presented
as a both a servant of God and as a father figure who knew what is best
for his citizen-children and who laboured constantly to fulfil their needs.
In turn, the people must faithfully serve, honour and humbly obey
him.45 Twice daily, the congregation was instructed to supplicate them
selves and to ask their Lord not just for life everlasting, but also for help
and knowledge while on earth. Specifically, the liturgy asked for deliver
ance from all manner of evils including: pestilence, plague, famine, bat
tle, murder, sudden death, illness, fornication, pride, vainglory, envy,
hatred, malice and uncharitableness. It also made clear that acts of polit
ical independence such as: sedition, privy conspiracy, rebellion, false
doctrine, heresy, schism, and contempt for authority would put ones soul
in danger.46 Literacy, particularly as it was conveyed through the medium
of religious tracts and textbooks used in the classrooms of the agents of
the British and Foreign School society, was intimately connected both to
Henry Christophers nation-building project and to the consolidation of his
regime. Obedience and love for authority figures were the goal, not the
free expression of ones intellect.
Stories of Christophe and his educational programmes for the Haitian
people appeared regularly in the British press throughout the years 1817
to 1820. For example, the liberal newspaper Morning Chronicle told its
readers that the generous Haitian government was paying for poor chil
drens tuition in the Lancasterian schools, which promised to plans the
first seeds of public and private morality. Because these fortunate chil
dren would be early penetrated by a feeling of duty, they will become
accustomed to obey laws, respect the social order, obtain mastery over
45 Ibid., pp. 44-45.
46 Ibid., pp. 56-57.

Imported Englishness

223

themselves, and be welcomed into an institution in which they can raise

themselves up by their own efforts.47 The editors were indescribably
pleased at the salutary effects that such a noble public education pro
gramme was having on the civilization of the island; savvy readers under
stood that the success in Haiti strengthened the case for providing educa
tion to the lower classes at home as well. The Gentleman s Magazine was
also enthusiastic about Christophes school-building frenzy, noting that
he has expended an immense sum on his college and predicting that [i]t
is no small advantage to England, that [the instructors] will be nearly all
chosen from this Country.48 Even the Tory journal Quarterly Review
shared in the general euphoria, pointing out that Haitians had put to rest
any notion of African inferiority, proving for all to see that human beings
were the same everywhere, and expressing pleasure that the Black King
and his people have chosen to imitate the English example of service to
God and nation.49 There were rumblings of discontent, however. Many
groups whose economic interests were threatened by the prospects of a
successful, free Haiti tried to undermine Christophes reputation by
publicizing tales of his cruel and capricious nature, and hinting that he
wanted to spread the anti-colonial revolution to other Caribbean islands.
In May 1817, the New Monthly Magazine published a letter to the editor
acidly pointing out that it does not require the gift of prophecy to foresee
that the ascendancy of the blacks must be the destruction of the whites.
Indeed, when an English merchant [Mr. Davidson] has been tortured by
a black tyrant with whom the African Institution holds a
correspondence, the writer asks, can any patriotic citizen continue to
accept the praise heaped on the abolitionists?50
In Haiti, Christophes Lancasterian school system continued to flour
ish. Although the numbers of students who were able to attend classes
remained minuscule relative to the general population, its energy and
47 Establishment of National Schools at Hayti, after the Lancasterian British System of
Education, in Morning Chronicle 29, September 1817.
48 Gentlemans Magazine 87, October 1817, p. 357.
49 Quarterly Review 21, April 1819), 42, p. 433.
50 Publicla, Mr. Editor.. (Dated 3 April 1817), in New Monthly Magazine 7, May
1817, p. 306. The letter makes it clear that the pseudonymous author is an advocate of
British planters on the island of Antigua.

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Karen Racine

idealism was significant. Thomas Gulliver, the schoolmaster trained at

the Borough Road academy, continued to oversee the Haitian systems
expansion and sent regular reports back to his patrons in England. On
January 1, 1818, he provided a quarterly report on the Cap-Henri schools
accomplishments. According to his figures, there were 189 students in the
current reading class, 278 others who had been promoted in reading since
the last report and 68 who had moved up in the mathematics classes.
Only one child, a boy named Clment, had left school simply because, as
the report assured its readers, he was too young.51 His race was not a
factor at all. When Baron de Vastey compiled a similar report a year later,
in January 1819, he identified five schools that had been run by British
headmasters in Cap-Henry, Sans-Souci, Port-de-Paix, Gonaives and
Saint-Marc and which had trained 536 students at eight different levels.
Vasteys description of the curriculum indicates that these buys were
being trained in Latin, French and English composition, French and
English translation, geography, Biblical studies and arithmetic.52
By January 1820, native Haitians had been trained to a level at which
they could be appointed masters of schools in rural areas and the English
system was extended to Fort Royal, Limb, Borgne, St.Louis, Plaisance,
and Jean-Rabel with a total student population surpassing 1000 for the
first time.53 Thomas Gulliver confirmed that the King had extended the
51 T. Gulliver, Quarterly Report of the State of the School at Cape Henry, for the Period
Commencing 1 October 1817 and ending 1 January 1818 (Cape Henry, Hayti, 1
January 1818), enclosed in a letter from William Hamilton to Zachary Macaulay,
Huntington Library MY303.
52 Baron de Vastey, Secrtaire du Chambre Royal dHayti, 31 January 1819, British
Library Add Mss 41266, f. 54. Vastey engaged in a heated polemic with French
intellectuals and the press and vehemently defended his black brothers abilities in
Reflexions on the Blacks and Whites, Addressed by M. Mazeres, a French ex-Colonist,
toJ C. L. Sismonde de Sismondi (Liverpool: J. Hatchard, [1817]). For a discussion of
his own career, see David Nicholls, Pompe Valentin Vastey: Royalist and
Revolutionary, in Jahrbuch Jur Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft
Lateinamerikas 28 (1991), pp. 107-121.
53 Mr. J. Daniels, Professor, Summary. Chambre Royal dinstruction Publique. Rapport
de la Situation Gnrale de lAcadmie et des coles Nationales du Royaume
compter du 31 janvier jusqu 31 janvier 1820, British Library Add Mss 41266,
ff. 147-148. The Haitian teachers were identified as: Duchesne, Hilaire, Antoine,
Thaner, Pierre-Louis, Fontaine, and Papillon.

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225

benefits of education into the interior; by his count, eleven schools were
in operation, eight of them under control of native teachers.54 The Brit
ish and Foreign School Society was pleased to report that an additional
six monitorial schools were planned for the Haitian interior, and that the
Holy Scriptures were in the hands of all schoolchildren in the nations
schools.55Given this degree of success, it should not be surprising that the
Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Comte du Limonade, was
installed as an honorary member of the British and Foreign School Soci
ety in 1819. His country seemed to be their greatest success story. Later
that same year, the Society sent King Henry 100 guineas to distribute as
merit prizes to diligent students in the Chambre Royale. English
reformers were intent upon setting up a system of rewards so that the
students would learn the value of hard work.
Female education was one area of moral reform that received particu
larly energetic attention from the white English reformers, who were
particularly anxious to harness and control illicit behavior by inculcating
modesty and piety in black Haitian women and girls. In 1810, a corres
pondent for the British and Foreign Bible Society had reported that
[t]he Indigenes, or natives of Hayti, are extremely ignorant; but few can read; their
religion is catholic; but neither it or its priests are much respected. That they are in
a most awful state of darkness is evident: mothers are actually panderers to their
own daughters, and reap the fruit of their own prostitution. The endearing name of
father, is scarcely every heard; as the children but rarely know to whom they are
indebted for their existence.56

No civilized country could flourish if its fathers avoided their res

ponsibilities and its daughters were forced to live by their bodies and
desires instead of their minds and virtues. Years later, Wilberforce
preached to King Henry that in every age and country one of the grand
tests of civilization and refinement has been the respect in which the
female sex has been held... They are the natural softeners and polishers of
the roughness and the coarseness of our sex which necessitated their
54 Gulliver, in British and Foreign School Society Annual Report (1820), pp. 24-25.
55 British and Foreign Bible Society, Translation of a Letter or King Henry of Hayti to
the President (Lord TeignmouthJ, Palace of Castle Henry, 29 July 1819, British and
Foreign Bible Society Annual Report 16 (1819), p. 218.
56 From a Correspondent returned from St. Domingo, dated Nov. 1810, in British and
Foreign Bible Society Annual Report 7 ( 1811 ), p. 103.

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inclusion in any education system as a guarantee of the nations moral

health. Certain that the King would want to improve both the intellectual
and moral character, as well as the manners of Haytian femmes, Wilberforce indicated that he was seeking instructresses for his friends people
because he had witnessed personally the positive effects when women
learned to read the Bible ahd elevate their familys morality: fathers
sobered up and became much improved in their industry and propensity
for domestic life.57 Throughout the years 1817 and 1818, Wilberforce
obsessed over the morality of Haitis female population and even asked
Zachary Macaulay to help him devise schemes for their improvement.58
Duncan Stewart, Christophes personal physician, shared this moraliz
ing sentiment. He sent a concerned letter to Thomas Clarkson advising
that females are used very ill in Haiti, being often forced to submit to the
hardest labour and the greatest iniquities, at the capricious will of their
rulers. Very shortly afterward, Clarkson wrote to the King, gently telling
him that in England, girls of all classes are given the same education as
boys, which greatly inclines them to become the force of good
example. He mused that in future, any Englishmen who would be
recruited for the Haytian cause should be married and required to take
their families with them to set an example of chaste, sober, moral and
earnest living, [and in so doing] it is incalculable what good might be
done to the Haytian female.59 Wilberforce was proud to tell the King
that our women are much more generally faithful to their husbands than
the ladies of any other country in Europe, Switzerland and Holland
excepted. The English Queen never would receive at court any lady of
blemished reputation - might it be possible for the Haitian court to
institute a similar policy? If so, he was convinced that the standard of
public morality would be raised [and] it would becomes disreputable for a
women [sic] to be an intriguer. It was good news that Henry
Christophes family sets an example of domestic virtue and attachment,
57 Wilberforce to the King of Hayti 8 October 1818, in Correspondence of William
Wilberforce, vol. 1, pp. 269-285 (note 16). The letter was marked private.
58 Wilberforce to Macaulay [1817?] in Viscontess Knutsford, Life and Letters of
Zachary Macaulay (London: Edward Arnold, 1900), p. 367.
59 Stewart to Clarkson, Cape Henry, 4 December 1819, in Christophe and Clarkson, pp.
184-185, 185 n.

Imported Ertglishness

227

like that of our own king and queen.60 Of course, Regency royals were
not paragons of private virtue at all, but the idea that public figures had a
duty at least to play at domesticity was a well-entrenched component of
British political theatre by the 1810s. In his efforts to present himself as a
world-class monarch, Christophe quickly learned how to speak their
language. Soon he too was communicating to European monarchs his
delight that [bjy the encouragement that I give to marriage and protec
tion to good morals, I have the satisfaction of seeing a sensible ameliora
tion every day.61
To all British observers, it was clear that any success arising from the
bold new social experiment being conducted at a safe distance across the
Atlantic would help to silence the critics of reforms being proposed to
uplift and control the working-class at home as well. In this way. King
Henry and the Haitians had a paradoxical role as both students and
teachers. The Monthly Repository of Theology, for example, had already
recommended adopting the clause from Christophes constitution which
mandated that no man should hold an employment under the civil gov
ernment unless he is married.62 He, in turn, received repeated assurances
that the introduction of religious toleration, Protestantism, regular Bible
studies, the education of women and children, the use of the English lan
guage, and habits of industry would make him beloved among his own
people and respected among the worlds leading powers. The Kings
closest aides Limonade, Dupuy, Vastey, Sanders and Chanlatte (all
blacks or mulattos) were talented indeed, and had learned much about the
technicalities of diplomatic correspondence and proper and polite forms
from the Englishmen who had joined the imperial inner circle as aides.63
Although they were proud of their racial and ethnic background, their
60 Wilberforce to King Henry of Haiti (London, 27 November 1819) in Correspondence
of William Wilberforce, vol. 1, pp. 285-288.
61 King Henry to Emperor Alexander, the Imperial Majesty of all the Russias 20 March
1819, translation reprinted in Griggs & Prator, Christophe and Clarkson, p. 132 (note
14).
62 Monthly Repository of Theology 10, June 1815, p. 400.
63 James Franklin, Present State of Hayti (London: John Murray, 1828), pp. 212-215.
Franklin incorrectly spelled two of the mens surnames: Lamders is Prince Sanders,
and Chandlatte is Juste Chanlatte.

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desire to be modem and progressive nonetheless led them to absorb the

values and behaviours of a different group of Europeans.
Yet even prominent English patrons and their agents could not protect
Haitis King Henry Christophe from his own hubris and paranoia. Grow
ing ever more fearful of a French attempt to retake control of the island,
and certain that he was surrounded by secret rivals, King Henry set out to
build himself a massive Citadel which drained the national budget and
relied on conscript labour, both conditions guaranteed to fan the flames of
resentment.64 In 1820, fearing that he was suffering a fatal, debilitating
stroke, Christophe walked into a private room in his Citadelle and shot
himself through the heart. This act of desperation shocked his friends,
who tried but failed to transfer their influence to his successor. General
Boyer, a bloody-minded military man who immediately shut down the
English schools and converted the buildings into barracks for his battal
ions. A least one cynical observer recognized that the new government
seemed to consider that to keep [the rural poor] in ignorance is the most
secure way of ensuring tranquillity and repose to the countiy.65
As a military man with aspirations to create a functioning civic society
from the ashes of a ruined plantation economy and slave culture, Henri
Christophes administration suffered from overweening ambition. The
revolutionary Kings agenda was riddled with inherent tensions between
competing ideals. He may have honestly believed that the best way to
expunge bitter memories was to replace then? with shiny dreams. He
might have been quite sincere in his desire to resurrect Haiti from its pre
viously degraded state under French colonial rule and refashion his
country as a modern, British-inspired monarchy. It is even possible that
he thought his experiment would actually work.
The reformist zeal of Haitis King Henry I was clearest and most sus
tained in his desire to import the English system of education as set out
64 The Citadelle La Ferrire was situated in a cliffside 900 metres above the bay where
Columbus landed on 24 December 1492. It was technologically advanced and
invulnerable to the traditional weapons of the day. See Elizabeth Abbott, Haiti: The
Duvaliers and Their Legacy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989), p. 22.
65 Franklin, Present State of Hayti, p. 399. Franklin found evidence for this assertion in
Article 179 of Boyers Code Rural which ordered all children to return home and be
raised up in their fathers condition.

Imported Englishness

229

by Joseph Lancaster and propagated by the British and Foreign School

Society. Utilizing agricultural metaphors, and importing both teachers
and technicians, Christophe internalized the late Enlightenment percep
tion of children as fertile soil, of education as an organic process of
growth that required careful shepherds. Like a carefully-tended English
garden, Christophe used aid from his foreign friends to help him plant
beautiful hedges and prune them into neat, orderly rows. Toward this end,
he tried valiantly to extend the Lancasterian system as widely as his
resources would permit, but the local Haitian conditions rejected the
exotic transplant, and the social experiment withered. Christophe wanted
a mobilized, yet depoliticized, citizenry, and hoped that he could intro
duce useful knowledge among his people while ensuring their blind obe
dience. Despite Christophes Edenic vision, the Tree of Knowledge, once
planted among humanity, inevitably leads to awareness, questions, and
disobedience.
There was always a huge discrepancy in the availability of education
throughout the imperial domain. Christophe may have had a sincere de
sire to diffuse education throughout Haiti, but his Lancasterian school
project was only successful in the major cities where his military control
was strongest. Travellers in rural areas reported that they failed to locate
any schools in outlying areas, despite repeated enquiries made to the
country folk.66 In this way, geography perpetuated racial hierarchies that
began under French colonial rule. Although the Haitian constitution
deemed all citizens to be black, in practice, those who resided in urban
areas and who benefited most from Christophes educational agenda
tended overwhelmingly to be mulatto while those abandoned to their own
devices in the poverty-stricken countryside were much darker-skinned.
Although one British observer rejected the notion that blacks were inher
ently inferior to whites, he expressed dismay that
with all the advantages, with all the opportunities which Christophe afforded to
his people to improve their minds, and to seek for knowledge in the various
branches of science, very few indeed have been found who have raised themselves

66 Ibid., pp. 397-398.

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Karen Racine

above mediocrity, whilst thousands have been found incapable of tuition, or have
rejected instruction altogether.67

Over a period of six years, he engaged in an extended correspondence

with several of Britains most important abolitionist and conservative
advocates of social reforms designed to contain the lower classes and
instill habits of obedience, orderliness, and domestic virtues. Both sides
of the partnership stood to gain from Christophes effort to import
Englishness and diffuse it through his nation by using the monitorial
school method. The Haitians would become healthier, more productive,
welcome citizens of the world and would prove once and for all that
Africans were equally equipped for arts and sciences; British reformers
could use Haitis peaceful progress to silence the anti-abolitionists, lend
weight to their proposals on behalf of religious education for the masses,
and could feel vindicated that English generosity had saved the same
people their enemy France had dehumanized. Intentions alone are never
enough. On one desperate day in 1820, a single silver bullet put an end to
their experiment.

67 Ibid., p. 211.

EXPORT AS IMPORT: JAMES THOMSONS CIVILISING

MISSION IN SOUTH AMERICA, 1818-1825

Eugenia Roldn Vera

From the time I set my foot on board of my voyage to South America, I have
considered myself as an American... You too, my dear Sir, and the members of your
Society, are Americans... I would, therefore, call upon you, as my fellow-citizens,
and would rouse you up to the mighty importance of that sacred work in which you
are engaged. America, North and South, is the field for your operations... It is the
time for calling forth all our energy, for plying every nerve, in order to make the Light
of Life shine from one end of the earth to the other.
Janies Thomson to the Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Lima, 25
November 1823.'

We are used to thinking about the transnational transmission of

ideas/knowledge as processes by which some kind of message is con
veyed from point A to point B, conceding that a number of transforma
tions and adaptations take place in both the journey and in the appropria
tion of the message by its final receivers. In the history of education we
often speak of transfer of educational models or policies, and of pro
cesses of production, diffusion, and reception (when not imposi
tion) of pedagogical innovations. In this essay I want to suggest a differ
ent way of looking at the usual dynamics of transfer, import and ex
port of ideas by analyzing how some ideas, especially those conceived
within and in the service of the liberal modernity project, are actually
1 James Thomson, Letters on the Moral and Religious State of South America, Written
during a Residence of Nearly Seven Years in Buenos Aires, Chile, Peru, and
Colombia (London: James Nisbet, 1827), p. 104.