Frederick Douglass and Diplomacy

Put simply, Douglass reasoned, racism was unacceptable

policy. Whiteness was no substitute for competence.
Historical facts rather than alternative ones mattered. And
the nationthe peopleowed no allegiance to a state
more concerned with flexing its muscles than admitting its
moral failings.

by Brandon Byrd- Feb 11, 2017

( February 11, 2017 , Boston, Sri Lanka Guardian) Frederick
Douglass was doing an amazing job and deserved more and more
recognition. That idea dawned on Republican President Benjamin
Harrison soon after he took up residence in the White House. And
so, in June 1889, he chose Douglass as the next U.S. minister
resident and consul general to Haiti.
A little more than one year later, Douglass sat at a meeting in
Port-au-Prince, perplexed. Rear Admiral Bancroft Gherardi, the
commander-in-chief of the U.S. Navys North Atlantic Fleet, sat at
his side. The career military military officer, unschooled in
international diplomacy and notorious for his temper and
arrogance, blustered on and on about Haitis obligation to cede
part of its territory to the United States. Across the table, Haitian
Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs Antnor Firmin and Haitian
President Florvil Hyppolite sat unmoved. There was little need for
their interpreter. Both Haitian politicians could see Gherardis
messageand his instabilityin his reddened face. It was also
obvious from his unnecessarily loud tone.
To Douglass, the uncomfortable scene raised a number of
questions. Why was the U.S. government mistaking military
strength with diplomacy? How could Harrison elevate such an
incompetent man to a position of global significance? And why did
the president pay lip service to his accomplishments when he had
no real understanding of his intellect or politics?
These questions emerged at a moment of unrest in Haiti. In
August 1888, an alliance of regional military forces revolted
against Haitian President Lysius Salomon. The insurgents accused
Salomon of attempting to make himself president for life. In the
end, they succeeded in overthrowing the Haitian government but
failed in establishing a stable replacement. The defeated Salomon
regime gave way to a provisional government that included
General Franois Denys Lgitime, General Sde Tlmaque, and
General Florvil Hyppolite. Before Haitians could organize a
permanent government, Tlmaque was assassinated and the
supporters of Hyppolite laid the blame for the act on Lgitime.
While Lgitime became president and strengthened his hold on
Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of the assassination, Hyppolite
launched an insurrection meant to defeat his rival and establish
more economic hegemony for the northern region of Haiti from
which he hailed.
The United States saw an opportunity in the unrest. Hyppolite and
Antnor Firmin had long recognized the benefits of gaining the
support of their powerful neighbor to the north through promises
of trade concessions and ambiguous discussions of territorial
cessions. For their part, U.S. government officials courted
Hyppolite and supplied his insurgents with arms shipments and
naval support in the hopes of securing a naval station and
increased diplomatic influence in Haiti. Eventually, the realization
of an alliance between his rival and the United States created a
pronounced anxiety in Lgitime and in October 1888 the Haitian
president, backed by the French government, ordered the seizure
of the Haytian Republic, a U.S. merchant ship that he correctly
suspected of providing transportation for and selling arms and
ammunition to the northern insurgents.
This incident cohered to a recurring theme in Haitian historythe
undermining, destabilization, and delegitimization of its
governments by outside interference. As white journalists
demanded that the savages inhabiting that little island receive
a good drubbing at the hands of the United States Government,
Democratic President Grover Cleveland, who had just lost re-
election despite winning the popular vote, responded.1 On
December 10, 1888, U.S. Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard
sent a naval force to Haiti to demand the return of the Haytian
Republic. Ten days later, confronted with the prospect of
bombardment from the U.S. naval force sent to its shore, the
Haitian government restored the vessel to the United States.
Frederick Douglass and the Santo Domingo Commission on
USS Tennessee in Key West in 1871. Photo by Oliver B.
Buell.
The next summer, Douglass departed for Port-au-Prince. The
position of U.S. minister resident and consul general to Haiti had
become the prime patronage post for black Republicans during
Reconstruction and it would maintain that status into the
twentieth century. Douglass was well-aware of the significance of
his position and the singular importance of Haiti. In a letter
published by leading white and black newspapers just before his
departure, he acknowledged that white men and women often
pointed to Haiti and cried out Look at [It]! Torn and rent by
division and revolution before asking what can we expect of
the American Negro. Accordingly, Douglass admitted that he
embarked on his mission to represent the interests of the United
States, and also with a view to advance the interests of Haitians
and African Americans, the people likely to be most benefited by
the wise, peaceful, and orderly government of what is called The
Black Republic.2

The man who appointed Douglass threatened those goals.

Republican Benjamin Harrison subscribed to a long-standing belief
that Haitis Mle St. Nicolas was a desirable prize because of its
location at the northern entrance to the Windward Passage, its
ample harbors, and its defensible geographic features. His
administration wasted little time in acting upon that belief. Eight
months after Harrisons inauguration, the Yantic, an unauthorized
U.S. naval warship, arrived at the Mle to measure the distance
from the Haitian port to other Caribbean islands where Europeans
had established telegraph cables. By the winter of 1890, U.S.
Secretary of State James G. Blaine had authorization to use force
to acquire the Mle while Bancroft Gherardi monitored the
political situation in Haiti to assess the prospects for U.S.
territorial gains there.

Against these obstacles, Douglass strived for a more enlightened

diplomacy. On New Years Day, 1891, Antnor Firmin paid
Douglass a visit. The Haitian official denounced a U.S. newspaper
for repeating the allegation that Hyppolite, now the Haitian
president, had promised the Mle to the United States as
recompense for helping bring him to power. Douglass agreed that
the claim was baseless but he stressed the U.S. governments
willingness to lease, rent, or purchase the Mle according to
proper means . . . consistent with the peace and welfare of
Hayti. Although their conversation was interrupted, Firmins icy
reaction to Douglasss proposal reinforced the U.S. diplomats
belief that there was no one point upon which the people of Haiti
are more . . . united, than upon any question touching the cession
of any part of their territory.
Antnor Firmin
 That was the end of Douglasss control over
what became known as the Mle St. Nicolas Affair. On January 25,
1891, Gherardi arrived in Port-au-Prince with instructions to
supplant Douglass and assume the lead role in direct negotiations
for the port. Three days later, he, Douglass, Firmin, Hyppolite, and
an interpreter sat around a conference table discussing the U.S.
acquisition of territory that contemporaries suggested had
become tied to national autonomy in the Haitian imagination.
Gherardi insisted that the Mle was the U.S. governments rightful
possession in return for its services rendered. Douglass tried to
assuage Haitian fears, promising that the concession asked for
was in the line of good neighborhood and advanced civilization,
and in every way consistent with the autonomy of Haiti.
Hyppolite and Firmin balked at that suggestion to the great
consternation of Gherardi. After Firmin denied that the Mle had
been promised to the U.S. government, the temperamental naval
officer shouted that Hyppolite was morally bound to concede
the Mle.3

The Haitian government closed negotiations for the Mle on April

24, 1891. By that point, Douglass could hardly reconcile his
responsibility to the U.S. government and his respect for the
wishes of his Haitian brethren. The admission that the United
States had affected regime change in a sovereign nation was
repugnant. The hubris to expect to profit from that interference
was too much. And so, Douglass wiped his hands clean of the
mess made by incompetent and immoral U.S. officials,
announcing that he could not accept imperialism as a foundation
upon which I could base my diplomacy.

For Douglass, the lessons of this embarrassing episode in U.S.

history were clear. Enduring, even. In the summer of 1891,
Douglass resigned his diplomatic post and returned to Cedar Hill
House, his Anacostia home. There, in a library whose walls soon
included portraits of Toussaint Louverture and Florvil Hyppolyte,
Douglass crafted his response to white critics who blamed him for
the failed negotiations for the Mle. First, Douglass pointed out,
the United States had given Gherardi a role for which he had no
preparation solely because he was white and Haitians were
supposed to be more willing to defer to a white man. That
assumption was laughable, Douglass suggested. It showed a
stunning ignorance of Haitian history. Besides, he continued, even
if a white diplomat could have exploited Haitians, a supposedly
great country like the United States should ask nothing of Hati
on grounds less just and reasonable than those upon which they
would ask anything of France or England.

Put simply, Douglass reasoned, racism was unacceptable policy.

Whiteness was no substitute for competence. Historical facts
rather than alternative ones mattered. And the nationthe people
owed no allegiance to a state more concerned with flexing its
muscles than admitting its moral failings.

Ultimately, Douglass was secure in the knowledge that he had

done a credible if not an amazing job in Haiti. He had no reason to
doubt himself, to seek reason in the racist anxieties that
motivated his critics and shaped their white nationalism. He had
no reason to hide his defiance. I am charged with sympathy for
Hati, Douglass concluded. I am not ashamed of that charge.
Brandon R. Byrd is an assistant professor of history at
Vanderbilt University and working on a book manuscript entitled,
An Experiment in Self-Government: Haiti in the African-American
Political Imagination. Follow him on Twitter @bronaldbyrd.
1. The Columbus Enquirer-Sun, December 8, 1888.
2. The Black Republic. Minister Douglass Has Faith in the
Future of Hayti, Huntsville Gazette, July 13, 1889.
3. This quote and all subsequent quotes are from Douglass,
Hati and the United States: Inside History of the
Negotiations for the Mle St. Nicolas, Part I, North American
Review 153 (September 1891): 343-345.
Copyright 2017 AAIHS ( Black Perspectives)
Posted by Thavam