A Proslavery Foreign Policy Haitian-American Relations during the Early Republic

Subjects:

• History » American History -- Nineteenth Century
• Political Science » International Relations
• Multicultural Studies » Black Studies
• Multicultural Studies » Caribbean Studies

Reviews:

• The last decade has seen a welcome expansion of scholarship on the impact of the Haitian Revolution in the Atlantic world. Tim Matthewson's book makes an important contribution to this literature by providing a careful analysis of how political leaders in the United States responded to and sought to shape the course of Caribbean revolution. Organized chronologically through chapters on the Washington, Adams, and Jefferson administrations, the work effectively analyses the strands of thinking that generated varying and at times sharply contradictory policies.
  —American Historical Review October 2005
• In recent years, important studies on the history of Saint Domingue and the Republic of Haiti have rectified, to a great extent, our previous ignorance about many issues related to this always-conflictive Caribbean territory. Tim Matthewson's book constitutes a new effort to shed light upon the foreign policies developed by the first American administrations toward Saint Domingue and Haiti....Haiti is the forgotten member of our continental family. Any book, article, paper, documentary, or film that addresses its history and reality is a priceless contribution, not only to academics, but to the body of knowledge of a nation that has endured two hundred years of isolation from the rest of the world. This is a book for everybody with an interest in the history of the second independent republic of the Western Hemisphere. Hopefully in the near future someone will translate this volume into French and copies will be sent to each public and school library in Haiti.
  —Hispanic American Historical Review May 2005
• Tim Matthewson skillfully examines the evolution of official Untied States policy toward the rebelling colony of Saint Domingue and, later, the independent state of Haiti....[t]he book challenges the worn-out and hopelessly dated hsitorical narrative of foreign relations during this period....[M]attewson has put together an interesting and informed analysis of the evolution of proslavery diplomacy as the cornerstone of foreign policy in the early republic.
  —The Journal of Southern History February 2005
• [T]his book is a useful addition to the question of the influence of the Hatiian revolution on American history.
  —The Journal of American History December 2004

Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• President George Washington
• The End of White Supremacy
• President John Adams
• The First Intervention
• President Thomas Jefferson
• The Triumph of Racism
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Bibliographical Notes
• Index