Racial Hierarchy In The Haitian Revolution

African slaves were also a part of the racial hierarchy that used social order to maintain the establishment of slavery. Slavery was maintained through the legal system in Spanish America and the racial and ethnic discrimination through social customs. Africans were treated like inferiors whether they were free or not. Slaves in urban areas specifically in Brazil held a large amount of autonomy. One of the main forms of slave resistance to the colonial hierarchy was simply running away. This came from the oppressive and inhumane treatment of slaves that they would rather run away. This gave way to the development of run away slave communities some ran to the urban centers and blended in with the free slaves while others joined Maroon communities.

African Haitians completely did away with the social control that kept the racial hierarchy in place in Haiti. The institutions that the French held to control the slaves were attacked the very French army that was sent was defeated and the former slaves took control of the island and forever changed the colonial society they lived in. African slaves began to notice during the French revolution the ideals of liberty, citizenship, and voting come up but they were excluded due to the racial hierarchy that existed in the colony. Even the slave owners that were not white were not given access to the newfound rights of the French citizens. This revolution had a great impact on the rest of Spanish America, The United States and specifically the islands of Cuba and Jamaica. It grounded the growing abolitionist movements because of the drastic outcome of the slaves’ revolution and tightened the colonial control in the islands in the Caribbean who feared a similar revolution could occur. The Haitian revolution was not an eruption of recent discontent, it had been building as slaves frequently ran away and established Maroon

An early example of this was the creation of the republic of Indians. When the indigenousness people of America became known as Indians. At the start of this the Indian nobility capitalizes on their power and beings to assert influence on the poor Indians similar to the way the Spanish nobles controlled the Spanish peasants. It realigns wealth and title into the Native Americans’ society. The Native elites used their power and positioning to get out of labor systems like the Mita because they could use their influence to get lower class Native to take their place. The legal system enabled further subdivisions of hierarchies within racial and ethnic hierarchies existed class hierarchies. This allowed the wealthy natives to subjugate fellow Natives just as the Spanish subjugate fellow Spaniards. We can see they Ayllu breaking down because of internal conflict between the Native nobles and the regular natives. We can also see this among Spanish elites and commoners. The elites were granted access to certain positions such as commerce and high-ranking government positions. The poor Spanish and creoles had limited access to education specifically the women. The groups with the most rights were the Spaniards and the Creoles but among these two there were big differences. The Creoles could not hold the highest positions in the