The Haitian Revolution makes for the most fascinating revolt in history. The black race, after many years of oppression, overcame the dominant white race, without the assistance of guns, and other technological warfare at that time. In its own words, the author states that the book makes clear that the roots of the revolution of Haiti consist of movements involving the "wisdom and common sense of the masses". Hordes of blacks reached a consensus that human sacrifice is a small price to pay for freedom. In the view of Carolyn E. Fick, no organization or political entity involved can be attributed as much credit than the masses for the popular revolution that unseated one of the longest dictatorships of mankind.In Haiti existed a system of degradation and denial of humanity itself towards human beings only because they were born with a black skin. While emphasis is made on the fact that the blacks were the majority of the population at the time of the revolution, it is brought up that at the outset the white indentured or contracted servants "worked and lived side by side in near equal numbers with black slaves" (Fick 15). This suggests that if we consider an indentured worker or worker under contract to be a financial slave living in the same condition as a black slave, that slaves did not necessarily have to be black. Slavery began because there was the need for labor to work on plantations of sugar and tobacco. Once the black slave took the place of the white indentured worker, a system of classes emerged. The middle class white man was the absentee planter enjoying the amassed fortune in France. The middle class were also the agents or managers of the absentee planter striving and sometimes attaining plantation ownership. The high class or grands blancs such as the governor, the Intendant and their representatives were white people appointed by the French government to administer with "absolute authority". The petit blancs...
