5 ms·

That's not what the article you linked says, actually: "A contingent of Polish defectors were given amnesty and granted Haitian citizenship for their renouncem

by runako 5y ago

That's not what the article you linked says, actually: "A contingent of Polish defectors were given amnesty and granted Haitian citizenship for their renouncement of French allegiance and support of Haitian independence." Update: I generally agree with your revised point, but for the sake of history I believe it's important not to needlessly exaggerate historical events. Let the events themselves stand on their own. My country has an ongoing problem with propagating accurate history, so I am aware of the need to get things correct.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
I'm not here to nitpick or defend genocide. A few white people might not have been killed, and some foreign troops, like those defectors, spared. Read the whole page where you found this quote to single out. Considering how the slaves had been treated it is perhaps understandable that the backlash was brutal, but that was a genocide nonetheless, with the white population massacred, not just a few people in an unique event. I certainly don't think that I have exaggerated anything.
- ant6n 5y ago
  You literally wrote "All the white population was massacred" 10 minutes before this second message.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  That type of behavior is a consequence of war. It happens, and the victors define who is worthy of punishment or praise. Using World War 2 as an example, the Army Air Forces immolated Japanese cities with white phosphorus and napalm before the atomic bomb was available. In Tokyo alone, hundreds of thousands of people were reduced to ash, and the glow of the firestorm was visible from hundreds of miles away. Those actions, followed by the atomic bombing, are marginally controversial today but largely accepted as “ok”. Because the allies won, those actions are rationalized, and those rationalizations have merit. Had Japan won, events like the rape of Nanking would have been rationalized by their standards, and actions of the US Army Air Forces would have been viewed very differently. With respect to Haiti, the colonialist mindset focuses on the individual tragedy of slaughtered Europeans living their life in the colony. But from the perspective of the rebel slaves, those individuals were complicit in systematic barbarous conditions in the cane fields that killed thousands of slaves horribly, every month for a century or more. The wife of the banker who financed or leased slaves is the same as the overseer. Those rebels won the battle, but ultimately did not win the war nor write the history.
  - soperj 5y ago
    No one really accepts them as ok except the country that did them.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    Acts of war, like military bombings during a conflict, are obviously not on the same level as genocide. There's a very crucial difference and I invite readers to look up what 'genocide' means. This is an off-topic diversion in this discussion, though. I think it's important to call things out and to see history for the complex mess it is instead of trying to divide everything and everyone between heroes beyond reproach and unredeemable villains. Yes, the black slaves were treated barbarously, and yes they committed genocide against the white population after they gained their freedom. That's what happened. We can look for explanations but I think we should avoid trying to look for excuses because once we start to label some genocides less wrong than others, or even acceptable to the point of defending them then we've crossed a major red line. Shockingly it looks like that red line has been crossed in this thread.
    - the_af 5y ago
      > Acts of war, like military bombings, are obviously not on the same level as genocide. There's a very crucial difference. What's the difference when the target is the civilian population, as was the case with the bombings of Japan (and many of the cities in the European theatre of the war as well)? Other than the fact bombing cities from a B-29 flying high is more impersonal for the perpetrators.
      - greedo 5y ago
        Actually, when conducting the firebomb missions, the B-29s flew at low level. Their after action reports clearly mentioned the smell of smoke etc. It was far from impersonal. " In January 1945, General Curtis LeMay arrived in the Mariana Islands to take over the problem-plagued B-29 command. For two months, his crews flew similar high-altitude missions over Japan with little more success. His job on the line, General LeMay decided on a risky new strategy: his pilots would fly daring, dangerous bombing missions at altitudes as low as 5,000 feet, low enough to be within range of anti-aircraft weapons. Robert Rodenhouse was shocked: "We thought they could throw the kitchen sink up there and hit us. Can you imagine flying a big four-engine bomber at 5,000 feet? Why that was just unheard of, absolutely unheard of. And like my crew says, I think those generals lost their marbles. They weren't thinking straight." The low-altitude bombing runs turned out to be highly successful. The planes carried much larger bomb loads. Crews flew at night to avoid enemy fighters. And flight personnel were kept to a minimum. Most of the gunners were removed to make room for still more bombs -- incendiary bombs." https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pacific-b-29s/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pacific...
- sreque 5y ago
  I don't know why you are getting downvoted. Your detractors seem to be arguing like 5-year-olds. Parent: "You didn't pick up your room at all!" Child: "Wrong! I picked up these 5 small items!" (out of the 100+ items on the ground) From the article you linked: "By the end of April 1804, some 3,000 to 5,000 people had been killed[24] and the white Haitians were practically eradicated, excluding a select group of whites who were given amnesty. "
- dang 5y ago
  Would you please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar? How we ended up with an argument about competing genocides is a case study in how threads end up in internet hell. Now it's headed toward the bombing of Japan. This is not what this site is for. No more of this please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    I have not started nor incited a flamewar. I have simply posted a historic fact in a neutral way then stayed on point. Haiti's history is messy and the past informs the present. In response I have been attacked (classic us of nitpicking to discredit an unconvenient point), flagged, and one or more people went through my comments history to downvote all the comments they could (as mentioned). I feel like I'm victim of a mob here, and being blamed for it... Good for intellectual curiosity, for sure.
    - dang 5y ago
      I'm sorry, but what you posted were obviously flamewar comments. "I have simply posted a historic fact in a neutral way" is a misleading description for two reasons: (1) "facts" is a red herring (see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20infinitely%20many%20facts&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for explanation of that); and (2) a drive-by one-liner on an extremely inflammatory topic is not at all "neutral". (Also, (3) what you posted appears not to have been a fact, and when someone pointed that out you responded litigiously with "I'm not here to nitpick or defend genocide" - more flamewar behavior.) It's not at all surprising that this made the flamewar worse—a neutral observer would expect precisely that, and that means you're responsible for the effects, whether you intended them or not. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=troll%20effects%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... If you don't see how that's the case, I can understand why you might feel like a victim, but such perceptions have a lot of cognitive bias in them. It's hard for people (I mean all of us) to see the provocations contained in our own comments, and all too easy to see the negative contributions of others. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20mirror%20closer&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... As for downvoted comments, which ones are you talking about specifically? When users do the kind of thing you're describing, we often remove downvoting rights from them. I didn't see it when I took a quick look, though.
alexgmcm 5y ago
Also from the article: >Philippe Girard writes "when the genocide was over, Haiti's white population was virtually non-existent." That seems pretty in-line with what OP stated, I'm not familiar enough to know if Philippe Girard is a reliable source but the reference seems legitimate.[1] [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00313220500106196 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0031322050010619...
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  "Non-existent" encompasses both "killed" and "left the country as refugees".
  - rory 5y ago
    Well sure, but they left to escape being murdered. Their main beef was with specifically French white people though. They spared a group of Poles and worked with many white German and USA American traders in the following years.

by runako 5y ago

mytailorisrich 5y ago

I'm not here to nitpick or defend genocide. A few white people might not have been killed, and some foreign troops, like those defectors, spared. Read the whole page where you found this quote to single out. Considering how the slaves had been treated it is perhaps understandable that the backlash was brutal, but that was a genocide nonetheless, with the white population massacred, not just a few people in an unique event. I certainly don't think that I have exaggerated anything.

ant6n 5y ago
You literally wrote "All the white population was massacred" 10 minutes before this second message.
Spooky23 5y ago
That type of behavior is a consequence of war. It happens, and the victors define who is worthy of punishment or praise. Using World War 2 as an example, the Army Air Forces immolated Japanese cities with white phosphorus and napalm before the atomic bomb was available. In Tokyo alone, hundreds of thousands of people were reduced to ash, and the glow of the firestorm was visible from hundreds of miles away. Those actions, followed by the atomic bombing, are marginally controversial today but largely accepted as “ok”. Because the allies won, those actions are rationalized, and those rationalizations have merit. Had Japan won, events like the rape of Nanking would have been rationalized by their standards, and actions of the US Army Air Forces would have been viewed very differently. With respect to Haiti, the colonialist mindset focuses on the individual tragedy of slaughtered Europeans living their life in the colony. But from the perspective of the rebel slaves, those individuals were complicit in systematic barbarous conditions in the cane fields that killed thousands of slaves horribly, every month for a century or more. The wife of the banker who financed or leased slaves is the same as the overseer. Those rebels won the battle, but ultimately did not win the war nor write the history.
- soperj 5y ago
  No one really accepts them as ok except the country that did them.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  Acts of war, like military bombings during a conflict, are obviously not on the same level as genocide. There's a very crucial difference and I invite readers to look up what 'genocide' means. This is an off-topic diversion in this discussion, though. I think it's important to call things out and to see history for the complex mess it is instead of trying to divide everything and everyone between heroes beyond reproach and unredeemable villains. Yes, the black slaves were treated barbarously, and yes they committed genocide against the white population after they gained their freedom. That's what happened. We can look for explanations but I think we should avoid trying to look for excuses because once we start to label some genocides less wrong than others, or even acceptable to the point of defending them then we've crossed a major red line. Shockingly it looks like that red line has been crossed in this thread.
  - the_af 5y ago
    > Acts of war, like military bombings, are obviously not on the same level as genocide. There's a very crucial difference. What's the difference when the target is the civilian population, as was the case with the bombings of Japan (and many of the cities in the European theatre of the war as well)? Other than the fact bombing cities from a B-29 flying high is more impersonal for the perpetrators.
    - greedo 5y ago
      Actually, when conducting the firebomb missions, the B-29s flew at low level. Their after action reports clearly mentioned the smell of smoke etc. It was far from impersonal. " In January 1945, General Curtis LeMay arrived in the Mariana Islands to take over the problem-plagued B-29 command. For two months, his crews flew similar high-altitude missions over Japan with little more success. His job on the line, General LeMay decided on a risky new strategy: his pilots would fly daring, dangerous bombing missions at altitudes as low as 5,000 feet, low enough to be within range of anti-aircraft weapons. Robert Rodenhouse was shocked: "We thought they could throw the kitchen sink up there and hit us. Can you imagine flying a big four-engine bomber at 5,000 feet? Why that was just unheard of, absolutely unheard of. And like my crew says, I think those generals lost their marbles. They weren't thinking straight." The low-altitude bombing runs turned out to be highly successful. The planes carried much larger bomb loads. Crews flew at night to avoid enemy fighters. And flight personnel were kept to a minimum. Most of the gunners were removed to make room for still more bombs -- incendiary bombs." https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pacific-b-29s/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pacific...
sreque 5y ago
I don't know why you are getting downvoted. Your detractors seem to be arguing like 5-year-olds. Parent: "You didn't pick up your room at all!" Child: "Wrong! I picked up these 5 small items!" (out of the 100+ items on the ground) From the article you linked: "By the end of April 1804, some 3,000 to 5,000 people had been killed[24] and the white Haitians were practically eradicated, excluding a select group of whites who were given amnesty. "
dang 5y ago
Would you please stop taking HN threads further into flamewar? How we ended up with an argument about competing genocides is a case study in how threads end up in internet hell. Now it's headed toward the bombing of Japan. This is not what this site is for. No more of this please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  I have not started nor incited a flamewar. I have simply posted a historic fact in a neutral way then stayed on point. Haiti's history is messy and the past informs the present. In response I have been attacked (classic us of nitpicking to discredit an unconvenient point), flagged, and one or more people went through my comments history to downvote all the comments they could (as mentioned). I feel like I'm victim of a mob here, and being blamed for it... Good for intellectual curiosity, for sure.
  - dang 5y ago
    I'm sorry, but what you posted were obviously flamewar comments. "I have simply posted a historic fact in a neutral way" is a misleading description for two reasons: (1) "facts" is a red herring (see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=by%3Adang%20infinitely%20many%20facts&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... for explanation of that); and (2) a drive-by one-liner on an extremely inflammatory topic is not at all "neutral". (Also, (3) what you posted appears not to have been a fact, and when someone pointed that out you responded litigiously with "I'm not here to nitpick or defend genocide" - more flamewar behavior.) It's not at all surprising that this made the flamewar worse—a neutral observer would expect precisely that, and that means you're responsible for the effects, whether you intended them or not. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=troll%20effects%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... If you don't see how that's the case, I can understand why you might feel like a victim, but such perceptions have a lot of cognitive bias in them. It's hard for people (I mean all of us) to see the provocations contained in our own comments, and all too easy to see the negative contributions of others. Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20mirror%20closer&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que.... As for downvoted comments, which ones are you talking about specifically? When users do the kind of thing you're describing, we often remove downvoting rights from them. I didn't see it when I took a quick look, though.

alexgmcm 5y ago

Also from the article: >Philippe Girard writes "when the genocide was over, Haiti's white population was virtually non-existent." That seems pretty in-line with what OP stated, I'm not familiar enough to know if Philippe Girard is a reliable source but the reference seems legitimate.[1] [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00313220500106196 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0031322050010619...

ceejayoz 5y ago
"Non-existent" encompasses both "killed" and "left the country as refugees".
- rory 5y ago
  Well sure, but they left to escape being murdered. Their main beef was with specifically French white people though. They spared a group of Poles and worked with many white German and USA American traders in the following years.