1. SILENCING THE PAST
POWER and the PRODUCTION of
HISTORY
Michel-Rolph Trouillot

2. “Human beings participate in history
both as actors and narrators.
The inherent ambivalence of the
word „history‟ in many modern
languages, suggests this dual
participation.
In vernacular use, history means
both the facts of the matter and
the narrative of those facts, both
„what happened‟ and „that which is

3. How is History Silenced?
• there is a silencing in the making of
sources - not everything gets remembered
or recorded
• there is a silencing in the creation of
archives - judgments made, and some
evidence is lost or omitted
• narrators silence parts of their stories –
personal memory
• not all historical evidence is included in the
general version of “accepted past”

4. Acknowledging History
The West fails to recognize
certain historical events

5. The Alamo
The events of the Battle of the Alamo
are still debated
•Freedom-loving Americans v. American
expansionists
•The “Second Battle of the Alamo” – the
fight to acknowledge participants of all
ethnicities

6. DENIAL
Holocaust deniers insist that
one of the most horrific events
in history never happened

7. David Irving, Speech in Portland, OR.
September 18, 1996.
• quot;When I get to Australia in January.... they are going to
wheel out all the so-called eyewitnesses…they can be
very convincing. We're going to meet because she has
that tattoo. I am going to say, 'You have that tattoo, we
all have the utmost sympathy for you.
• But how much money have you made on it! In the last 45
years! Can I estimate! Quarter of a million! Half million!
Certainly not less. That's how much you've made from
the German taxpayers and the American taxpayers.'
Ladies and gentlemen, you're paying $3 billion a year to
the State of Israel. Compensation to people like Mrs.
Altman.
She'll say, 'Why not, I suffered.' I'll say you didn't. You
survived. By definition you didn't suffer. Not half as much

9. The Haitian Revolution
Why has it been silenced?

10. Background
• The Spanish in Hispaniola learned the
island was not at the source of gold -
Hispaniola was converted into a farming
region to provide food for the Spanish in
other areas of the Caribbean and Central
America
• African slaves were imported as early as
1508 and were soon the primary labor
source
• French began to have an interest in the
island by the early 17th century

11. • The French colony of
Saint Domingue
occupied the western
1/3 of the island of
Hispaniola
• The eastern 2/3, Santo Domingo,
belonged to the Spanish Empire

12. • By 1791 there were approximately
500,000 slaves and about 50,000
free people in San Domingue
– a 10:1 ratio
• 30,000 of those free people were
people of color, both black and
mulatto

13. The Spirit of Revolution

14. The American Revolution

15. The French Revolution
Robespierre

16. The Haitian Revolution

17. Dessaline Toussaint Boukman
The Leaders

18. 1791-1804
• August 1791 – slaves in the north staged a
revolt
• Over the course of the next thirteen years
this uprising spread into a revolution that
ended slavery and the French colonial
government
• January 1804 – The nation of Haiti
declared its independence

19. • The Ruins of Sans-Souci

20. Why is the Haitian Revolution so
obscure compared to the American and
French Revolutions?
• The importance of an event or figure does
not always receive the amount of attention
deserved when written about.
“As sources fill the historical landscape with
their facts, they reduce the room available
for other facts.”(49)

21. SLAVERY
• “Colonization provided the most potent
impetus for the transformation of
European ethnocentrism into scientific
racism.” (77)
• “…the practice of slavery in the Americas
secured the black‟s position at the bottom
of the human world.” (77)

23. The whites of Europe and the
Americas found it inconceivable
that slaves could form and carry
out a revolution, even in the midst
of such an event

24. EQUALITY
• To acknowledge a trend of slave
resistance is to acknowledge slaves as
humanity, and thus accept them as
capable of thinking of themselves as
human beings deserving of better
treatment
• “To acknowledge resistance as a mass
phenomenon is to acknowledge the
possibility that something is wrong with the
system.” (84)

25. • References made by the Bill of Rights and
the Declaration of the Rights of Man that
“men are created equal” pertained to a
small number of white, landowning males
• “In 1791, there was no public debate on
the record, in France, in England, or in the
United States on the right of black slaves
to achieve self-determination, and the right
to do so by way of armed resistance.” (88)
• White can revolt in armed resistance,
blacks cannot

26. Haiti on the Map

27. • “The Haitian Revolution expressed itself
through its deeds, and it is through political
practice that it challenged Western
philosophy and colonialism” (89)
• When news of the uprising reached
France in August of 1791, most refused to
believe that the reports were true

28. • The possibility that slaves could have
conceived of and organized an uprising on
their own was unthinkable and
unacceptable
• Outside influences must have been
responsible for instigating such events
(silencing history?)
• The suspect: royalists, British, mulattos,
Republicans

29. AN UNCHANGING WORLD
• Views of the minority by the majority in
Europe and the Americas did not improve
with time
• Imperialists carved up Africa and Asia
• A successful revolution in Haiti was as
unthinkable in 1903 as it had been in 1803

30. Sometimes
Paradise??

31. SILENCING HISTORY
• History is silenced by countering it with
generalities of an opposing view
• In regards to Haiti > military efficiency of
the slaves, French susceptibility to yellow
fever, and other outside influences
factored heavily into Haitian success
• Was it “luck”?

32. • “The less colonialism and racism seem
important in world history, the less
important also the Haitian Revolution.” (98)
• The lack of historical writings to mention
the Haitian Revolution contributes to the
silencing of history
• Celebrations of the French Revolution and
of slave emancipation by the French failed
to stir interest in the Haitian Revolution

33. • Looking back on the events of
history, overlapping events become
linear, context fades away, what happened
morphs into what is said to have
happened
• “Discovery” of new lands by Europeans
replaces “invasion” of inhabited lands

34. The Explorers

35. THE WORLD‟S COLUMBIAN
EXPOSISTION OF CHICAGO - 1893
• Columbus became a
hero in the USA
• America told the
world Columbus‟s
story
• Some historical
significance
downplayed, others
completely silenced

36. Chicago‟s World Fair

37. DISNEYLAND
• “The value of historical product cannot be
debated without taking into account both the
context of its production and the context of its
consumption.” (146)
• Tourist attractions representing atrocities like
slavery or the Holocaust
• “The crux of the matter is the here and now, the
relationship between the events described and
their public representations in a specific historic
context.” (147)

38. • There is little concern over the public learning
the wrong facts, the concern is focussed on
public reaction rather than what they learn.
• No one wants the “wrong” reaction…

39. SILENCE
“We now know that narratives are
made of silences, not all of which
are deliberate or even perceptible
as such within the time of their
production. We also know that the
present is no clearer than the past.”
(152)

40. Other Works on Revoltions
1. Washington's Crossing by David
Hackett Fischer
2. Citizens: A Chronicle of the French
Revolution by Simon Schama
3. The Russian Revolution by Sheila
Fitzpatrick
4. The Haitian Revolution 1789-1804 by
Thomas O. Ott