Atlantic ripples in the Mediterranean: Early nineteenth-century patriotic readings of Haiti in the Italian peninsula

Abstract

ABSTRACT By examining how news from Haiti was picked up by Italian periodicals, reference and educational works in the early nineteenth century, I suggest that the Italian peninsula provides a new perspective for gauging the impact of Haitian self-presentation based on the appropriation and subversion of Eurocentric notions of civilization. An intellectual triangulation involving Simondi, Vastey, and Mazères highlights a hitherto uncharted Italian reception of Haitian post-revolutionary discourses. Without a colonial empire, Italian writers addressed the slave trade, colonialism, and Haitian independence as instrumental to their patriotic ambitions. Haitian contestations of the imperialistic order set at the Congress of Vienna suited the Italian vision of a global struggle for national independence. Haitian claims that civilization originated in Africa provided an argument against the narrative of progress spearheaded by Northern Europe; a notion that Italian patriots disputed owing to their pursuit of a leading role for their prospective nation in the Mediterranean.