The Roots of Early Black Nationalism: Northern African Americans' Invocations of Haiti in the Early Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This article argues that Haiti played a far greater role in the cultural and political activities of northern free blacks than historians previously credited. The evolving political, economic and social makeup of Haiti during its first three decades of independence spurred African-American interest in the island-nation. Relying on American newspaper reports, sailors' accounts, messages from the state of Haiti, and where possible, African-American voices, this work demonstrates the emigration of the 1820s was not the first wave of African-American interest in the black republic but the culmination of decades of interaction and exposure to the Haitian black nationalist project.