Happy New Year!
Over our winter break, I have gotten the chance to reflect on the project we had worked on for several months. To prepare for the chaotic Winter Exhibition, we learned about revolutions and Crane Brintons stages of the revolution, and we read an old book called Animal Farm.
This is my group, and this journey through learning, and the Exhibition we took together was an amazing experience.
Driving Question
What Factors Precipitate ‘Revolution’ and How Have They Shaped the Modern World?
A revolution is ‘a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favour of a new system.’
Many factors can impact the beginning of a revolution including government injustice, economic crisis, growing intellectual opposition, and weak rulers. When these instances are ignored, or put lower in the list of priorities, other governments, and/or the people of the kingdom will break down and not function as before.
These factors shape today’s world because each one of them is still happening somewhere today. Government injustice is a name for inequality, where in some countries people don’t have the opportunity, the choice to vote. We are very lucky in Canada to have such amazing lives and not have to worry about starving, or being unsafe.
In the Haitian revolution, the people of Saint Domingue were ignored and enslaved, which meant day after day of endless work in extremely harsh conditions. When the enslaved peoples took a stand, it didn’t bring peace to their world right then and there. They had to fight tough battles, with lots of sacrifices. Although Haiti is still an extremely poor country today, back during the revolution, the brave and inspiring people set an example to fight for your rights and equality today.
Animal Farm
The book we read to kick off this project was called Animal Farm. It was an old
book, with differentiated opinions, but the ideas and plot of the book hit hard. This book was hard to follow, but when I spent time really trying my best to understand
it, it made me understand the basics of a revolution. When we finished the book, we were assigned the infographic to make. An infographic is a visual chart used to represent information and data. In our case, the stages of revolution displayed in Animal Farm.
The Haitian Revolution
Heading toward the date of the Winter Exhibition, we had to know what we were doing for it! We discovered that we were to make metaphor machines (Rube Goldberg machines) to represent our specific revolution. My group members were:
Before we started creating our machines, we learned about our revolution individually so we all knew what we were doing when we got together. I worked very hard to understand the Haitian revolution, and I am very proud of my infographic outcome.
First, to understand a revolution and the stages of it, we focused on Crane Brinton and his stages of a revolution. The 4 stages are the Moderate, Incubation, Crisis, and Recovery. We used the information and notes we made on Cranes theories to create an infographic. Little did we know, more infographics were coming our way! I had trouble understanding Cranes theories at first and translating my knowledge into an infographic, but the help of my teachers and peers made a difference. When I understood what was going on, I could participate in the class conversations, which benefited my learning because I could then apply those topics into my infographics.
This is my individual infographic:
Individual Infographic
After we had completed our individual revolution infographic, and we all understood our revolution, we then created a group infographic with all of our information combined into one very detailed infographic.
This is my group infographic:
The Haitian Revolution:
Government Injustice: The people of Haiti, or back then called Saint-Domingue had four groups of people. 1. The big white planters who owned the plantations and all the slaves. 2. The wealthy free people of colour. 3. The poor whites who worked as artisans and labourers. 4. The slaves who made up the majority of the population. Slavery was a big factor because their owners had full control of their lives. Economic Crisis: The slaves weren’t getting paid, despite the extremely long days they worked harvesting sugar. The slaves worked so hard, people would frequently die because of the harsh conditions. The people at the top of the chain had freedom, money, and a risk free life. Military Victory: In August 1791 a massive slave lead war broke out. Among the leaders was Toussaint L’ouvertur, a former African slave. The Spanish, led by Charles IV, had supported the slave revolt and joined up with the slaves against the French. In October, 1793, the British decided to invade Saint-Domingue, and now the French was outnumbered so they decided to free the slaves. To turn the tides of the war, L’ouverture switched to the French side. Luckily for the people of Saint-Domingue, L’ouverture was an able politician and he turned the colony toward independance.
Rule Of The Moderates: As the slaves learned about the current situation with the government they became upset and began to thrash out. The French gave the crops and materials to the slaves, and forced them to work endless days to prepare and harvest the crops, and then the sugar and coffee go back to France. The French make so much profit here, and the slaves get nothing out of it which is why they decide to act out and fight against the French. The slaves were lead into battle by Toussaint L’ouverture along with few others. L’ouverture became an officer in the Spanish military. A while later, L’ouverture decided to switch over to the French side. L’ouverture, with the help of Jacques Dessalines was able to win the civil war after 13 months of hard fighting. L’ouverture was arrested and shipped to France where he died in his prison in 1803.
Civil Or Foreign War: France tried taking all the weapons away from the slaves, but they fought back and won against the French despite the French military having more training and better weapons. The French were exceptionally cruel and executed women and men, and trained man eating dogs from Cuba to kill some fighters. Radical Gain Control: In 1799 Napoleon ceased power in France and had big plans to reconstruct France’s empire. To carry out his plans, Napoleon needed money. He decided to reintroduce slavery into Saint-Domingue to make the money he needed. The Haitians fought back and won which shattered Napoleons dreams of creating his very own empire. Radical Revolution: When the Spanish, British and slaves were all working together, the French were thinking ‘we are not winning this battle,’ so they decided to free the slaves and all would be well. Previously, the slaves had been treated as the French property so it must have been quite a change for the slaves.
Radicals Ejected From Power: On January 1st, 1804, Dessaline, who had defeated the French declared the island of Saint-Domingue independent and reintroducing the name Haiti. The original name of the island had been Haiti before Columbus arrived and changed it. The declaration of independence was a rejection of France to a certain decree, European Racism and Colonialism. Haiti was the second free and independent state in the Americas. War Or Peace: Although Haiti recovered in that time period, nowadays Haiti is still in debt to France. The Haitian independence debt means that Haiti owes France money from what they helped them with in the revolution. Since they are an independent piece of land, they need to pay off the land fees to France as well.
Conclusion
I really valued this opportunity to work with the amazing group I had, and the chance to learn something really valuable about the Haitian revolution. Of course, our group had its ups and downs, but we pushed through and ended up with our metaphor machine working about 80% of the time, which is a huge success for us.
Thanks for reading!!