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Western Civilization · Chapter 11

Napoleon's Double Ledger — and Haiti's Verdict

Napoleon is impossible to sort into hero or tyrant, because he was consistently both. Put twelve of his acts into the column you think they belong in and see whether you can make one column win. Then use the dial on the right to take a position on the harder question the section raises: when Saint-Domingue read the Declaration of the Rights of Man literally, was it claiming a universal right or exposing a local fiction?

Twelve acts. Two columns. Which is which?

“Kept the Revolution” means it carried forward a principle of 1789. “Killed it” means it reversed one. Every card explains itself after you choose — including the ones where a good historian could argue the other way.

Your ledger

Kept the Revolution
0
    Killed the Revolution
    0
      Sort a card to begin. Watch both columns fill — that is the finding, not a failure.

      Haiti: the universalism dial

      Historians have argued this both ways for two centuries. Slide to the position you want to defend and the panel will hand you your best evidence — and the fact you will have to explain away.

      Universal in fact: the enslaved made the Declaration trueEuropean self-description: Paris punished those who believed it
      Your strongest evidence
      The fact you must explain
      ~40%
      of the world's sugar came from Saint-Domingue in the 1780s
      ~500,000
      enslaved people, under some 30,000 whites
      $15m
      price of Louisiana, sold to the USA in 1803 after the expedition failed
      150m francs
      indemnity France extracted from Haiti in 1825, serviced into the 20th century