Diplomacy in Black and White : John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and their Atlantic world alliance

Resource Information

The work Diplomacy in Black and White : John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and their Atlantic world alliance represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Liverpool. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Diplomacy in Black and White : John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and their Atlantic world alliance

Title remainder

John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and their Atlantic world alliance

Statement of responsibility

Ronald Angelo Johnson

Creator

• Johnson, Ronald Angelo, 1970-
• Johnson, Ronald Angelo, 1970-

Subject

• Atlantic Ocean Region -- Race relations | History -- 19th century
• Blacks -- Race identity -- Atlantic Ocean Region
• Haiti -- Foreign relations -- United States
• Haiti -- History -- Revolution, 1791-1804 -- Influence
• Toussaint Louverture, 1743-1803
• Toussaint Louverture, 1743-1803.
• United States -- Foreign relations -- Haiti
• Adams, John, 1735-1826
• Adams, John, 1735-1826.

Language

eng

Summary

• "From 1798 to 1801, during the Haitian Revolution, President John Adams and Toussaint Louverture forged diplomatic relations that empowered white Americans to embrace freedom and independence for people of color in Saint-Domingue. The United States supported the Dominguan revolutionaries with economic assistance and arms and munitions; the conflict was also the U.S. Navy's first military action on behalf of a foreign ally. This cross-cultural cooperation was of immense and strategic importance as it helped to bring forth a new nation: Haiti. Diplomacy in Black and White is the first book on the Adams-Louverture alliance. Historian and former diplomat Ronald Angelo Johnson details the aspirations of the Americans and Dominguans--two revolutionary peoples--and how they played significant roles in a hostile Atlantic world. Remarkably, leaders of both governments established multiracial relationships amid environments dominated by slavery and racial hierarchy. And though U.S.-Dominguan diplomacy did not end slavery in the United States, it altered Atlantic world discussions of slavery and race well into the twentieth century. Diplomacy in Black and White reflects the capacity of leaders from disparate backgrounds to negotiate political and societal constraints to make lives better for the groups they represent. Adams and Louverture brought their peoples to the threshold of a lasting transracial relationship. And their shared history reveals the impact of decisions made by powerful people at pivotal moments. But in the end, a permanent alliance failed to emerge, and instead, the two republics born of revolution took divergent paths"--Provided by publisher
• "This will be the first monograph-length study of U.S. diplomacy toward Saint-Domingue during the Adams administration. The book offers a detailed examination of the relationship between U.S. President John Adams and Toussaint Louverture, military commander of the French colony Saint-Domingue. Ronald Johnson presents the complex history of the bilateral relations between these two Atlantic leaders representing the first diplomatic relationship the United States had with a government of black leaders. Over the course of seven chapters, Johnson looks beyond the diplomacy itself to find the long lasting effects it had on the evolving meanings of race, the struggles over emancipation, and the formation of an African identity in the Atlantic world. Johnson argues that this brief moment of cross-cultural cooperation, while not changing racial traditions immediately, helped to set the stage for incremental changes in American and Atlantic world discussions of race well into the twentieth-century. Diplomacy in Black and White suggests that President John Adams and his administration abetted the idea of independence for people of color on the island of Hispaniola. This proposal represents an interpretative shift in the historiography. The book illuminates U.S. diplomacy in Saint-Domingue to explain how Americans and Dominguans worked together as relatively equal partners, occupying a similar position within a volatile Atlantic context"--Provided by publisher

Member of

• Race in the Atlantic world, 1700-1900

Biography type

contains biographical information

Cataloging source

DLC

Government publication

publication of autonomous or semi autonomous component of government

Illustrations

• phonodisk
• maps

Index

index present

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography