10. Ritchie, the Aftermath of Boyer’s Consolidation of Power, and the Myth of Obsessive Southern Opposition to the Haitian Revolution

The Richmond Enquirer adopted a non-judgmental, even friendly attitude toward Boyer’s regime in Haiti, praising its fiscal efficiency, efforts to modernize the country, and secular concept of administration. The Baltimore news magazine Niles’ Weekly Register agreed with the Enquirer that Haiti was a worthy experiment in black self-government that required additional territory. Southern slaveholders gradually lost their fear of Haiti. The Enquirer supported Boyer’s regime in Haiti, because it helped preserve peace in the region. Ritchie may even have erroneously assumed that Pétion and Boyer conducted democratic elections to gain power. The Enquirer did not even castigate Boyer’s nonviolent invasion and annexation of Santo Domingo, which more than doubled Haiti’s size. Had Southerners been fearful of Haiti as a Black abolitionist powerhouse, they would have risen up in arms in response to the event. Instead, they were essentially silent. It was not until the eve of the Civil War that Southern newspapers warned against slave revolts emulating Haiti’s example. Boyer’s act in replacing monarchical Spain with indigenous rule was a prototype of sorts for the US Monroe Doctrine a few years later, which warned against renewed European colonization of Spanish America or attempts to regain independent former colonies.