1804–1946: (The Revolution as Rhetorical Weapon — Sanders Johnson Asking Why the Assemblyman Invokes “the Revolution” in the 1946 Suffrage Debate and Whether…

1804–1946: (The Revolution as Rhetorical Weapon — Sanders Johnson Asking Why the Assemblyman Invokes “the Revolution” in the 1946 Suffrage Debate and Whether He Refers to the 1946 Student Revolution or to the Emancipation and Independence Revolution a Century and a Half Before, What It Means If He Refers to Both, How Gloved and Tea-Sipping Women in the Twentieth Century Are a Threat to the Revolution of the Early Nineteenth or Mid-Twentieth Century, Women in Both Centuries Uniquely Woven into the Radical Discourse of Revolution as Compatriots and Enemies Yet Partitioned Away from the Articulation of Radical Practice, These Women’s Sartorial Presence Archival Practice and Intellectual Work Unhinging Haitian Politics from the Exceptional Tropes of Revolutionary Nationalism and Threatening the Conceptual Foundations and Afterlives of “the Revolution” as a Tool to Uphold State Power): Sanders Johnson asks: Why does the assemblyman invoke “the revolution” in the 1946 suffrage debate? Is he referring to the student revolution that occurred months prior, or to the emancipation and independence revolution a century and a half before? What does it mean if he is referring to both? And how are gloved and tea-sipping women in the twentieth century a threat to the revolution of the early nineteenth or mid-twentieth century? In both centuries, women were uniquely woven into the radical discourse of revolution — as compatriots and enemies — and partitioned away from the articulation of radical practice. The palimpsestic quality and historical ambiguity of the assemblyman’s comments offer an alternative configuration for considering Haitian politics: what could happen if we observed women du peuple and women who were what Sanders Johnson calls “state-adjacent or aspirational” within the same frame over time? She offers that these women’s sartorial presence, archival practice, and intellectual work unhinged Haitian politics from the exceptional tropes and social factions of revolutionary nationalism and as a result threatened the conceptual foundations and afterlives of “the revolution” as a rhetorical and institutionalized tool used to uphold interpersonal, political, and state power in the postoccupation period. The book engages the turn in Caribbean scholarship to trouble Haitian exceptionalism, Caribbean sovereignty, and radical politics that focus on liberal formulations of “the human” and “rights,” offering historical evidence that early in the twentieth century women activists were already suggesting that an exceptional articulation of Haiti was worrisome.