1805: (Women Tucked into Citizenship — The 1805 Haitian Constitution Explicitly Addressing or Referentially Hailing Women Only Three Times: Article 10 on Fat…

1805: (Women Tucked into Citizenship — The 1805 Haitian Constitution Explicitly Addressing or Referentially Hailing Women Only Three Times: Article 10 on Fathers and Mothers Not Disinheriting Children, Article 13 Exempting White Women Naturalized as Haytians from the Prohibition on White Property Ownership, and Article 22 Granting an Allowance to Empress Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité — Within These Articles Women Constitutionally Crafted as Mothers Wives and White, Article 9 Declaring That No Person Is Worth Being a Haitian Who Is Not a Good Father Son Husband and Especially a Good Soldier — as Not Father Son Husband or Enlisted Soldier Women’s Claims to Citizenship Had No Place): In the profundity of 1804, the founders tucked women into the condition of citizenship. Women were explicitly addressed or referentially hailed in the 1805 constitution only three times. Article 10 stated that fathers and mothers are not permitted to disinherit their children. Article 13, by way of Article 12’s prohibition on white men owning property, exempted white women who had been naturalized as Haytians. Article 22 granted a fixed annual allowance to Empress Marie-Claire Heureuse Félicité. Within these articles, women were constitutionally crafted as mothers, wives, and white. In less explicit ways, women were further removed from citizenship through Article 9’s declaration that no person is worth being a Haitian who is not a good father, a good son, a good husband, and especially a good soldier. As not father, son, husband, or enlisted soldier, women’s claims to Haitian citizenship had no place. African-descended women’s value was as reproducers of children for whom the chief magistrate was the father, and whose exception of color was ceased with the proclamation that Haytians shall henceforth be known only by the generic appellation of Blacks. The bold stroke of Blackness onto the citizenry espoused racial unity and political strength — but it also redacted non-white Haitian women. As an international document of revolutionary standing, the Haitian Constitution still echoed the colonialism of the Atlantic world, articulating a militarism and ownership over women’s bodies that continued colonial logics throughout modern Haitian history.