By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (December 4^th 2020)

Celebrating Racism

St Louis was not the original host for the 1904 Olympic Games – Chicago was – but St Louis’ ‘great and good’ were not prepared to allow such an inconvenience thwart their plans. They bullied the International Olympic Committee (IOC) into giving them the right to host the third Olympiad of the Modern era.

The founder of the Modern Olympic Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, stayed away and strongly criticised the racism of St Louis’ organisers. St Louis’ organisers wanted to celebrate the centenary of the Louisiana Purchase – actually a year late – but was there anything to celebrate?

The First of the Whites

Napoléon Bonaparte had a plan. He knew the importance of Saint-Domingue (later Haiti). It had been the jewel in France’s colonial crown, contributing two thirds of France’s colonial income on its own in 1787. Inspired by France’s Revolution, Haiti’s slaves and Gens de Couleur (Gentlemen of Colour) rebelled themselves.

Vincent Ogé’s rebellion, supported by renowned anti-slavery campaigner, Thomas Clarkson, failed – his aims isolated his cause. Ogé demanded rights for mixed-race people while not opposing slavery. Ogé was handed over by colonial authorities in Santo Domingo – the Spanish governed part of the island of Hispaniola. Ogé was brutally executed in 1790. The following year the Haitian Revolution began.

Eventually, it pitted Toussaint Breda (better known as Louverture) against Bonaparte. Toussaint wanted to govern Saint-Domingue for France – his precise intentions are unclear but Bonaparte, who viewed Toussaint as a ‘gilded African,’ had no intention of allowing Toussaint to govern.

Bonaparte, whose rise to power began with his connection to the radical Jacobins, particularly the Robespierre brothers, was fortunate to escape the guillotine when ‘The Terror’ ended. The ‘radical Corsican-born Jacobin’ soon changed his allegiance. Coups followed until Bonaparte seized power himself in 1799.

By then Bonaparte had shed his radical beliefs, if he ever truly held them. Now, he had dictatorial ambitions. Bonaparte was now a slavery-supporting white supremacist.

Convenient Treaties

He had a plan to recover Saint-Domingue for France but it involved the restoration of slavery. Apparently, he had learned nothing from Britain’s disastrous campaign of 1794-98 to seize Saint-Domingue and add it to Britain’s colonial possessions.

It had brought William Pitt the Younger to the brink of disaster. Britain had never been so vulnerable.

But for Bonaparte’s foolishness history may well have told a different story. The Treaty of Amiens ended hostilities between Britain and France. Britain used the peace to rebuild for the inevitable resumption of hostilities. Napoléon had other plans. He wasted his advantage, bullied Spain into retroceding the Louisiana Territories to France in the Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800.

But why? The answer came in 1802 when France invaded Saint-Domingue with the Gens de Couleur, tricked into being part of the invasion force.

Bonaparte’s fellow white supremacist, Thomas Jefferson coveted New Orleans at least. It was already a centre of commerce, or on its way to achieving that status. Jefferson knew of France’s plans, as did Britain.

Bonaparte intended to turn history’s clock back and restore slavery. The Louisiana Territories were part of that plan. The French invasion was about Haiti not the Louisiana Territories.

Jefferson’s offer of $10m for New Orleans, a fortune in today’s money, was turned down, but in April 1803 the fortunes of war were turning.

Napoléon’s plan was unravelling. Facing an unmitigated disaster, Bonaparte sold a large swathe of land that expanded the 13 states on the east of what is now the United States of America to the borders of Texas and other northern American Spanish possessions.

After rejecting $10m for New Orleans alone Bonaparte sold the entire Louisiana Territories, which consisted of several states of what is now the USA for just $5m more. This facilitated the rapid progress of the USA to superpower status.

Meanwhile, the funds raised allowed Napoléon to continue his plan to restore slavery in the French Caribbean – a plan which ultimately failed.

Unmitigated Disaster

The Louisiana Purchase itself was nothing to celebrate, especially for the Native Americans or First Inhabitants whose land was stolen in the first place. It enabled a racist state to expand further. It preserved slavery over a larger area. It led to slavery-preserving judgements in the US Supreme Court, including the infamous 1857 Dred Scott v John Sandford decision.

Scott was a slave, taken from the slave-owning state of Missouri – St Louis and its infamous Louisiana Purchase Exposition was based there – to Illinois, a free state Scott claimed that journey freed him. The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger Taney disagreed. It was one of many slavery supporting decisions aimed at preserving the Union at seemingly any price. It failed.

The Louisiana Purchase Exposition was an exhibition of unbridled racism even in terms of the times. Long after slavery had been abolished a human being was bought and exhibited literally. Born a Mbuti pygmy in the Congo in the early 1880s, Mbye Otabenga had an awful life – one he chose to end by his own his own hand.

Ota Benga, as he came to be known, was bought by a so-called American missionary and businessman, Samuel Phillips Verner, from African slave traders, to exhibit in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Even in terms of the times this was indefensible and highlights the racism of St Louis’ games.

Verner was one of the ‘businessmen’ involved in both the shameful Louisiana Purchase Exposition and the first Racist Olympiad.