Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
Trouillot's ambitious project begins with a challenge to professional and amature historians alike: to uncover how power operates in the production of history. "The ultimate mark of power," Trouillot writes, "may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots" (xix). With this goal in mind, Trouillot presents a quick review of different approaches to history: from positivism (in which the historian sees herself--well, who are we kidding, himself--as an objective observer, bringing the truth of the past to his yet unenlightened readers) to constructivism (in which the historian recognizes that what is remembered is not necessarily factual but is rather a social construction perpetuated by those in power at any given moment). Briefly mentioning the many drawbacks of both approaches, Trouillot moves on to suggest another model for the study of history: one at whose center lays the recognition that history is "always produced in a specific historical context" such that "historical actors are also narrators, and vice versa" (22). The historian's responsibility, then, is to acknowledge the inherent presentist bias in any retelling of the past while also giving voice to the variety of (frequently incoherently positioned) voices of the story's primary actors (24).
Another responsibility of the historian is to track how some narratives emerge as dominant while others get silence in the process of historical production (25). This, once again, goes back to the overall goal of Silencing the Past: to track the way power operates in--and through--history. The historian must recognize and uncover the silences that positivist history obscures in order to have a richer understanding of the subject at hand.
Trouillot then provides some roadmaps for uncovering such silences by telling a history of Haiti that had long been obscured by positivist accounts. Histories that survive, Trouillot explains, contain multiple levels of silences: from the privileging of some sources over others (through the assembling of archives and document repositories) to insisting on certain "facts" of historical narratives while undermining the narrative nature of all facts. "Historical narratives," Trouillot writes, "are premised on previous understandings, which are themselves premised on the distribution of archival power" (55). It is in this context that an event like the Haitian Revolution of the turn of the nineteenth century was "unthinkable even as it happened" (73). Trouillot explains that those who heard the story of the slave uprisings in Haiti "could read the news only with their ready-made categories, and these categories were incompatible with the idea of a slave revolution" (73). How could a group of enslaved African men and women succeed at breaking the chains of their white oppressors? And how was this inconceivable history to be written for the white audience of the white "western" world which believed in its inherent superiority and strength?
The result, Trouillot argues, has been a relative silence on the subject of the Haitian Revolution in Western historiography (98). What is emphasized in the national histories of France, for example, are not its failures and injustices as a colonialist nation-state, but its own revolutionary democratic victories that took place around the same time as the events in Haiti. The perpetuation of France's silence on the subject of colonialism and its legacies continued well into the 20th century, Trouillot writes, with the Bicentennial of the French revolution in 1989-1991 neglecting to shed adequate light on the colonial histories of the nation.
A similar silence persists in the retelling of American history: in 1492, Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Bahamas. The story of America so often begins this way that few doubt its accuracy or linguistic precision. This is the stuff of which myths are made. The real story is much messier than a benign "discovery" of a new continent. It has been told elsewhere, so suffice it to say that the true story of Columbus's encounter with the Americas is one of violence, destruction, and genocide. Still, the story persists in our collective cultural memory as one that is ultimately about the triumph of the human spirit of discovery, a testament to the ingenuity and power of European Enlightenment.
So what is a historian to do? Trouillot's book provides no easy answers. "We now know that narratives are made of silences," Trouillot writes, "not all of which are deliberate or even perceptible as such within the time of their production. We also know that the present is itself no clearer than the past" (152-153). The only way to counter the tremendous power of neatly packaged histories of the past is to attempt to uncover the silences which sustain them.
Another responsibility of the historian is to track how some narratives emerge as dominant while others get silence in the process of historical production (25). This, once again, goes back to the overall goal of Silencing the Past: to track the way power operates in--and through--history. The historian must recognize and uncover the silences that positivist history obscures in order to have a richer understanding of the subject at hand.
Trouillot then provides some roadmaps for uncovering such silences by telling a history of Haiti that had long been obscured by positivist accounts. Histories that survive, Trouillot explains, contain multiple levels of silences: from the privileging of some sources over others (through the assembling of archives and document repositories) to insisting on certain "facts" of historical narratives while undermining the narrative nature of all facts. "Historical narratives," Trouillot writes, "are premised on previous understandings, which are themselves premised on the distribution of archival power" (55). It is in this context that an event like the Haitian Revolution of the turn of the nineteenth century was "unthinkable even as it happened" (73). Trouillot explains that those who heard the story of the slave uprisings in Haiti "could read the news only with their ready-made categories, and these categories were incompatible with the idea of a slave revolution" (73). How could a group of enslaved African men and women succeed at breaking the chains of their white oppressors? And how was this inconceivable history to be written for the white audience of the white "western" world which believed in its inherent superiority and strength?
The result, Trouillot argues, has been a relative silence on the subject of the Haitian Revolution in Western historiography (98). What is emphasized in the national histories of France, for example, are not its failures and injustices as a colonialist nation-state, but its own revolutionary democratic victories that took place around the same time as the events in Haiti. The perpetuation of France's silence on the subject of colonialism and its legacies continued well into the 20th century, Trouillot writes, with the Bicentennial of the French revolution in 1989-1991 neglecting to shed adequate light on the colonial histories of the nation.
A similar silence persists in the retelling of American history: in 1492, Christopher Columbus "discovered" the Bahamas. The story of America so often begins this way that few doubt its accuracy or linguistic precision. This is the stuff of which myths are made. The real story is much messier than a benign "discovery" of a new continent. It has been told elsewhere, so suffice it to say that the true story of Columbus's encounter with the Americas is one of violence, destruction, and genocide. Still, the story persists in our collective cultural memory as one that is ultimately about the triumph of the human spirit of discovery, a testament to the ingenuity and power of European Enlightenment.
So what is a historian to do? Trouillot's book provides no easy answers. "We now know that narratives are made of silences," Trouillot writes, "not all of which are deliberate or even perceptible as such within the time of their production. We also know that the present is itself no clearer than the past" (152-153). The only way to counter the tremendous power of neatly packaged histories of the past is to attempt to uncover the silences which sustain them.