This chapter examines the effects large buildings had on people building and living with them. In describing the formation of such a landscape of affective buildings the material evidence is to speak for itself, that is, written accounts of impressions these buildings may have had on an observer are only briefly mentioned. By doing this, the material approach to history is taken to its necessary end to sometimes let things speak only through themselves and not by their representation. Showing the success and the limits of this active production of spaces for an emotional community of settlers and slaves on the island, I conclude with an outlook on the Haitian Revolution that did not destroy the landmarks created under colonial rule, but appropriated buildings, monuments, and also, perhaps most importantly, the ambition from the French to create a coherent national identity by continuing the effort to pursue large building projects. Thus the early modern practice of empire building continued in the form of nation building in this first republic of freed slaves in the nineteenth century.
This study explores the shared history of the French empire from a perspective of material culture in order to re-evaluate the participation of colonial, Creole, and indigenous agency in the construction of imperial spaces. The decentred approach to a global history of the French colonial realm allows a new understanding of power relations in different locales. Traditional binary models that assume the centralization of imperial power and control in an imperial centre often overlook the variegated nature of agency in the empire. In a selection of case studies in the Caribbean, Canada, Africa, and India, several building projects show the mixed group of planners, experts, and workers, the composite nature of building materials, and elements of different ‘glocal’ styles that give the empire its concrete manifestation. Thus the study proposes to view the French overseas empire in the early modern period not as a consequence or an outgrowth of Eurocentric state building, but rather as the result of a globally interconnected process of empire building.