DOCSLIB.ORG

Property, Personhood and the Archive in Nineteenth

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Property, Personhood and the Archive in Nineteenth UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles “Free of Everything Save Independence”: Property, Personhood and the Archive in Nineteenth- Century Haiti A dissertation in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Winter Rae Schneider 2018 © Copyright by Winter Rae Schneider 2018 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION “Free of Everything Save Independence”: Property, Personhood and the Archive in Nineteenth- Century Haiti by Winter Rae Schneider Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2018 Professor Lauren Derby, Chair Scholarship on slavery and emancipation in the Caribbean has wrestled with how to characterize freedom after slavery as it was experienced by freed populations. “Freedom” itself as a metric for understanding life after slavery has been effectively problematized as it represented the continuation of forms of control and violence—albeit in different terms—that racialized and marginalized freed populations even though they were free. More recent scholarship within this field has turned to material culture as a way to historicize freed people’s lives and agendas as the terms through which they understood and approached liberation from bondage. Haitian history after the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) represents a significant absence in this field, although it represents the first regional instance of neo-imperialism and racialization under national authority after slavery in the region. Premised on a perceived absence of archival documentation that can speak to Haiti’s internal struggles, the first half of the nineteenth century in the country has been understood through romanticized narratives of an idyllic, cooperative, rural society on ii the one hand, and a repressive militarized state on the other. With this dissertation, I ask the question of how to read freedom after slavery in Haiti through an examination of Haiti’s foundational period of state-building under President Jean-Pierre Boyer (1818-1843). This dissertation engages Haitian “independence” in the years surrounding the recognition of Haitian state sovereignty by France in 1825 as it was reflected through Haiti’s 1825 debt to France, in Haitian law surrounding property and personhood, and as it was reflected in rural projects of self-determination and belonging through land ownership. The research for this dissertation is drawn from Haitian nineteenth-century notarial documentation from the city of Gonaïves and the Artibonite Valley, Haitian civil registry records housed in the National Archives in Port-au- Prince, and the records of French colonists who owned property in Gonaïves and the Artibonite Valley held in France’s overseas and national and departmental archives. Additionally, this dissertation draws from oral history interviews and historical ethnography research in Gonaïves, conducted between 2013 and 2016. This dissertation engages the question of historicizing Haitian freedom theoretically through a focus on law and bureaucracy within neo-imperial and postcolonial contexts, and it traces its theoretical foundation to the fields of Black Geographies and landscape archaeology. Such a theoretical orientation allows this dissertation to critically engage the legal and bureaucratic structures of Haitian independence within historical landscapes shaped through both projects of national control and through the experiences of rural non-elite populations. Throughout, this dissertation engages the structures of Haitian independence as they also represent a fraught yet authoritative archive of the first decades of Haitian freedom after the revolution. This dissertation argues that the recognition of Haitian sovereignty by France was conditional on the recognition by Haiti, in turn, of racial privilege, construed as property rights, of Saint Domingue's former colonists. It also argues that Haitian state law and bureaucracy iii around property was itself a site of claims-making in rural areas. By structuring Haitian independence through a property discourse that stressed Haitian identity as the irrevocable right to own land, President Boyer instituted an ideology of inalienability and self-possession through property ownership that was taken up and used to dramatically different ends by both the state and by rural Haitian populations. iv The dissertation of Winter Rae Schneider is approved. Andrew Apter Judith A. Carney Robin Davis Gibran Kelley Carla G. Pestana Lauren Derby, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2018 v DEDICATION To my son Idris Wendell Oxius Figaro, for our past and future. In loving memory of Oxilace Figaro, Diana Estil, Pascal Bien-Aimé, Germain Sené, Joseph Pierre, Fortuné Dorival, Omême Dorival and Registre Jean-Louis. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION ....................................................................................... ii DEDICATION ............................................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... ix VITA ............................................................................................................................................ xiv INTRODUCTION—ON PROPERTY AND HAITIAN FREEDOM ............................................ 1 On Freedom after Slavery in the Caribbean and Atlantic World........................................ 6 Scope of the Project: Prisms of Haitian History ................................................................. 8 On the Archives of Haitian Independence ........................................................................ 13 On Land Stories and Dispossession .................................................................................. 16 Summary of Chapters ....................................................................................................... 18 CHAPTER ONE—CONDITIONS OF EXISTENCE: DEBT AND RECOGNITION BETWEEN HAITI AND FRANCE IN 1825 ................................................................................................... 21 A Prehistory of Debt and Recognition between Haiti and France .................................... 22 Pétion, Indemnity, and Independence ............................................................................... 27 Indemnity As Sine Qua Non, the “Condition Of Existence”: Later Haitian and French Negotiations Over Sovereignty and Debt ......................................................................... 29 Liquidation of Indemnity Claims to Properties in the Artibonite Valley to “those who have rights” ....................................................................................................................... 38 Establishing the Rights of Claimants through Documentation ......................................... 42 Establishing Value: Land and Slaves, Capital Value and Use Value ............................... 44 Legacies of Recognition: Disloyalty through Non-payment ............................................ 50 CHAPTER TWO—“MY MOST SACRED RIGHTS”: SUBJECTING LAND AND PERSONHOOD TO PROPERTY IN BOYER’S REPUBLIC .................................................... 56 Questions of Continuity and Change in The Form of Law and Property ......................... 59 The Haitian Civil and Rural Codes: Citizenship, Rights, Property and Labor ................. 67 “Sur La Police Rurale”: Agricultural Order, Rural Surveillance and Recordkeeping ...... 75 Durable Law and Inalienable Rights to Property .............................................................. 81 CHAPTER THREE—“UNE HABITATION DE CINQ CARREAUX”: STATE LAW AND FAMILY LAND IN GONAÏVES' NOTARIAL ARCHIVES ..................................................... 90 Jérôme Dubois, a Notary in Gonaïves .............................................................................. 98 Legal Ritual in Rural Spaces........................................................................................... 106 Land Surveys .................................................................................................................. 110 Land Sale Receipts .......................................................................................................... 112 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 117 CHAPTER FOUR—“THE COUNTRY HAS CHANGED, NOT US”: WOMEN’S TESTIMONY IN THE ETAT CIVIL OF THE ARTIBONITE, 1816 AND 1825 .................... 120 Visibility and Strategic Personhood: The Etat Civil in the Plaine des Gonaïves ........... 124 Another Country: 1816 Death Records in Petite Rivière de l’Artibonite ....................... 134 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 141 vii CHAPTER FIVE—“AU SUCRE DANACHE”: MEMORY AND DISPOSSESSION IN LAKOU SOUKRI ....................................................................................................................... 142 “Bitasyon m,” “my plantation”: Locating Legal and Lived Legacies of Habitation Danache........................................................................................................................... 148 Nineteenth-century Legacies of Lakou Soukri ............................................................... 158 Self-Possession and Belonging as Critique of Racial Property .....................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 Erin Zavitz and Laurent Dubois, the NEH Collaborative Grant, 2014 1
    1 Thomas Madiou, Histoire d’Haïti (Port-au-Prince: Imp de J. Courtois, 1847) Tome 1 Edited and translated by Laurent Dubois and Erin Zavitz Even before insurgent leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared Haiti’s independence on January 1, 1804 a plethora of texts were circulating in the Americas and Europe on the revolution in the French colony of Saint Domingue. Over the next decades, Haitian authors took up the challenge of responding to these foreign publications writing their own history of the nation’s founding. One of the seminal works of Haiti’s emerging historiographic tradition is the eight volume Histoire d’Haïti by Thomas Madiou. Published in Port-au-Prince in two installments in 1847 and 1848, the volumes were the first definitive history of Haiti from 1492 to 1846. The translations are from the original publication which I selected because it is now freely available on Google books. Henri Deschamps, a Haitian publishing house, released a more recent reprint between 1988 and 1991 but only limited copies are still available for purchase or held by U.S. libraries. For individuals familiar with the Deschamps edition, the pagination of the 1847/48 Google edition is slightly different. Born in Haiti in 1814 to a mixed race family, Madiou attended school in France from the age of 10. Upon returning to Haiti as an adult, he began publishing articles in Port-au-Prince newspapers only to realize the need for a complete history. Madiou set about reading available print sources and, more importantly, interviewing aging soldiers who fought in the revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects in Nineteenth-Century Haiti by Amy Reinsel B.A. Indiana University, Bloo
    Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects in Nineteenth-century Haiti by Amy Reinsel B.A. Indiana University, Bloomington, 1993 M. A. University of Pittsburgh, 2000 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2008 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by Amy Reinsel It was defended on July 30, 2008 and approved by Dr. Seymour Derscher, Professor, Department of History Dr. Roberta Hatcher, Assistant Professor, Department of French and Italian Dr. Philip Watts, Associate Professor, Department of French and Italian Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Giuseppina Mecchia, Associate Professor, Department of French and Italian ii POETRY OF REVOLUTION: ROMANTICISM AND NATIONAL PROJECTS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY HAITI Amy Reinsel, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2008 This dissertation examines the largely dismissed nineteenth-century tradition of Romantic poetry in Haiti from the 1830s to the 1890s. I synthesize the conclusions of various studies prompted by the 2004 Haitian bicentennial in order to challenge the claims that nineteenth- century Haitian poems are banal parodies of French texts and simple preludes to twentieth- Copyright © by Amy Reinsel 2008 century Haiti literature. I argue that imitation becomes an impossible label with which to understand the complexities of Haitian poetry and national sentiment. Considering Haiti’s ambiguous relationship to modernity and the clairvoyance with which Haitian poets expressed national concerns, Haitian poetry constitutes a deliberate practice in the construction, legitimization and expression of national identity. In each of the three chapters I rely on historical context in order to situate the poetry and examine it through textual analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Rafael Rojas Jean Meyer David Miklos Luis Barrón Adolfo Castañón
    DIRECTOR DE LA DIVISIÓN Comité Editorial Charles Hale + DE HISTORIA Yuri Afanasiev Universidad de Iowa Rafael Rojas Universidad de Humanidades, Matsuo Kazuyuki DIRECTOR FUNDADOR Moscú Universidad de Sofía, Tokio Jean Meyer Carlos Altamirano Alan Knight Editor de la revista Prisma Universidad de Oxford JEFE DE REDACCIÓN (Argentina) Seymour Lipset + David Miklos Pierre Chaunu + Universidad George Mason CONSEJO DE REDACCIÓN Institut de France Olivier Mongin Luis Barrón Jorge Domínguez Editor de Esprit, París Adolfo Castañón Universidad de Harvard Daniel Roche Clara García Ayluardo Enrique Florescano Collège de France Luis Medina CONACULTA Stuart Schwartz Antonio Saborit Josep Fontana Universidad de Yale Mauricio Tenorio Universidad de Barcelona Rafael Segovia Manuel Moreno El Colegio de México DISEÑO Y FORMACIÓN Fraginals + David Thelen Natalia Rojas Nieto Universidad de La Habana Universidad de Indiana CORRECCIÓN Luis González + John Womack Jr. César Albarrán Torres El Colegio de Michoacán Universidad de Harvard .ISTOR es una publica ción trimestral de la División de Historia del Cen tro de In ves tiga ción y Do cenc ia Econó mi cas (CIDE). .El objetivo de ISTOR es ofrecer un acercamiento original a los aconteci mien­­tos y a los gran­­­ des de bates de la historia y la actua lidad internacio nal. .Las opiniones expresadas en esta re vista son responsabilidad de sus au to res. La reproduc­ ción de los tra bajos necesita previa autoriza ción. .Los manuscritos deben en viar se a la Di visión de Historia del CIDE. Su presen tación debe seguir los atri butos que pueden observarse en este número. .Todos los artículos son dictaminados. .Dirija su correspondencia electrónica a: [email protected] .Puede consultar ISTOR en internet: www.istor.cide.edu .Editor responsable: Jean Meyer.
    [Show full text]
  • HAITI and the PROMISE of REVOLUTION a Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
    “A TRAGEDY OF SUCCESS!”: HAITI AND THE PROMISE OF REVOLUTION A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Natalie Marie Léger January 2012 © 2012 Natalie Marie Léger “A TRAGEDY OF SUCCESS!”: HAITI AND THE PROMISE OF REVOLUTION Natalie Marie Léger, Ph. D Cornell University 2012 Dissertation Abstract “A Tragedy of Success!” is a close engagement with the ongoing artistic turn to Haiti and its revolution within the Caribbean literary imaginary. It argues that twentieth and twenty-first writers of the region are drawn to the nation and its Upheaval precisely because the striking incongruity of Haiti’s revolutionary past and postcolonial present vividly discloses how the modern Caribbean experience is profoundly shaped by the ceaseless play of radical change (conquest, colonialism and anti-colonial revolution) and debilitating communal crisis. This project joins the rich conversation on Haiti, modernity and the Revolution begun by C.LR. James, and continued by Nick Nesbitt and Sibylle Fischer, to address this discussion’s slight attention to the abundant literary production inspired by the Revolution. This dissertation therefore focuses on the ideological work of the Revolution’s repeated narration in the Caribbean, specifically, the manner in which it arouses anti-colonial aspirations. It argues that the Caribbean experience of modernity has introduced a tragic mode into literary representations of the Upheaval, causing regional writers to depict the immediate as confounded by the past. Characterized by a subtle wavering between tragic pathos and comic elation, iii this mode is as much an engagement with time and its affective oscillation as it is a politics of possibility.
    [Show full text]
  • Pawòl Gen Zèl: Language Legitimation in Haiti's Second Century
    Pawòl gen zèl: Language Legitimation in Haiti’s Second Century by Matthew James Robertshaw A Thesis presented to The University of Guelph In partial fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History Guelph, Ontario, Canada © Matthew James Robertshaw, December, 2016 ABSTRACT Pawòl gen zèl: Language Legitimation in Haiti’s Second Century Matthew Robertshaw Advisors: University of Guelph, 2016 Professor Karen Racine Professor Joubert Satyre “Le créole, est-il une langue?” mused Haitian poet and public intellectual Georges Sylvain in 1901. As the only language spoken by all Haitians, Sylvain believed that Haitian Creole should be recognized as the true language of Haiti. He called for its widespread use in Haitian literature and education. He and his contemporaries took the first steps toward establishing an authentic national literature, but it was another half century before Haitian authors began to use Creole as a versatile and self-sufficient literary language. The first innovative works of theatre and poetry in Creole did not appear until 1953, and the first Creole novel was not published until 1975. The Bernard Reform, which mandated the use of Creole in education, did not occur until 1979, and Creole was not named an official language, on par with French, until 1987. When one considers the long history of eloquent support for the popular language, it is surprising that Creole legitimation has advanced so fitfully. The country's political elites are often accused of using French to maintain their hold on power, but the Creole legitimation project is not simply a tug-of-war between the elites and the masses.
    [Show full text]
  • Looking Beyond the Rubble Toward Louverturean Statecraft: the Post-Occupation State and the Historical Fault Line of Responsive Government in Haiti (1791-2016)
    University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses November 2017 LOOKING BEYOND THE RUBBLE TOWARD LOUVERTUREAN STATECRAFT: THE POST-OCCUPATION STATE AND THE HISTORICAL FAULT LINE OF RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT IN HAITI (1791-2016) Moise St Louis University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Latin American Studies Commons Recommended Citation St Louis, Moise, "LOOKING BEYOND THE RUBBLE TOWARD LOUVERTUREAN STATECRAFT: THE POST- OCCUPATION STATE AND THE HISTORICAL FAULT LINE OF RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT IN HAITI (1791-2016)" (2017). Doctoral Dissertations. 1128. https://doi.org/10.7275/10650239.0 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/1128 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LOOKING BEYOND THE RUBBLE TOWARD LOUVERTUREAN STATECRAFT: THE POST-OCCUPATION STATE AND THE HISTORICAL FAULT LINE OF RESPONSIVE GOVERNMENT IN HAITI (1791-2016) A Dissertation Presented By MOISE ST LOUIS Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY September 2017 Political Science © Copyright by Moise St. Louis 2017 All Rights Reserved LOOKING
    [Show full text]
  • Avengers of the New World: the Story of the Haitian Revolution
    Avengers of the New World laurent dubois Avengers of the New World the story of the haitian revolution the belknap press of harvard university press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 2004 Copyright © 2004 by Laurent Dubois All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Dubois, Laurent, 1971– Avengers of the New World : the story of the Haitian Revolution / Laurent Dubois. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-674-01304-2 (alk. paper) 1. Haiti—History—Revolution, 1791–1804. I. Title. f1923.d83 2004 972.94Ј03—dc22 2003063010 For Haiti acknowledgments My greatest debt is to the many historians whose research and writing made this book possible. Some are ancestors, like Beaubrun Ardouin, Ga- briel Debien, and C. L. R. James, the others part of a small and scattered group who often work in isolation. John Garrigus was encouraging about the project throughout, and our conversations were crucial in determining the final shape of the book. David Geggus, whose writings have trans- formed the study of the Haitian Revolution, has been a supportive and in- sightful interlocutor over the years. Malick Ghachem has taught me a great deal through his work and our conversations. Stewart King played a crucial role in my early research on the Caribbean. Michel Rolph Trouillot and Carolyn Fick have profoundly influenced the way I think about the revolu- tion. Laennec Hurbon and Michel DeGraff shaped my ideas on Haiti’s cultural history. Richard Turits read some early chapters of the book and gave me encouragement and good advice.
    [Show full text]
  • Ministere De L'education Nationale Et De La Formation Professionnnelle Direction Generale Unite D'etudes Et De Programmations Artibonite
    MINISTERE DE L'EDUCATION NATIONALE ET DE LA FORMATION PROFESSIONNNELLE DIRECTION GENERALE UNITE D'ETUDES ET DE PROGRAMMATIONS ARTIBONITE Nom de l'ecole Secteur No_compte Directeur Adresse Telephone Effectif 2012-2013 Adventiste Philadelphie Non Public 460001929 Toussaint Toussier Rlle Immaculee 3420-0994/3118-2365 79 Baptiste Conservatrice Non Public 560001390 Cirus Beny Lermithe 3885-9511 90 communautaire de Charbe Non Public 460001569 Phicien Aime Charle Buscaille 3787-5953 107 Communautaire Louis Pierrot de Poste Pierrot Non Public 460002161 Jean François Poste Pierrot 3689-4778 81 evang. Baptiste bethleem de David Non Public 460001674 Louis Marcius david 3149-1037 105 Evangélique Indigene de payen Non Public 560000785 Dorvil Bocchi payen 3797-4258 57 Maranatha de Seguin Non Public 460001677 clovis Olibrisse seguin 3441-8453 128 Mixte Chrétienne de la grace Non Public 460001688 Destin Faustin Savane carrée 3713-8037 90 Presbyterale Notre dame de la Sagesse Non Public 460001625 saurel louissonne chateau 3666-8671 90 Académie Chrétienne Non Public 460002002 Norvilus Lucien St Martin 3859-6098 81 Académie de Notre Dame Non Public 460002233 Lahens Marcélus Coquière 3799-4144 59 Académie des Jeunes Chretien Non Public 560001399 Michel Jeanson saint michel 3871-2749 84 ADSED Bienfaisance Non Public 560001294 Timedat Ariol Trou jean Pierre 3711-8426 74 ADSED la bienfaisance Non Public 560001325 MILCIUS FLEURIDOR Bas de Sault 3668-2764 74 Adventiste Bon Berger Non Public 460002240 Jean Charles Despeigne Chapineau NULL 94 Adventiste bon Berger
    [Show full text]
  • Royalism and the Origins of the Haitian Revolution, 1763-1806.”
    ABSTRACT Keywords: Haitian Revolution, Royalism, Haiti, Caribbean, Hispaniola, Authoritarianism Using newly discovered sources from Spanish and French archives, “Subjects of the King: Royalism and the Origins of the Haitian Revolution, 1763-1806,” re-examines the social, political, and cultural history of the Haitian Revolution. Specifically, I explore the royalist origins of the August 1791 slave revolts in the French colony of Saint Domingue that sparked the famous 1791-1804 Revolution. In addition to tracing the movements of multilingual border crossers of uncertain loyalty, I document a royalist counterrevolutionary movement that sought to destroy the republican ideals of the French Revolution and restore Louis XVI to the throne. The current scholarly consensus posits that important causal factors in igniting the revolts were French Republicanism and Enlightenment-era abolitionism. I do not refute these claims, but I contest their centrality, filling a historiographical void by pointing to royalism, a venerable phenomenon with African as well as European roots, as a counterintuitive emancipatory model. I show that Saint Dominguan revolutionaries were part of a long-entangled history on the shared island of Hispaniola within which African descendants acted as pivot points between the two colonies, often crossing the border and manipulating both French and Spanish institutions. In doing so, they fashioned a multifaceted royalist viewpoint that paradoxically depended on monarchical articulations of rights and freedoms. Ultimately, my study calls upon scholars to rethink the way in which the enslaved in Saint Domingue conceptualized freedom, challenging the assumption that royalism was a rigid historical counterpoint to Enlightenment ideals. ÓCopyright by Jesús G. Ruiz, 2020 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND DEDICATION On April 23, 2010, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act was signed into law by the then governor of the State of Arizona.
    [Show full text]
  • Download/Pnlh-Document-Officiel-002.Pdf>
    URBAN DWELLINGS, HAITIAN CITIZENSHIPS: HOUSING, DAILY LIFE AND MEMORY IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI VINCENT JOOS A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Anthropology Department at the University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill 2015 Approved by: Rudolf Colloredo-Mansfeld Patricia Sawin Peter Redfield Townsend Middleton Karla Slocum © 2015 VINCENT JOOS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Vincent Joos: Urban Dwellings, Haitian Citizenships: Housing, Memory and Daily Life in Port- au-Prince, Haiti (Under the direction of Rudolf Colloredo-Mansfeld) Port-au-Prince is today the site of top-down urban planning practices that deeply affect the lives of its residents and the site of vernacular urban reconstruction by Haitian people who attempt to assert their right to the city. After the devastating 2010 earthquake, the state and many NGOs and UN agencies established and administered vast tent camps or provided temporary shelters designed to meet minimal housing requirements to people affected by the earthquake. However, many people refused to live in these hazardous camps and, instead, implemented housing solutions of their own. Staying or moving into the old districts of Port-au-Prince and the surrounding areas, people started to negotiate their access to resources such as potable water or electricity and their right to use public space for economic activities. Some of these displaced persons live in houses that belong to the national patrimony, like the Gingerbread Houses which are today included on the World Monument Watch List.
    [Show full text]
  • Celebrating and Commemorating the Haitian Revolution
    REVOLUTIONARY MEMORIES: CELEBRATING AND COMMEMORATING THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION By ERIN ELIZABETH ZAVITZ A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2015 © 2015 Erin Elizabeth Zavitz To my familes here and in Haiti ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In Haitian Creole (Kreyòl), a common proverb is men anpil chay pa lò, or with many hands the burden is light. The proverb aptly applies to the process of writing a dissertation. Many hands have helped to make this burden lighter. Haitian sources are scattered throughout archives and libraries. Without the generous support of research grants and patience of librarians at these institutions, this project would not have been possible. The research journey began in Haiti thanks to the James R. Scobie Award from the Conference on Latin American History and a Center for Latin American Studies Field Research Grant. The Dan David Prize Scholarship for Young Researchers and grants from the History Department and Graduate School supported subsequent fieldwork in Haiti. Additional support from the New York Public Library, Chateaubriand Social Sciences and Humanities Fellowship, and the Center for European Studies gave me the opportunity to trace sources to New York, France, and England. Frère Ernest Even at the Bibliothèque Haïtien des Frères de l’Instruction Chrétienne (BHFIC) made my first Haitian archival experience a pleasure. Since 2012, Marie-France Guillaume has adeptly filled his shoes and patiently worked with me to find sources at the library. At the University of Florida, Richard Philips, Paul Losch, and Margarita Vargas-Betancourt exemplified the role of the librarian.
    [Show full text]
  • An Afrocentric Re-Examination of the Historiography Around the Afrikan Revolution in Ayiti
    AN AFROCENTRIC RE-EXAMINATION OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY AROUND THE AFRIKAN REVOLUTION IN AYITI A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Wilbert St.Hilaire August 2021 Examining Committee Members: Ama Mazama, Advisory Chair, Africology & African American Studies Molefi Kete Asante, Africology & African American Studies Kimani Nehusi, Africology & African American Studies Adisa A. Alkebulan, External Member, Africana Studies at San Diego State University i ABSTRACT Throughout the history of western academia, there have been scholars who have interpreted and examined various aspects of human history. Within their “objectivity,” European historians and other Eurocentric scholars make it a point to universalize their own interpretations of different people’s histories and cultures. This type of scholarship tends to ignore or omit the contributions and historical realities of Afrikan people. This case is especially true of the scholars who have interpreted the historiography around the Afrikan revolution in Ayiti (Haiti/Hayti). The purpose of this study is to provide an Afrocentric re-examination and interpretation around the historiography of the Afrikan Revolution in Ayiti. As a result, this study seeks to highlight several essential Afrikan aspects and their overall impact on the Afrikan revolutionary war's totality in Ayiti. How can Ayisyen Vodou/Vodun and the more extensive system of Afrikan spirituality help better shape the interpretation
    [Show full text]