African Diaspora Collective Action: Rituals, Runaways, and the Haitian Revolution
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AFRICAN DIASPORA COLLECTIVE ACTION: RITUALS, RUNAWAYS, AND THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION By Crystal Nicole Eddins A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of African American & African Studies – Doctor of Philosophy Sociology – Doctor of Philosophy 2017 ABSTRACT AFRICAN DIASPORA COLLECTIVE ACTION: RITUALS, RUNAWAYS, AND THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION By Crystal Nicole Eddins The project is an interdisciplinary case study that couples an African Diaspora theoretical paradigm with concepts from social movements scholarship to explain the influence of Africa- inspired sacred rituals on oppositional consciousness and patterns of escape from enslavement – mawonaj – leading up to the Revolution. My data emerges from archival and secondary source research in France, the United States, and Haiti. I bring focus to the study of collective consciousness in two fields, African American & African Studies and Sociology, with attention to how consciousness was shaped by material conditions, was reinforced in spheres of interaction, and guided social action among early modern members of the African Diaspora in colonial Haiti (Saint Domingue). The first paper hypothesizes that in addition to being sacred events, ritual gatherings were simultaneously free spaces wherein rebels enhanced oppositional consciousness and solidarity by campaigning for liberation and seeking new mobilization recruits. Findings suggested that during African-Saint Dominguans’ gatherings at burial sites, in churches, and at nighttime calenda assemblies, they re-produced aspects of their religious cultures away from the observation of whites. Ritual free spaces allowed participants to reclaim personal and collective power by using sacred material artifacts; and to communicate seditious speech concerning freedom, independence, and the injustice of slavery. The second paper examines how oppositional consciousness, solidarity, and collective identity influenced mawonaj through content analysis of over 10,000 runaway advertisements printed in the newspaper Les Affiches Américaines. I focused on how runaways’ gender and birth origins, in Atlantic colonies or the African continent, shaped their social ties and resources they used to escaped. Other indicators of oppositional consciousness that facilitated escape were intra-racial/ethnic group escapes, which indicated the importance of collective identity, and inter-racial/ethnic group escapes that indicated racial solidarity; self-assertive behaviors such as claiming to be free or forging passes, bearing arms, or stealing money; and longer durations of reported escape. The third paper investigates how and why patterns of mawonaj at the micro-level changed over time using data from primary and secondary sources. I contextualized statistically significant findings from analysis of runaway ads within the longue-durée of mawonaj and rebellion in Saint Domingue. I provide a narrative of structural and environmental factors to see if African-Saint Dominguans’ decisions to escape enslavement were strategic responses to Africa-inspired ritual events, or structural and environmental windows of opportunity. Two significant factors that contributed to incursions by established fugitive bands and shifting yearly frequencies of runaways were international conflicts and the population growth of enslaved people due to the influx of newly imported Africans. The dissertation informs African Diaspora and sociological scholarship and the ways in which dispersed populations maintain and adapt ties, cultural and religious practices, and historical memory to shape their identities, independent social formations, and modes of survival. African-Saint Dominguans represent a strong example of how forced migrants can transmit homeland-based political consciousness, historical memory, and cultural knowledge to their second- and third- generation counterparts, influencing emergent forms of resistance and mobilization – which directly impacted the Haitian Revolution, which transformed one of the wealthiest, most racially stratified, repressive, and deadly slave colonies into an independent nation. Copyright by CRYSTAL NICOLE EDDINS 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The journey of my dissertation research and writing has been a fun and stimulating experience that could not have happened without the support of many. I collected a substantial amount of data in France and Haiti with funding from the National Science Foundation Sociology Program Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Award. I also received a two-month Associates Fellowship to do research at the John Carter Brown (JCB) Library in Providence, Rhode Island, which proved to be incredibly useful. The Michigan State University (MSU) Department of Sociology, African American & African Studies (AAAS) Program, the Colleges of Arts & Letters and Social Science, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory (HASTAC) supported research and conference travel. Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) also generously provided funds and an important intellectual community throughout the pre-dissertation stage. In addition to championing my work, faculty and staff in MSU’s AAAS, Sociology, and History units have encouraged and supported me. Aaron McCright and Glenn Chambers have been stalwart advisors and advocates. I am exceptionally grateful to my committee members Steve Gold and Brendan Mullan, and John Thornton at Boston University who was kind enough to meet with me and read chapters of the dissertation, providing critical feedback to my work. Others who have helped guide and nurture me and this project were Carl Taylor, Yomaira Figueroa, Jessica M. Johnson, David Wheat, Rita Edozie, Soma Chaudhuri, Safoi Babana-Hampton, and Vanessa Holden. Clifford Broman, Stephanie Nawyn, Ray Jussaume, Rita Gallin, and John McClendon also have been ardent supporters. I’ve relied on Roseanne Bills, Tammy Spangler, Patience Adibe, and Marilyn Duke, and John Duda, who helped me navigate each stage of the graduate process. Sohba Ramanand, Debbie Jesswein, David Wiley, Logan Williams, and Roger Bresnahan gave me v invaluable advice and guidance in the NSF application process. Tony Nunez, Julius Jackson, Beronda Montgomery, Steven Thomas, Pero Dagbovie, Kyana Young, and student members of AGEP also provided important resources and support. Conversations and e-mail exchanges with several scholars have been critical for me in developing my ideas, refining the research process, and locating data sources: thank you to Michael Largey, David Geggus, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, Rudolph Ware, Robert Taber, and J. Cameron Monroe. Jason Daniels and Rachel Yales gave me solid advice on how to approach the arduous task of collecting and coding the runaway advertisements. Dean Rehberger at MATRIX put me in touch with digital librarians who were an invaluable resource as I collected the data; I couldn’t have accessed the materials I needed without the help of Thomas Padilla and Devin Higgins. Agnes Widder in the MSU Library also introduced me to important primary sources available through various digital databases. My friend and neighbor Kevin Post, and especially Alissa Lyon, were great research assistants who helped me code the thousands of advertisements I used. Nicole Jess at the MSU Center for Statistical Training and Consulting was a great help to me as I formulated questions for quantitative testing and analyzed the dissertation data. My graduate student colleagues and friends have warmly rooted me on and kept me in good spirits, especially Samina Hamidi, Will Escalante, Christian Ramirez, Alexandra Gelbard, Ola Nwabara, Janelle Edwards, Kelly Birch, Jamil Scott, Jeff Oliver, John Girdwood, Maria Martin, Fayana Richards, Ashley Sanderlin, Paula Miller, and Summer Allen. My dissertation research travels introduced me to many people who I am delighted to count as mentors, colleagues, and friends. I had a wonderful experience in Providence while working at the JCB. Neil Safier, Tom Sojka, Valerie Andrews, and Rosa Paiva were great hosts; and Kim Nusco, Meghan Sullivan-Silva, Allison Rich, Scott Ellwood, Dennis Landis, Ken Ward, and Gabriel Angulo provided important insights about the wealth of materials on Haiti in the JCB collection. I vi immensely enjoyed the company of my Fiering House mates, learning about their work, and gaining their insights about mine: Ernesto Mercado, Leo Carrio Cataldi, Linda Rupert, Alex Borucki, Jesse Dorst, Mary Draper, Aysha Pollnitz, Larry Tise, Josh Fitzgerald, Timo McGregor, Andrew Dial, Miguel Cruz, and honorary housemate Mark Kelley. Other Fellows whose conversations and encouragement were helpful were Marcy Norton, Diogo Ramada Curto and Renzo, Daniel Ruppel, Bruno Feitler. The Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice also was a great resource at Brown and allowed me to share my ideas for future work. The staff at Archives Nationale d’Outre-Mer in Aix-en-Provence were very helpful, as were researchers Joe La Hausse de Lalouviere, fellow MSU Spartan Dave Glovsky, Jesus Ruiz, and Jonathan Krause. Wendy Guillaume shared invaluable knowledge about Haitian historians and new considerations for my project. The Archives Nationale Pierrefitte-Stains location is also a great place to do research with helpful archivists. I am grateful to Margarita Vargas-Betancourt and Michele Wilbanks at the University of Florida (UF) at Gainesville Library